nav-left cat-right
cat-right
Landfilling Old Solar Panels Likely Safe for Humans, IEA Research Will Show

Landfilling Old Solar Panels Likely Safe for Human...

The International Energy Agency will later this year release research showing solar panels could be landfilled safely amid growing concern over the disposal of renewable energy components. Solar panels have a range of recycling options but none are perfect. The challenges for wind turbine blades are even greater. The IEA study will show that disposing of solar panels in landfill is unlikely to have an adverse impact on human...
Read More
3 States Pass Anti-Pipeline Protest Bills in Two Weeks

3 States Pass Anti-Pipeline Protest Bills in Two W...

In just two weeks, three states have passed laws criminalizing protests against fossil fuel infrastructure. Between March 16 and March 25, the governors of Kentucky, South Dakota and West Virginia all signed laws designating oil and gas pipelines and facilities “critical” or “key” infrastructure and imposing new penalties for anyone caught tampering with them, HuffPost reported Friday. The laws came...
Read More
EV groups brace for phase 2 of Trump fuel standards expected to decrease efficiency mandates

EV groups brace for phase 2 of Trump fuel standard...

Dive Brief: The Trump Administration is set to release phase two of its fuel standard rollbacks this week in a move electric vehicle advocates fear could hinder the United States’ progress on EV deployment. In September, the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration (NHTSA) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued part one of its Safer Affordable Fuel Efficient (SAFE) Vehicles Rule, which prohibits...
Read More
Trump could roll back Obama mpg rules as soon as Tuesday

Trump could roll back Obama mpg rules as soon as T...

Washington — The Trump administration is expected to finalize its plan to roll back stringent gas-mileage rules enacted by the Obama administration as soon as Tuesday. The administration’s plan is expected to call for reducing the required annual fleetwide average mpg increases for carmakers for model years 2021-2026 from the original 5% that would have required under the Obama-era rules, to a less-stringent 1.5%. The...
Read More
Obama’s stimulus guru sees post-pandemic Rx for clean energy

Obama’s stimulus guru sees post-pandemic Rx ...

If lawmakers on Capitol Hill need advice on rescuing the economy from the coronavirus crisis, they might turn to Joe Aldy. Aldy, 48, served as special assistant to President Obama for energy and environment at the height of the Great Recession.In that role, he took the lead on crafting the clean energy provisions in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the massive stimulus package that put $787 billion into...
Read More
‘Why have carbon dioxide levels risen and fallen in the past?’

‘Why have carbon dioxide levels risen and fa...

Answers to reader questions about climate science. Dear readers, This is not the column I planned to publish this month. I wrote another one several weeks ago in answer to a reader’s question about tourism in Europe. As you might imagine, that column was swiftly rendered out of date, becoming nothing more than a time capsule of life before COVID-19 became a global pandemic. Like many of you, I have spent recent weeks feeling...
Read More
Causes of global warming: How scientists know that humans are responsible

Causes of global warming: How scientists know that...

It’s a conclusion shared by the world’s most respected scientific organizations. Hurricane Dorian as seen from the International Space Station on Monday, September 2, 2019. (Photo credit: NASA) You likely have heard about global warming in the news, at school or from a friend. And so you probably have questions such as, “What is causing this warming?” and “What role do humans play in that warming?” and “What’s...
Read More
Judge Orders Full Environmental Review of Dakota Access Pipeline

Judge Orders Full Environmental Review of Dakota A...

Nearly four years after massive protests drew worldwide attention to the struggle of indigenous peoples to protect their land from fossil fuel projects, a federal judge has ordered a full environmental review of the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). Wednesday’s ruling is a long-deferred victory for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, who have been concerned the pipeline will leak where it runs below the Missouri...
Read More
Justice, Resilience & Connection – the urgency of building a more resilient food system for all

Justice, Resilience & Connection – the ...

Last night at midnight, a “shelter in place” order went into effect here in Northern California, directing people to stay home except to get groceries or medical care. This dramatic social distancing measure is an effort to catch up with the fast-spreading coronavirus that’s now upending so many lives. Anxiety is high as schools, restaurants, bars and “nonessential businesses” close their doors, and those who can are working...
Read More
World’s Wind Power Capacity Increases Nearly 20% in Record Growth

World’s Wind Power Capacity Increases Nearly 20% i...

The growing demand for renewable energy led to record setting growth in wind power capacity as technology has made harnessing wind power increasingly efficient and more wind farms have been completed and have joined the electrical grid, according to The Telegraph. The Global Wind Energy Council reported that in 2019 wind power capacity grew by 60.4 gigawats, which was 19 percent more than 2018. The report credited growth in...
Read More
TVA burns last coal at 1,150MW Paradise plant

TVA burns last coal at 1,150MW Paradise plant

President Donald Trump tried to stop it from happening. The top Republican in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, did too. Despite their best efforts to make good on Trump’s campaign promise to save the beleaguered coal industry, including an eleventh-hour pressure campaign, the Tennessee Valley Authority power plant at Paradise burned its last load of coal last month. The plant’s closure — in a county that once mined more coal...
Read More
A concise and personal yet universally applicable examination of a problem that affects everyone on planet Earth.

A concise and personal yet universally applicable ...

THE STORY OF MORE HOW WE GOT TO CLIMATE CHANGE AND WHERE TO GO FROM HERE by Hope Jahren ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 3, 2020 Following a critically and popular debut, the lab girl turns teacher in a course on climate change. As most readers know, a bestseller gives a fledgling author a bigger megaphone. In her follow-up to Lab Girl (2016), Jahren (Geosciences/Univ. of Oslo) uses it to show how issues that are clearly important to...
Read More
EPA Is Hiding Information About New Chemicals: Green Groups Sue to Stop the Secrecy

EPA Is Hiding Information About New Chemicals: Gre...

When Congress updated the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) in 2016 for the first time in 40 years, public health and environmental advocates hoped it would be a game-changer for protecting Americans from dangerous chemicals, enabling the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to finally ban harmful substances like asbestos. But under President Donald Trump, the EPA has consistently failed to take advantage of the new...
Read More
Coronavirus May Mean Halt to Global Solar Gains—For Now

Coronavirus May Mean Halt to Global Solar Gains—Fo...

Revised forecasts indicate that demand for solar panels will be down this year for the first time since the 1980s. In the middle of a public health emergency, it’s difficult to think about much of anything besides keeping everyone safe. But we also need to look ahead at the potential economic effects of this crisis on the transition to clean energy. With that in mind, we are getting a better idea of what coronavirus...
Read More
Amazon Rainforest Reaches Point of No Return

Amazon Rainforest Reaches Point of No Return

Antonio Donato Nobre is passionate about the Amazon region and despairs about the level of deforestation taking place in what is the world’s biggest rainforest. “Just when I thought the destruction couldn’t get any worse, it has,” says Nobre, one of Brazil’s leading scientists who has studied the Amazon — its unique flora and fauna, and its influence on both the local and global climate — for...
Read More