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Category: Environment

‘Sleeping giant’ Arctic methane deposits starting to release, scientists find

‘Sleeping giant’ Arctic methane deposits starting to release, scientists find

The Guardian reports: Scientists have found evidence that frozen methane deposits in the Arctic Ocean – known as the “sleeping giants of the carbon cycle” – have started to be released over a large area of the continental slope off the East Siberian coast, the Guardian can reveal. High levels of the potent greenhouse gas have been detected down to a depth of 350 metres in the Laptev Sea near Russia, prompting concern among researchers that a new climate feedback…

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How a more conservative Supreme Court could impact environmental laws

How a more conservative Supreme Court could impact environmental laws

E&E News reports: Barrett, who currently serves on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, has a relatively slim record on climate and environmental matters. But if she is confirmed to the high court, Barrett, 48, likely would lock up a conservative coalition there, legal experts said. That bloc could smooth the path for future environmental rollbacks or make it more difficult to expand emissions regulations through a broad reading of statutory authority. “I view Barrett being added to the…

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Groups pressure Biden to exclude fossil fuel execs from team

Groups pressure Biden to exclude fossil fuel execs from team

The Hill reports: More than 100 climate and advocacy groups are asking Joe Biden’s presidential campaign to commit to blocking fossil fuel representatives from its transition team or administration should the former vice president win the election. “We urge you to ban all fossil fuel executives, lobbyists, and representatives from any advisory or official position on your campaign, transition team, cabinet, and administration,” the groups wrote in a letter to the campaign, which was signed by a mix of 145…

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Big Oil is in trouble. Its plan: Flood Africa with plastic

Big Oil is in trouble. Its plan: Flood Africa with plastic

The New York Times reports: Confronting a climate crisis that threatens the fossil fuel industry, oil companies are racing to make more plastic. But they face two problems: Many markets are already awash with plastic, and few countries are willing to be dumping grounds for the world’s plastic waste. The industry thinks it has found a solution to both problems in Africa. According to documents reviewed by The New York Times, an industry group representing the world’s largest chemical makers…

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Population panic lets rich people off the hook for the climate crisis they are fueling

Population panic lets rich people off the hook for the climate crisis they are fueling

George Monbiot writes: When a major study was published last month, showing that the global population is likely to peak then crash much sooner than most scientists had assumed, I naively imagined that people in rich nations would at last stop blaming all the world’s environmental problems on population growth. I was wrong. If anything, it appears to have got worse. Next week the BirthStrike movement – founded by women who, by announcing their decision not to have children, seek…

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Seeing human society as a complex system opens a better future for us all

Seeing human society as a complex system opens a better future for us all

Jessica Flack and Melanie Mitchell write: We’re at a unique moment in the 200,000 years or so that Homo sapiens have walked the Earth. For the first time in that long history, humans are capable of coordinating on a global scale, using fine-grained data on individual behaviour, to design robust and adaptable social systems. The pandemic of 2019-20 has brought home this potential. Never before has there been a collective, empirically informed response of the magnitude that COVID-19 has demanded….

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Earth has lost 28 trillion tonnes of ice in less than 30 years

Earth has lost 28 trillion tonnes of ice in less than 30 years

The Observer reports: A total of 28 trillion tonnes of ice have disappeared from the surface of the Earth since 1994. That is stunning conclusion of UK scientists who have analysed satellite surveys of the planet’s poles, mountains and glaciers to measure how much ice coverage lost because of global heating triggered by rising greenhouse gas emissions. The scientists – based at Leeds and Edinburgh universities and University College London – describe the level of ice loss as “staggering” and…

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In Alaska, Trump doubles down on environmental vandalism

In Alaska, Trump doubles down on environmental vandalism

Bill McKibben writes: Of all the jobs I’ve ever watched humans do, few have seemed more appealing to me than counting salmon at the head of the Ugashik River, in Alaska. Every hour, the man charged with this duty would rouse himself from his cabin in that vast and sweeping wilderness, climb a ladder into what looked like a lifeguard’s chair, and then stare down at the stream—with a clicker in his hand, like an usher at a movie theatre….

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Air pollution is much worse than we thought

Air pollution is much worse than we thought

Vox reports: In the late 1960s, the US saw regular, choking smog descend over New York City and Los Angeles, 100,000 barrels of oil spilled off the coast of Santa Barbara, California, and, perhaps most famously, fires burning on the surface of the Cuyahoga River in Ohio. These grim images sparked the modern environmental movement, the first Earth Day, and a decade of extraordinary environmental lawmaking and rulemaking (much of it under a Republican president, Richard Nixon). From the ’70s…

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Trump finalizes drilling plan for Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Trump finalizes drilling plan for Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

The Washington Post reports: The Trump administration said Monday it will open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, a move that will allow oil and gas rights to be auctioned off in the heart of one of the nation’s most iconic wild places. Achieving a goal Republicans have sought for 40 years, the action marks a capstone for an administration that has ignored calls to reduce fossil fuel consumption in the face of climate change. The move will…

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Oil companies wonder if it makes economic sense to continue oil exploration

Oil companies wonder if it makes economic sense to continue oil exploration

Bloomberg reports: A few dots near the bottom corner of the world map in the southern Atlantic, the Falkland Islands were once at the forefront of a new era for the oil industry as companies scoured the planet for resources. Yet a decade after the discovery of as much as 1.7 billion barrels of crude in surrounding waters, the British overseas territory known for sheep rearing and tension with Argentina looks as remote as ever. Rather than the next frontier,…

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The biggest land conservation legislation in a generation

The biggest land conservation legislation in a generation

Linda Bilmes says: The Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA) [signed into law on Tuesday] is the biggest land conservation legislation in a generation. The National Parks Conservation Association, the leading advocacy organization for the parks, is hailing it as “a conservationist’s dream.” The legislation has two main impacts. First, it establishes a National Park and Public Lands Legacy Restoration Fund that will provide up to $9 billion over the next five years to fix deferred maintenance at national parks, wildlife…

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Ten ways that racial and environmental justice are inextricably linked

Ten ways that racial and environmental justice are inextricably linked

Nishan Degnarain writes: Cities across the United States and Europe have been reflecting on the unprecedented protests demanding greater racial justice following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on 25 May. This has sparked a deeper conversation around the world among companies, universities, religious institutions, museums who have historic links to racial injustice and slavery. Given the significance of 19 June (Juneteenth), many companies and organizations have also been quick to sign up to pledges around racial justice. However,…

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Trump weakens environmental law to speed up permits for pipelines and other infrastructure

Trump weakens environmental law to speed up permits for pipelines and other infrastructure

CNBC reports: President Donald Trump on Wednesday finalized a rollback to the country’s landmark environmental law, the National Environmental Policy Act, by speeding up approval for federal projects like pipelines, highways and power plants. NEPA was signed into law by President Richard Nixon 50 years ago and requires federal agencies to consider the environmental consequences of infrastructure projects before they are approved. The law has also been vital in allowing communities to weigh in on how such projects impact climate…

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I’ve seen a future without cars, and it’s amazing

I’ve seen a future without cars, and it’s amazing

Farhad Manjoo writes: As coronavirus lockdowns crept across the globe this winter and spring, an unusual sound fell over the world’s metropolises: the hush of streets that were suddenly, blessedly free of cars. City dwellers reported hearing bird song, wind and the rustling of leaves. (Along with, in New York City, the intermittent screams of sirens). You could smell the absence of cars, too. From New York to Los Angeles to New Delhi, air pollution plummeted, and the soupy, exhaust-choked…

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Dakota Access pipeline to be shut down by court order in major blow for Trump

Dakota Access pipeline to be shut down by court order in major blow for Trump

Bloomberg reports: The Dakota Access pipeline must shut down by Aug. 5, a district court ruled Monday in a stunning defeat for the Trump administration and the oil industry. The decision, which shuts the pipeline during a court-ordered environmental review that’s expected to extend into 2021, is a momentous win for American Indian tribes that have opposed the Energy Transfer LP project for years. It comes just a day after Dominion Energy Inc. and Duke Energy Corp. scuttled another project,…

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