"Rising seas and thawing permafrost caused by warmer global temperatures threaten U.S. military bases and will change the way the U.S. armed services defend the country, President Barack Obama said on Wednesday."
It's not a mistake. Congress really doesn't want you to read those excellent explainers on public issues produced by experts at the Congressional Research Service (CRS). We know this because a House Appropriations subcommittee specifically restated that CRS was not to publish its reports.
The public is not allowed to know the terms of the draft Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact likely to come up for a Senate vote this year. Yet the Senate has already begun voting on terms for considering the treaty, which may allow other nations to override U.S. health, safety, and environmental protection laws. Fortunately, WikiLeaks has already published a leaked version of the environmental chapter of the TPP treaty.
A newly enacted Wyoming law seems to be aimed at criminalizing the collection and reporting of stream pollution or other environmental harm. It creates a unique new category of crime called "data trespass." Just what the law, signed in March by Gov. Matt Mead (R), means or does is being debated hotly.
The watchdog group Center for Effective Government offers data tools that partly offset government failures to protect people from dangerous materials that poison or injure people, burn, or explode. They are also tools for journalists trying to inform their communities.
In this excerpt from the latest issue of SEJournal, SEJ president Jeff Burnside reflects on the power and value of SEJ members, shares stats that'll make you proud and offers easy ways for you to help grow our membership — win-win all around.
"California PTA adopts resolution on teaching climate science, but its passage nationwide and its impact beyond the state are uncertain."
"California officials have identified 260 oil company wastewater injection wells that are so shallow or so close to wells used for drinking or irrigation that they could threaten the state’s precious groundwater supplies, new data show."
"President Obama will use a commencement address at the Coast Guard Academy in Connecticut on Wednesday to cast his push for urgent action to combat climate change as a national security imperative, arguing that the warming of the planet poses an 'immediate risk' to the United States."
