Published on Friday, February 26, 2016 by Common Dreams by Andrea Germanos, staff writer Pollinators worldwide, from bees and butterflies to beetles and bats, are facing a grim state of affairs. Factors such climate change and land use changes are driving many pollinator species—including 16 percent of vertebrate pollinators—towards extinction. For invertebrate pollinators like bees and butterflies, over 40 […]
Published on Wednesday, February 17, 2016 by Common Dreams by Lauren McCauley, staff writer Amid growing international concern over the health risks posed by Monsanto weedkiller glyphosate, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will reportedly begin testing for the herbicide this year. After speaking with FDA officials, Civil Eats reported Wednesday that the agency will begin testing for […]
Published on Thursday, January 07, 2016 by Common Dreams by Sarah Lazare, staff writer Canadian pipeline company TransCanada announced Wednesday afternoon it is suing the Obama administration under NAFTA provisions for the U.S. decision last November to reject the unpopular Keystone XL pipeline. The climate justice movement that successfully pressured the president to reject the mammoth pipeline project responded […]
Published on Wednesday, January 06, 2016 by Common Dreams by Lauren McCauley, staff writer The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Wednesday confirmed longstanding fears that a widely-used pesticide can pose a significant risk to honeybee populations. The first risk assessment released by the agency on the long-term impact of neonicotinoids focused on the most popular class of the insecticide, […]
Published on Tuesday, January 05, 2016 by Common Dreams by Nadia Prupis, staff writer Organic farmers are racking up new victories in the fight against ‘franken-food’, as a growing number of counties line up to bar genetically engineered (GE) crop cultivation throughout the country. A federal judge in Jackson County, Oregon recently upheld a consent decree that designates the […]
Published on Friday, October 30, 2015 by Common Dreams by Jon Queally, staff writer A broad coalition of community groups along with prominent leaders from the nation’s top civil rights, environmental, and indigeneous people’s movements on Friday sent a joint letter to the U.S. Department of Justice demanding a federal investigation into allegations that oil giant ExxonMobil knew about […]
Published on Tuesday, September 15, 2015 by Common Dreams by Jon Queally, staff writer Animal welfare groups and conservationists are declaring victory on behalf of marine mammals off the coast of both Hawaii and California after a federal judge on Monday signed a settlement in which the U.S. Navy agreed to limit its use of underwater sonar and explosives […]
Published on Thursday, August 06, 2015 by Common Dreams by Lauren McCauley, staff writer An oil pipeline spill along the Santa Barbara coast this spring may have been up to 40 percent bigger than originally estimated, documents made public Wednesday revealed. The quarterly earnings report for Texas-based Plains All American Pipeline disclosed that as many as 143,000 gallons of […]
Published on Tuesday, August 04, 2015 by Common Dreams by Jon Queally, staff writer In a victory for animal rights advocates—and the animals on factory farms they seek to protect—a federal judge on Monday ruled Idaho’s controversial “ag-gag” law unconstitutional in a decision that said criminalizing the undercover documentation of livestock abuse violates both free speech and the equal […]
Published on Monday, August 10, 2015 by Common Dreams by Sarah Lazare, staff writer Scottish government officials announced Sunday they will impose a ban on the domestic cultivation of genetically modified (GM or GMO) crops, attracting praise from environmental and food safety campaigners. “Scotland is known around the world for our beautiful natural environment—and banning growing genetically modified crops […]