Environment

Marking World Water Day, March 22, 2010

Today, March 22nd, is World Water Day. It is no surprise that corporations have attempted to co-opt this event. One example of greenwashing that SourceWatch has targeted is the Starbucks-run "www.worldwaterday.net," which many environmentally-minded individuals may mistake for the official UN World Water Day website. Since SourceWatch first identified the misleading page, www.worldwaterday.net now routes viewers to www.waterday.org, where the Starbucks connection is not apparent. (A cached version of the original page's privacy agreement can still be viewed here). Please bookmark our new water clearinghouse on Sourcewatch to find regular updates about this precious and essential natural resource, including news about the dangers of Halliburton's hydrofracking process that is being challenged by citizens opposed to ruining drinking water supplies through efforts to extract natural gas from the Marcellus shale in New York and elsewhere.

Waiter, There Is Toxic Sludge in my Organic Soup!

(NOTE: Visit the SourceWatch Portal on Toxic Sludge)


Fifteen years ago, the Center for Media and Democracy in my book Toxic Sludge Is Good for You first exposed the deceptive PR campaign by the municipal sewage industry that has renamed toxic sewage sludge as "biosolids" to be spread on farms and gardens. Unfortunately, the scam continues to fool more people than ever, even in San Francisco which is often dubbed the country's greenest city.

I suspect that Bay area celebrity chef Alice Waters would never dump sewage sludge onto her own organic garden, nor serve food grown in sludge in her world famous natural foods restaurant Chez Panisse. The mission of her Chez Panisse Foundation is to create "edible schoolyards" where kids grow, prepare, and eat food from their own organic gardens. But Francesca Vietor, the new executive director of the Chez Panisse Foundation, is at the same time actively promoting dumping toxic sludge on gardens in her role as Vice President of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.

Oil-Funded Gov Joins with Oil-Funded Front Group to Appeal Greenhouse Gas Regs

supreme court gas station signAlthough it seems a bit like a dog-bites-man story, the New York Times reported that Texas Governor and 2012 presidential aspirant Rick Perry (R-TX) has joined with the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) in challenging the Environmental Protection Agency's decision to regulate carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. As the Center for Media and Democracy has documented on our SourceWatch site, CEI has been well-funded by Exxon and other oil companies, and is one of the main U.S. corporate front groups fighting efforts to address global warming and regulate the industry that feeds it funding. But, the courts are now stacked in Perry's favor, as noted below.

Oil Money Funds Climate Deniers and Attacks on Climate Scientists

The multinational energy company ExxonMobil has given hundreds of thousands of British pounds in grants to free-market, anti-climate change think-tanks to wage a coordinated, orchestrated campaign against climate change science, and undermine public acceptance of the idea that global warming has a man-made component. The campaign includes attacks against scientists who support the idea that climate change in man-made.

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