In the wake of Love Canal, the EPA’s Superfund program was established to clean up toxic waste sites. For a while, a tax was placed on polluting industries, like the oil and chemical industries, with the money going into a cleanup trust fund. That tax expired.
Oklahoma is suffering through an extended heat wave with temperatures topping 100 degrees or more every day since July 18th. The heat is so bad that it’s starting to melt street lamps in Stillwater. As the state suffers from extreme heat, its senior senator remains one of the leading climate deniers.
As early as today, the Republican leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives will be bringing H.R. 4078, the so-called “Red Tape Reduction and Small Business Job Creation Act” up for a vote. Like so much of what passes for legislation in Congress these days, this legislation is more a statement of philosophy than a thought out piece of policy.
As we pointed out a few weeks ago, man-made climate change will make extreme weather events much more likely going forward and we are facing a pretty serious one now. More than half of the continental U.S.
Work as a hotel housekeeper isn’t an easy job under any circumstances. For more than 400,000 predominantly female and immigrant workers, the work means lifting heavy mattresses, stretching to clean high surfaces, and often scrubbing bathroom floors on hands and knees. Full-time workers earn just $21,000 a year, on average.
How to value the economic role that natural resources play and incorporate some of these external costs so that not only are we aware of the impacts, we can begin to start incorporate them into pricing.
Following up on our last post on the link between climate change and extreme weather, a new scientific study was released that found that manmade climate change increases the probability of extreme weather patterns. The study was a joint effort between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the U.S. and the Met Office in the U.K.
Even though it’s only the 9th of July, nearly 3,400 maximum and minimum temperature records have been tied or broken so far this month. Dozens of people have died and the lack of rainfall combined with the extreme heat is threatening the Midwest’s corn crop.
In February and March 2012, Demos surveyed a nationally representative sample of 997 low- and middle-income American households who carried credit card debt for three months or more.
The Credit CARD Act is helping households pay down balances faster, with a third of low- and middle-income households that carry credit card debt reporting that new disclosures have caused them to pay down their balances faster.
Climate change poses a tremendous threat to Florida. Sea level rise, more intense precipitation, and stronger hurricanes increase the risk of natural disaster and imperil the state’s economy and its citizens’ safety.