On Hurricane Maria anniversary, Puerto Rico is still in ruins – “I am thankful for the little they gave me, but thanks for nothing”

By Frances Robles and Jugal K. Patel 20 September 2018 PUNTA SANTIAGO, P.R. (The New York Times) – When it rains, Maritza Cruz Sánchez springs into a well-rehearsed, 30-minute ritual: She climbs a ladder to where her roof used to be and sucks on a hose to siphon puddles from the plastic tarp suspended over […]

U.S. plans crackdown on Keystone XL activists – “Treating protest as terrorism”

By Will Parrish and Sam Levin 20 September 2018 (The Guardian) – Angeline Cheek is preparing for disaster. The indigenous organizer from the Fort Peck reservation in Montana fears that the proposed Keystone XL pipeline could break and spill, destroy her tribe’s water, and desecrate sacred Native American sites.But environmental catastrophe is not the most […]

Trump administration rolls back Obama-era methane pollution rule that aimed to help combat climate change

By Matthew Brown 18 September 2018 BILLINGS, Montana (AP) – The Trump administration on Tuesday rolled back an Obama-era rule that forced energy companies to capture methane — a key contributor to climate change that’s released in huge amounts during drilling on U.S. and tribal lands. A replacement rule from the Interior Department rescinds mandates […]

Trump administration accelerates push to export fracking to Argentina

By Joseph Siess 17 September 2018 (DeSmogBlog) – In June, U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry traveled to Bariloche, Argentina, for a G20 Summit where he expressed his desire to help Argentina become more like Texas, his home state.“The technology that has allowed for the shale gas revolution in America, we want to make available […]

Protesters mobilize for week of action to “demand justice” for Puerto Rico – “From the day Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico, Trump has shown a level of indifference and callousness toward the people of Puerto Rico that is nothing short of reprehensible”

By Emily Birnbaum 17 September 2018 (The Hill) – Thousands of protesters are expected to mobilize for a week of action to “demand justice” for Puerto Rico one year after Hurricane Maria devastated the island’s infrastructure and resources, displacing thousands and resulting in almost 3,000 deaths.Power 4 Puerto Rico, a coalition of Puerto Rican and […]

FEMA Administrator Brock Long defends Trump on Puerto Rico death toll studies by misrepresenting the science

By Ben Kamisar 16 September 2018 WASHINGTON (NBC News) – FEMA Administrator Brock Long Sunday questioned the relevance of independent studies tying thousands of deaths to the aftermath of last September’s hurricane in Puerto Rico, echoing President Donald Trump’s criticism of those findings as Florence continues to batter the Carolinas. [cf. Death toll in Puerto […]

Sorry, Mr. President: The Hurricane Maria death toll in Puerto Rico didn’t grow by “magic”

By Amy B Wang 15 September 2018 (The Washington Post) – “Like magic” and “NO WAY!” These are the latest phrases President Trump is using to express continuing disbelief that Hurricane Maria could have caused nearly 3,000 excess deaths in Puerto Rico. In his mind — or in his tweets, at least — the death […]

Death toll in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria: the facts about excess mortality – “Thousands of our fellow American citizens lost their lives”

15 September 2018 (Desdemona Despair) – On Thursday, Trump took time from his busy schedule to tweet that the official death toll in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria “was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible”.It’s hard to decide where to start with such a cockamamie claim, so […]

Democracy “showing greater strain” than at any time in decades, says UN chief on International Day of Democracy

14 September 2018 (UN News) – Tackling economic and political inequality is at the root of strengthening democratic institutions at a time when they are under huge strain, said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Saturday, marking the official International Day of Democracy.“It means making our democracies more inclusive, by bringing the young and marginalized […]

North Carolina didn’t like science on sea levels … so passed a law against it in 2012

By Erin Durkin 12 September 2018 (The Guardian) – When North Carolina got bad news about what its coast could look like thanks to climate change, it chose to ignore it.In 2012, the state now in the path of Hurricane Florence reacted to a prediction by its Coastal Resources Commission that sea levels could rise […]

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