Welcome to the April 2024 edition of Pacific Environment’s new monthly e-newsletter! This is an opportunity to highlight some of our work and share victories for communities, climate, and wildlife. Plastics Earth Day: Planet vs. Plastics It is the 54th celebration of Earth Day and this year’s theme of Planet vs. Plastics is important to … Read more
Pacific Environment welcomes Shannon Wright as its new Executive Director, effective Jan. 2, 2024. Ms. Wright’s background in international campaigning and her proven track record as a non-profit leader make her the perfect fit for Pacific Environment, an organization with a 30-year history of work supporting and partnering with communities and cultures to protect natural … Read more
On Thursday, March 31, the Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ) is offering a tour to the Houston Ship Channel, Tour 7, “From the Fenceline to the Frontline: The Battle Against Environmental Racism in Houston’s Ship Channel.” According to the agenda, attendees will tour the Houston Ship Channel, a highly industrialized area of refineries and chemical … Read more
I first met Ding Jie a decade ago when she was a college graduate taking on heavy polluters in the big city. Together we toured the city of Wuhu, located west of Shanghai on the Yangtze River in southern Anhui Province. Making our way through stagnant air and past construction rubble and urban decay, I … Read more
With the support of activists like you, we are building people power around the Pacific Rim to fight climate change, defend the oceans, promote open and inclusive societies, and ensure a just transition to a clean energy future for all. Here are five accomplishments I’m especially proud of this year. They would not have been … Read more
Earlier this year, Mellisa Maktuayaq Johnson told a room full of international shipping experts in London that “the sea and the land are our store.” Most people in the audience are used to shopping at supermarkets like Safeway or Costco, so it took a moment before they grasped the implications of what they were hearing. … Read more
Updated February 13, 2020 — The Guide to IMO is a resource for anyone looking to get a crash course in what the International Maritime Organization (IMO) is and how it operates. In the guide, you will find descriptions of committees and sub-committees, section by section summaries of key IMO instruments (like the Polar Code), … Read more
London, February 22, 2019 – As a meeting of the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) Sub-Committee on Pollution Prevention and Response (PPR 6) closes today in London, the Clean Arctic Alliance welcomed progress but calls on Arctic Nations Russia and Canada to step-up to their responsibilities by adding their support for a ban on heavy fuel oil (HFO) … Read more
We live in remarkable, stressful times. The last five years have been recorded as the five hottest on record, worldwide. Reports are coming in that an increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius may come even sooner than we thought. Worrying news is reaching us from the Arctic and Antarctic ice caps, and from the Himalayas, about … Read more
Last year, I accompanied Yun Jianli on a surprise visit to a wastewater treatment plant in her hometown Xiangyang in Hubei Province. We were investigating river pollution and asked the plant’s environmental manager to show us the equipment. It was noon, we were standing out in the burning sun, and I was feeling too hot … Read more
When you keep information secret, the question is: what do you have to hide and who are you hiding it from? In the case of our national marine monuments and sanctuaries, it looks like President Trump and his administration are hiding from people like you and me! Why? Because they know that their attacks on … Read more
People have been searching for gold for thousands of years. It’s an enduring dream that anyone can strike it rich by sieving river mud in search of that big gold nugget that will change their life. Few ever imagine the terrible consequences of mining rivers for gold. In the Altai region in southern Siberia, gold … Read more
Imagine: A local villager admitting that she accepted a color TV from the owner of a factory that is polluting a nearby river. Environmental officials questioning pollution data presented by a local environmental group, shouting, “Where does your data come from? Why is this the first time we are seeing this?” Similar incidents happen all … Read more
From North Dakota to Siberia, indigenous communities are fighting dangerous fossil fuel projects that threaten their water and sacred sites. Valentina Boriskina is a member of the Shor people in Siberia. The Shor people’s ancestral lands are deep within the heart of Russia’s largest coal-mining region—the Kuzbass. Valentina is determined to keep her community in … Read more
When a mine leaks heavy metals into drinking water supply in China, or when school children fall sick due to contaminated soil, or when a factory exceeds its pollution permits for the 79th day in a row, whose job is it to respond? Technically, these kinds of problems are the responsibility of China’s environmental enforcement … Read more
Arctic Ocean ice just hit another all-time low. With more open water comes increased ship traffic. Some of the ships traveling through pristine Arctic waters are powered by the world’s dirtiest, most dangerous oil: heavy fuel oil. This dangerous oil is literally the residue left at the bottom of the barrel after lighter fuels have … Read more
When plans moved forward to build another dam across the heavily polluted Xiang River, members of Green Hunan’s volunteer network dressed up in white hazmat suits to alert the public to a major threat: The section of the river that would fill the reservoir had been used for decades as the city of Changsha’s sewage … Read more
“Worldwide, for every new coal plant built, two have been shelved or cancelled since 2010…. In China, coal use declined in 2014, signaling the start of a shift towards greater reliance on renewable energy. And, in the U.S., over 77,000 megawatts of coal energy have retired or are slated to retire.” This good news comes … Read more
UPDATE: Bank of America heard you and is showing some positive signs of movement. Stay tuned for more information on new developments. The Great Barrier Reef is a global treasure and one of the Earth’s most biodiverse ecosystems. It’s home to endangered dugongs and green and loggerhead sea turtles, and it’s a crucial area for … Read more
Today, the Sierra Club, 350.org, Carbon Market Watch, Pacific Environment, and Friends of the Earth U.S. released a report detailing the catastrophic human rights, labor, and environmental violations at Reliance Power’s Sasan coal-fired power plant and mine in Singrauli, India. Even more striking is the fact that the U.S. Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im) has financed over $900 million for the project, using American taxpayer dollars to support the dirty, dangerous coal project.