By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. – Seas around the world have risen an average of nearly 3 inches since 1992, with some locations rising more than 9 inches due to natural variation, according to the latest satellite measurements from NASA. An intensive research effort now underway, aided by NASA observations and analysis, points to…
By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. – After spending much of the spring and summer in Shenandoah National Park, I pulled into the nation’s capital on Thursday and camped in a friend’s driveway near the Potomac River for the night — only to wake up Friday morning and see a misleading ad campaign on NBC’s…
By Dominic Rushe – British Petroleum has agreed to pay a record environmental fine of $18.7 billion to settle legal actions brought by the U.S. and five Gulf states over the fatal Gulf of Mexico oil disaster of 2010. The U.S. Department of Justice, along with the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas and Florida,…
By Glynn Wilson – HOGBACK MOUNTAIN, Va. – It’s officially summer now in the Shenandoah National Park, although you wouldn’t know it from the cool nighttime temperatures in the mountains, compared to the rest of the South. But it’s true. The summer solstice occurred Sunday, the longest day of the year. For a few weeks…
By David Underhill – MOBILE, Ala. – After a couple years trudging through the weeds and thickets of laws, regulations, technical standards, hazard assessments, health effects, economic impacts and other consequences of petroleum storage tanks, Mobile has arrived at nearly the same place it began this trek. On June 11 a three-member subcommittee presented its…
The latest data from NASA shows changes in global temperature and precipitation through the year 2,100 depending on how much greenhouse gas emissions continue to plague the Earth’s atmosphere. The dataset, available to the public, shows projected changes worldwide on a regional level in response to different scenarios of increasing carbon dioxide simulated by 21…
By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Obama administration’s Environmental Protection Agency issued a mixed report Thursday on the impacts of hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” for methane gas on drinking water. The agency’s draft assessment, put together at the behest of Congress, shows that while hydraulic fracturing activities in the U.S. are carried out…
By Glynn Wilson – BIG MEADOWS, Va. — It started out Sunday afternoon Memorial weekend as a trip to the lodge for a few minutes of WiFi. On the way back to the campground, however, it became a “Bear Jam,” the term on the mountain for a traffic jam caused by a bear sighting. In…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – SHENANDOAH NATIONAL PARK, Virg. — It’s an incredible feeling sitting here at 3,500 feet above sea level on the hill looking out over the Big Meadows campground, watching a spring shower roll through the mountains. I can’t think of a spot east of the Mississippi where I…
By David Underhill – MOBILE, Ala. – Thoroughbreds charging around the final turn and down the homestretch. Blinders strapped on the sides of their faces to keep their attention on the finish line straight ahead. Preakness Stakes at Pimlico racetrack in Baltimore. Second leg of the Triple Crown later this week. Delegations of civic leaders…
By Glynn Wilson – PATAPSCO VALLEY STATE PARK, Md. — It may not be as monumental a fight as Hetch Hetchy in Yosemite, but the Maryland Department of Natural Resources is in the process of planning the removal of Bloede’s Dam on the Patapsco River in the Avalon Area of Patapsco Valley State Park to…
By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — Five years ago this month, I was peacefully photographing birds in Birmingham Alabama when I heard the news that British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig had exploded and was on fire and leaking tons of raw crude into my favorite sea. By the time I got my…
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The National Aeronautics and Space Administration will celebrate the 45th annual Earth Day April 17-22 with a variety of live and online activities to engage the public in the agency’s mission to better understand and protect the planet. The agency uses the vantage point of space to increase understanding of the planet,…
By David Underhill – MOBILE, Ala. – The tank farms became a hot potato, singeing any official who touched them. Residents near sites for new or expanding tank farms fired complaints at the city’s planning commission, which readily tossed the heated hassle to the city council. A majority poised to pass a moratorium on construction…
By Glynn Wilson – I woke up Sunday morning thinking about something besides aphrodisiacs and Valentines Day, same sex marriage and Mardi Gras. While everyone else seems to be focused on these things, including the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi, I am still wondering when the devastating news about the rapid pace of climate change…
By Glynn Wilson – Droughts in the Southwestern United States and the Central Plains during the last half of the 21st century could be drier and longer than conditions in the past 1,000 years, according to a new study just released by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The study, based on projections from climate…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – MOBILE, Ala. — A few years ago, Princeton graduate Charles Scribner with the Black Warrior Riverkeeper in Birmingham saw my coverage of the BlueGreen Good Jobs, Green Jobs conference in Washington, D.C. and sent me an e-mail asking an important question: Do you think it would be…
Coming Clean – By Michael Brune – Earlier this month, almost every Republican in the U.S. Senate went on record that “climate change is real and not a hoax.” All but a handful, however, balked at agreeing that humans are contributing to that change. The “not a scientist” club has a new line in the…
Will the City Government Side With the People or Industry? By Glynn Wilson – MOBILE, Ala. — The citizens of Mobile, especially those in the historic Africatown community along with members of the Mobile Bay Sierra Club, have held public meetings and spoken up: They do not want the Mobile Planning Commission and the City…
Recommends Largest Ever Wilderness Designation to Protect Pristine Habitat – WASHINGTON, DC – President Obama’s administration moved this week to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, widely considered one of the most spectacular and remote areas in the world. The Department of the Interior is releasing a conservation plan for the refuge that…
