Environment

Three ‘Most Important’ Greenhouse Gases Reached Record Highs

April 9, 2024 Cristen Hemingway Jaynes, EcoWatch. Educate! climate crisis, Environment, greenhouse gases, Methane, NOAA

Levels of the three “most important” greenhouse gases — methane, carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide — in the atmosphere reached record highs again in 2023, according to research conducted by scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s Global Monitoring Laboratory (GML). Air samples taken by GML indicated that levels of the heat-trapping gases did not rise as fast as the record leaps of recent years, but were still in accordance with sharp increases recorded in the past decade, a press release from NOAA said.

Biden’s So-Called LNG Export Freeze Sacrifices Gulf South Communities

April 8, 2024 Candice Bernd, Truthout. Resist! Environment, Environmental Justice, Fossil Fuels, Joe Biden, LNG, Texas

In late March, Texas joined a 15-state federal lawsuit led by Louisiana to block the Biden administration’s executive order pausing new permits for terminals that export fracked gas, or so-called liquefied natural gas (LNG). Separately, Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan created a special committee to investigate President Joe Biden’s permitting freeze, a move that has not only drawn backlash from the oil industry and Texas GOP, but also Republicans on Capitol Hill. Texas’s moves follow House Republicans’ February passage of House Resolution 7176, a bill that would reverse President Biden’s permitting pause by stripping the Department of Energy (DOE) of the power to approve LNG exports to non-free trade agreement countries

Environmentalist And Anti-War Goals Go Hand-In-Hand

April 5, 2024 Kollibri Terre Sonnenblume, Resilience. Strategize! Anti-War, Environment, Environmentalism, History, Wars and Militarism

The human toll of warfare is tragic beyond accounting in lives brutally cut short, grievous injuries suffered, cultural heritage lost (museums, religious structures, libraries, schools) and to vital infrastructure destroyed (hospitals, power plants, reservoirs). War as now fought has been with us at least since the establishment of agriculture, and as technology has advanced, its devastating abilities have escalated. Last century was the bloodiest in human history and we must make sure that record stands. Armed conflict at that scale with the current arsenal would be nightmarish beyond reckoning.

Cities, Roads, And The Sixth Extinction Event

April 4, 2024 Nick King, Resilience. Educate! Biodiversity, Ecosystems, Environment, Extinction

Earth’s biosphere entered the stage of large, complex, multicellular life (following an extended – approximately three billion year – period of dominance by unicellular life) starting approximately 650 million years ago. This ‘metazoan’ stage saw the tree of life proliferate and complexify, and has expanded into a huge variety of niches across the planet through to the present day. A key phenomenon over this period has been extinction events; this describes periods of rapidly changing environmental conditions which have resulted in species die-offs and restructuring of ecosystems at different scales.

You Can’t Be Neutral In A Flooding House

March 27, 2024 Ankur Singh, In These Times. Resist! climate crisis, Environment, Extreme weather, Illinois, Infrastructure

Cicero, Illinois - A crowd swells outside an auditorium one summer evening in 2023, trying to enter a special town hall meeting. The air fills with chants: “Where’s our money?” and “El pueblo unido jamás será vencido” (“The people, united, will never be defeated”). Soon, police inform the hundreds outside that no one else is allowed in. It felt apt: We wanted answers about why our city was so dysfunctional, and the city couldn’t even host a proper meeting. I’m a journalist and also a Cicero resident, and I was there because I, too, was angry. Howard Zinn famously said you can’t be neutral on a moving train; it’s also difficult in a flooded house.

Activists Launch Own Investigation Of Mud Spill Near Gas Pipeline

March 25, 2024 Diane Bernard, DeSmog. Resist! Community activism, Environment, Pennsylvania, Pipelines, pollution

On February 15, Pennsylvania’s environmental regulator received an anonymous complaint that a mysterious white material was covering the bottom of a creek in Chester County — a tributary of nearby Marsh Creek Lake located about a thousand feet from the underground Mariner East pipeline. A day later, an inspector from the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation confirmed that the clay-like material was flowing from a nearby sinkhole into the stream and nearby wetlands.

Yurok Tribe Becomes First To Steward Land With National Park Service

March 25, 2024 Cristen Hemingway Jaynes, EcoWatch. Create! California, Environment, Indigenous Knowledge, National Park Service

California’s Yurok Tribe had 90 percent of its territory stolen during the mid-1800s gold rush. Now, it will be getting a piece of its land back that serves as a gateway to Redwood state and national parks. For decades, the ancient redwoods on former Yurok lands were decimated for lumber and a sawmill built to process it. Now, in a first-of-its-kind agreement between the Yurok, the National Park Service, California State Parks and nonprofit Save the Redwoods League, the Tribe will become the first to manage Tribal land alongside the National Park Service, a press release from Save the Redwoods League said.

Mineworkers Union Joins Fight Against Landfill

March 22, 2024 Shawn Street, United Mineworkers of America. Resist! Environment, Labor Movement, Landfill, Mineworkers

In recent months opponents of a proposed privately owned landfill have appeared at various government meetings wearing camouflage shirts. The shirts are designed similarly to those worn by union coal miners and their supporters during the 1989 strike against Pittston Coal Company. Last week the symbolic link between the two efforts became literal as the United Mine Workers of America announced their opposition to Russell County Reclamation’s proposed landfill that would be placed at the old Moss 3 site.

California Must Triple Its Rate Of Carbon Emissions Reductions

March 17, 2024 Cristen Hemingway Jaynes, EcoWatch. Educate! California, Carbon emissions, climate crisis, Energy, Environment, Report

California is not on track to meet its greenhouse gas emissions reduction goal for 2030, new data released by nonprofit think tank Next 10 and prepared by consulting firm Beacon Economics reveals. To do so, the state must triple its annual emissions reductions, the 2023 California Green Innovation Index said. “The increase in emissions following the pandemic makes it all the more difficult for California to meet its climate goals on time,” said Next 10 Founder F. Noel Perry, as reported by ESG News. “In fact, we may be further behind than many people realize.

How $9 Billion From Taxpayers Fueled Plastics Production

March 15, 2024 Sara Sneath, DeSmog. Educate! Environment, Louisiana, Plastics, pollution, Taxes, Texas

Through billions in tax breaks and subsidies, taxpayers in Louisiana, Texas, and other states have supported the construction or expansion of dozens of facilities manufacturing plastics in the United States since 2012. However, many of these plants have also repeatedly exceeded legal limits on the air pollution they release into surrounding communities, disproportionately affecting people of color. That’s according to an Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) report published on Thursday. For instance, in 2015, then-Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal welcomed Indorama Ventures — one of the world’s biggest producers of single-use plastic — to the state.

Greenpeace Calls For Bold High Seas Ocean Protection Of Galapagos

March 12, 2024 The Canary. Resist! Biodiversity, Conservation, Environment, Galápagos Islands, Greenpeace, Oceans

On Monday 12 March, Greenpeace called for new marine protections for the ocean surrounding the Galapagos – a vital biodiversity hotspot. Specifically, the environmental campaign group pushed for governments to create a high seas marine protected zone under a new UN treaty to secure a much wider area around Ecuador’s archipelago. The islands sit some 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) off the mainland of Ecuador, and have flora and fauna found nowhere else in the world. The islands unique diversity of life famously inspired British scientist Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.

How Money Laundering Rules Could Be Used To Tackle Deforestation

March 11, 2024 Isabella Kaminski, DeSmog. Strategize! Brazil, Deforestation, Environment, Money Laundering

I spent the last month binging on money laundering TV to research this feature. But nothing prepared me to write about money laundering in relation to environmental destruction, because until now it has rarely been considered a shady subject. That could all be about to change. Last November, French NGO Sherpa filed a complaint with the National Prosecutor’s Office against French banks BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole, BPCE, and Axa. It called for a criminal investigation into money laundering and concealment, arguing that the banks’ financial support for Brazil’s biggest beef companies was contributing to illegal deforestation in the Amazon.

Funding Opportunity For BIPOC-Led And BIPOC-Serving Composters

March 11, 2024 Najee Quashie, Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Create! BIPOC, Composting, Environment, Funding

The Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) is launching a BIPOC Community Composter Mini-Grant Program — funded by 11th Hour Racing of The Schmidt Family Foundation — to support new or existing local community composters in coastal states in New England. Programs seeking funding must be BIPOC-led or BIPOC-serving, in a Native Nation, or working in a historically excluded neighborhood. We will provide $100,000 in sub-grants to selected projects, awarding up to 10 grants with a minimum grant of $5,000 and a maximum of $20,000.

Envisioning A Steady-State Comprehensive Plan

March 3, 2024 Dave Rollo, Resilience. Create! Environment, Finance and the Economy, Steady State, Sustainability

”Economic growth” is commonplace in the daily news. We assume it’s a good thing, that a 2–4 percent increase in GDP is beneficial to all. Likewise, we hear that our communities are growing, and we see a 2–4 percent increase in population as reasonable and benign. Meanwhile, visionary community leaders are busy planning for a steady feed of single-digit annual growth. So we’re in good hands, right? But what the news reports miss is that any steady rate of growth is an exponential function that contains within it a knowable doubling time.

Switching To Biodegradable Plastics Could Slash CO2 Emissions

February 24, 2024 Cristen Hemingway Jaynes, EcoWatch. Create! Biodegradable, Biodigestion, CO2, Environment, Plastics, pollution

Plastic pollution is one of the biggest global threats to the environment. Not only does it produce an enormous amount of waste, it breaks down to become the ubiquitous microplastics that contaminate drinking water, food and even the human body, while its production contributes to global heating. A new study, “Replacing Traditional Plastics with Biodegradable Plastics: Impact on Carbon Emissions,” has found that using biodegradable alternatives to replace traditional plastic products would lead to a substantial reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.

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