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Facing a Health Crisis, Cities Implore Courts to Limit Pollution

The coronavirus is a case study in the limits of federalism. Where the federal government has declined to gather and distribute masks, gloves and ventilators, states and cities have been forced to compete for medical supplies, paying exorbitant prices to secure needed equipment. Where the federal government has been slow to ramp up testing, states andREAD MORE

This Man Wants to Make You a Tower Climbing Grease Monkey

Thanks to the coronavirus, we are rapidly heading toward a recession. Lawmakers are scrambling for ways to keep the economy aloft — distributing relief payments, bolstering unemployment, bailing out out hard-hit industries. But these measures are likely to prove insufficient, which is why some observers are pushing for a clean-energy jobs program to revive the economy and restoreREAD MORE

Want to Stop Climate Change? Educate Girls.

Greta Thunberg, who famously missed school to protest climate change, recently met Malala Yousafzai, who won the Nobel Peace Prize fighting to make sure girls could get an education. The photo op quickly went viral. Quipped Yousafzai, “She’s the only friend I’d skip school for.” Behind the banter was a telling truth — the battle to stem climateREAD MORE

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As California Forests Heat Up, Birds Are Flocking to Higher Ground

Forests are critical to slowing climate change because they soak up huge amounts of heat-trapping carbon dioxide. Birds help keep forests healthy by eating insects that spread tree-killing diseases. Birds also scatter seeds that give rise to new trees. If birds leave, the forests could be in trouble. “Without birds, forests would be more vulnerable toREAD MORE

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In Mississippi, the Costs of Coastal Flooding Are Adding Up (VIDEO)

Ankle-deep in the overflow of the river that drew her here two decades ago, Calinda Crowe looked across her land, envisioning the future. She didn’t like what she saw. “You wake up to this,” she said, gesturing toward the water submerging everything but the concrete foundation of her raised home. “It upsets you, you know, becauseREAD MORE

Green products for grocery shopping.

It Ain’t Easy Selling Green

When Morgan Poor gave birth to her son, she and her husband shopped around for the perfect diaper, hoping to find one that was both effective and environmentally friendly. They tried a few so-called “niche” brands, like Seventh Generation and Honest Company, which tout their green bona fides, but the diapers Poor liked best came fromREAD MORE

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Offshore Drilling Has Become a Liability for the GOP

Every year, the Tampa Bay Beaches Chamber of Commerce puts out an advocacy agenda. Much of it reads like Mitch McConnell’s to-do list — cut regulations, lower taxes, rein in the minimum wage — with one notable exception. Coastal businesses are a hard “no” on offshore drilling. “The number one priority for us is protecting our natural resources, our beachREAD MORE

Looking up at trees

The Simple, yet Elusive, Key to Fighting the Climate Crisis

A new scientific report finds human behaviors are driving the extinction of non-human species at a rate so severe that the subsequent disappearance of life will soon be a threat to human health and prosperity. Habitat destruction on land, over-fishing in the seas and overconsumption across much of the globe, among other things, now threaten toREAD MORE

Dim Sun Nexus Media News

The Killer Argument for a Profoundly Dangerous Climate Fix

The UN Environment Assembly recently considered a proposal to research solar geoengineering, as it’s known, an outlandish scheme to cool the Earth by blanketing the heavens with aerosols — chemicals that would reflect a small measure of sunlight back into space, lowering the average global temperature. The measure failed, not because countries were wary of investigating geoengineering, butREAD MORE

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Cars Are Giving Millions of Children Asthma

Children spend a lot of time outdoors playing tag, shooting hoops or climbing trees. If they live in cities, they might run around near busy roads. Parents always teach their kids to watch out for oncoming cars and never run into the street — but no one tells them not to breathe. Just being outside near traffic canREAD MORE

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How a Few Small Fixes Could Stop Climate Change

When thinking about new ways to tackle climate change, University of Oxford researcher Thom Wetzer first points out how a modest rise in temperature could push the Earth to a tipping point that yields dramatic climate change. A little warming, for example, could cause Arctic permafrost to melt, unleashing enough heat-trapping methane to cook the planet.READ MORE

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Climate Change Is Costing the Air Force Billions

Greg Brudnicki, mayor of Panama City, Florida, has lived in the community for 55 years and said he has never seen a storm like Hurricane Michael. The cyclone barreled through the Florida panhandle in October, flattening beach neighborhoods and piling 20 years’ worth of debris on Panama City alone. Tyndall Air Force Base, located 12 milesREAD MORE

climate change lawsuits

These Lawyers are Creating an ALEC for Climate Change

For the last forty-odd years, the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, has been a mainstay of the conservative movement and major force in shaping state laws. The organization brings together state lawmakers and corporate leaders to draft business-friendly policies that are then ferried to statehouses around the country. ALEC is a primary reason why Iowa,READ MORE

Filling Potholes Cuts Pollution

With Democrats in control of the House of Representatives and Republicans in control of the Senate, Congress is unlikely to produce any significant legislation on divisive issues like climate change. However, lawmakers may tackle the carbon crisis by other means, including through legislation on infrastructure, one possible area of compromise. Even if Congress fails to investREAD MORE

Consumers Don’t Know Jack About Electric Cars (VIDEO)

This article is part of a series about barriers to the widespread adoption of electric cars. The telephone should have been an instant hit. It revolutionized human communication overnight, and yet it took decades to catch on. AT&T president Theodore Vail blamed meager sales on public ignorance. No one knew how to use the phone, heREAD MORE

Trump Says America Needs Coal For Grid Security. The Military Proves Otherwise.

Over the last two years, President Trump has made every effort to rescue America’s ailing coal industry, opening public lands to mining, weakening limits on pollution, and potentially eliminating protections for miners. It hasn’t worked. Utilities continue to shutter coal-fired power plants, and mining firms continue to shed workers. Desperate to throw a lifeline to theREAD MORE

Seed by Seed and Bus By Bus (VIDEO)

Wildfires, sea level rise, air pollution, asthma — you don’t have to go far to find communities living with climate change impacts. But there are also climate solutions everywhere you look. This summer, the Freedom to Breathe Tour visited communities across the country that are working to reduce carbon emissions and make their communities healthier and more resilient.READ MORE

Trees Are Migrating West to Escape Climate Change

An individual tree has roots and, of course, it doesn’t move. But trees, as a species, do move over time. They migrate in response to environmental challenges, especially climate change. Surprisingly, they don’t all go to the Poles, where it is cooler. As it turns out, more of them head west, where it is getting wetter.READ MORE

A Power Boost for Formula E

Cars zipped past at blistering speeds, only slowing to round the hairpin turns etched into the waterfront course in New York City. Spectators lined up at the edge of the roadway, close enough to see the drivers strain against their steering wheels. From that distance, fans could smell the burning rubber and feel the rush ofREAD MORE

Doha, Qatar. Source: Pixabay

Will Climate Change Make the Next World Cup Too Hot to Handle?

After four weeks of fanfare, the 2018 World Cup has come to a close. France’s victory in Sunday’s final marked the end of a summer filled with thrilling victories, surprise defeats, national pride (and disappointment), penalty kick-induced panic and many other emotions associated with soccer. Fans, unfortunately, will have to wait longer than usual to experienceREAD MORE

Televised Sports Capture Climate Change Along the Course

Pieter De Frenne is a big cycling fan who likes to watch coverage of the Tour of Flanders, a one-day bicycle race held every spring in Belgium. He is also the consummate scientist. So it’s not surprising that he noticed startling changes in the trees and shrubs framing many of the cobbled streets that have beenREAD MORE

Thanos Revives Centuries-Old Debate About Overpopulation

Internet history was made on Monday as Reddit, one of the most popular websites in the United States, banned half the members of a discussion group dedicated to Thanos, the villain of Avengers: Infinity War. In one fell swoop, some 300,000 users got the boot, and they were excited about it. Josh Brolin, who played Thanos,READ MORE

Heartland Institute Wants to Abolish EPA for 50-State Committee

Yesterday, the Heartland Institute’s environment page— on which materials are typically ordered chronologically with new posts at the top — reposted a policy brief from 2014. The proposal? Replacing the EPA with a “Committee of the Whole of the 50 state environmental protection agencies.” Eight years ago, this idea was a pipe dream. No policymaker in Washington wouldREAD MORE

Water, Water Everywhere, Any Drop to Drink

A winter of exceptionally meager snowfall has revived California’s water woes. Snowpack typically supplies the state with much of its water during the spring and summer, but this year, snow is in short supply, spurring Gov. Jerry Brown to instate permanent conservation measures. Thanks to climate change, the problem is only going to get worse, leavingREAD MORE

Cosmos Offers Clues to the Fate of Humans on Earth

Astrophysicist Adam Frank sees climate change through a cosmic lens. He believes our present civilization isn’t the first to burn up its resources — and won’t be the last. Moreover, he thinks it’s possible the same burnout fate already might have befallen alien worlds. That’s why he says the current conversation about climate change is all wrong. “WeREAD MORE

A Holistic Approach to Disaster Recovery

Jianguo “Jack” Liu believes that all natural disasters bring universal truths with them. By this he means they all carry the potential to destroy homes, cause death and change lives, often forever, “whether it’s a terrible earthquake in the mountains of rural China, or hurricanes that devastated Puerto Rico, and wreaked soggy havoc to other places,READ MORE

In a Warming World, Deadly Bacteria Are More Resistant to Antibiotics

Tom Patterson became ill in 2015 while vacationing in Egypt. He was felled by Acinetobacter baumannii, an often deadly bacterium resistant to every antibiotic his doctors tried. Patterson, a University of California San Diego psychiatry professor, should have died, but didn’t. Experimental infusions of bacteria-killing viruses known as bacteriophages ultimately saved his life. However, his near-deathREAD MORE

The World Cup of Climate Change

The World Cup starts today. Billions of people around the world are expected to tune in to the greatest show on earth. Everyone from economists to an octopus have tried to predict who will win. Germany, Brazil and Spain are early favorites to take the cup. But, which countries are tackling climate change, kicking out fossilREAD MORE

American Geophysical Union Goes Net Zero

The American Geophysical Union (AGU), a nonprofit professional scientific organization whose members come from different fields of Earth and space sciences, has a guiding philosophy grounded in a single notion: “science for the benefit of humanity.” So when the systems inside its aging Washington, D.C. headquarters began to crumble, AGU officials had a decision to make.READ MORE

Interfaith Leaders Bless Electric Vehicles (VIDEO)

On a recent Monday morning, Rabbi Abraham drove to Newark, New Jersey to bless some electric cars. He pulled into the lot behind Mt. Olivet Baptist Church, parked his Chevy Volt beside two Teslas and headed inside. It may sound unusual, but many faiths have ceremonies for blessing a vehicle. In Hinduism, a puja ceremony isREAD MORE

Healthcare Starts with a Healthy Environment

Patients, doctors and nurses at facilities in Escambia County, Florida, know what they’ll get when they turn on any faucet in the buildings — cold water. Yet nobody seems to mind, since the county saves about $14,000 a year by shutting off its hot water. It was John Lanza’s doing — he’s the county’s chief health officer — and it’s one ofREAD MORE

Fossil Fuels’ Dirty Secret: Climate Action or Not, Things Look Bad

Ten years ago Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes said he wasn’t worried about digital streaming. “I’ve been frankly confused by this fascination that everybody has with Netflix,” he said. Blockbuster’s head of digital strategy echoed this sentiment, asserting the company was “strategically better positioned than almost anybody out there.” Not long after, Blockbuster went the way ofREAD MORE