National Geographic Arctic ice evolution

Trump’s executive order to open Arctic waters to oil drilling was unlawful, federal judge rules

A victory for clean water and climate justice, via The New York Times: “In a major legal blow to [Donald] Trump’s push to expand offshore oil and gas development, a federal judge ruled that an executive order by Mr. Trump that lifted an Obama-era ban on oil and gas drilling in the Arctic Ocean and parts of the North Atlantic coast was unlawful.”

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Ripples Distort Reflection - 2014

Garbage from Washington State’s booming pot industry clogs gutters, sewers and landfills

“Concentrated nutrients and fertilizers left over from cannabis growing operations are being dumped in public sewers and making their way past wastewater treatment plants into Puget Sound,” reports Kristen Millares Young. “And millions of pounds of weed harvest waste that could be composted are instead getting trucked to landfills.”

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Pollution from a fish processing plant in British Columbia

Audit finds seventy percent of B.C. fish-processing plants do not comply with environmental regulations

“An audit of British Columbia fish-processing plants sparked by gory video of a pipe spewing bloody water into the Salish Sea has found that more than seventy percent of plants audited are out of compliance with environmental regulations, and some operate under rules decades behind modern standards,” Lynda Mapes reports.

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Nuclear Wetlands

Sorry, Hanford: Your radiation leaks aren’t as important as tax cuts

“The whole mess is like a metaphor for how the entire federal government is run today. There is talk about big needs, even as they cut taxes on corporations and the wealthy, making it harder to address those needs. We the people are distracted by our borrowed bonuses. The crippling disconnect from reality isn’t even acknowledged.”

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Fire at Arkema chemical plant in Texas

Texas Republicans lobbied against imposition of safety rules on chemical plant that exploded

“The French company that says its Houston-area chemical plant is spewing ‘noxious’ smoke — and may explode — successfully pressed federal regulators to delay new regulations designed to improve safety procedures at chemical plants, according to federal records reviewed by International Business Times.”

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Pilsen and Pollution

Attorneys general of Washington, Oregon, and California sign on to letter warning Trump not to undo Clean Power Plan

Excerpt from a letter to Donald Trump from attorneys general representing New York, California, Hawaii, Iowa, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, the District of Columbia, Boulder (CO), New York City, Broward County (FL), and South Miami (FL).

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The climate crisis, visualized

Big win for Earth’s climate: 170 nations agree to reduce use of planet-warming HFCs

Negotiators representing most of the world’s nations have agreed to a new legally binding accord that would significantly cut down on use of hydrofluorocarbons, a chemical coolant used in air conditioners and refrigerators. HFCs are a highly potent heat-trapping gas, considered to be a thousand times as potent as carbon dioxide. The new accord is an extension of the landmark Montreal Protocol negotiated in the 1980s, which phased out ozone-depleting CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons).

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