Portside

The millions of miles of distribution and service pipelines crisscrossing the nation mean that countless Americans - even those living far from gas fields - find themselves on the frontlines of fracking.

There’s nothing like realizing that our regulators and our corporations rely on semi-educated guesses, dependence on corporate testing of chemical compounds, and squeaking by on the lucky chance to make one feel safer.

The environmental justice community needs to make a very intentional effort to link the economic and ecological crisis, to reveal the root causes of those crises, and to stimulate a conversation about is there a better way, is there a better way that we can live in this country.

Climate Change crossroads - Super-Typhoon Haiyan, possibly the strongest such storm ever to hit land; Australia, elected a climate-change denialist as prime minister is experiencing its hottest year on record; the rest of the world is living through the seventh warmest year on record. And...young activists organizing a growing campaign to pressure universities and colleges to divest from the giant energy companies, to change the mood and calculations of our moment.

Typhoon Haiyan (known in the Philippines as Typhoon Yolanda) will go down as one of the deadliest and most destructive weather events ever recorded - a surge, very high winds and torrential rains. The Philippine people need urgent assistance - here are ways about how you can help.

Saturday's Draw the Line held over 200 demonstrations across the United States - it was a day of action marked by song - a phenomenon that is starting to become a major feature of the climate movement.

Reader Comments - German Election; Average American Family Pays $6,000 a Year in Subsidies to Big Business; Monsanto and GMO Labeling; Pope Francis; Announcements - Political Economy of the Environment -- URPE Conference in Brooklyn - Oct. 5; A Message from Cynthia Nixon - Curriculum of Change Celebration - New York - Oct. 17; New Populisms and the European Right and far Right Parties (new resource)

Today’s American readers will find the arguments favoring Peña Nieto’s energy reform familiar. They center around the flaws of the state-run enterprise: its corruption and inefficiency, its coddling of unions, and its monopoly in the national market for consumer goods such as gasoline, which has kept prices high. But thus far, the debates have hardly touched upon the local consequences of this reform for regions that will be most affected.