Corporate malfeasance that harms the planet is not exclusively American It’s been two and a half years since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant complex in Japan began spewing radioactive material into the air, land, and sea after it was destroyed by an earthquake and tsunami. Since that time, much of the world has turned its attention elsewhere with most […]

Last week, the BlueGreen Alliance announced the launch of its “Repair America” campaign designed to push action on repairing crucial national infrastructure across the country and create thousands of valuable jobs in the process. The BlueGreen Alliance is a partnership of labor and environmental groups working to expand the number of jobs in the renewable energy sector. Over 100 people […]

What could possibly go wrong?

On the banks of the Detroit River, giant three-story tall mountains of black rock have been accumulating, quickly and quietly enough to take a lot of Detroiters and neighboring Canadians by surprise. The piles are petroleum coke or “pet coke”, a by-product of the processing of tar sands oil from Canada. A newly upgraded Marathon Petroleum refinery in Detroit now allows them to process the tar sands oil, producing copious amounts of the high-sulfur, high-carbon waste product.

A recent New York Times article shows that Michiganders and Canadians alike are concerned by the use of land directly on the Detroit River to store the potentially hazardous pet coke.

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Won’t somebody please think of the corporations???

In one of my favorite books of all time, Infinite Jest by the late David Foster Wallace, in an effort to raise money, the Organization of North American Nations (O.N.A.N.) has sold the naming rights to each year to corporations. It’s called “Subsidized Time” and, over the time frame of the book, these are the years:

CHRONOLOGY OF ORGANIZATION OF NORTH AMERICAN NATIONS’ REVENUE ENHANCING SUBSIDIZED TIME™, BY YEAR

1. Year of the Whopper
2. Year of the Tucks Medicated Pad
3. Year of the Trial-Size Dove Bar
4. Year of the Perdue Wonderchicken
5. Year of the Whisper-Quiet Maytag Dishmaster
6. Year of the Yushityu 2007 Mimetic-Resolution-Cartridge-View-Motherboard-Easy-To-Install-Upgrade For Infernatron/InterLace TP Systems For Home, Office Or Mobile (sic)
7. Year of Dairy Products from the American Heartland
8. Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment
9. Year of Glad

It’s an hilarious bit extrapolation of today’s trend of corporate naming of stadiums and sports venues. However, one Michigan Republican seems hellbent on taking us down that slippery slope far faster than you might imagine.

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And they’re off! Last night the Michigan Energy & Environment for Obama Team kicked off its effort to reelect President Obama at the Arbor Brewing Company in Ann Arbor. Environmental luminaries from around the state were in attendance in cluding Ken Berlin, the Director of the National Energy & Environment Team. Berlin told us that the team formed 18 months […]

More We Can’t Wait awesomeness from the Obama White House: We Can’t Wait: Obama Administration Proposes Historic Fuel Economy Standards to Reduce Dependence on Oil, Save Consumers Money at the PumpNext phase in national program for light-duty vehicles will save consumers thousands of dollars at the pump while saving billions of barrels of oil, curbing pollution, enabling long-term planning for […]

I’m a big fan of Clean Water Action and our Michigan team is rock solid. What is Clean Water Action all about? This is what they are all about: Clean Water Action is an organization of one million members working to empower people to take action to protect America’s waters, build healthy communities and to make democracy work for all […]