Author Archives: Linda Greene

Back-room deals, biomass, pollute Jasper, Indiana

Citizen, physician concerns ignored by public-private conspiracy

In his state of the city address on Feb. 16, 2010, Bill Schmitt, mayor of the southern Indiana city of Jasper, addressed the topic of what to do with the city’s idle coal-fired power plant. One option, he said, according to the Dubois County Herald, would be to convert the plant to a “green-energy-producing facility.” Continue reading

What new 2,4-D-resistant crops mean—going backwards

On May 23, 2012, John Rowan, national president of Vietnam Veterans of America, sent a letter to President Barack Obama requesting his “immediate assistance in staying de-regulation of Dow AgroSciences much ballyhooed 2,4-D-resistant corn seed until an environmental impact study can be conducted and its subsequent results evaluated by scientists who are not affiliated with Dow AgroScience.” Continue reading

Political pressure stopped Scott County biomass burner

Citizens packed meetings, confronted the mayor, ran for office

On an unremarkable day in July 2009 the residents of Scottsburg and surrounding Scott County, in southern Indiana, read an unusual notice in the Scott County Journal. Continue reading

Collective, community effort trumps polluters, for now

Grassroots movements stop biomass incinerators in two counties, one still at risk

Dr. William Sammons, an expert on the health and environmental effects of biomass combustion, has traveled to southern Indiana from the East Coast numerous times to testify at public hearings against burning biomass for energy. Continue reading

Rollo: Peak oil already wreaking economic disaster

City councilman says honest reckoning needed for transition to future

Peak oil production is at a crisis point but also is an opportunity to better the planet, Bloomington City Councilman David Rollo said in a talk, “Evidence and Consequences of Peak Oil,” sponsored by Green Drinks at the Upland Brewery banquet hall on March 28. Continue reading

‘Edible Secrets’: Top secret U.S. government memos

Author Hoerger discusses plots against Castro, Hampton, Rosenbergs

The CIA has made 638 attempts on Fidel Castro’s life since the beginning of the Cuban revolution. One entailed poisoning a chocolate milkshake with a cyanide pellet. Continue reading

Sheehan calls for grassroots revolt against ‘robber class’

Localized, grass-roots democracy ‘only way’ to combat corrupt, diseased system

Cindy Sheehan doesn’t sit down and relax very often. The internationally known peace and human rights activist just returned home to California from a two-week trip to Japan and soon afterwards embarked on a bus tour of the Northwest. Continue reading

Midwest rising in St. Louis

The Midwest Rising Convergence 2011, on Aug. 12–15 at the University of Missouri–St. Louis conference center, wasn’t an ordinary conference. It featured no experts or celebrities. The 200 or so participants co-operatively ran it, cooking and serving meals, working at the registration desk and holding workshops. Continue reading

Climate change impacts on human health

Global climate change is having profound effects on human health. Continue reading

Obama’s war on whistle-blowers

Teresa Chambers is the luckiest whistle-blower in the United States. She lost her job as the first woman chief of the U.S. Park Police after she told the media in 2004 that the department was below the number required to perform the job adequately. She sued, and in January 2011 won her case. Continue reading

Cancer in blue-collar workers

About 1 million women, according to the Cancer Prevention Coalition, work in industries that expose them to more than 50 carcinogens linked to breast cancer. Continue reading

Liberation from the animals’ point of view

Fear of the Animal Planet: The Hidden History of Animal Resistance is a book about the power struggle between humans and nonhuman animals in captivity. Only when humans succeed in dominating the animals totally—sometimes by killing them—does this struggle end. Continue reading