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Some irresponsible employees of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency may have given Donald Trump an issue that could put him in the White House. Even those of us who didn’t regularly watch Trump’s television show “The Apprentice” know his signature phrase is “You’re fired”.

The “unfortunate accident” that the EPA had near Silverton, Colorado recently has raised all sorts of questions, not the least of which is why it took the agency 24 hours to tell anyone about it. (The folks who draw water off the river are particularly interested in that one.) But hey… accidents happen, right? I mean, it’s not like anyone could have seen it coming. Except that the EPA actually did see it coming. During a late Friday night document dump the Environmental Protection Agency lifted the mask just a bit and revealed that they knew what they were...

Pope Francis & Barack Obama: The world-dominating current global warming/climate change movement is way off base: It is not man-made global warming from CO2 that is the problem, it’s man-made pollution which the global warming gang all but patently ignore. It’s not exaggerated beyond belief man-made global warming that should have Al Gore acolytes sending out sky-is-falling alarmism, but ongoing and unattended to man-made pollution putting human lives at risk. But of course, it’s easier to cash in on global warming as a catch all for all issues the Al Gores count on for election and re-election survival than it...

Progress slashing unhealthy ozone in the western United States has largely been undone by pollution wafting across the Pacific from China, according to a study published Monday. Scientists have long suspected this might explain why ozone levels along the U.S. west coast remained constant despite a significant local reduction in ozone-forming chemicals. The study, published in Nature Geoscience, is the first to make the case using satellite observations coupled with computer models of how air-borne molecules travel in the lower atmosphere, the authors said. “The dominant westerly winds blew this air pollution straight across to the United States,” explained lead...

BEIJING — Air pollution is killing an average of 4,000 people a day in China, according to researchers who cited coal-burning as probably being the main cause. Deaths related to the main pollutant, tiny particles known as PM2.5 that can trigger heart attacks, strokes, lung cancer and asthma, total 1.6 million a year, or 17 per cent of China’s mortality level, according to the study by Berkeley Earth, an independent research group funded largely by educational grants. It was published on Thursday in the online peer-reviewed journal PLOS One from the Public Library of Science. “When I was last in...

A week before The EPA disastrously leaked millions of gallons of toxic waste into The Animas River in Colorado, this letter to the editor was published in The Silverton Standard & The Miner local newspaper, authored by a retired geologist detailing verbatim, how EPA would foul the Animas River on purpose in order to secure superfund money...

The so-called Environmental Protection Agency will face no fines over some of its regulators accidentally dumping a million gallons of mining waste containing heavy metals, as orange as Donald Trump, into the Animas River in Colorado (and points beyond), potentially poisoning fish and livestock alike. Needless to say, when some organization that isn’t government causes a disaster like this, there’s outrage and there are calls for harsh punishments, even demands that we fundamentally alter our relationship to the earth and renounce greed, devise a whole new economic system run by Al Gore or someone, that sort of thing. In this...

In a scathing rebuke of the importance of U.S. manufacturing in The New Yorker ("What's So Great About Manufacturing?") James Ledbetter attempted to dismantle the benefits of manufacturing in our transformational age. Ledbetter, who is editor of Inc. Magazine and this website, is wrong. Here are 8 reasons U.S. manufacturing is great for America and critically important to focus policy solutions to help this job machine thrive. 1. Manufacturing creates strong middle-class jobs. 2. Manufacturing jobs create dignity. 3. Manufacturing creates wealth for a nation. 4. Manufacturing is critical during wars. 5. Factories are safer than ever before. 6. U.S....

WASHINGTON (AP) — Heat-trapping pollution from U.S. power plants hit a 27-year low in April, the Department of Energy announced Wednesday. A big factor was the long-term shift from coal to cleaner and cheaper natural gas, said Energy Department economist Allen McFarland. Outside experts also credit more renewable fuel use and energy efficiency. Carbon dioxide — from the burning of coal, oil and gas — is the chief greenhouse gas responsible for man-made global warming. "While good news for the environment, we certainly would not want to assume that this trend will continue and that we can simply relax," said...

It turns out that because of the emissions of extraordinarily potent greenhouse gases NF3 and SF6 and energy during the manufacture of solar modules, solar energy ends up being worse for the climate than burning coal (assuming the global warming hypothesis is valid). A Swiss engineer has made a thorough analysis of the greenhouse gas emissions caused by the manufacture, transport and operation of solar panels. His conclusion: Ferrucio Ferroni writes here how China is the number 1 manufacturer of solar panels globally and that the production of solar panels there requires immense amounts of electricity, which in China is...

You may have a "green" car, but it could be causing black rain in China from the graphite mined and used in its lithium ion battery. Two academics at Toronto's York University, Carla Lipsig-Mumme and Caleb Goods, applaud many of the new advances in green technology in recent years, but at the same time warn that those very technologies may come with a host of environmental issues. The pair issue a caution about “superindustrialization” in which the answer to climate change is a matter of “technological adjustment.” In an article recently published in The Conversation and picked up by the...

The American tradition of celebrating Independence Day with fireworks and barbeques may be living on borrowed time. The Environmental Protection Agency is working on new regulations that could put a serious dent in the festivities. Strict new standards for ozone could bar most fireworks displays and some backyard BBQs. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy derided the idea that traditional modes of celebrating July 4th merited any special consideration. "Clean air is too important to play second-fiddle to abuses that result in needless pollution," McCarthy contended. "Given our modern technology there are surely more environmentally-friendly ways of celebrating this annual event." The...

Pope Francis says that global warming is a fact and that a new global political authority is necessary in order to save humanity from utter disaster. The new encyclical that was scheduled to be released on Thursday has been leaked, and it is being reported that this new global political authority that Pope Francis envisions would be in charge of “the reduction of pollution and the development of poor countries and regions”. The funny thing is that this sounds very much in line with the new sustainable development agenda that is going to be launched at the United Nations in...

CONTRA COSTA COUNTY (Calif.) - A third dog died Thursday after exposure to toxic algae at an East Bay park, and broken-hearted dog owners say the park district's warnings have been too little, too late. "It's this green algae that's everywhere, it's fatally toxic to dogs, "warned Katie Stone, intercepting hikers at the Lake Chabot marina Friday evening. "She was healthy as can be, I walked her about five miles every day, " Stone says sadly, showing a snapshot of her five year old chocolate Labrador, Josie. "It's completely unbelievable, it was like a nightmare, like when am I going...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. federal court has ruled for the first time that manure from livestock facilities can be regulated as solid waste, a decision hailed by environmentalists as opening the door to potential legal challenges against facilities across the country. A large dairy in Washington state, Cow Palace Dairy, polluted ground water by over applying manure to soil, ruled Judge Thomas Rice of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington on Wednesday. "The practices of this mega-dairy are no different than thousands of others across the country," said Jessica Culpepper, an attorney at Public Justice,...

Just two hours of exposure to diesel exhaust is enough to cause significant damage to the human body, a new UBC study concludes. The study, led by Dr. Chris Carlsten, looked at how pollution particles affect the way genes are expressed in the body. Sixteen non-smoking adult volunteers with asthma were put in an enclosed booth about the size of a standard bathroom, and made to breathe diluted and aged exhaust fumes equal to the air quality along a Beijing highway, or a busy port in British Columbia. Carlsten says the impact of the pollution "exceeded our expectations." "Quite rapidly,...

It gets pretty cold this time of year in Tibet. For centuries, the solution to this problem was a win-win: just burn that huge pile of yak dung that’s been accumulating all summer. For millions of nomadic Tibetans, it’s a system that works. But that system comes at a hefty cost. Tibetan homes have some of the worst indoor air pollution in the world, and the soot the dung fires release is a big contributor to climate change. Yak dung, when used as fuel, is arguably dirtier than coal but is definitely much cheaper. Particulate pollution from burning animal dung...

Swimmers who dive into any number of Canadian lakes might not emerge clean and refreshed, but dripping with globs that resemble slimy fish eggs. A legacy of industrial pollution has caused great changes in the country's water chemistry, creating a boom in tiny organisms that transform lakes into "jelly." That's the gooey news from scientists behind a new paper in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, who say that populations of this particular organism have doubled since the 1980s in many of Ontario's lakes. The reasons involve a complex dance of species, but here's the short version: Acid rain caused...

NEW YORK — Environmentalists worship solar energy and wind power as Earth-friendly answers to their ecological prayers. Tortoises, bats, butterflies, and bald eagles beg to differ.Perhaps because solar panels and industrial wind farms lack emissions, they seem “clean.” Despite their pristine appearance, however, these “green” electricity sources hammer Mother Nature — often fatally. Consider the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System in California’s Mojave Desert. As Carolyn Lochhead wrote in September 7’s San Francisco Chronicle, Ivanpah occupies 3,500 previously untouched federal acres. It features 300,000 mirrors that focus sunlight on three 40-story towers of power. Inside, 900-degree temperatures yield steam, propel...

Renewable energy has become a potent rallying cry uniting Hollywood and the Beltway. “We can move our economy town by town, state by state to renewable energy and a sustainable future,” Leonardo DiCaprio says in his eight-minute climate movie Carbon, released in August. In his fiscal-showdown speech during his first term, in April 2011, President Obama put Paul Ryan’s proposals for a 70 percent cut in clean energy at the top of his list of reprehensible and unnecessary reductions. “These aren’t the kind of cuts you make when you’re trying to get rid of some waste or find extra savings...