A Voice from the Eastern Door
A Voice from the Eastern Door
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Interview by Steve Curwood, “Living on Earth” From Inside Climate News collaborating partner “Living on Earth,” public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by Host Steve Curwood with Penn State geologist Richard Alley. Antarctica’s ice shelves are the gatekeepers between the continent’s glaciers and the open ocean. As the planet warms, these shelves shrink, exposing more and more ice, which leads to more melting. This frozen continent rests under a massive ice sheet averaging more than a mile thick. But a recent study in Scie...
By Erin Fitzgerald, Earthjustice. SEATTLE, WA — Thursday, November 2, the 8th Circuit vacated the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) rule that revoked all food allowable for chlorpyrifos, which effectively banned the use and presence of the neurotoxic pesticide on the foods we eat. The final rule, issued in August 2021, came in response to the 9th Circuit ruling issued in a challenge filed by Earthjustice, on behalf of public health, labor, and disability organizations. That ruling required the EPA to revoke chlorpyrifos tolerances bec...
Dr. Weihsueh Chiu, a professor at the Texas A&M School of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, partnered with Environmental Defense Fund to create a new tool that provides communities and policymakers with actionable data about long-term vulnerabilities tied to climate change. The Climate Vulnerability Index (CVI) is the most comprehensive screening tool of its type, showing how, why, and where climate risks threaten the stability of communities throughout the U.S. "The launch of the...
Human activities have caused the Earth to exceed six of nine boundaries necessary for keeping the planet healthy, pushing the environment "well outside the safe operating space for humanity," scientists warn in a new study published last week in Science Advances. According to the paper, Earth's ability to sustain human society depends on nine primary "planetary boundaries," or global systems that are key indicators of its health. Of these nine limits, humans have blown past six: climate change,...
WASHINGTON D.C. – States and Native American tribes will now possess enhanced powers to halt energy projects, including natural gas pipelines, that might contaminate rivers and streams. This change comes as a result of a final rule announced on Thursday by the Biden administration. Effective from November, this rule counteracts a previous directive from the Trump era that restricted states’ and tribes’ capacity to evaluate pipelines, dams, and other federally overseen projects on their lands. According to the Environmental Protection Agenc...
As heat waves and wildfires cause chaos in North Africa, Europe and North America, climate scientists from the United Nations (UN) have announced that it is almost certain this July will be the warmest month ever recorded. At a press conference on climate Thursday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned, “The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived,” a UN press release said. “Today, the World Meteorological Organization and the European Commission’s Copernicus Climate Change Service are releasing official...
By Zahra Ahmad. Earth Justice. On July 21, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) affirmed its May 2022 decision to allow the ongoing use of phthalates, a class of toxic chemicals, in food packaging and food production equipment. Health and environmental advocates had asked FDA to reconsider that decision based on mounting scientific evidence that phthalates in food cause serious health harm. Phthalates are chemicals that hurt people’s hormonal systems and are linked to a range of health harms, including preterm birth, birth defects, i...
By Umar Farooq. In September 2020, the Hopi Tribe's four-decade effort to secure its right to water culminated in a court proceeding. The outcome would determine how much water the arid reservation would receive over the next century and whether that amount would be enough for the tribe to pursue its economic ambitions. Under rules unique to Arizona, the tribe would have to justify how it would use every drop it wanted. The monthslong ordeal in Arizona's Superior Court unfolded in video calls...
By: Cristen Hemingway Jaynes. Hundreds of wildfires have been burning in nearly all of Canada’s provinces for almost a month, the smoke from them drifting down into the midwestern and eastern United States. Major U.S. cities from Minneapolis to Charlotte have been affected by the eerie orange-tinged wildfire smoke, but last week four out of the five most polluted cities in the world — New York, Toronto, Montréal and Washington, DC — were in North America, according to Swiss technology company IQAir. “This is not something that we’re talking ab...
By Zahra Ahmad. Earthjustice The White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council sent a letter urging the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to strengthen the national ambient air quality standards for particulate matter and ozone to the most protective level EPA’s outside scientific advisors recommended. When implemented, these improved air quality regulations would prevent thousands of deaths, especially benefiting overburdened communities. In the letter, the advisory council asked EPA to listen to the science and lower the allowable l...
House Republicans and the White House cut a deal that raised the debt ceiling and averted an economic crisis. The deal cuts spending for programs critical to environmental protections and our social safety net. In addition, the deal includes hastily negotiated changes to the National Environmental Policy Act. Historically, bills to raise or suspend the debt ceiling have been clean, reflecting the common interest we have in protecting our economy, but this deal comes riddled with policy provisions that continue to sacrifice our communities....
By Erin Fitzgerald. WASHINGTON – On Thursday, May 25, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling in Sackett v U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, re-interpreting the Clean Water Act to eliminate longstanding protections for millions of acres of wetlands. Five Justices on this new conservative Court narrowed the definition of “waters of the United States” — often referred to as “WOTUS” — limiting the reach of the Act, one of the most successful, effective, and widely supported pieces of legislation ever codified in the United States...
By: Cristen Hemingway Jaynes Bees are better for strawberries. About ten to fifteen percent of flowering plants are mostly self-pollinating, and strawberries are one of them. However, when the plump and delicious berries are pollinated by bees, they are not only redder and heavier, they also have a more pleasing ratio of sugar to acid and a longer shelf life, according to a study published in the journal Nature. Pollination by the bees increases the hormonal growth regulators that enhance the berries’ quality. Pesticides have been shown to i...
By Linnea Harris. Pollinators are crucial for growing the food we eat and supporting the diverse plant life that sustains our ecosystems. When feeding on pollen or nectar for energy, pollinators carry pollen from the stamen of the flower to the stigma, which fertilizes the plant so it can produce fruit and seeds. While honeybees and bumblebees might come immediately to mind as pollinators, they actually aren’t native to the U.S. There are 20,000 different species of bees in the world, and 4,000 in the U.S. and Canada alone, many of which look d...
Bees need a balanced diet of nectar, which gives them carbohydrates in the form of sugars, and pollen, which provides fat and protein, from a wide variety of plant sources. Different bee species have their own nutritional needs, but no healthy bee diet includes pesticides. According to new findings by scientists from Trinity College Dublin and Dublin City University (DCU), pesticides have been found in the nectar and pollen of flowers that were not targeted with the toxins, and this could be an extra, underestimated hazard for pollinators....
On March 20, the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments for Arizona v. Navajo Nation, in which the Navajo Nation argues that the U.S. has a treaty-based duty to plan for and protect its water interests. The justices’ decision — due this summer — is likely to have far-reaching implications, whether it’s a narrow ruling that applies solely to the Navajo Nation or a much broader one that could affect tribal water rights across the U.S. Given the case’s significance, tribal nations, water organizations and nonprofits — as well as one anti...
By Raul Garcia, Blaine Miller-Mcfeeley, and Stephen Schima. Earth Justice. At a time when communities across the country are experiencing the long-term impacts of climate change and generations of environmental injustice, House Republicans are refusing to act on the realities in front of our eyes. Instead of moving forward to tackle these problems, House Republicans remain intent on taking us back to the past. They want to send us back to a time when corporate polluters acted with impunity and communities had few options to hold them...
By: Olivia Rosane. U.S. grocery shoppers take note, it’s that time of year again. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) released on Wednesday its 2023 Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce, with its annual Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen lists of the conventional fruits and vegetables most and least likely to be contaminated with pesticides, and this year’s lists have important new additions. In particular, blueberries and green beans were both added to the Dirty Dozen, with green beans even testing positive for a neurotoxic insecticide calle...
Washington, DC – The Biden administration approved the ConocoPhillip’s Willow Project earlier this week, a 30-year oil and gas development proposal on public lands in Alaska. This is the second time the Bureau of Land Management has approved the Willow project. The Trump administration first approved the project in 2020. Conservation and Alaska Native groups challenged the approval, and the court threw it out as unlawful in 2021. It instructed BLM to reassess the project’s full climate impacts and consider alternatives that would lessen its o...
By Jackson Chiappinelli. Earth Justice. ANCHORAGE, AK – The Biden administration today announced its approval of ConocoPhillips’s Willow project, ignoring pleas from millions who called for the Alaska oil-drilling plan to be halted due to concerns about climate change. The Interior Department released a record of decision (ROD) that largely reflects ConocoPhillips’s desired project blueprint and ignores its dire climate and biodiversity impacts. Approval of the Willow project stands in stark contrast to President Biden’s climate goals and com...
WASHINGTON – A new map created by the Coalition to Prevent Chemical Disasters on Friday shows 224 fires, explosions, and releases of toxic chemicals have happened in the past year. The map is periodically updated to reflect ongoing incidents. Since April 2020, more than 475 chemical incidents have occurred. This includes incidents like the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio that caused carcinogenic and toxic contaminations of soil, air, and a river that's used by millions of people. The c...
WASHINGTON, D.C. – As a public health and environmental disaster unfolds following the derailment and explosion of a toxic-chemical cargo train in East Palestine, Ohio, advocacy groups renewed their challenge to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT) 2018 repeal of a regulation requiring electronic brake systems for trains carrying hazardous and flammable material. In 2018, under former president Donald Trump, the federal agencies charged with regulating hazardous materials on trains actually removed safety rules requiring modern bra...
By Geoffrey Nolan, Earthjustice. WASHINGTON - Fifty environmental, Indigenous, and justice organizations sent a letter to House Natural Resources Committee Chair Bruce Westerman, Ranking Member Raúl Grijalva, and the members of the committee urging for strong mining reforms to protect people and special places from the environmental and health impacts of poorly regulated mining. This comes as the committee holds its first legislative hearing, “Unleashing America’s Energy and Mineral Potential,” on a series of proposals to streamline the permitt...
WAIMEA, KAUAʻI — Today, kalo farmers and subsistence fishers from West Kauaʻi filed suit against the Hawaiʻi Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) for failing to require an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on the major hydro project being proposed for the Waimea River. The project’s environmental assessment (EA) and “finding of no significant impact” was approved by outgoing DLNR Chairperson Suzanne Case during her last week in the position, right before the Christmas holidays, and without any public hearings. “DLNR cannot issue...
By Amee Vanderpool. In the summer of 2021, the US House of Representatives passed the PFAS Action Act of 2021, which was a bipartisan piece of legislation that would have regulated toxic chemicals found in drinking water, as well as classifying those toxic chemicals as “hazardous substances,” in order to spark federal cleanup standards. Per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), are also known as “forever chemicals,” a group of chemicals used to make fluoropolymer coatings and products that resist heat, oil, stains, grease, and water. PFAS co...
