Kavanaugh lied about his environmental record – “I honestly could not believe that a federal judge and Supreme Court nominee was misrepresenting my case to U.S. senators in order to bolster his environmental credentials”

By Olivia Rosane 5 October 2018 (EcoWatch) – […] In his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Kavanaugh presented himself as pro-environment overall. “In some cases, I’ve ruled against environmentalists’ interests, and in many cases I’ve ruled for environmentalists’ interests,” he said.But an analysis from Earthjustice found that of 26 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) […]

Duterte says, “My only sin is the extrajudicial killings”

By Felipe Villamor 27 September 2018 MANILA (The New York Times) – President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines on Thursday said for the first time that extrajudicial killings had happened under his government’s brutal war on drugs, an admission that could bolster two cases filed against him at the International Criminal Court.In a rambling speech […]

Scientists say they’ve found the driver of false beliefs, and it’s not a lack of intelligence

By David Nield 9 September 2018 (Science Alert) – Why is it sometimes so hard to convince someone that the world is indeed a globe, or that climate change is actually caused by human activity, despite the overwhelming evidence?Scientists think they might have the answer, and it’s less to do with lack of understanding, and […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Without evidence, Trump rejects official Puerto Rico hurricane death toll of 2,975 victims – San Juan Mayor calls him “delusional, paranoid, and unhinged from any sense of reality”

By Catherine Lucey, Zeke Miller, and Jonathan Lemire 13 September 2018 WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump on Thursday rejected the official conclusion that nearly 3,000 people died in Puerto Rico from last year’s Hurricane Maria, arguing without evidence that the number was wrong and calling it a plot by Democrats to make him “look […]

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