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Trump’s EPA Signs ‘Deadly’ Clean Power Plan Replacement

Trump’s EPA Signs ‘Deadly’ Clean Power...

Former coal lobbyist and Trump-appointed U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Andrew Wheeler signed a rule Wednesday that officially replaces the Obama-era Clean Power Plan with a new regulation that Wheeler said could lead to the opening of more coal plants, the Associated Press reported. While the Obama administration plan would have established national limits on greenhouse gas emissions and mandated...
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Climate Change: Why is it So Often “Sooner than Predicted”?

Climate Change: Why is it So Often “Sooner than Pr...

A June 15th headline elicited feelings in me of both shock and déjà vu: “Climate change: Arctic permafrost now melting at levels not expected until 2090” [Independent, June 15, 2019].  Shock because that’s quite a bit ahead of time. Déjà vu because how often does a climate change headline or story use a phrase like that? “At levels not expected until” or “faster than expected” or “sooner than predicted”? I opened a search...
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Pope Francis Declares Climate Emergency in Meeting With Big Oil Leaders

Pope Francis Declares Climate Emergency in Meeting...

Pope Francis declared a climate emergency Friday as he met with oil industry executives and some of their biggest investors to urge them to act on the climate crisis. “Future generations stand to inherit a greatly spoiled world. Our children and grandchildren should not have to pay the cost of our generation’s irresponsibility,” he said, as The Guardian reported. “Indeed, as is becoming increasingly...
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We must Mobilise for the Climate Emergency like we Do in Wartime. Where is the Climate Minister?

We must Mobilise for the Climate Emergency like we...

The second Morrison (ed. Australia’s Prime Minister) ministry contains no one with nominal responsibility for “climate” in any sense, despite the fact that it is the greatest threat facing the country. Angus Taylor, who spent much of his pre-parliamentary career fighting windfarms, claiming repeatedly that there is “too much wind and solar” in the system, is now minister for energy and emissions reduction. No mention...
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Trump Admin Argues No Constitutional Right to a Safe Climate Two Years After Ditching Paris Accord

Trump Admin Argues No Constitutional Right to a Sa...

Almost exactly two years after President Trump announced his plans to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, a groundbreaking youth climate change lawsuit challenging the federal government’s promotion of fossil fuel energy was back in court for a long-awaited hearing. Before a three-judge panel in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Trump administration, which has tried numerous times to derail the suit, argued that...
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State and local governments seeking climate change ‘solutions’ have plenty of options

State and local governments seeking climate change...

Government bodies at all levels have a wide range of choices available for addressing climate change.   A March 2019 five-part series addressed actions individual people can take to reduce their carbon footprint on the road, in and around their homes, and in their diets. That series raised the obvious question of whether individual actions on their own can be adequate to help society confront the climate challenges we...
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Permafrost is thawing rapidly. How much should we worry?

Permafrost is thawing rapidly. How much should we ...

Scientists warn of consequences to infrastructure, the economy, and the climate. Watch the video The change is visible from space. In the Earth’s high latitudes, new lakes and ponds are appearing in once-dry areas. These so-called “thermokarst” lakes form when underground ice collapses as permafrost warms. In the freshly formed lakes, the greenhouse gas methane is bubbling to the surface and escaping to the atmosphere, where...
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Climate change could cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions a year by 2090

Climate change could cost the U.S. economy hundred...

Unless the world reduces emissions swiftly. A newly-published peer-reviewed analysis of climate change impacts across broad sectors of the U.S. economy provides what may be the most comprehensive economic assessment to date of those costs. The April report in the journal Nature Climate Change is a condensed version of the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2017 Climate Change Impacts and Risk Analysis report. That analysis...
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Ohio’s Nuclear Bailout Plan Balloons to Embrace Coal (while Killing Renewable Energy Rules)

Ohio’s Nuclear Bailout Plan Balloons to Embrace Co...

It’s a trifecta the Trump administration has pushed for nationally, with businesses and homeowners footing the bill for uneconomical power plants. While other states are embracing renewable energy, Ohio is heading in the opposite direction. A bill passed this week by the Ohio House would subsidize nuclear and coal power while cutting state support for renewable energy and energy efficiency, with the utilities’...
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7 Reasons You May Want to Become a Vegetarian

7 Reasons You May Want to Become a Vegetarian

Global consumption of beef, lamb and goat is expected to rise by almost 90 percent between 2010 and 2050. But that doesn’t mean you need to eat more meat. In fact, recent news from Washington gives you even less confidence in your meat: Pork inspections may be taken over by the industry itself, if a Trump administration proposal goes into effect, putting tests for deadly pathogens into the hands of line workers. If...
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12 books on how climate change is transforming businesses and the global economy

12 books on how climate change is transforming bus...

For some businesses and entrepreneurs, climate change isn’t just a threat. It’s an opportunity. The significant transformations required to meet the challenges posed by climate change are, from another perspective, fabulous opportunities. Inventors, entrepreneurs, and business strategists recognized this fact many years ago. Their activities have since been chronicled and analyzed by reporters, researchers, and,...
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12 free reports on climate change and the economy

12 free reports on climate change and the economy

These resources illuminate the economic risks of climate change and prospects for a cleaner, more sustainable economy. The significant transformations required to meet the challenges posed by climate change are also, from an entrepreneurial perspective, tremendous opportunities. Inventors, business strategists and, of course, far-sighted entrepreneurs appreciated this perspective for years. Their activities have since been...
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Scientists Warn the UN of Capitalism’s Imminent Demise

Scientists Warn the UN of Capitalism’s Imminent De...

Capitalism as we know it is over. So suggests a new report commissioned by a group of scientists appointed by the UN Secretary-General. The main reason? We’re transitioning rapidly to a radically different global economy, due to our increasingly unsustainable exploitation of the planet’s environmental resources. Climate change and species extinctions are accelerating even as societies are experiencing rising...
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Trump Administration Is Restricting How Scientists Conduct Climate Science

Trump Administration Is Restricting How Scientists...

The Trump administration is changing the way some government agencies conduct climate science, The New York Times reported Monday, limiting them from assessing the future consequences and worst-possible outcomes of climate change. Former petroleum geologist and Trump’s appointee to direct the U.S. Geological Survey James Reilly has prohibited scientists on his team from using computer models that predict climate...
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As Ohio Valley Ponders Plastics Growth, Report Warns Of Threat to Climate

As Ohio Valley Ponders Plastics Growth, Report War...

As a new plastics industry emerges in the Ohio Valley, a report by environmental groups warns that the expansion of plastics threatens the world’s ability to keep climate change at bay. The report released Wednesday by the Center for International Environmental Law, Environmental Integrity Project, FracTracker Alliance, and others used publicly available emissions data and original research to measure greenhouse gas...
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