Climate / Energy

As the whole country focused this past Thursday on the tragic hate crime in Charleston, Pope Francis released his long-awaited encyclical on climate change.  The Catholic Church now officially lays the blame for climate change and its disastrous consequences, especially to the poorest in the world, squarely on human activity.  The Pope’s intention is to […]

The Washington Post June 16, 2015 By Katrina vanden Heuvel In April 2009, as the political right was finding its voice in the tea party, South Carolina Republican Rep. Bob Inglis was making the case for a carbon tax. “I’m a conservative. I believe in accountability,” he said. “Global warming is not a matter of

The coal and oil industries were great partners for such a long time.  They fought together passionately against government regulations aimed at cutting carbon pollution from the burning of their products.  Now they are fighting each other and it’s gotten vicious. What broke up this happy, profitable couple is the hand writing on the wall. 

This past Friday Governor Nikki Haley stopped in North Charleston on her yearly tour to encourage local emergency management officials, businesses and residents to start preparing for a possible hurricane.  Her message was not just that everybody should know how to evacuate or what supplies to have just in case, but that the community should

Congratulations to the City of Columbia for being the first inland South Carolina local government voting to oppose offshore exploration and drilling for oil/gas (see story below).  The South Carolina Small Business Chamber announced its opposition back in January.  The question is will the ever growing list of cities and counties opposing oil/gas exploration and

This evening the Beaufort/Port Royal Sea Level Rise Task Force will make a presentation to Beaufort City Council’s work session.  The task force, which the South Carolina Small Business Chamber helped to convene and was not formerly established by either government, has been meeting since late last year preparing to assess the threat of rising

Sign This Letter  Demanding No Drilling in the Atlantic The Obama Administration has proposed opening a huge area off the Mid- and South- Atlantic coast to offshore drilling. This proposal jeopardizes the environment, our economy, and quality of life, not only with the impacts to the ocean but also the associated dirty onshore development. Click