Editor’s Note: John D. Sutter is a columnist for CNN Opinion who focuses on climate change and social justice. Follow him on Snapchat, Facebook and email. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his. By John D. Sutter8 April 2016 Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana (CNN) – Wenceslaus Billiot, an 89-year-old with suede-soft eyes and […]
By Glenn Farley6 April 2016 STEVENS PASS, Washington (KING5 News) – April 1st is considered the peak for winter snowpack in Washington state. Last year as this time, the snow monitoring site near Stevens Pass had just a foot to 18 inches on the ground, as the state headed into a record drought. Today at […]
By Scott Smith4 April 2016 FRESNO, California (Associated Press) – Residents of drought-plagued California fell just short of the state’s mandated water conservation target over the nine months that ended in February as they let lawns turn brown, flushed toilets less often and took other strict measures, officials said Monday. Residents statewide used 23.9 percent […]
5 April 2016 (UN) – The number of people fleeing violence in Central America has surged to levels not seen since the region was wracked by armed conflicts in the 1980s, the UN refugee agency warned today, urging action to ensure that unaccompanied children and others receive the protection which they are entitled to. Last […]
[cf. Report: Cheap natural gas leads to more plants and pollution] By Bill McKibben23 March 2016 (The Nation) – Global warming is, in the end, not about the noisy political battles here on the planet’s surface. It actually happens in constant, silent interactions in the atmosphere, where the molecular structure of certain gases traps […]
By John Schwartz 4 April 2016 KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Florida (The New York Times) – The concrete block perches absurdly atop a piling, elevated about 10 feet above the beach sand. Is it art? A bulky milepost? Carlton Hall pointed to the puzzling object and explained that it was once a tie-down block for securing […]
4 April 2016 (EPA) – Climate change poses risks to human health through many pathways, some more obvious than others. Rising greenhouse-gas concentrations, driven by human activities, result in increases in temperature, changes in precipitation, increases in the frequency and intensity of some extreme weather events, and rising sea levels. These climate-change impacts endanger our […]
By Tim Stelloh 4 April 2016 (Associated Press) – A federal judge in New Orleans granted final approval Monday to an estimated $20 billion settlement, resolving years of litigation over the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The settlement, first announced in July, includes $5.5 billion in civil Clean Water Act penalties […]
By The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists 3 April 2016 (ICIJ) – A new investigation published today by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and more than 100 other news organizations around the globe, reveals the offshore links of some of the planet’s most prominent people. In terms of size, […]
By Nathaniel Rich31 March 2016 (The New York Times Magazine) – “It just seems like a beautiful day in Southern California,” Bryan Caforio said. It was late January in Porter Ranch, an affluent neighborhood on the northern fringe of Los Angeles. Caforio and I sat at a Starbucks overlooking an oceanic parking lot crowded with […]
