By Lisa Friedman8 November 2017WASHINGTON (The New York Times) – A Senate hearing on nominees for two top environmental posts on Wednesday quickly turned testy over the Trump administration’s ambivalence on climate change science. Andrew R. Wheeler, a lobbyist for Murray Energy, which is owned by Robert E. Murray, an Appalachian coal mining magnate and […]
By Rachel Leven 10 November 2017 (Vox) – Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt doesn’t hide his contempt for how the agency has been run, but he does profess to care about one of its key programs: Superfund, which oversees the cleanup of the nation’s worst toxic waste sites. In April, he toured a site […]
By Damian Carrington and Michael Safi 6 November 2017 RAJGHAT (The Guardian) – “It’s a lucky charm,” says Rajesh, pointing to the solar-powered battery in his window that he has smeared with turmeric as a blessing. “It has changed our life.” He lives in Rajghat, a village on the border of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh […]
By Michael Virtanen 11 November 2017 GLEN DANIEL, W.Va. (Associated Press) – Chuck Nelson spent his life in this corner of Appalachia, working for years in the coal mines — a good job in the economically depressed area. But he says the industry that helped him earn a living cost him his health, and his […]
By Jasmine Spearing-Bowen and Karl Schneider 17 August 2017 PHOENIX (News21) – In Ringwood, New Jersey, Ford Motor Co. dumped more than 35,000 tons of toxic paint sludge onto lands occupied for centuries by the Turtle Clan of the Ramapough Lenape tribe, poisoning groundwater with arsenic, lead and other harmful chemicals. Today, more than 43 […]
Geneva, 31 October 2017 (UN Environment News) – Governments and non-state actors need to deliver an urgent increase in ambition to ensure the Paris Agreement goals can still be met, according to a new UN assessment.The eighth edition of UN Environment’s Emissions Gap report, released ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference in Bonn, finds […]
By Valerie Volcovici 1 November 2017 WAYNESBURG, Pennsylvania (Reuters) – When Mike Sylvester entered a career training center earlier this year in southwestern Pennsylvania, he found more than one hundred federally funded courses covering everything from computer programming to nursing.He settled instead on something familiar: a coal mining course.”I think there is a coal comeback,” […]
By Ed Crooks 26 October 2017 NEW YORK (Financial Times) – Companies from the technology and oil and gas industries have stepped into the debate over the future of the US electricity system, raising objections to the Trump administration’s plans for new rules to support coal-fired and nuclear power plants.Microsoft, Walmart, ExxonMobil, General Electric, and […]
By Artur Gorokh and Ryan Sherman 23 October 2017 (The Cornell Daily Sun) – It was in southern Utah in 2003 that Aron Ralston amputated his own arm to escape the boulder that had crushed him against the wall of a slot canyon. The only implement on hand was a small multi-tool, and in vain […]
By Umair Irfan 27 October 2017 (Vox) – Scott Pruitt, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, is taking unprecedented steps to push scientists out of his office.Earlier this month, we learned via the Washington Post that Pruitt may soon be removing science advisers on advisory boards who have received grants from the EPA. “If we […]
