By Tom Frantz Our lungs are being violated by misguided climate change action in Sacramento. Simultaneously, our Valley Air Board is facilitating this environmental injustice. First, some [...] Continue Reading
Environment
Wal-Mart Distribution Center to Proceed Despite Environmental Flaws
By Tom Grave After a three-year legal battle, Walmart can now proceed with building a 1.1 million square foot distribution center on 230 acres within the city of Merced. This massive project will [...] Continue Reading
Fracking Lease Sale Halted by Federal Court
By Gary Lasky Fresno County is targeted for fracking—a form of oil and gas extraction in which fluids are pumped underground with sand and, frequently, toxic chemicals to release oil [...] Continue Reading
Clearing the Air – May 2013: Protecting Public Health by Promoting Polluting Projects
By Tom Frantz You have to see it to believe it. Our air district does not keep our health in its best interests. Instead, it claims new pollution is good for us. There is a Kern County power plant [...] Continue Reading
Earth Day 2013
By George B. Kauffman Earth Day, the world’s largest secular holiday and the only event celebrated by more than a half billion people of all backgrounds, faiths and nationalities is sponsored by many [...] Continue Reading
Clearing the Air – April 2013: Air Board Intransigence
By Tom Frantz The San Joaquin Valley Unified Air Pollution Control District is a public health agency run by a Governing Board of local politicians including names such as Judy Case of Fresno County, [...] Continue Reading
Clearing the Air – March 2013: Scapegoating Our Air Quality Problem
By Tom Frantz More than obesity and poverty, polluted air is shortening the lives of Central Valley residents. The marginal cost of our early deaths and degraded quality of life is around $6 billion [...] Continue Reading
Clearing the Air: The Valley Mind-set / Air, Water and Land
By Kevin Hall The Valley Mind-set “Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.”—Albert Einstein Each January, the Valley Air Board—that tea-guzzling bunch of local [...] Continue Reading
Last of the Wild West, Part 2: Madera County Planning
By Gary Lasky Last month, we compared the reasonable land-use planning policies of the City of Fresno with the contrasting situation in Tulare County, just 45 minutes to the south, where the Board [...] Continue Reading
Opponents of Garbage Privatization File Suit in Fresno Court
By Gary Lasky Opponents of the City of Fresno’s residential garbage privatization contract with Mid-Valley Disposal filed a lawsuit in Fresno Superior Court on Jan. 22, alleging that the contract [...] Continue Reading
The Really Free Market
By Eme Gerle and Josh Cranston Fresno’s Really Free Market was born out of a hope to bring the community together for an exchange of things, ideas and conversations. We live in a culture of such [...] Continue Reading
Climate Change—Will Superstorm Sandy Be the Tipping Point?
By George B. Kauffman The scientific debate is over! Of 13,950 peer-reviewed climate change articles, only 24 deny it’s happening. That’s 0.17% for those of you keeping score. Check out “The Most [...] Continue Reading