Elizabeth Shogren

Baton Rouge's Corroded, Overpolluting Neighbor: Exxon Mobil

Elizabeth Shogren — Thu, 30 May 2013 21:29:00 +0000

If you stand in front of Almena and Sidney Poray's house in Baton Rouge, La., and look straight down the street, past the other houses and the shade trees, you see more than a dozen plumes of exhaust in various hues of gray and white.

"That's something you see every day, the same thing if not more," says Almena Poray.

College Divestment Campaigns Creating Passionate Environmentalists

Elizabeth Shogren — Fri, 10 May 2013 07:16:00 +0000

At about 300 colleges across the country, young activists worried about climate change are borrowing a strategy that students successfully used in decades past. In the 1980s, students enraged about South Africa's racist Apartheid regime got their schools to drop stocks in companies that did business with that government. In the 1990s, students pressured their schools to divest Big Tobacco.

This time, the student activists are targeting a mainstay of the economy: large oil and coal companies.

So far only a few small colleges have opted to drop investments in fossil fuel companies.

Tar Sands Pipelines Should Get Special Treatment, EPA Says

Elizabeth Shogren — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 21:35:00 +0000

Up until now, pipelines that carry tar sands oil have been treated just like pipelines that carry any other oil. But the Environmental Protection Agency now says that should change.

Lionfish Attack The Gulf Of Mexico Like A Living Oil Spill

Elizabeth Shogren — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 06:56:00 +0000

A gluttonous predator is power-eating its way through reefs from New York to Venezuela. It's the lionfish.

And although researchers are coming up with new ways to protect some reefs from the flamboyant maroon-striped fish, they have no hope of stopping its unparalleled invasion.

Lad Akins has scuba dived in the vibrant reefs of the Bahamas for many years.

Nominee To Lead EPA Grilled Over Past Work At Agency

Elizabeth Shogren — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 21:01:00 +0000

Transcript

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Melissa Block.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

And I'm Audie Cornish. We begin this hour in the hot seat, perhaps the hottest seat of President Obama's cabinet. It belongs to the head of the Environmental Protection Agency. Republicans are increasingly attacking the EPA and its regulations as job killers. And today, they grilled the president's pick to take over the agency, Gina McCarthy.

Arkansas Oil Spill Sheds Light On Aging Pipeline System

Elizabeth Shogren — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 07:21:00 +0000

Amber Bartlett was waiting last Friday for her kids to come home from school. One of them called from the entrance to the upscale subdivision near Little Rock, Ark., to tell her the community was being evacuated because of an oil spill. Bartlett was amazed by what she saw out her front door.

"I mean, just rolling oil. I mean, it was like a river," she says.

Environmentalists, Drillers Reach 'Truce' For Fracking Standards

Elizabeth Shogren — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 23:36:00 +0000

A group of environmentalists and drilling companies has crafted a truce of sorts over the rapid spread of natural gas production in the Appalachian Basin. Four major drilling companies and several environmental groups have agreed on 15 voluntary standards for cleaner drilling practices.

The practices of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing — when companies inject water laced with chemicals deep underground to split open rock formations and get the gas to flow faster — are transforming the rural region in the Eastern U.S.

After Keystone Review, Environmentalists Vow To Continue Fight

Elizabeth Shogren — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 05:52:00 +0000

Environmentalists have a hope.

If they can block the Keystone XL pipeline, they can keep Canada from developing more of its dirty tar sands oil.

State Department Finds No Major Objections To Keystone XL Pipeline Proposal

Elizabeth Shogren — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 22:01:00 +0000

Transcript

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

And I'm Melissa Block. We've reported a lot on the fight over the Keystone XL pipeline. It would carry oil from the tar sands of Canada all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico. And today, there's a development in this story. The State Department has released a new analysis of environmental impacts of the pipeline.

This is just a draft, but it brings us one big step closer to a final decision on whether the government will approve the project.

Protesters Call On Obama To Reject Keystone XL Pipeline

Elizabeth Shogren — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 10:19:00 +0000

Tens of thousands of protesters turned out on the National Mall Sunday to encourage President Obama to make good on his commitment to act on climate change.

In his Inaugural address from outside the U.S. Capitol, the president said: "We will respond to the threat of climate change knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations."

Just a few weeks later, next to the Washington Monument, Paul Birkeland was one of a couple dozen people holding a long white tube above their heads.

"It's a backbone. It's a spine.