By Marwa Eltagouri 12 April 2018 (The Washington Post) – About 840,000 people across Puerto Rico were without power Thursday as the U.S. territory continues to struggle after the damage caused by Hurricane Maria last fall, according to island’s Electric Power Authority.The power company, in tweets Thursday, said that a tree had fallen onto the […]
By Gina McCarthy and Janet G. McCabe 26 March 2018 (The New York Times) – Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, has announced that he alone will decide what is and isn’t acceptable science for the agency to use when developing policies that affect your health and the environment.It is his latest […]
By Kate Lamb 27 February 2018 (The Guardian) – Dramatically carved into the landscape of a Sumatran oil palm plantation that borders one of the world’s most unique rainforests are three ominous letters: SOS. The message stretches half a kilometre alongside a snaking river; a bird’s-eye view gives the eerie sense the land has been […]
By Alexander C. Kaufman 28 March 2018 (Huffington Post) – The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday evening sent employees a list of eight approved talking points on climate change from its Office of Public Affairs ― guidelines that promote a message of uncertainty about climate science and gloss over proposed cuts to key adaptation programs. […]
By Scott Waldman and Robin Bravender 16 March 2018 (E&E News) – U.S. EPA chief Scott Pruitt is expected to roll out plans soon to restrict the agency’s use of science in rulemakings, pitting him against critics who say it would threaten public health and environmental protections. In a closed-door meeting at the Heritage Foundation […]
By David Koenig 6 March 2018 HOUSTON (AP) – Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke says his agency should be a partner with oil and gas companies that seek to drill on public land and that long regulatory reviews with an uncertain outcome are “un-American.” Speaking Tuesday to a major energy-industry conference, Zinke described the Trump administration’s […]
WASHINGTON, 30 March 2018 (CBD) – The Trump administration has quietly named Susan Combs — an outspoken foe of endangered species and a climate change denier — as acting assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks. She now oversees the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the endangered species it protects. “Putting Combs in charge […]
By Ganesh Sitaraman 17 March 2018 (The Guardian) – Over the past few years, I have frequently been reminded of David Foster Wallace’s commencement address at Kenyon College in 2005. Wallace began with the story of two fish swimming together, when an older fish swims by and says “Morning boys, how’s the water?” After the […]
By Will Porter and Kyle Anzalone 7 March 2018 (Consortium News) – In Afghanistan, the world’s most powerful military is threatened by a small, pink flower.Despite an escalation of the Afghan conflict under the Trump administration, a record opium crop, coupled with steady Taliban gains, foretell bitter fighting in the coming months for American forces […]
By Michael Biesecker, Jake Pearson, and Jeff Horwitz 16 March 2018 WASHINGTON (Associated Press) – A new U.S. advisory board created to help rewrite federal rules for importing the heads and hides of African elephants, lions and rhinos is stacked with trophy hunters, including some members with direct ties to President Donald Trump and his […]
