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Environment

US Auctions Giant Stretch Of Gulf Of Mexico For Oil And Gas Drilling

The U.S. held its first auction of oil and gas drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico in more than a year on Wednesday. The sale — mandated by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) — garnered $264 million in offers from oil companies, including BP, Chevron and ExxonMobil. The auction in federal waters came just two weeks following the Biden administration’s approval of the Willow oil drilling project on Alaska’s environmentally sensitive North Slope. Environmental groups — who have challenged the lease sale in federal court — were not pleased with President Joe Biden going back on a campaign promise to stop the extraction of fossil fuels on federal lands.

LDEQ Draft Permit Rattles Neighbors Of Hazardous Waste Disposal Site

Sliska Larry read the proposed operating permit for the expanded Clean Harbors hazardous waste disposal site, less than 2 miles from her home, with her 9-year-old grandson at her side. She instinctively pulled him closer, as if to shield him, as she absorbed its details. “It’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” Larry said. The preliminary draft permit, which the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality issued last week, allows Clean Harbors to continue the open burning and open detonation of materials for at least another eight months. The facility disposes of outdated munitions from several military bases, including the shuttered National Guard training site at Camp Minden, and old fireworks from Disney World.

Protestors Gather At Truax Field Against Arrival Of F-35 Fighter Jets

Madison, Wisconsin - People gathered at Truax Field in Madison early Monday morning to oppose the F-35 fighter jets that are scheduled to arrive this spring. Madison Veterans for Peace, Safe Skies Clean Water Wisconsin and Madison for a World BEYOND War hosted the demonstration. They are calling on Gov. Evers to change the mission of Truax Air National Guard to a peaceful one. And the group plans to go to the Wisconsin Capitol building at 8:45 a.m. Monday to continue its demonstration. The fighter jets have been a point of contention for years.

‘What Really Keeps Me Up At Night’: A Climate Scientist’s Call To Action

We’re running out of time to get things right. With the final installment in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 6th Assessment Report released this week, the world’s leading climate scientists have offered a stark warning that we need to cut our greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 or face a “rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a livable and sustainable future for all.” This will require an abrupt about-face as emissions continue to rise despite the massive body of scientific literature affirming the dire risks of proceeding with business as usual.

Lack Of Safe Drinking Water For City Dwellers To Double By 2050

At the start of the first UN Water Conference since 1977, a global water crisis is imminent, according to a new UN report. New research has found that the number of people living in cities without access to safe drinking water worldwide will double by 2050, with an 80 percent increase in demand for water predicted for urban areas by that time, The Guardian reported. “Water is our common future and we need to act together to share it equitably and manage it sustainably. As the world convenes for the first major United Nations conference on water in the last half century, we have a responsibility to plot a collective course ensuring water and sanitation for all,” said UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay on the UN World Water Development Report website.

Global Freshwater Demand Will Exceed Supply 40% By 2030, Experts Warn

Today, the planet is facing an unprecedented water crisis, with global freshwater demand predicted to exceed supply by 40 percent by 2030, President of the 77th United Nations General Assembly Csaba Kőrösi said at a press conference on the upcoming UN Water Conference, as Down to Earth reported. “The scientific evidence is that we have a water crisis. We are misusing water, polluting water, and changing the whole global hydrological cycle, through what we are doing to the climate. It’s a triple crisis,” Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research Johan Rockstrom, who is co-chair of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water (GCEW), told The Guardian.

Indigenous Mexicans Risk Their Lives To Defend The Environment

They were driving back from a community meeting in Aquila, Michoacan, where the discussion had centered on getting the Ternium mine in the area to cease activities. They dropped someone off, then were never seen again. Later, their car was found empty, riddled with bullets. Antonio Díaz, an Indigenous Nahua leader opposed to the mine, and Ricardo Lagunes, a human rights lawyer who has taken on numerous key cases in Mexico, went missing on January 15 of this year. “I miss my brother a lot,” Ana Lucia Lagunes, Ricardo’s sister, told TRNN. “But while this is directly affecting my family now, [such forced disappearances and murders] are affecting thousands of other people, too.

Bison Restoration To Be Led By Tribes

Washington – The Department of the Interior today announced several new steps to restore wild and healthy populations of American bison and the prairie grassland ecosystem. Through a new Secretary’s Order and over $25 million from the Inflation Reduction Act, the Department will empower its bureaus and partners to use the best available science and Indigenous Knowledge to help restore bison across the country. “The American bison is inextricably intertwined with Indigenous culture, grassland ecology and American history.

We Need A Climate Movement That Addresses The Trauma Of Fighting

I used to think trauma was something that only applied to people exposed to extreme situations like war, genocide, abuse or crime. Yet, living on planet Earth pretty much guarantees you some trauma. Trauma comes from the Greek “traumat,” which means “wound.” It is an emotional wounding that results from experiencing or witnessing a highly stressful, horrifying event or series of events where one feels a lack of control, powerlessness and threat of injury or death. This sounds disturbingly similar to what humans are increasingly living through with climate change.

Nations Agree On Historic Global Oceans Treaty

The Global Oceans Treaty agreed on today is the biggest conservation agreement in the history of the world. It provides a pathway to establish marine sanctuaries so that countries can turn their commitment to protect 30 percent of the ocean by 2030 into a reality. This is the minimum scientists have said we need to prevent ecosystem collapse in the oceans – our greatest shared resource and the foundation of life on this planet. This is a huge victory for the billions of people who depend on healthy oceans and for the animals that call the oceans home. It is a win against climate change and biodiversity loss. Everyone on Earth should breathe a collective sigh of relief.

East Palestine, Ohio And The Oligarchy

The U.S. is an oligarchy. Stating this fact explains events that may seem mysterious if this simple truth is not spelled out. The ruling class are fully in control and ensure that their needs are met. They disregard the public good and any claims of democracy are easily exposed as a cruel hoax. Americans have no representation in congress or the white house and the corporate media are also part of the oligarchic class. They expose nothing that their partners in crime want to hide. Governmental action and inaction if the wake of a freight train derailment exemplify all of these dynamics.

Ohio Community Confronts Company, Politicians After Train Wreck

President Joe Biden’s trip to Kiev, Ukraine, Feb. 20 shocked people living near East Palestine, Ohio, who have been devastated by a Feb. 3 toxic train derailment. The accident involved a 150-car train owned by Norfolk Southern, carrying dangerous and hazardous chemicals, which jackknifed due to a broken axle. On Feb. 6, state authorities slowly released and burned dangerous chemicals, such as the cancer-causing vinyl chloride and others, into the air. Since then, people in the area have faced various health problems ranging from slight headaches and sore throats to coughing up and vomiting blood.

Devastating Effects Of Militarization On Puerto Rico And Her People

The U.S. has been overtly and covertly intervening in Puerto Rico's internal affairs since 1898. Like the Spanish, British, Dutch, and the French, the U.S. understood the strategic value of the Puerto Rican archipelago, which would give their expanding empire a military advantage toward enforcing the Monroe Doctrine, thereby securing its established intent to dominate the Western Hemisphere. A new wave of militarization began soon after the change of colonial ownership, the implications of which would devastate the island municipalities of Culebra and Vieques. Culebra was militarized in 1901 and expelled the Navy in 1975. Vieques was militarized in 1941 and expelled the Navy in 2003.

What We Learned About The Climate System In 2022: Part 1

Beyond all the hype and all the anxiety about climate policymaking, the upbeat newsmaking about energy transitions and the growing dread of civilisational collapse, what have we learned about the climate system in the last year? Here are some key observations drawn from research and data published in 2022. Atmospheric levels of all three main greenhouse gases reached record highs in 2022. Carbon Monitor reported emissions data for full year 2022 as: “Global CO2 (carbon dioxide) increased by +1.6% in 2022 (+8.0% than 2020, and +2.1% than 2019)”, an all-time record.

Poisoning America For Profit: A Brief History Of Norfolk Southern’s Greed

On Feb. 3, a Norfolk Southern train carrying vinyl chloride and other hazardous materials derailed in East Palestine, Ohio. To prevent a potential deadly explosion, officials conducted a “slow burn” of the vinyl chloride, which produced a cloud of thick black smoke lingering over the town for days. The fallout from this spill and the chemicals released has resulted in thousands of dead aquatic life, contamination of residential water wells, a noxious chemical smell in the air, and mysterious symptoms afflicting residents such as rashes, headaches, sore throat, and nausea. What happened in East Palestine is just the latest in an upsurge in train derailments in recent years.
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