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Keeping It Green

Atmospheric CO2 Levels

(Monthly Averages)

Apr. 30, 2024: 422.1 ppm
10 years ago: 396 ppm
Pre-industrial base: 280
Safe level: 350 ppm

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT

Page Updated:
July 23, 2024

• Get the Lead Out Toolkit
• Oil Spill History
• World Air Quality Report
• Energy Innovation and
  Carbon Dividend Act

• US Emissions by Sector Chart

  
  

  Where is all that CO2 coming from? This graph breaks it down by economic sector.

• Greenest U.S. Cities
• Safe Water in Pictures
• U.S. WEA Grassroots Accelerator
• Safer Habitats

• • In Idaho, Water Shortages Pit Farmers Against One Another
  

  This Summer, a Short-Lived Curtailment Order Brought a Dispute to a Head Between Farmers Irrigating From the Snake River and Those Dependent on Groundwater
  
  

  July 20, 2024 -Along the banks of the Snake River, below the Magic Valley’s fields of barley, wheat and corn, groundwater from a massive aquifer springs from steep, dark rock and crashes down the cliff to the river.

  As the river runs from its headwaters near Yellowstone, springs like these add water from the massive Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer.

• • The Times Mapped Heat in 3 U.S. Cities

  Some Sidewalks Were Over 130 Degrees
  
  

  July 17, 2024 -We usually talk about summertime heat in terms of how hot the air is, but there’s another metric that matters: the temperatures of roads, sidewalks, buildings, parking lots and other outdoor surfaces. Hot surfaces can make the places people live and work more dangerous, and can increase the risk of contact burns.

  Just consider this image, captured recently by satellite, of surface temperatures across Phoenix.

• • This Type of ‘Forever Chemical’ Seems to be Everywhere

  ‘Everyone is Drinking It’
  
  

  July 13, 2024 -For years, scientists have worried about “forever chemicals,” substances used to make hundreds of household items that have been linked by research to a wide range of health problems. In response, a growing number of companies have pledged not to use the chemicals, and regulators have increasingly taken aim at them.

  But even as work continues to phase out the substances, scientists are beginning to focus on new types that are far more widespread than earlier realized — prompting worries about undetected health risks.

• • Landfills Belch Toxic ‘Forever Chemicals’ into the Air
  

  The Systems that Collect Landfill Gas Weren’t Designed to Manage or Destroy Volatile PFAS
  
  

  July 11, 2024 -What’s dumped into a landfill is supposed to stay there, but a new study finds that toxic “forever chemicals” are wafting from the waste into the air.

  Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, have been detected in the gas exuded by some Florida landfills in quantities comparable to or even greater than in the liquids that seep from the waste, researchers report June 26 in Environmental Science & Technology Letters. These chemicals have been linked to cancer, weakened immune systems, developmental problems in children and a tide of other harmful health effects

• • NATO's 2024 Climate Change and
  Security Impact Assessment Report

  Part of an ambitious Action Plan on Climate Change and Security that NATO Leaders Adopted at the Brussels Summit in 2021

  July 9, 2024, (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)-Building on previous editions, it examines the impact of climate change on each of NATO’s operating domains – sea, land, air, space and cyber – as well as on NATO’s missions and operations, and resilience and civil preparedness.

  The Climate Change and Security Impact Assessment presents case studies in three geographical areas: NATO’s presence in Kosovo; the Rovajärvi shooting and training area in Finland; and the joint Canadian and US early-warning radar system for North American ?air defence (NWS). It also evaluates the performance of submarines, naval helicopters, and military transport planes in a changing climate.

• • Copenhagen Tries Rewards for Good Tourist Behavior

  The Danish Capital is Offering Free Museum Tours, Art Workshops and More to Visitors Who Take Part in Climate-Friendly Initiatives
  
  

  July 9, 2024 -A new fee for Venice day trippers. A looming ban on vacation rentals in Barcelona. Restrictions on the sale of alcohol in Majorca. At a time when overwhelmed European destinations are slapping tourists with restrictions and fees, Copenhagen is trying a different approach: rewarding visitors who act responsibly.

  Click now to read all about it.

• • The Killer Stalking Sri Lanka’s Men

  Climate Change and Contaminated Water Have Combined to Create an Epidemic of Kidney Disease
  
  

  July 8, 2024 -Something odd has been happening to young men in the sultry farming and fishing communities of Sri Lanka.

  Since the 1990s, men in their 30s and 40s have been turning up at hospitals with late-stage kidney failure, needing dialysis or even transplants. In some communities, as many as one in five young men is affected.

• • Does Climate Change Influence Insurance Rates Across America?

  It's Driving Rates Higher, But Not Always in Areas With the Greatest Risk
  
  

  July 8, 2024 -Enid, Okla., surrounded by farms about 90 minutes north of Oklahoma City, has an unwelcome distinction: Home insurance is more expensive, relative to home values, than almost anywhere else in the country.

  Enid is hardly the American community that is most vulnerable to damaging weather. Yet as a share of home prices, insurance costs more in parts of Enid than in New Orleans, much of which is below sea level...

• • Mangrove Forests are Climate Champions

  New Research Finds that Planted Mangrove Forests Can Capture 75% as Much Carbon as Natural Forests
  
  

  July 5, 2024 -Mangrove forests are climate treasure chests, storing more carbon acre-per-acre than virtually any other natural landscape. Yet they are gradually disappearing. Roughly 35% of the world’s mangrove forests have been lost over the last half century, thanks to logging, encroaching farms and extreme storms, among other things.

  But at least some of that treasure can be regained. Mangrove forests planted by people can hold as much as three-quarters of the carbon found in natural mangrove forests, according to research out today.

• • A Rising Fortress on Sinking Land

  A Massive Sea Wall Around a Louisiana Gas Facility Poses a Question: How Far Will the Fossil Fuel Industry Go to Protect Itself From Climate Impacts It Helped Cause?
  
  

  July 5, 2024 -The marshes that blanket this pancake-flat parish south of New Orleans stretch for miles, strewn with small streams that flow into the Gulf of Mexico. A lone four-lane road goes south past a Navy air base, an idle industrial site, a coal export terminal and a handful of small storm-battered communities.

  Click for the complete story.

• • US Army Needs to Test for PFAS in Certain Creeks
  

  In Particular, the Ones Flowing Out of Former Seneca Army Depot
  
  

  June 26, 2024 -The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has formally asked the U.S. Army to sample surface water and sediment in Kendaia and Reeder creeks for PFAS chemicals that may have migrated from the former Seneca Army Depot into Seneca Lake.

  “Thus far the Army has not agreed with our request,” the agency’s website reported on June 20.

• • Another Way Humans Are Exposed to 'Forever Chemicals'
  

  Through Our Skin
  
  

  June 26, 2024 -A first-of-its-kind study has found that “forever chemicals” — toxic compounds found in everyday beauty and personal care items like sunscreen, waterproof mascara and lipstick — can seep through human skin and enter the bloodstream.

  “If you put some of these products directly onto your skin and they contain PFAS, there’s a very high potential for them to be transferred across the skin,” said study co-author Stuart Harrad, whose research was published this week in Environment International.

• • How Utilities Can Brace Against Wildfire Risk
  

  Some of the Nation’s Largest Energy Suppliers Have Even Been Hit With Lawsuits Charging Their Equipment With Contributing to Some of the Most Devastating Fires in Recent Years
  
  

  June 25, 2024 -Wildfires are raging across the US more frequently than ever. As a result, utilities are feeling the heat.

  In recent months, some of the nation’s largest energy suppliers have even been hit with lawsuits charging their equipment with contributing to some of the most devastating fires in recent years. And as climate change intensifies extreme weather events, power-line-induced wildfires are only set to become more common – leaving utilities and their customers increasingly exposed.

• • Heat Amps Up Pollution
  

  A Ride in a Chemical-
  Sniffing Van Shows How
  
  

  June 21, 2024 -Two vans loaded with precision instruments trundled along the streets of New York and New Jersey in the heat earlier this week, sniffing for toxic chemicals in the air.

  They detected spikes in methane, a potent greenhouse gas, most likely from leaks, or from natural-gas-burning buses. They found plumes of nitrous oxide, possibly from wastewater. And all along the ride, they logged elevated levels of ozone, the main ingredient of smog, as well as cancer-causing formaldehyde — both of which form readily in hot weather.

• • What Targeted Building Electrification Could Mean
  

  Could Save California
  Utilities Billion of Dollarss
  
  

  June 21, 2024 -Targeted building electrification and gas decommissioning projects in California could avoid $20 billion in gas pipeline replacement costs by 2045 while only affecting 3% of current gas customers, according to a report from Energy and Environmental Economics (E3).

  The report, Avoiding Gas Distribution Pipeline Replacement Through Targeted Electrification in California, notes that California’s gas utilities are on track to replace 8,900 miles of gas distribution mains at a projected cost of $43 billion. A geographically-targeted building electrification program could fully electrify blocks or neighborhoods to avoid some gas pipeline replacement projects, the report said.

• • Heat Amps Up Pollution
  

  A Ride in a Chemical-
  Sniffing Van Shows How
  
  

  June 21, 2024 -Two vans loaded with precision instruments trundled along the streets of New York and New Jersey in the heat earlier this week, sniffing for toxic chemicals in the air.

  They detected spikes in methane, a potent greenhouse gas, most likely from leaks, or from natural-gas-burning buses. They found plumes of nitrous oxide, possibly from wastewater. And all along the ride, they logged elevated levels of ozone, the main ingredient of smog, as well as cancer-causing formaldehyde — both of which form readily in hot weather.

• • The Results of Efforts to Save a Historic Water Tower
  

  It Put Lead in this
  

  June 21, 2024 -Pitted with rust, an empty water tower looms over this old mill village. In its short shadow rests an organic community garden, where overripe tomatoes dangle from dying vines and pepper plants droop, yellowed and parched.

  This is the most visible sign of the unintended consequences of an attempt to save the water tower and designate it as a historic landmark. Parts of Bynum, including the community garden, are now contaminated with hexavalent chromium and lead.

• • California Workplace Safety Board
  Approves Heat Protections for Indoor Workers
  

  Prisons Were Excluded
  
  

  June 20, 2024 -On the first day of summer with parts of California sweltering under a heat advisory, a state worker safety board approved standards Thursday that would require employers to protect workers from indoor heat, but would exempt state correctional facilities.

  The board of the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health first passed indoor heat rules in March. However, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration blocked them over concerns about costs to prisons and other state entities.

• • Almost 2,000 Children Sie Every Day from Air Pollution
  

  Dirty Air is Second Only to Malnutrition as Cause of Death Among Under-Fives
  
  

  June 18, 2024 -Nearly 2,000 children under five are dying every day from air pollution, which has overtaken poor sanitation and a lack of clean water to become the second biggest health risk factor for young children around the world.

  More than 8 million deaths, of children and adults, were caused by air pollution in 2021, according to a new study from the Health Effects Institute (HEI), as both outdoor and indoor pollution continue to take an increasing toll on health.

• • Restoring 20% of Bloc’s Land and Sea by End of Decade
  

  The E.U.Just Passed the Law
  
  

  June 17, 2024 -The EU has passed a landmark law to protect nature after a knife-edge vote, ending a months-long deadlock among member states spooked by fierce protests from farmers.

  But a last-minute change of heart by Austria’s Green Climate minister, whose vote is credited with saving the proposal, led to fury in Vienna, with the party of the chancellor, Karl Nehammer, announcing it would seek criminal charges against her for alleged abuse of power.

• • New Mexico Debates What to Do With Oil and Gas Wastewater
  

  State Regulators Say Discharges of Treated Produced Water Into Rivers are Too Risky, but...
  
  

  June 15, 2024 -The question of what to do with the vast quantities of toxic wastewater from oil and gas drilling in New Mexico is up for debate.

  At stake are billions of gallons of wastewater generated annually in New Mexico, an arid state facing water shortages in the coming decades. Injecting the wastewater, known as produced water, underground has been linked to earthquakes.

• • Britain's Dirty Waters
  

  How the Environment Agency Lost its Way
  
  

  June 13, 2024 -When Helen Nightingale joined the National Rivers Authority, the predecessor to the Environment Agency, in 1991, she thought of her work as a calling. She had been fascinated by nature since she was a child, when she used to poke around in the earth on her father’s allotment, looking for worms and beetles.

  In her job, Nightingale spent most of her time walking along the rivers in Lancashire and Merseyside, taking water samples and testing oxygen levels. She was responsible for protecting rivers, and she often learned about sewage and pesticide pollution from members of the public who called a dedicated hotline.

• • What Pennsylvania’s Fracking Wastewater Contains
  

  A ‘Shocking’ Amount of the Critical Clean Energy Mineral Lithium
  
  

  May 29, 2024 -In 2007, a geoscientist at Penn State named Terry Engelder calculated that Pennsylvania could be sitting on more than 50 trillion cubic feet of accessible natural gas deposits. Engelder later revised his calculation upward, to 489 trillion cubic feet, enough to meet U.S. natural gas demand for 18 years. These massive numbers set off the fracking boom in Pennsylvania, leading to drilling across the state. Since the rush began, there have been 13,000 unconventional wells drilled in Pennsylvania.

• • Zero-Emission Cement
  

  Recycling Used Cement Could Dramatically Lower Emissions
  
  

  May 28, 2024 -Cement is the basic ingredient in concrete, and concrete is one of our biggest environmental problems. It accounts for 7.5% of our global greenhouse gas emissions, more than every country except China and the US. Cement is so ubiquitous that we can’t even dream of getting rid of it yet — but we can try to make it more eco-friendly.

  In a new study, researchers from the University of Cambridge, UK, have found a way to recycle cement and produce new material without the environmental cost of it.

• • To Incinerate or Not to Incinerate:
  

  Maryland Hospitals Grapple With Question With Big Public Health Implications
  
  

  May 27, 2024 -Maryland’s two largest health systems have taken contrasting positions on their future dealings with a controversial medical waste incinerator in South Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Health System and University said it ended its dealings with the incinerator while MedStar Health gave no such assurance.

  “We have ended all dealings with Curtis Bay Energy and are working to shift nearly all of our medical waste disposal to more environmentally-friendly technologies, including autoclave and ozone sterilization facilities,” a Johns Hopkins University spokesperson said in emailed comments to Inside Climate News.

• • In One of the US’s Hottest Deserts,
  Utilities Push Gas Rather Than Solar
  

  Even GOP Voters are Fighting Gas Power Plants as Utilities Try to Lock in Fossil Fuels
  
  

  May 23, 2024 -Retirement was pretty idyllic for Mac and Debbie McKeever, who moved to Fort Mohave in Arizona for the desert views, starry nights and fresh air. The couple hosted cocktails by the pool and taco Tuesdays with their neighbors – an active bunch of Republican-voting retirees with a penchant for gas-guzzling RVs and side-by-sides, and the unlikeliest environmental activists.

  However, in late November 2023, the McKeevers found out that the local government, the Mohave county board of supervisors, was about to vote on a zoning proposal for a gas-fired peaker plant less than 1,200ft (0.2 miles) from their middle-class neighborhood Sunrise Hills.

• • The World’s Largest Carbon-Capture Plant Just Switched On

  Experts Say We’ll Need Carbon Capture to Offset Stubborn Emissions that Can’t Easily be Cut with Existing Green Technology
  
  

  May 9, 2024 -After decades of hype and doubt, giant factories that can pull thousands of tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere are starting to spin up.

  Climeworks, a Swiss start-up, opened the biggest carbon absorbing plant in the world on May 8 in Hellisheidi, Iceland. Dubbed “Mammoth,” the plant is designed to remove 36,000 metric tons of carbon each year, the equivalent of taking 8,600 cars off the road.

• • A Hidden Danger Lurks Beneath Yellowstone

  Catastrophic Hydrothermal Explosions Rocked the Park in the Past and Could Again in the Future
  
  

  May 8, 2024 -Mount Ontake in Japan rises 3,067 meters above sea level — a windswept giant standing head and shoulders above densely forested hills. This ancient volcano is a popular trekking site. A trail traverses its ash- and boulder-strewn ridges. There are several huts and a shrine. On September 27, 2014, hikers took advantage of a blue sky and gentle wind. At 11:52 a.m., over a hundred of them stood on the summit, eating snacks and taking photos. Disaster struck with little warning.

  The windows and doors of a nearby hut rattled, vibrated by a low-frequency shock wave inaudible to humans.

• • Dissolving Circuit Boards that Can Be Recycled Over and Over Again
  

  This New Method Separates The Components For Reuse
  
  

  May 2, 2024 -Inside the phone or computer you are reading this story on is a fiberglass board bearing all the circuit chips, wires and other electronic components that make the device work. And every year, hundreds of thousands of tons of these printed circuit boards (PCBs) get dumped in landfills as electronics become obsolete.

  There has been a lot of research on finding ways to extract valuable metals from electronic waste. But recycling the PCBs themselves, which are made of a type of tough plastic, is challenging.

• • Decayed Power Pole Sparked the Largest Wildfire in Texas History

  A Lack of Air Support and Ineffective Coordination Hurt Efforts to Contain This Year’s Panhandle Fires
  
  

  May 2, 2024 - A decayed utility pole that broke, causing power wires to fall on dry grass in the Texas Panhandle, sparked the state’s largest wildfire in history, a Texas House committee confirmed Wednesday.

  And other poorly maintained power equipment sparked four additional fires across the region earlier this year, the committee said.

• • A Sheet of Gold That’s Just One Atom Thick

  It’s Unclear What, if Any, Exotic Properties Goldene Has
  
  

  May. 1, 2024 -Meet graphene’s newest metallic cousin, goldene. For the first time, researchers have created a free-standing sheet of gold that’s just one atom thick.

  The development, reported in the April 16 Nature Synthesis, could someday allow scientists to use less gold in electronics and chemical reactions, says materials physicist Lars Hultman of Linköping University in Sweden. The gold sheet may also exhibit exotic properties like those found in other two-dimensional materials.

• • These Scientists Want to Make White Bread as Healthy as Wholegrain

  Here's How They'll Do It>
  
  

  May. 1, 2024 -White bread is a staple in many diets around the world. However, over the years, it’s earned a bad reputation. White bread is made from refined wheat flour, lacking fiber or protein. The taste and texture are great when you’re eating white bread, but that’s because it’s a bit like eating sugar. It’s digested and absorbed very quickly, spiking our blood sugar, which can lead to weight gain and even diabetes.

  But what if you could have a great tasting bread like white bread, but which is also nutritious like wholegrain? That’s exactly what scientists at Aberystwyth University in the UK are trying to achieve.

• • A Plastics Plant Promised Pennsylvania Prosperity, but...
  

  but to Some Residents It’s Become a ‘Shockingly Bad’ Neighbor
  
  

  April 30, 2024 -Shell’s new ethane cracker was supposed to be an economic “game changer” for Beaver County. But some of its neighbors are now fleeing its light, noise and air pollution–and the facility is facing two lawsuits.

  Pollution from the plant has been far more disruptive than most people expected. In May 2023, Shell was fined $10 million for air quality violations.

• • Carbon Carbon Markets Could
  Finance Green Wastewater Infrastructure

  Could Be a Huge Win-Win-Win
  
  

  Apr. 30, 2024 -Green wastewater-treatment infrastructure could save billions of dollars and avert millions of tons of carbon emissions in the United States in the coming decades, according to a new study.

  To facilitate this, wastewater treatment could be folded into carbon markets, moving water quality from a local to a globally traded resource, the study suggests.

• • U.S. Energy-Related CO2 Emissions Dropped 3% in 2023

  Now, That is Progress!
  
  

  Apr. 29, 2024 -Based on analysis in the most recent U.S. Energy-Related Carbon Dioxide Emissions report, U.S. energy-related CO2 emissions decreased by 3%, about 134 million metric tons (MMmt), in 2023.

  According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), more than 80% of the emissions reductions occurred in the electric power sector, caused largely by decreased coal-fired electricity generation, displaced by increased generation from solar and natural gas. Electric power sector emissions decreased to about 1,425 MMmt in 2023, about 7% less than in 2022.

• • Texas Companies Eye Pecos River Watershed for Oilfield Wastewater

  But What About Toxic
  Pollutants in the Wastewater?
  
  

  Apr. 28, 2024 -These days the Pecos River barely fills its dry, sandy bed where it crosses West Texas, but the river could be poised to flow again — with treated oilfield wastewater.

  Companies are racing to figure out what to do with the tremendous volume of noxious water that comes up from underground during oil and gas drilling in the Permian Basin, but a growing cohort of companies say they’ve developed a means to purify that fluid and release it in the Pecos and other watersheds.

• • Tornadoes Kill at Least 4 People in Swath of Devastated Oklahoma

  ‘You Just Can’t Believe the Destruction’ in the Town of Sulphur, the Governor Says
  
  

  Apr. 28, 2024 -Crews were assessing damage Sunday after a tornado outbreak killed at least four people and leveled neighborhoods in several Oklahoma towns Saturday night.

  In downtown Sulphur, about 85 miles southeast of Oklahoma City, Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) told reporters he hadn’t seen anything like it since taking office in January 2019.