Laura Miller's News Articles

The American Beverage Association scored points recently when they unveiled a new voluntary "vending policy." The trade association for drink manufacturers says it is encouraging beverage producers and school districts to provide "lower-calorie and/or nutritious beverages" to schools and limit the availability of soft drinks in schools. ABA's announcement snagged news stories across the country, but public health advocates questioned the group's commitment to preventing childhood obesity.

Beverage Association represents soft drink manufacturers and distributors, a $88 billion per year business in the U.S.

"It's ironic that ABA would choose to make this announcement at the National Conference of State Legislatures meeting, since its members lobby against any state bills to get sodas out of schools," said Michele Simon, director of the for Informed Food Choices. According to a http://www.commercialexploitation.com/pressreleases/abapolicy.htm|release authored by Simon and Susan Linn, a member of for a Commercial-Free Childhood, in the past year, soft drink lobbyists successfully killed or watered down bills restricting soft drink sales in schools in Connecticut, Arizona, Kentucky and New Mexico.

"Several of the nation's most prominent environmentalists have gone public with the message that nuclear power, long taboo among environmental advocates, should be reconsidered as a remedy for global warming," the York Times' Felicity Barringer reports. And while environmentalists who support nuclear power as a supposedly "emission-free" alternative to fossil fuels are not representative of the larger movement, the buzz about them is mushrooming. "Their numbers are still small, but they represent growing cracks in what had been a virtually solid wall of opposition to nuclear power among most mainstream environmental groups," writes the Times.

Make no mistake - nuclear power has not become any safer or cleaner. Nuclear plants still pose a huge threat to the communities in which they are located and highly radioactive spent fuel has yet to be dealt with adequately. "It's not that something new and important and good had happened with nuclear, it's that something new and important and bad has happened with climate change," Stewart Brand, a founder of the Whole Earth Catalog and a new devotee of nuclear energy, told the Times.

In fact, the only thing that the nuclear power industry has been working to clean up is its image. The first quarter issue of PR Watch, available online, examines the industry's use of public relations to quell safety concerns and undermine grassroots efforts to shut down nuclear plants. Over the past several years, PR Watch has seen a marked increase in industry efforts to change the public's perception of nuclear power.

Image from Army Environmental Center website.

The Army celebrated Earth Day this year with a special campaign called "Sustaining the Environment for a Secure Future." The effort's website features links to an Army Earth Day message, an Earth Day video promo, computer screen wallpaper, and a commemorative poster.

"We are a nation at war. The need to protect our homeland has never been clearer," the message states. "The Army’s Strategy for the Environment establishes a long-range vision that focuses efforts that sustain our mission. For success in the global war on terrorism we must carry out our responsibilities for the long-term. The land, air, and water resources we work and train on are vital to both our present and future missions. We must use those resources wisely in a manner that reflects our devotion to duty and respect for the needs of tomorrow’s Soldiers."

The Army's message may be in response to last October's budget cuts from environmental projects on military bases, a consequence of Iraq war funding priorities.

The Bush administration ventriloquists are out in full force these days, breathlessly hyping "Personal Retirement Accounts" as a way to save Social Security by destroying it. For the average voter, getting a handle on what the Bush administration is proposing to do to Social Security is quite a challenge. The dozens of bobbing heads and clicking fingers, holding forth on cable news programming and the Internet is enough to make anyone's head spin. Is that spokesman from the Alliance for Worker Retirement Security speaking as an independent economics expert, a civic-minded individual or as a paid shill from a corporate-funded front group?