"Last Wednesday, the weather was sunny and warm at Bob Fortune's cattle ranch in Belvidere, S.D. On Thursday, it started raining. By Friday night, the rain had turned to snow. By the weekend, the snow turned to a blizzard with 60 mile an hour winds. By the weekend, Fortune says, 'the cattle just couldn't stand the cold anymore, and they just started dying.'"
"KUMAMOTO, Japan -- Japan, where residents of Minamata suffered lethal mercury poisoning in the mid-1950s, today became one of the first countries to sign a new international treaty to reduce mercury emissions and to phase out many products containing the toxic metal."
"The Department of Agriculture will not close the California chicken-processing plants linked to a nationwide outbreak of antibiotic-resistant salmonella, officials said."
SEJ's 2013 Board Elections were held in October during the annual conference in Chattanooga. Members of the Society elected to the board for three-year terms include Jennifer Bogo, Popular Science; Douglas Fischer, DailyClimate.org; Emily Gertz, Freelance Journalist; David Poulson, MSU Knight Center for Environmental Journalism (academic seat); Mark Schleifstein, NOLA.com |The Times-Picayune; and Kate Sheppard, Huffington Post. SEJ thanks outgoing board members Peter Fairley, Thomas Henry, Peter Thomson, Jennifer Weeks, and Tom Yulsman for their collective 36(!) years of excellent service. The 2013 Stolberg Award winner is Jane Braxton Little (pictured, with SEJ president Don Hopey).
This annual award recognizes an SEJ member for their exceptional volunteer work. The 2013 Stolberg award goes to Jane Braxton Little, who as co-leader of SEJ's mentor program "embodies the SEJ spirit of cooperation among journalists," and "cares very much about helping the next generation of journalists make it out there."
"A progressive activist group's online petition seeks to stop oil and gas drilling in national parks while the areas are closed to the public during the government shutdown."
"An environmental activist group wants Boston's public television and radio affiliate to bump billionaire conservative donor David Koch from its board of trustees over his position on climate change."
"LOS ANGELES -- Two U.S. senators angered by the firing of whistle-blower Walter Tamosaitis from the contaminated Hanford, Wash., nuclear site sharply criticized the U.S. secretary of Energy on Wednesday."
"The U.S. Department of Agriculture gave a California poultry producer until Thursday to correct problems that led to a salmonella outbreak in 18 states, or be forced to shut down three processing plants."
"WASHINGTON -- As costs and competition from cheap natural gas force more old nuclear plants to shut down, their owners have a new complaint: the electricity market is rigged against them."
