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Category: Climate Change

What’s next after Supreme Court’s climate ruling?

What’s next after Supreme Court’s climate ruling?

Dana Nuccitelli writes: The Supreme Court’s June 30 ruling in the West Virginia v. EPA, as detailed by Lexi Smith on this site, substantially curtailed the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate climate pollutants. Though the language of the decision itself appears to be narrow – limiting the extent of regulatory options for existing power plants under Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act – it also elevated the newly-conceived “major questions doctrine.” That principle holds that any “major” new…

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More than 200 congressional staffers urge Pelosi and Schumer to act on climate or risk dooming younger generations

More than 200 congressional staffers urge Pelosi and Schumer to act on climate or risk dooming younger generations

CNN reports: In a rare move, more than 200 congressional staffers have sent a letter to Democratic leadership in the House and Senate, demanding they close the deal on a climate and clean energy package and warning that failure could doom younger generations. “We’ve crafted the legislation necessary to avert climate catastrophe. It’s time for you to pass it,” the staffers wrote in a letter, sent to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday evening….

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How Russia is profiting from climate change

How Russia is profiting from climate change

Courtney Dobson writes: On Feb. 24, the Yakov Gakkel, a 3-year-old, ice-class tanker, departed from Montoir Port, France, for Sabetta Port within the Arctic Circle in Russia. For as long as the war in Ukraine has raged on, the Yakov Gakkel has made four return trips to Montoir Port and has since moved on to ports in Spain and Belgium, delivering one of Russia’s principal revenue generators: liquefied natural gas, or LNG. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s former chief economic adviser,…

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Societies lacking cohesion have a history of falling apart

Societies lacking cohesion have a history of falling apart

Science Alert reports: In the area where the Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexican borders now meet, ancestral Pueblo societies thrived and then collapsed several times, over the span of 800 years. Each time they recovered, their culture transformed. This shifting history can be seen in their pottery and the incredible stone and earth dwellings they created. During 300 of those years, some Pueblo peoples, who also used ink tattoos, were ruled by a matrilineal dynasty. As in the collapse…

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Pollen and heat — a looming challenge for global agriculture

Pollen and heat — a looming challenge for global agriculture

Carolyn Beans writes: Last June, Aaron Flansburg felt the temperature spike and knew what that meant for his canola crop. A fifth-generation grower in Washington state, Flansburg times his canola planting to bloom in the cool weeks of early summer. But last year, his fields were hit with 108-degree Fahrenheit heat just as flowers opened. “That is virtually unheard of for our area to have a temperature like that in June,” he says. Yellow blooms sweltered, reproduction stalled, and many…

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The nexus between the climate change and democracy crises

The nexus between the climate change and democracy crises

Roger Karapin writes: The crises the U.S. is facing regarding global warming and representative democracy are similar in some ways. Both have been serious problems for several decades, but have taken on new urgency in the past five years. In both, the Republican Party is a key barrier to progress or the instigator of regress. Both now place the U.S. increasingly at odds with our allies in Canada and Western Europe. Beyond those similarities, the two crises also are linked:…

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‘Putin rubbing hands with glee’ after EU votes to class natural gas and nuclear as ‘green’

‘Putin rubbing hands with glee’ after EU votes to class natural gas and nuclear as ‘green’

The Guardian reports: The European parliament has backed plans to label gas and nuclear energy as “green”, rejecting appeals from prominent Ukrainians and climate activists that the proposals are a gift to Vladimir Putin. One senior MEP said the vote was a “dark day for the climate”, while experts said the EU had set a dangerous precedent for countries to follow. The row began late last year with the leak of long-awaited details on the EU’s green investment guidebook, intended…

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How Russia’s war is putting green tech progress in jeopardy

How Russia’s war is putting green tech progress in jeopardy

Paul Hockenos writes: Volkswagen might as well hang a “sold out” sign on the doors of its European and U.S. factories. The world’s second-largest manufacturer of electric automobiles announced last month that any plug-in ordered after May won’t find its way to customers’ garages before 2023. The German carmaker’s sales of nearly 100,000 battery electric models in the first quarter landed it behind only Tesla, but far from the pace needed for the 700,000 it planned to roll off its…

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Global dismay as Supreme Court ruling leaves Biden’s climate policy in tatters

Global dismay as Supreme Court ruling leaves Biden’s climate policy in tatters

The Guardian reports: Joe Biden’s election triggered a global surge in optimism that the climate crisis would, finally, be decisively confronted. But the US supreme court’s decision last week to curtail America’s ability to cut planet-heating emissions has proved the latest blow to a faltering effort by Biden on climate that is now in danger of becoming largely moribund. The supreme court’s ruling that the US government could not use its existing powers to phase out coal-fired power generation without…

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Zero-emissions natural gas may be possible

Zero-emissions natural gas may be possible

Mark Harris writes: The fossil fuel industry has long touted natural gas as a “bridge fuel”—abundant and reliable, cleaner than coal, and an essential stop-gap while the world transitions to renewable power. Now it is suggesting that gas can be a zero emissions power source all by itself. Start-up NET Power has developed technology that differs from traditional power stations. It burns natural gas with oxygen instead of air and drives a turbine with high pressure carbon dioxide instead of…

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Bill McKibben: ‘Clean Air Act can’t really be used to protect clean air now

Bill McKibben: ‘Clean Air Act can’t really be used to protect clean air now

  After a bitter 50-year fight over climate change policy, the Supreme Court delivered another win to the right wing on Thursday. In a 6-3 ruling, the Court decided that the Environmental Protection Agency does not have the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions for existing power plants. “The Clean Air Act can’t really be used to protect clean air now,” says leading environmentalist, Bill McKibben. He says fossil fuel tycoons have successfully lobbied against decades of progress and shifting…

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Summer in America is becoming hotter, longer and more dangerous

Summer in America is becoming hotter, longer and more dangerous

The Washington Post reports: Wildfires had been burning for weeks, shrouding Reno, Nev., in harmful smoke, when Jillian Abney and her eight-year-old daughter Izi drove into the Sierras last year in search of cleaner air. The eerie yellow haze that filled the sky had brought summer to an abrupt halt, canceling all of the season’s usual delights. Abney headed for Donner Lake, hoping the higher elevation would put them above the smoke. But instead of the blue skies that had…

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The genetic power of ancient trees

The genetic power of ancient trees

Jim Robbins writes: In 2005, several of the centuries-old ponderosa pine trees on my 15 acres (0.06 sq km) of forest in the northern Rocky Mountains in Montana suddenly died. I soon discovered they were being brought down by mountain pine beetles, pernicious killers the size of the eraser on a pencil that burrow into the tree. The next year the number of dying trees grew exponentially. I felt powerless and grief-stricken as I saw these giant, sky-scraping trees fading…

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‘Perfect storm’ of crises is widening global inequality, says UN chief

‘Perfect storm’ of crises is widening global inequality, says UN chief

The Guardian reports: Humanity is facing a “perfect storm” of crises that is widening inequality between the north and south, the UN secretary general has warned. The divide is not only “morally unacceptable” but dangerous, further threatening peace and security in a conflicted world. The global food, energy and financial crises unleashed by the war in Ukraine have hit countries already reeling from the pandemic and the climate crisis, reversing what had been a growing convergence between developed and developing…

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How the Supreme Court ruling will gut the EPA’s ability to fight the climate crisis

How the Supreme Court ruling will gut the EPA’s ability to fight the climate crisis

CNN reports: The Supreme Court on Thursday dealt a major blow to climate action by handcuffing the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate planet-warming emissions from the country’s power plants, just as scientists warn the world is running out of time to get the climate crisis under control. It is a major loss for not only the Biden administration’s climate goals, but it also calls into question the future of federal-level climate action and puts even more pressure on Congress…

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Biden, 11 U.S. states to boost support for offshore wind energy

Biden, 11 U.S. states to boost support for offshore wind energy

Reuters reports: The Biden administration is partnering with 11 East Coast states to accelerate development of offshore wind facilities and create jobs by supporting a domestic supply chain for the industry, the White House said on Thursday. The move is part of President Joe Biden’s push to fight climate change by expanding clean energy technologies. That agenda has been weighed down recently by rising prices, particularly for gasoline. Offshore wind is a major component of that strategy. The administration has…

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