By Oliver Milman 7 August 2017NEW YORK (The Guardian) – Staff at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) have been told to avoid using the term climate change in their work, with the officials instructed to reference “weather extremes” instead.A series of emails obtained by the Guardian between staff at the Natural Resources Conservation Service […]
4 August 2017 (United Nations) – Even as the flow appears to have thinned, migrants crossing the United States-Mexico border are dying at a faster rate in 2017 than in past years, according to a new United Nations agency study.“Some 232 migrant fatalities have been recorded in the first seven months of 2017, an increase […]
By Sharon Bernstein; editing by Ben Klayman and Richard Chang 6 August 2017 WEAVERVILLE, California (Reuters) – Pollution from illegal marijuana farms deep in California’s national forests is far worse than previously thought, and has turned thousands of acres into waste dumps so toxic that simply touching plants has landed law enforcement officers in the […]
4 August 2017 (Global News) – B.C. remains under a state of emergency as 123 wildfires continue to burn across the province. This season is now B.C.’s worst fire season in almost six decades and officials say it will only get worse. Just over 7,000 British Columbians remain out of their homes.The provincial state of […]
3 August 2017 (CIRES) – On the North Slope of Alaska, snow is melting earlier in the spring and the snow-in date is happening later in the fall, according to a new study by CIRES and NOAA researchers. Atmospheric dynamics and sea ice conditions are behind this lengthening of the snow-free season, the scientists found, […]
By Rhianna Schmunk 30 July 2017 (CBC News) – Hundreds of people in B.C.’s southern Cariboo region were under a wildfire evacuation order on Saturday night, but not everyone chose to leave town — something fire officials called “concerning.”The village of Clinton, which has a population of about 650, was told to evacuate due to […]
By Ephrat Livni 1 August 2017 (Quartz) – The American Civil Liberties Union isn’t exactly known for its sense of humor. But on 1 August 2017, the defenders of free speech filed a jocular amicus brief in perhaps the most comical case of 2017, a year that’s proving pretty amusing for US courts.Still, the organization […]
5 August 2017 (BBC News) – The Trump administration has issued its first written notification that the US intends to withdraw from the 2015 Paris climate agreement. But in the notice to the United Nations the US state department said Washington would remain in the talks process.President Donald Trump drew international condemnation in June when […]
4 August 2017 (Washington Department of Ecology) – Air monitors around Washington state are lighting up the maps like a Christmas tree – and red lights aren’t good. Almost every community in the state has been hit hard by smoke blowing in from British Columbia wildfires. You can see it, you can almost reach […]
By Lorenzo Zazueta-Castro 4 August 2017 (The Monitor) – Six Democratic Congressmen expressed concern in a letter addressed to the acting head of the Department of Homeland Security about the expected border wall construction at the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge.The congressmen expressed concern on the heels of news that DHS would be waiving environmental […]