Disproportionate placement of devices leaves communities of color less protected from dangerous pollutants
The Environmental Protection Agency’s air quality monitors are disproportionately positioned in whiter neighborhoods in the US, leaving communities of color less protected from dangerous pollutants like particulate matter, ozone, nitrous dioxide and lead, among others, new research finds.
Policy and actions the EPA takes to reduce pollution are developed from the monitors’ readings, and communities of color are broadly more likely to be near major polluters. The findings raise questions about whether the agency has enough monitors installed, is properly placing them, and whether conclusions about the safety of the air in some areas are sound.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
12/14/2024 - 10:00
12/14/2024 - 08:43
US industry ready to drop demand to export chlorinated chicken and hormone-fed beef in move set to anger British farmers
The United States is expected to push Britain to allow tariff-free access to high-quality American meat as part of any trade deal signed under the incoming Trump administration, amid interest from the president-elect’s trade chief.
Previous attempts to forge an agreement with the US have failed. Demands to allow the import of chlorinated chicken and hormone-fed beef – produced in the US but illegal in the UK – have proved too unpalatable for British ministers.
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12/14/2024 - 02:00
From a futuristic home in London to a barn conversion in the heart of the country
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12/13/2024 - 18:39
State has exemptions under Clean Air Act to set vehicle emissions standards higher than federal limits
The US supreme court agreed on Friday to hear a bid by fuel producers to challenge California’s standards for vehicle emissions and electric cars under a federal air-pollution law in a major case testing the Democrat-governed state’s power to fight greenhouse gases.
The justices took up an appeal by a Valero Energy subsidiary and fuel industry groups over a lower court’s rejection of their challenge to a decision by Joe Biden’s administration to allow California to set its own regulations.
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12/13/2024 - 12:52
A new database of African hippo populations has revealed huge gaps in our knowledge of where the megaherbivores live and thrive, with populations fragmented and reliant on protected areas.
12/13/2024 - 09:00
‘No one really has the foggiest idea of what it will cost to develop nuclear in Australia,’ one expert says
The Coalition claims its nuclear policy is ‘visionary’ – but it needs to stand up to scrutiny
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The Coalition’s nuclear energy plan creates “a significant risk” for the stability of the nation’s grid, according to the peak body representing power generators and retailers.
Responding to the Friday release of modelling by Frontier Economics of the Coalition’s scheme to build seven nuclear power plants from the mid-2030s, the Australian Energy Council warned the estimates assumed a slower build out of renewable energy.
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12/13/2024 - 09:00
Experts and agencies have overwhelmingly deemed the plan not to be credible. And burning more coal and gas in the medium term only leads one way
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Let’s not waste time with niceties: the Coalition’s nuclear plan is a fantasy. The vision laid out on Friday by a quartet of opposition frontbenchers is not going to eventuate, regardless of the result of the next election.
That’s not because nuclear energy is necessarily a terrible idea, in a global sense. While waste is an issue, nuclear plants offer zero-emissions power and will be needed in places with fewer energy options. But the claims put forward by the opposition – that Australia needs nuclear, or could have it in the way the Coalition describes – do not stand up to scrutiny.
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12/13/2024 - 06:00
Chevron spent billions trying to destroy him after he won the largest pollution case in history. It’s time for Biden to end this nightmare
It’s a tale as old as time: an underdog fighting for what’s right, and a powerful giant doing everything it can to stop him. Yet in today’s America, the giants don’t lose – they rig the system to crush anyone who dares to challenge them.
That’s exactly what happened to Steven Donziger, a well-known human rights lawyer who stood up to oil giant Chevron. After helping Indigenous and farming communities in Ecuador secure a historic $9.5bn judgment against the company for decades of environmental destruction, Chevron retaliated with a vicious legal campaign designed not just to discredit him, but to ruin his life.
Jim McGovern is a congressman from Massachusetts
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12/13/2024 - 05:48
‘Clean power 2030’ plan will speed up planning and give energy secretary final say on major infrastructure projects
The UK will not face blackouts under Labour’s proposed shake-up of energy supply, Ed Miliband has said, as he unveiled plans to boost clean power by the end of the decade.
The energy secretary insisted the transition away from fossil fuels was “unstoppable.”
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12/13/2024 - 05:26
Find is ‘hopeful sign’ the species, one of world’s largest and rarest freshwater fish, is not at imminent risk of extinction
Six critically endangered Mekong giant catfish — one of the largest and rarest freshwater fish in the world — have been caught and released in Cambodia, reviving hopes for the survival of the species.
The underwater giants can grow up to 3 metres long and weigh up to 300kg. They are found only in south-east Asia’s Mekong River but in the past inhabited the entire 3,044-mile (4,900km)-long river all the way from its outlet in Vietnam to its northern reaches in China’s Yunnan province.
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