"MOSCOW -- Russia's main investigative agency said Wednesday that it has dropped piracy charges against jailed Greenpeace activists and charged them instead with hooliganism, which means the detainees could still spend years in prison."
"US carbon emissions fell in 2012 – again – after peaking in 2007. The Great Recession and a boom in cleaner natural gas are widely credited as driving the reduction, but broader, longer-term shifts are also changing the way Americans use energy."
"The US economy is expanding. Population is growing. But carbon emissions continue to decline.
"The U.S. House voted to authorize commercial navigation, flood control and environmental restoration projects, work that could cost taxpayers as much as $8.2 billion over the next decade."
You may call that government official a "source" — but to the Obama administration he or she is an "Insider Threat" subject to lie detector tests, wiretapping, and criminal prosecution. That's the conclusion of a new report by former Washington Post Executive Editor Len Downie, published by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
Eighty-six percent of the 4,069 scientists surveyed by the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada said "that, if faced with a political decision putting public health, safety or the environment at risk, they do not believe they could speak out without repercussions."
A key set of tools for reporters probing dam issues at any level, local to national, are the available databases on various kinds of dams, levees, and impoundments. The WatchDog in this issue presents a special "Reporters' Toolbox" on these data sets. We hope at least to help reporters find and access them.
Tens of thousands of U.S. citizens are at risk from potential dam disasters, yet state and federal agencies hold to a policy that amounts to "out of sight, out of mind." The biggest danger, apparently, is that the public might find out about the dangers, and criticize insufficient dam safety measures, inconvenience private dam owners, depress real estate values, or demand public spending that is politically painful for those in office.
This special issue of the WatchDog focuses on the transparency of safety information related to dams, levees, impoundments, and related water-control structures. For environmental journalists, these subjects offer a goldmine of great story possibilities. These are stories that have not been covered much in the past decade, and stories that fit well at the local, state, or regional level.
Tens of thousands of U.S. citizens are at risk from potential dam disasters, yet state and federal agencies hold to a policy that amounts to "out of sight, out of mind."
"OSTERVILLE, Mass. — If the vast wind farm proposed for Nantucket Sound is ever built, William I. Koch will have a spectacular view of it."
Links
[1] https://www.sej.org/headlines/russia-reduces-piracy-charges-vs-greenpeace-activists-hooliganism
[2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/23/russia-piracy-charges-greenpeace_n_4151674.html
[3] https://www.sej.org/headlines/us-carbon-emissions-fall-18-year-low-whats-behind-it
[4] http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Energy-Voices/2013/1022/US-carbon-emissions-fall-to-18-year-low.-What-s-behind-it
[5] https://www.sej.org/headlines/tea-party-republicans-obama-back-waterway-projects-bill
[6] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-24/tea-party-republicans-obama-back-waterway-projects-bill.html
[7] https://www.sej.org/publications/watchdog-tipsheet/report-slams-obama-administration-secrecy
[8] https://www.sej.org/publications/watchdog-tipsheet/canadian-scientists-cant-speak-freely-survey
[9] https://www.sej.org/publications/watchdog-tipsheet/toolbox-data-resources-dams-impoundments-and-levees
[10] https://www.sej.org/publications/watchdog-tipsheet/dams-and-levees-what-you-dont-know-might-kill-you
[11] https://www.sej.org/publications/watchdog-tipsheet/dams-and-levees-introduction
[12] https://www.sej.org/library/disasters/dam-secrecy-endangers-lives-property-us-public-many-states
[13] https://www.sej.org/headlines/koch-brother-wages-12-year-fight-over-wind-farm
[14] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/23/us/koch-brother-wages-12-year-fight-over-wind-farm.html?ref=energy-environment
[15] https://www.sej.org/search_results
[16] https://www.sej.org/search_results?page=3533
[17] https://www.sej.org/search_results?page=3530
[18] https://www.sej.org/search_results?page=3531
[19] https://www.sej.org/search_results?page=3532
[20] https://www.sej.org/search_results?page=3535
[21] https://www.sej.org/search_results?page=3536
[22] https://www.sej.org/search_results?page=3537
[23] https://www.sej.org/search_results?page=3538
[24] https://www.sej.org/search_results?page=4972