Adaptation. Mitigation. Justice.
‘Dirty’ Deely announces retirement at San Antonio Earth Day 2018. But pleads: “It’s not too late to save my little brother and sister!” San Antonio coal plant “Dirty” Deely made an unexpected appearance at Earth Day San Antonio this year. The sooty mass of cancer-causing smog was received warmly by […]
Deceleration‘s map of San Antonio’s major emitters of greenhouse gases, toxic chemicals, and so-called “criteria” pollutants. Greg Harman To state the obvious, San Antonio’s “Dirty” Deely coal plant is a really dirty polluter. We’re talking dirty to the tune of 2,755,917-annual-metric-tons-of-climate-destabilizing-CO2-pumped-out dirty. Add in the 740 tons of potent methane […]
It’s past time to stop whining about gas prices. Though the more obvious violence of Hurricane Harvey may be passed, residents of Southeast Texas and Louisiana continue to face threats from the storm’s aftermath. One of those very real threats comes from toxic releases from chemical flaring, explosions, and spills […]
‘Suspect screening’ confirms range of pharmaceuticals, including anticonvulsants, antihistamines, and muscle relaxants. A new way to test for a wide range of micropollutants in waterways has already turned up a nightmarish cocktail of contaminants. “Water quality monitoring is conventionally done by narrowly investigating one or a few contaminants at a time. We […]
Consistently, one of the most trafficked pages on Deceleration is a reprint of an article I wrote about the poisoning of the people of Gulfport, Miss., by Agent Orange chemicals during and after the Vietnam War. But the story of Agent Orange, and the likely millions of human lives it […]
More than 300,000 residents to avoid all contact with city water. Corpus Christi officials have identified a chemical that is suspected to have leaked into the Texan city’s tap water on Wednesday night. The contaminant, they say, is Indulin AA-86, an asphalt emulsifier which can burn human skin in concentrated […]
Consider this my spring cleaning, late as it is. The subject: the mangle of flares and flanges known as the Calumet (or NuStar, or AGE) refinery in South SA. While some media are keeping up on the monthly spills out of Calumet, I’m still waiting to read about how the Texas Commission […]
An eight-month investigation by the Center for Public Integrity, InsideClimate News and The Weather Channel reveals Texas has done next to nothing to protect people in the Eagle Ford’s booming shale play from rising industry pollution. This is a must-read investigative piece. Key findings are included below along with a […]
Billions of gallons of water are wasted each year to fracture shale formations around the country and free trapped oil and gas. After the water is shot down a well, it returns to the surface heavily contaminated with hydrocarbons, fracking chemicals, heavy metals, and radioactivity. After the oil and gas […]
I haven’t had time to follow up with Elena Craft (right), health scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund’s Austin office, who served to keep a recent air-quality panel at San Antonio’s Rackspace on point about certain local and state-level policy failings responsible for fouling our shared respirable resource. I had intended to reach […]
“Dread,” read the headline about the East Texas coal belt and proposed federal climate regulations. Finally, I thought. Finally an appropriate response from the coal industry. Obama insists new climate regs are finally coming to the nation’s coal plants. Cue up the rows of tiny violins and pass out the black […]
Last night a friend and fellow committed lover of the earth our home invited me to sit on a committee for a local environmental advocacy organization. Why not? I’m an advocate of stopping the rapid dismantling of the planet’s life-support systems, of arresting the extinction crisis, reining in climate change, […]