AlternativesMagazine

Unlined waste-water pits produced from fracking and other oil drilling operations  by Julie Cart environmental reporter for the Los Angeles Times Water officials in Kern County discovered that oil producers have been dumping chemical-laden waste-water into hundreds of unlined pits that are operating without proper permits. The pits raise new water quality concerns in a region where agricultural fields sit side by side with oil fields and where California’s ongoing drought has made protecting groundwater supplies paramount. The Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources has admitted that for years it allowed companies to inject fracking wastewater into protected groundwater aquifers, a problem they attributed to a history of chaotic record-keeping. “The state doesn’t seem to be willing to put the protection of groundwater and water quality ahead of the oil industry being able to do business as usual,” said Andrew Grinberg of the group Clean Water Action. The pits — long, shallow

Houseboats float in California’s drought-lowered Oroville Lake. Credit Rich Pedroncelli/Associated Press Water is the most wasted resource on the planet. However, our leaders have been so focused on oil, pipelines and punching more holes in the earth (where the real money is) that very little attention has been given to water, the drought, hoping that it will rain someday soon and the problem will just go away. But what if it doesn't? What if we actually had to make sacrifices? Looks like we may find out. Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday ordered mandatory water use reductions for the first time in California’s history, saying the state’s four-year drought had reached near-crisis proportions after a paltry mountain snowpack. The lowest since 1950 -- means low levels at state reservoirs, which supply 30% of California's May-through-November water to homeowners, farms, wineries and utilities. The Sta

This one's on everyone who thinks water comes in a little plastic bottle. When are we going to brain up! Nestlé is currently the leading supplier of the world’s bottled water, including such brands as Perrier and San Pellegrino. It has 7,500 employees and 29 bottled water facilities across the U.S. and Canada, and annual revenues were $4.0 billion in 2012, up 6.8% from 2011.  For nearly four decades, activists from an array of organizations have criticized the company for its human rights violations throughout the world.  Only 20% of all plastic water bottles get recycled.  The rest... Environmental and human rights activists, holding plastic “torches” and “pitchforks,” formed human barricades at both entrances to the Nestlé Waters bottling plant in Sacramento March 20, effectively shutting down the company's operations for the day.  Representatives of the alliance said the company is draining up to 80 million gallons of water a year from Sacramento aquifer

So many people world-wide are still in the dark about the amount pollution spreading over the planet and it's effect it's having on the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe and a corrupt government that's allowing it to happen.  Join us! For as little as $25 per month you could be part of the movement to help bring awareness to these problems and the solutions to help end it. Click HERE ! Get started!

By Amelia Urry If you’re a cyclist, you’ve probably already mastered the pedaling-while-patting-self-on-back move: You’re circumventing more carbon-intensive forms of transportation, getting some healthy cardio into your daily commute, and generally making your city a more pleasant and picturesque place — I mean, have you seen Amsterdam? But here’s one more item to add to your good cycling karma list: The bicycle industry is creating a whole bunch of new jobs. Specifically, in Europe, bike manufacturing, tourism, retail, infrastructure, and services provide jobs for 655,000 people. For comparison, that’s way more than Europe’s 615,000 jobs in mining and quarrying, or 350,000 jobs in the entire steel sector. Not bad for a hippie hobby, right? According to the study which pulled together these numbers, commissioned by the European Cyclists’ Federation, this already staggering figure could reach a million jobs by 2020. That’s a bigger potential for growth than th

Many take for granted that their garbage "magically disappears" once it's picked up by the garbage truck, but nothing could be further from the truth. Most garbage does not disappear. It's simply relocated to a landfill or a recycling center. Trash also makes its way down storm drains and into nearby waterways. Our throwaway mentality has created a pollution problem that now threatens the future of humanity itself. Plastic trash is of particular concern, as bits and pieces of plastic are mistaken for food by birds and sea animals. Debris in the ocean also blocks sunlight from which plankton and algae sustain themselves, and this has negative implications on up the food chain as it eventually becomes micronized and winds up in some of the seafood you eat. Inside the Garbage of the World explores how plastic trash has altered the composition of our oceans, and the impact this may eventually have on life. 4.7 million tons of plastic ends up in our oceans each ye

By Olivia Vito Police officer pepper spraying students during occupy event. What's almost as alarming is the number of people standing  around taking photo's.   It’s all too easy not to take action these days considering the sheer abundance of injustice that floods our heads via memes and catchy headlines. They inform us of how many minors were shot dead by the police last night and what native communities are currently being ransacked by obscure government policies. We scroll on, heading after heading, viewing our news through pictures and attention deficit inducing mediums, devouring violent captions as though we’re actually going to do something about them – and maybe we had intended to – but the catch 22 is that the more headlines we see, the more we keep scrolling and the less motivation we feel to actually do anything about it. Unless the offense is occurring in our own homes, most of us don’t feel we have the power to stand up against such omnipotent forces. We

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A community incentive promotion to help bring attention to the need  to improve bicycling infrastructure and your middle line. Form your own BIKE SATURDAYS team - where you work, family, school, organizations, church etc. Imagine a system of trails, quiet neighborhood streets, bike lanes and cycle tracks that connect your home with your work, school, shopping, entertainment and other destinations. You could enjoy the freedom of safely and conveniently getting where you re going without being forced to drive a car. Walking and bicycling already account for 12 percent of trips taken in America. But these modes could continue to grow substantially with greater dedicated investment in active transportation networks and focused program administration. Many cities across the county are realizing this and are investing millions to improve biking infrastructure and other safety measures. Studies have also shown that bicycling as a safe mode of transportation brings with it a certain

 Another benefit and service bikes provide Bike messengers swarm the streets of New York on a daily basis, and now Amazon's packages may be stowed in their saddlebags. According to The Wall Street Journal, Amazon is staffing up to test a new delivery service for its products there by bicycle that promises to get orders delivered to buyers within the hour. The Journal says it could be called Amazon Prime Now, and be available in Manhattan to start. Presumably it will also cost more than the company's same-day delivery service, which runs $5.99 per order for Prime members and $8.99 for everyone else. "It might be called "Amazon Prime Now" Amazon's been on a quest to trim delivery times for orders, including the possibility of using aerial drones to make short haul trips with small packages. However that effort remains years out, and requires advances in both the technology and regulatory approvals. The company has also attempted to add incentives to peopl

Paris is already the host to the largest bikeshare system outside of China — currently circulates about 18,000 bikes around the city. From the GRIST -- by Liz Gore Paris is surging toward the front of the peloton of European cities racing for more bike- and pedestrian-friendly streets. Mayor Anne Hidalgo recently announced an ambitious plan to transform the historic city center into a “semi-pedestrianized” zone, where walking and biking will be encouraged, and automobile access will be limited to emergency vehicles, residents’ cars, and delivery trucks. Now, when you finally get around to taking that dream vacation to the City of Love, you can travel via bicyclette — or go retro and rock a penny-farthing — down the Avenue des Champs-Élysées with fewer cars and less lung-choking smog. If Hidalgo gets her way, the ban will start on weekends, and eventually be all week. Hidalgo wants to double the number of bike lanes in the city by 2020 as part of a $147 million cycling develo

It’s called the Inner Harbor Water Wheel, and though it moves slow, it has the capability to collect 50,000 pounds of trash per day.   The timing for John Kellett’s solar-powered creation is crucial—hands and crab nets simply can’t keep up with the growing amount of wrappers, cigarette butts, bottles and other debris carried from storm drains into the harbor. Water Wheel: Harnessing the power of nature to help keep the Baltimore Harbor clean The Inner Harbor Water Wheel uses a combination of old and new technology to harness the power of water and sunlight to pick up litter and debris flowing down the Jones Falls River. The current of the river provides power to turn the water wheel, which lifts trash and debris from the water and deposits it in a dumpster barge.  A solar panel array provides additional power to keep the machine running even when there is not enough water current.  When the dumpster is full, it is towed away by boat and a new dumpster is put in place. READ

The beautiful Athabasca river runs through the Alberta tar pit (in the background) and is at risk of becoming a dead river. THIS WAS POSTED BACK IN 2014, BUT IT'S STILL RELEVANT TODAY One of the most important facts that is missing in the national debate surrounding the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is this – Keystone XL will not bring any more oil into the United States.   The idea that Keystone XL will improve U.S. oil supply is a documented scam being played on the American people by Big Oil, its friends in Washington DC., and especially the Koch Brothers, who will benefit the most by it's approval, own oil leases to 1.5 million acres of the Canadian tar sands.  Keystone pipeline: Obama bashes project while in Myanmar Speaking at a press conference while in Myanmar, Obama offered perhaps his harshest assessment to date of the controversial pipeline. “Understand what this project is: It is providing the ability of Canada to pump their oil, send it th