Most recent 40 articles: Inside Climate News
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Zambians feel the personal consequences of climate change—and dream of a sustainable future - Inside Climate News (Apr 7) |
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Apr 7 · CHONGWE, Zambia - Benson Chipungu sits in a leather armchair and reaches for the remote to switch off the news. Pieces of fabric hang over the windows, darkening the room against the heat. A gas-powered hand-plough is parked in the corner. On the floors behind his chair, dozens of ears of corn are spread out, a display of the paltry crop the 56-year-old farmer managed to salvage from his rain-starved soil.
“The fields are a sorry sight,” he says. “We’re saving what we can.”
Everyone here, in this country of nearly 20 million people, is nervously doing the same thing. It’s too late for the rain.
Corn, or maize as most people here call it, is the lifeblood of the ... | By Lee Hedgepeth, Erin Schulte, Keerti Gopal, Kiley Bense, Liza Gross, Phil McKenna Read more ...
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The outsized climate and environmental impacts of Ohio's 2024 Senate race - Inside Climate News (Apr 6) |
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Apr 6 · From our collaborating partner “Living on Earth,” public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by host Steve Curwood with Dan Gearino, a staff writer at Inside Climate News based in Columbus, Ohio.
Voters in 2024 will not only choose who lives in the White House, but will also decide which party controls the Senate, with its unique powers to advance or block legislation and also approve or reject the appointments of judges and other high officials.
Ohio is pivotal in the fight for Senate control, and after a hotly contested primary, Republicans have chosen Bernie Moreno, a former car dealer who has closely aligned himself with 45th President Donald Trump. In ... | By Marianne Lavelle Read more ...
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As messy side effects of Klamath River dam removal continue, officials stress that short-term pain will yield long-term gain - Inside Climate News (Apr 5) |
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Apr 5 · After years of heated debates and delays, the world’s largest dam removal is currently underway on the Klamath River across the California-Oregon border.
Established in the early to mid-1900s by energy company PacifiCorp, the four dams have stored water and generated electricity for the region. But they’ve also prevented endangered salmon from reaching critical habitat and breeding grounds, contributing to a 90 percent decrease in some populations over the last century.
Experts say that lowering these dams will help struggling salmon populations bounce back and revitalize the river ecosystem. However, removing structures of this size come with negative side effects - ... | By Kiley Price Read more ...
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As Biden pushes for clean factories, a new ‘how-to' guide offers a path forward - Inside Climate News (Apr 4) |
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Apr 4 · The Biden administration’s announcement last week of $6 billion in funding for factory decarbonization reminded me of a book.
For years, Jeffrey Rissman of the think tank Energy Innovation has been one of the people I go to when I need an explanation of the technologies that will help heavy industries cut their emissions.
His book Zero-Carbon Industry came out in February from Columbia University Press. It’s a primer that describes the tools some of the most polluting industries - like steel, concrete and chemicals - can use to reduce their harm to the climate. He explains the issues in each industry and then covers the technologies and policies that, if smartly ... | By Kristoffer Tigue Read more ...
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Black residents want this company gone. Will Alabama's environmental agency approve a new permit? - Inside Climate News (Apr 4) |
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Apr 4 · MOBILE, Ala. - Walter Moorer likes to say he lives at 411 “Death Row Street.” At least that is what he compares his living conditions to as he is bombarded with the stench, pollution, noise and dust that emanates from an asphalt plant owned by Hosea Weaver and Sons Inc.
“I changed it to Death Row because I’d be in the house and that odor comes from Hosea Weaver,” Moorer said at a hearing last month before the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM). “It’s like I’m in a gas chamber. So I been on death row 20 something years.”
Moorer’s testimony came during part of the hearing set aside for public comment on Hosea Weaver’s application for a new or revised ... | By Daniel Rothberg Read more ...
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As legal challenges against the fossil fuel industry notch some successes, are livestock companies the next target? - Inside Climate News (Apr 3) |
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Apr 3 · Livestock agriculture is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, but lawsuits against the industry for its role in the climate crisis are only now starting to land in courtrooms and could become critical tools for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
A new analysis from researchers at Yale Law School, published Monday in the Columbia Journal of Environmental Law, tracks the small but rising trend of litigation aimed at the livestock industry and explores potential future legal strategies as the climate crisis accelerates along with global appetites for protein. The authors argue that, given emissions from livestock agriculture, its biggest players could be considered legal ... | By Kiley Bense Read more ...
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Lynzy Billing wins a 2024 Izzy for environmental reporting on Afghanistan - Inside Climate News (Apr 3) |
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Apr 3 · Lynzy Billing, a freelance journalist writing for Inside Climate News and New Lines Magazine, has won a 2024 Izzy Award for her probing reporting on the environmental damage and public health impacts the U.S. military left behind after 20 years of war in Afghanistan.
A year after America’s abrupt withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, Billing spent weeks as one of only a small number of foreign journalists in the country and interviewed more than six dozen villagers and medical authorities around three of the Pentagon’s largest military installations in Jalalabad, Kandahar and Bagram.
As she traversed the Afghan countryside, President Joe Biden signed legislation in ... Read more ...
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An oil company executive said the energy transition has failed - Inside Climate News (Mar 28) |
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Mar 28 · The CEO of Saudi Aramco said last week that the transition to clean energy “is visibly failing on most fronts.”
Amin H. Nasser, who has been president and CEO of the state-owned energy company since 2015, lamented that “our industry is painted as transition’s arch-enemy.”
The speech at CERAWeek, the annual energy conference held in Houston, shows how the oil industry views itself as the world embarks on a multi-generation shift away from fossil fuels. Nasser sets up a straw man version of the energy transition, in which progress is slow and expensive, then describes the oil and gas industry as a falsely maligned hero. It’s a breathtaking one-two punch.
So what’s ... | By Dan Gearino Read more ...
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From Michigan to Nebraska, midwest states face an early wildfire season - Inside Climate News (Mar 28) |
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Mar 28 · The Midwest received some much needed moisture this week following an especially hot and dry winter that hamstrung outdoor recreation and sparked an early spring wildfire season in several states.
Parts of the Midwest saw as much as 24 inches of snow and rain by Wednesday morning, according to the National Weather Service. The powerful storm, which worked its way west from New England, caused mayhem on the roads and temporarily knocked out power for hundreds of thousands of people.
Still, the precipitation is unlikely to break the dry spell that has overtaken most of the Midwest, officials say, with some states already battling hundreds of fires even before the official ... | By Daniel Grossman Read more ...
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Oil and gas executives blast ‘LNG pause,' call natural gas a ‘destination fuel' - Inside Climate News (Mar 27) |
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Mar 27 · HOUSTON - When U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm addressed oil and gas executives last week at CERAWeek by S&P Global, one of the energy industry’s largest conferences, the response was tepid, at best.
“You can applaud that,” a seemingly exasperated Granholm told a demur crowd of hundreds seated to a white tablecloth luncheon at the Hilton-Americas ballroom in downtown Houston after she highlighted record low unemployment, which she attributed to federal policies that made the U.S. “irresistible for clean energy investment.”
The crowd’s lukewarm response likely had less to do with her championing of renewable energy incentives and more to do with a recently ... | By Lindsey Byman Read more ...
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Sinking Coastal Lands Will Exacerbate the Flooding from Sea Level Rise in 24 US Cities, New Research Shows - Inside Climate News - Inside Climate News (Mar 27) |
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Mar 27 · Flooding could affect one out of every 50 residents in 24 coastal cities in the United States by the year 2050, a study led by Virginia Tech researchers suggests.
The study, published this month in Nature, shows how the combination of land subsidence - in this case, the sinking of shoreline terrain - and rising sea levels can lead to the flooding of coastal areas sooner than previously anticipated by research that had focused primarily on sea level rise scenarios.
“One of the things we wanted to do with this study is really emphasize the impact of land subsidence, which is often not reflected in most of the discussion around sea level rise,” said Leonard Ohenhen, the ... | By Kristoffer Tigue Read more ...
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The politics behind the SEC's new climate disclosure rule—and what it means for investors - Inside Climate News (Mar 23) |
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Mar 23 · From our collaborating partner “Living on Earth,” public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by executive producer and host Steve Curwood with Pat Parenteau, an emeritus professor of law at Vermont Law and Graduate School.
During the Great Depression, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed into law the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, to help safeguard U.S. financial markets against collapses like the Wall Street Crash of 1929.
That was decades before scientists alerted the world to the problem of climate disruption, which is creating new financial risks because of just how expensive it is; climate disasters now cost the U.S. around $100 billion every ... | By Phil McKenna Read more ...
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Grid-enhancing ‘magic balls' to get a major test in Minnesota - Inside Climate News (Mar 21) |
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Mar 21 · A sensor about the size of a bowling ball can measure the real-time temperature of a transmission line. With this information, the operator can safely increase the level of power flowing through the line.
The technology has grown in popularity in Europe in recent years, while remaining on the fringes of the U.S. market.
Great River Energy, a power provider to rural electric cooperative utilities in Minnesota, is now poised to take the lead in using these tools stateside. This week, it announced the installation of 52 sensors on lines across the state.
The company, which is based near the Twin Cities, decided to use the sensors systemwide following a positive ... | By Marianne Lavelle Read more ...
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ENVIRONMENTAL - Inside Climate News (Mar 18) |
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Mar 18 · Germaine Gooden-Patterson has lived in Clairton, Pennsylvania, for more than 15 years, but it wasn’t until she began a job as a community health worker in 2019 that she understood how much air pollution was affecting her neighbors’ lives - and her own.
Gooden-Patterson’s work for the Pittsburgh-based nonprofit Women for a Healthy Environment required her to visit homes in Clairton and the nearby towns of Duquesne and McKeesport, conducting surveys and interviews about air quality. As she spoke with families about air filters, lead and mold exposure, she realized that the large number of people she knew with asthma and other respiratory conditions may not be ... | By Victoria St. Martin Read more ...
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‘Greenhushing' is on the rise as companies go silent on climate pledges - Inside Climate News (Mar 17) |
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Mar 17 · For years, eagle-eyed environmentalists have called out banks and consumer businesses - from Barclays to fashion brand ASOS - for making misleading claims that their practices or products are sustainable, otherwise known as greenwashing.
However, lately there has been an uptick in “greenhushing,” a seemingly counterintuitive practice in which companies intentionally don’t publicize their climate-friendly actions and goals.
For example, investment firm BlackRock has removed several references to its commitment of helping reach net zero emissions by 2050 from its website, though its CEO said the firm would continue to discuss climate issues with the companies it invests ... | By Kiley Price Read more ...
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A ‘gassy' Alabama coal mine was expanding under a family's home - Inside Climate News (Mar 16) |
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Mar 16 · ADGER, Ala. - He’d said he thought his home would explode. He was right.
W.M. Griffice, 78, had told his granddaughter, Kenzie, in the days leading up to March 8 that he felt like his house was going to explode, she recalled.
Company representatives with Oak Grove, a nearby coal mine, had visited Griffice’s home in Adger, a small town 25 miles southwest of Birmingham, multiple times. Once, according to the family, they’d found methane gas in Griffice’s water well, which the mining company capped.
Then there were the loud booms that Griffice heard over and over. Sometimes they were enough to shake the ground underneath his feet, his granddaughter said. It all left ... | By Liza Gross Read more ...
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Controversial Maryland data center bill tests governor's climate credentials, environmentalists say - Inside Climate News (Mar 15) |
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Mar 15 · “We endorsed Wes Moore primarily because of his forward-facing climate agenda. We liked what he said and his level of commitment. And that’s why this bill has been so difficult,” said Kim Coble, executive director of the Maryland League of Conservation Voters (LCV), choosing her words with caution.
“We weren’t anticipating that the only environmental bill that the [Moore] administration put in this year causes greenhouse gas emissions to go up. So, it’s been very difficult and disappointing for us.”
The bill Coble and other environmental leaders are having difficulty coming to terms with is the Critical Infrastructure Streamlining Act of 2024, which is ... | By Amy Green, Victoria St. Martin Read more ...
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California votes to consider health and environment in future energy planning - Inside Climate News (Mar 14) |
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Mar 14 · The California Energy Commission voted unanimously on Wednesday to begin a process to incorporate the value of “non-energy benefits,” such as health impacts and job creation, in future decisions about the state’s energy mix.
The practice is not entirely uncommon. Several other states have considered certain non-energy impacts in energy decisions - Minnesota has considered air quality impacts and Maryland has quantified health benefits, for example. California itself weighs health impacts in some climate policy decisions. But the new process would push the state to systematically include a wide range of those benefits or costs in future energy planning.
That could help ... | By Dan Gearino Read more ...
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Coal power plunged again in 2023 and is fading away in the US so what replaces it? - Inside Climate News (Mar 14) |
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Mar 14 · Coal power took a big step toward the exit last year in the United States, as plants continue to close and the ones that remain are being used less than before.
While we’re still a decade - or maybe decades - away from the shutdown of the last U.S. coal plant, the fuel’s role in our energy economy has probably diminished past the point of no return.
This is good for the climate and human health, considering that coal does grave harm through emissions of planet-warming carbon dioxide, along with toxins like sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide.
Please take a look at the new openings in our newsroom.
But replacing coal’s contributions to a reliable grid will be a ... | By Emma Foehringer Merchant Read more ...
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The livestock industry's secret weapons: Expert academics - Inside Climate News (Mar 11) |
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Mar 11 · Media outlets around the world covered the report and its main findings: Livestock are a major source of greenhouse gas emissions that need to be reined in, and cutting emissions from the industry should become a focus of public policy, on par with cutting emissions from fossil fuels. It was the first time such a high-level report had come to this conclusion.
In the following 17 years, the report has been scrutinized by researchers, attacked from every angle, and referenced again and again, held up as a clarion call for worldwide veganism on one side, and on the other, a symbol of the climate-hysterical global nanny state bent on stealing everyone’s cheeseburgers.
But as ... | By Phil McKenna Read more ...
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A new EDF-Harvard satellite will monitor methane emissions from oil and gas production worldwide - Inside Climate News (Mar 5) |
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Mar 5 · A satellite that could soon play a key role in combating climate change by monitoring methane emissions entered Earth’s orbit aboard a SpaceX rocket launched from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in southern California on Monday.
Three thousand miles away, Steven Wofsy, an atmospheric and environmental science professor at Harvard University, who has overseen the satellite’s development since the project’s inception in 2015, described the moment as “like looking over the edge of the cliff.”
“All this time we’ve been devoting a tremendous amount of time and energy to getting ready to do something,” Wofsy said at a launch party at Harvard, where a crowd of ... | By Marianne Lavelle Read more ...
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A White House advisor and environmental justice activist wants immediate help for two historically Black communities in Alabama - Inside Climate News (Mar 2) |
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Mar 2 · BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - As federal officials continue their civil rights investigation of the Alabama Department of Transportation, a White House environmental advisor says more could be done for Black Alabamians.
Robert Bullard, a member of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, traveled to Washington on Wednesday with residents from the unincorporated community of Shiloh in Coffee County to push for a more “rapid response.” Federal transportation officials, who confirmed the meeting, remained noncommittal, citing the ongoing civil rights probe, which documents show began in September 2022.
Residents of Shiloh, near Bullard’s hometown, about 170 miles south ... | By James Bruggers, Lee Hedgepeth Read more ...
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Policy Experts Say the UN Climate Talks Need Reform, but Change Would be Difficult in the Current Political Landscape - Inside Climate News - Inside Climate News (Feb 4) |
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Feb 4 · As COP28 negotiations in Dubai last December stalled over language describing the phaseout of fossil fuels for the summit’s final agreement, several American climate activists and scientists tried to revive a long-simmering call to adopt voting rules at the climate talks, where diplomats currently reach decisions by consensus.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has never adopted voting rules for the annual talks, and the default to consensus-based outcomes has often enabled small groups, or even individual nations, to block agreements, including those that spell out the need to stop burning fossil fuels.
Voting rules are needed to reduce the ... | By Lee Hedgepeth Read more ...
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January was awash with extreme winter storms - Inside Climate News (Jan 30) |
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Jan 30 · Winter storm and flood alerts continue this week for millions of Americans following a weekend of flash floods in states such as Pennsylvania and Illinois, where many residents were forced to evacuate their homes as they took on water. It’s the third weekend this month when large swaths of the country have been doused with extreme wintry conditions - a trend that’s becoming increasingly more likely because of climate change, recent analyses show.
In northeastern Illinois, unseasonably warm temperatures destabilized a pileup of ice on the Kankakee River and unleashed major flooding, prompting evacuations of about 200 homes. “There’s always ice backups this time of year, ... | By Kristoffer Tigue, Keerti Gopal Read more ...
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With the World Stumbling Past 1.5 Degrees of Warming, Scientists Warn Climate Shocks Could Trigger Unrest and Authoritarian Backlash - Inside Climate News - Inside Climate News (Jan 28) |
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Jan 28 · As Earth’s annual average temperature pushes against the 1.5 degree Celsius limit beyond which climatologists expect the impacts of global warming to intensify, social scientists warn that humanity may be about to sleepwalk into a dangerous new era in human history. Research shows the increasing climate shocks could trigger more social unrest and authoritarian, nationalist backlashes.
Established by the 2015 Paris Agreement and affirmed by a 2018 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the 1.5 degree mark has been a cliff edge that climate action has endeavored to avoid, but the latest analyses of global temperature data showed 2023 teetering on that red ... Read more ...
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African Penguins Have Almost Been Wiped Out by Overfishing and Climate Change. Researchers Want to Orchestrate a Comeback. - Inside Climate News - Inside Climate News (Dec 25) |
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Dec 25 · CAPE TOWN, South Africa - A weathered, green building stands at the edge of the cozy suburban Table View neighborhood in Cape Town, just a few blocks down from a Burger King and a community library. Upon stepping inside, visitors’ feet squelch on a mat submerged in antibacterial liquid - one of the first signs this isn’t just another shop on the street.
A few steps further down the main hallway, a cacophony of discordant brays and honks fill the air. A couple more strides reveal the source of these guttarall calls: African penguins.
Welcome to the nonprofit Southern African Foundation for the Conservation Of Coastal Birds’ hatchery and nursery, where hundreds ... | By Adam Goldstein Read more ...
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Environmental justice a key theme throughout Biden's national climate assessment - Inside Climate News (Nov 14) |
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Nov 14 · WASHINGTON - Whether it’s the likelihood of living in a flood zone, lacking access to parks or having fewer resources to recover from a destructive storm, the consequences of climate change are not experienced equally in the United States. That’s a key message from some of the nation’s leading climate scientists, public health experts and economists in a landmark federal report released Tuesday.
It’s the first time a National Climate Assessment, the federal climate report mandated by Congress under the Global Change Research Act of 1990, has placed such a heavy emphasis on the concept of environmental justice - that low-income families and communities of color have ... Read more ...
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In the Florida Everglades, a greenhouse gas emissions hotspot - Inside Climate News (Nov 06, 2023) |
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Nov 06, 2023 · ORLANDO, Fla. - It used to be the water spilled over Lake Okeechobee’s southern shore, flowing eventually into the sawgrass prairies of the Florida Everglades. For thousands of years the marsh vegetation flourished and died here in an endless cycle, the plant remains falling beneath the slow-coursing water to form a rich layer of organic soil called peat.
Over time the fertile soil, along with the subtropical climate and abundance of water, drew the attention of farmers, who as far back as the 1880s began digging canals to drain away the water and expose the peat for planting.
Today this region, known as the Everglades Agricultural Area, is among the nation’s most ... | By Kristoffer Tigue Read more ...
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How Anti-CO2 Pipeline Activists Won Big - Inside Climate News (Nov 05, 2023) |
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Nov 05, 2023 · After half a decade of failed attempts, Kathleen Campbell thought 2021 would finally be the year she retired. That is - until she received a letter in December from Navigator CO2 Ventures.
The company wanted to build part of its carbon dioxide pipeline through her property, about 1,000 feet from her rural Illinois home, just south of Springfield, which she had shared with her husband for more than 30 years. The massive project would ultimately span five Midwestern states, and Navigator was threatening to seize her property through eminent domain if she didn’t grant them an easement.
“This has absolutely ruined my retirement,” Campbell remembers thinking. Anxiety gave way ... | By Liza Gross Read more ...
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How Midwest Landowners Helped to Derail One of the Biggest CO2 Pipelines Ever Proposed - Inside Climate News - Inside Climate News (Nov 05, 2023) |
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Nov 05, 2023 · After half a decade of failed attempts, Kathleen Campbell thought 2021 would finally be the year she retired. That is - until she received a letter in December from Navigator CO2 Ventures.
The company wanted to build part of its carbon dioxide pipeline through her property, about 1,000 feet from her rural Illinois home, just south of Springfield, which she had shared with her husband for more than 30 years. The massive project would ultimately span five Midwestern states, and Navigator was threatening to seize her property through eminent domain if she didn’t grant them an easement.
“This has absolutely ruined my retirement,” Campbell remembers thinking. Anxiety gave way ... | By James Bruggers Read more ...
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Advocates question Biden administration's promises to address environmental injustices while supporting fossil fuel projects - Inside Climate News (Nov 02, 2023) |
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Nov 02, 2023 · WASHINGTON - Environmental justice advocates sharply criticized the Biden administration during the Department of Energy’s Justice Week 2023 conference on Wednesday for approving new export terminals for liquified natural gas on the Gulf Coast in Louisiana and Texas, saying pollution from those fossil fuel facilities will further endanger disadvantaged communities.
At the same time, across town at the White House, Brenda Mallory, chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said on a conference call with community groups and reporters that nearly 470 federal programs with billions of dollars in annual investment were being “reimagined and transformed to meet the ... | By Aman Azhar Read more ...
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How climate change drives conflict and war crimes around the globe - Inside Climate News (Oct 26, 2023) |
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Oct 26, 2023 · Drought, flooding and extreme weather are driving and amplifying violent conflict around the world. At the same time, warfare has devastated ecosystems, imperiled access to vital resources and left behind toxic legacies that sicken civilian populations.
On Thursday, a coalition of human rights organizations and lawyers published an open letter urging the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor, Karim A. A. Khan, to begin assessing the links between climate change and crimes in the court’s remit. The letter also calls on Khan to prioritize the prosecution of crimes that cause environmental destruction, citing a host of examples:
In the Lake Chad basin, drought and ... | By Annie Ropeik Read more ...
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Pennsylvania's gas industry used 160 million pounds of secret chemicals from 2012 to 2022, a new report says - Inside Climate News (Oct 24, 2023) |
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Oct 24, 2023 · Oil and gas producers in Pennsylvania used some 160 million pounds of chemicals that they are not required by law to publicly identify in more than 5,000 gas wells between 2012 and 2022, according to research published on Tuesday.
The chemicals may have included per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a toxic and pervasive class of chemicals, according to the report from Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), an activist group that last week co-published a new compilation of studies on the harms of hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas.
The industry is required to disclose the chemicals to state regulators in the database FracFocus. But operators are allowed by ... | By Nicholas Kusnetz Read more ...
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Scientists disagree about drivers of September's global temperature spike, but it has most of them worried - Inside Climate News (Oct 11, 2023) |
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Oct 11, 2023 · September’s stunning rise of the average global temperature is all but certain to make 2023 the warmest year on record, and 2024 is likely to be even hotter, edging close to the “red line” of 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming above the pre-industrial level that the 2015 Paris climate agreement is striving to avoid.
As of Oct. 10, the daily average Northern Hemisphere temperature had been at a record high for 100 consecutive days. At least 65 countries recorded their warmest Septembers on record, and even after record heat in July and August, the September spike was a shock, said Carlo Buontempo, director of the European Union’s Copernicus climate change service.
“The truth ... | By Amy Green Read more ...
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American Catholics Call for Climate Action after Pope Francis Encourages Change - Inside Climate News (Oct 05, 2023) |
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Oct 05, 2023 · Taking aim at the United States and an “irresponsible lifestyle” with some of the world’s highest carbon emissions per capita, Pope Francis on Wednesday doubled down on his earlier call for urgent action to tackle climate change, while also criticizing a failing global response to the crisis.
Eight years after the Vatican published Francis’ landmark “Laudato Si’: On Care for our Common Home,” the first papal teaching letter sent to all of the church’s bishops focused on the environment, the pontiff’s new writing comes in the form of a papal exhortation called Laudate Deum, or Praise God.
On the climate crisis, Francis writes that “our responses have not been adequate, ... | By Phil McKenna Read more ...
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Industrial plants in Gary and other environmental justice communities are highlighted as top emitters - Inside Climate News (Sep 14, 2023) |
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Sep 14, 2023 · GARY, Ind. - It has been a bittersweet homecoming for Maya Etienne. Her affection for her birthplace runs deep - despite the decline of the city’s once-robust steel-manufacturing industry.
The chance to be close to family and friends again has been especially sweet - her two children, 14 and 12, became part of the town’s close-knit community since Etienne moved back to Gary from Boston in 2013.
But then there’s the bitter part: shortly after the family arrived, Etienne’s daughter, Roya, came down with a persistent runny nose and began wheezing intermittently as if she were having an asthma attack. The cause, Etienne believes, is linked to the towering plumes of smoke ... Read more ...
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Experts warn of ‘denialism comeback' ahead of November's global climate talks - Inside Climate News (Sep 08, 2023) |
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Sep 08, 2023 · A “heat wave scam” is what one social media user called the record-high temperatures reported by European scientists late last month. In a separate post, another account referred to new policies aimed at reducing the carbon emissions of buildings as “climate communism.” As of Friday, the two social media posts have been viewed at least 2 million times - more eyeballs than some of the biggest primetime cable news shows will average in a week.
The internet is awash with misinformation about the climate crisis, even as its effects on the planet couldn’t be more clear. The summer of 2023 is officially the hottest on record, the World Meteorological Organization reported this week. ... | By Wyatt Myskow, Kristoffer Tigue Read more ...
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New rules help to answer whether clean energy jobs will also be good jobs - Inside Climate News (Sep 07, 2023) |
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Sep 07, 2023 · One goal of the Inflation Reduction Act is to make sure that jobs created by the transition to clean energy have high standards for wages and benefits. The Biden administration is now providing some specifics about how this will work.
The Treasury Department and the IRS released a proposed rule last week that spells out what companies need to do to qualify for tax credits tied to labor standards under the 2022 law.
I spoke with people from unions and clean energy industry groups to get an idea of whether the proposal is substantial enough for workers, while being flexible enough to avoid being cumbersome for companies. The initial reviews range from positive to noncommittal. | By Aydali Campa Read more ...
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A medical toolkit for climate resiliency is built on the latest epidemiology and ER best practices - Inside Climate News (Sep 05, 2023) |
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Sep 05, 2023 · Harvard University’s Chan School of Public Health has developed a Climate Resiliency Toolkit to aid emergency rooms and clinics with protocols for robust medical care during climate emergencies, based on the assumption that they now affect every person on the planet.
The toolkit, developed jointly by Americares and Chan’s Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment contains specific resources and guidance for administrators, physicians and patients at frontline medical clinics to proactively address climate-induced medical emergencies.
Currently, it is being piloted in 19 clinics along both coasts of the U.S. as they are especially prone to the wildfires, ... | By Georgia Hall, Provincetown Independent Read more ...
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After decades of oil drilling, Indigenous Waorani group fights new industry expansions in Ecuador - Inside Climate News (Aug 30, 2023) |
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Aug 30, 2023 · After 50 years of expanding oil operations in its Amazonian region, Ecuador will close the door on crude extraction in three oil fields that are home to Indigenous communities, including one of the country’s uncontacted groups.
The reversal in policy for the oil-exporting nation was sealed when 59 percent of voters chose in an Aug. 20 nationwide referendum to shut down operations inside the Ishpingo, Tambococha and Tiputini oil fields located inside Yasuní National Park. The government will have 365 working days to comply with the referendum, which includes a requirement for environmental remediation.
The so-called ITT fields, located inside Ecuador’s Oil Block 43, ... | By Keerti Gopal Read more ...
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