“Biggest storm of winter” to unleash flooding rain in California into Friday night

By Alex Sosnowski17 February 2017 (AccuWeather) – A new train of storms has arrived along the Pacific coast, and a potent one has begun to hit California hard with heavy rain, mountain snow, and strong winds to end this week. The first storm focused on areas from Northern California to Washington during Wednesday and Thursday. […]

Republicans begin effort to gut the Endangered Species Act

16 February 2017 (The Week) – On Wednesday, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held hearings on legislation to “modernize” the Endangered Species Act, part of a push by Republicans to roll back environmental regulations and protections. The Republicans on the committee, led by Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), and three of the five witnesses […]

The EPA posted a mirror of its website before Trump can gut the real one

By River Donaghey16 February 2017 (Vice) – On Wednesday, the Environmental Protection Agency posted a mirror of its website capturing the way it looked on January 19, 2017—the day before Trump took office. Trump has proved himself to be delete-happy when it comes to the web presence of federal agencies. He’s already axed big chunks […]

Florida’s Coastal Everglades, deprived of fresh water, near unhealthy “tipping point”

By Jenny Staletovich13 February 2017 SHARK RIVER (Miami Herald) – At the bottom of the Everglades along the mouth of the Shark River, a towering mangrove forest stands in a place few people outside anglers and researchers ever see: at the edge of a vast shallow bay where the salty sea and freshwater marshes conspired […]

Idaho state Senator Dan Foreman thinks climate change is a liberal “scam”

By Betsy Z. Russell12 February 2017 (The Spokesman-Review) – Freshman Sen. Dan Foreman, R-Moscow, says he believes climate change is a liberal “scam” and “ridiculous nonsense.” The Lewiston Tribune reports that Foreman, who sent an email late last week forcefully stating his views on the topic in response to an email from an Idaho mom […]

Oklahoma temperatures hit nearly 100°F in the dead of winter, because global warming is real

By Jeremy Deaton14 February 2017 (ThinkProgress) – Two years ago this month, in a well-publicized and much lampooned political stunt, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) brought a snowball to the Senate floor to highlight the “unseasonable” cold and cast doubt on climate change. The Republican lawmaker would have been hard-pressed to find a snowball anywhere in […]

Make no mistake: There is a war on science in America – I’m a scientist, and this is what I’ll fight for

By Jonathan Foley12 February 2017 (The Macroscope) – Make no mistake: There is a War on Science in America. The White House not only denies obvious, empirical facts on a regular basis, but they have invented the Orwellian concept of “alternative facts”. In the past, we simply called them “lies”, but now they are used […]

Idaho lawmakers strip climate change references from new K-12 science standards

By Kimberlee Kruesi9 February 2017 (The Associated Press) – An Idaho House panel has approved new K-12 science standards, but only after striking key references to climate change caused by human behavior. This is the third year the Idaho Legislature has struggled to agree on science standards for public schools. Previous efforts that included references […]

How the anti-vaxxers are winning in the U.S. – “Our nation’s health will soon be threatened because we have not stood up to the pseudoscience and fake conspiracy claims of this movement”

By Peter J. Hotez8 February 2017 HOUSTON (The New York Times) – It’s looking as if 2017 could become the year when the anti-vaccination movement gains ascendancy in the United States and we begin to see a reversal of several decades in steady public health gains. The first blow will be measles outbreaks in America. […]

Thousands ordered to evacuate below California’s Oroville Dam – Failure of emergency spillway expected within the hour, causing “uncontrolled release of flood waters from Lake Oroville”

By Anna M. Phillips, Matt Hamilton, Paige St. John, and Chris Megerian12 February 2017 (Los Angeles Times) – Residents of Oroville and nearby towns were ordered to immediately evacuate on Sunday afternoon after a “hazardous situation” developed involving an emergency spillway at the Oroville Dam. The National Weather Service said the auxiliary spillway at the […]

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