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Keeping It Green

Atmospheric CO2 Levels

(Monthly Averages)

July. 30, 2024: 425.8 ppm
10 years ago: 396 ppm
Pre-industrial base: 280
Safe level: 350 ppm

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT

Page Updated:
Oct. 2, 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

• • Forever Chemicals’ on the Family Farm?

  Pastures Were Fertilized With Toxic Sewage Decades Ago. Nobody Knew, Until the Cows’ Milk Was Tested
  
  

  Sep. 21, 2024 -Allison Jumper’s family was a picture of healthy living. Active kids. Wholesome meals. A freezer stocked with organic beef from her in-laws’ farm in Maine.

  Then in late 2020, she got a devastating call from her brother-in-law. High levels of harmful “forever chemicals” had been detected on their farm and in their cows’ milk, and they were getting shut down.

• • Midwest States Struggle to Fund Dam Safety Projects

  Even as Federal Aid
  Hits Historic Highs
  
  

  Sep. 20, 2024 -Many dams in the Midwest do not meet grant eligibility requirements, leaving safety officials and residents worried about how they’ll prevent future collapses as flood risks increase.

• • Ranchers Are Using Toxic Herbicides to Clear Forests in Brazil

  Agent Orange is Linked to the World’s Biggest Meat Packer, JBS, According to a New Report
  
  

  Sep. 17, 2024 -A destructive cocktail of herbicides, including a key compound in the lethal defoliant Agent Orange, is being used to chemically deforest huge areas of Brazil as ranchers there seek new, less detectable ways to clear forests for grazing cattle.

• • Fishermen Seek to End ‘Federal Mud Dumping’ in Mobile Bay

  Alabama Environmental
  Group Leads the Action
  
  

  Sep. 16, 2024 -They say the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ plan to deepen a shipping channel would devastate local oyster reefs and seagrass beds that are building blocks for the marsh ecosystem. Their arguments are being challenged on numerous fronts.

  For five generations, Avery Bates’ family has worked pulling fish, shrimp, crabs and oysters out of Mobile Bay in south Alabama.

  Now Bates fears that his family’s legacy and the oyster reefs they depend on are about to be smothered by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

• • Low Boom, High Pollution?

  NASA Readies for
  Supersonic Test Flight
  
  

  Sep. 16, 2024 -At the end of the last century, a wealthy few lived the dream of flying faster than the speed of sound, crossing the ocean in champagne-and-caviar style in a needle-nosed jet called the Concorde.

  But commercial supersonic aviation’s 27-year run sputtered to a stop in the 21st century as fuel, safety and maintenance costs soared at the same time passenger interest waned amid the economic and political turmoil of a post-9/11 world.

• • Where the Sea Wall Ends

  At a Time of Fast-Rising Seas, the Ocean is Eating Away at This Barrier Island and Others Like It
  
  

  Sep. 23, 2024 -This roughly 30-mile-long barrier island, an hour’s drive from Houston, is a powerful testament to humans staring down nature and refusing to yield.

  Devastated by an extreme hurricane in 1900, Galvestonians built a 17-foot-high sea wall and pumped in millions of cubic yards of sand to lift neighborhoods.

• • The Hidden Environmental Costs of Food

  Damage to the Natural World Isn’t Factored into the Price of Food. But...
  
  

  Sep. 19, 2024 -As pricey as a run to the grocery store has become, our grocery bills would be considerably more expensive if environmental costs were included, researchers say. The loss of species as cropland takes over habitat. Groundwater depletion. Greenhouse gases from manure and farm equipment.

• • End ‘Federal Mud Dumping’ in Mobile Bay

  Demands by an Alabama Environmental Group, and Fishermen
  
  

  Sep. 18, 2024 -They say the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ plan to deepen a shipping channel would devastate local oyster reefs and seagrass beds that are building blocks for the marsh ecosystem. Their arguments are being challenged on numerous fronts.

• • Using Toxic Herbicides to Clear Forests in Brazil

  Braziian Ranchers Are
  Doing Just That
  
  

  Sep. 17, 2024 -A destructive cocktail of herbicides, including a key compound in the lethal defoliant Agent Orange, is being used to chemically deforest huge areas of Brazil as ranchers there seek new, less detectable ways to clear forests for grazing cattle.

  Click now for the report.

• • Typhoon Yagi Unleashes Destruction in Vietnam

  Hanoi Is Threatened
  
  

  Sep. 17, 2024 -The death toll in Vietnam from Asia's worst storm this year reached 127 on Tuesday, with torrents of rain triggering floods and landslides, burying homes, sweeping away a bridge and now threatening the capital Hanoi.

  In several northern provinces, including the suburbs of Hanoi, residents waded through knee-high floods. Brown water cascaded down pedestrian steps.

• • Ranchers Are Using Toxic Herbicides to Clear Forests in Brazil

  Agent Orange is Linked to the World’s Biggest Meat Packer, JBS, According to a New Report
  
  

  Sep. 17, 2024 -A destructive cocktail of herbicides, including a key compound in the lethal defoliant Agent Orange, is being used to chemically deforest huge areas of Brazil as ranchers there seek new, less detectable ways to clear forests for grazing cattle.

• • The Fires That Could Reshape the Amazon

  Vast, Diverse Parts of Brazil Burn at the Same Time, Forcing Officials to Rethink How to Protect Crucial Ecosystems Like the Amazon
  
  

  Sep. 17, 2024 -Large parts of Brazil, a country that holds over a tenth of the world’s fresh water, are on fire. They include vast areas of the Amazon rainforest and the Pantanal, the world’s largest wetlands, as well as the Cerrado grasslands and the Atlantic forests along the country’s eastern coast.

• • Low Boom, High Pollution?

  NASA Readies for
  Supersonic Test Flight
  
  

  Sep. 16, 2024 -At the end of the last century, a wealthy few lived the dream of flying faster than the speed of sound, crossing the ocean in champagne-and-caviar style in a needle-nosed jet called the Concorde.

  But commercial supersonic aviation’s 27-year run sputtered to a stop in the 21st century as fuel, safety and maintenance costs soared at the same time passenger interest waned amid the economic and political turmoil of a post-9/11 world.

• • A Fungal Disease That's Killing Bats

  Linked to Thousands of
  Infant Deaths in the US
  
  

  Sep. 15, 2024 -In the last 20 years, a fungal disease called white-nose syndrome (WNS) has killed over six million bats in the US, causing a severe decline in the population of many bat species. About 90 percent of the long-eared, little brown, and tri-colored bat populations that once inhabited North America are now dead because of this infection.

• • The Disaster No Major U.S. City is Prepared For

  The Path of Tropical Storm Beryl
  
  

  Sep. 13, 2024 -For days, residents of Houston struggled to survive as temperatures rose. They shared generators, filled buckets and bathtubs with ice, packed air-conditioned hotels and emergency rooms. The most vulnerable struggled to get the care they needed. Many died.

  Experts warn this type of catastrophe — a combined power outage with a heat wave — is a scenario that cities and states are unprepared for.

• • How Many Chemicals Enter Our Bodies From Food Packaging?

  Scientists Just Figured It Out
  
  

  Sep. 12, 2024 -Shrink-wrap sealed around a piece of raw meat. Takeout containers filled with restaurant leftovers. Plastic bottles filled with soft drinks.

  These are just a few types of food packaging that surround humans every day. And a new study released Monday shows the chemical toll of all that wrapping — and how it might affect the human body.

• • Burned-Out Firefighters Are Fleeing
  the US Forest Service Amid Labor Dispute

  As Increasingly Explosive Fire Seasons Ravage the country, federal firefighters say their employer is Exacerbating Exhaustion by Misclassifying Their Jobs
  
  

  Sep. 12, 2024 -Firefighters are feeling the strain of another long and intense season, with months to go before the highest risks subside. But as they battle the flames, the thousands of people working for the US Forest Service (USFS), the largest federal employer of firefighters, are also fighting for changes within the agency to tackle issues they say have made the work even harder.

• • A Natural Gas Project Along The Gulf Coast is Upending Residents’ Lives

  Venture Global’s Plant Depletes Water, Emergency Services and Road Space, Say Local Officials, People and Paramedics
  
  

  Sep. 10, 2024 -When America’s newest gas giant arrives in your town, the world turns upside down.

  Residents of Plaquemines parish, 70 miles south of New Orleans, say they have faced unreliable essential services, water shortages and impassible traffic since 2021, when Venture Global began construction on what will become one of the world’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) hubs.

• • The huge US Toxic Fire Shrouded in Secrecy

  Louisianans Say a Major Accident at a Sprawling Marathon Refinery Caused Health Issues. But...
  
  

  Sep. 9, 2024 -At 8.04am on 25 August last year, Darnell Alboudoor watched a plume of black smoke blanketing the sky and rolling in the direction of her family home.

  A stench like burning oil filled the air on that piping hot summer morning, as Alboudoor, 54, looked in the direction of the sprawling petroleum refinery, which sat a few hundred feet from her back yard. She called 911.

• • Colombia Is the Deadliest Country for Environmental Activists

  Killings of Environmental Defenders in the Country Rose Again Last Year, According to a New Report
  
  

  Sep. 9, 2024 -Protecting the world’s most pristine ecosystems is essential to curb climate change and prevent biodiversity loss, but it also continues to be deadly. At least 196 people were killed last year defending the environment, according to a report by Global Witness, an environmental watchdog group.

• • In Threatened Island Nation, Pope Hears Plea for Climate Action

  Pope Francis is Visiting Papua New Guinea, Which Has Been Exploited For Its Natural Resources and is Imperiled By Rising Sea Levels
  
  

  Sep. 7, 2024 -In the Pacific island nation of Papua New Guinea, hundreds of people may soon have to abandon their homes, pushed inland by the rising sea. Hundreds more were buried in a devastating landslide this year. Around the country, intensive logging is shrinking the island’s lush rainforests, and mine tailings have polluted its rivers.

• • Algal Blooms Ravaged New York’s Finger Lakes

  It Happened During
  the Final Week of August
  
  

  Sep. 3, 2024 -No other region in the state had a comparable level of outbreaks. The Hochul administration is spending millions to help farmers limit nutrient runoff.

  Seneca Lake had one of its worst weeks ever, with more than 50 confirmed blooms between Aug. 24 and 29, according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

• • Coal Baron a No-Show in Alabama Courtroom

  His Abandoned Plant Continues to Pollute Neighborhoods
  
  

  Aug. 24 2024 -The son of West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice was hailed as a hero five years ago when his family’s company purchased a troubled coke plant in North Birmingham that had polluted three historically Black neighborhoods. Now, a judge says the Justices’ Bluestone Coke is on a “superhighway to contempt.”

• • Heat Kills Thousands in the U.S. Every Year

  Why Are the Deaths So Hard to Track?
  
  

  Aug. 23, 2024 - As heat waves become more frequent and intense, researchers and activists say the lack of precise data is leading to needless fatalities.

  Click now for the complete story.

• • Alexandria, Virginia, Is Close
  to Fixing Its Sewage Overflow Problem

  This After $615 Million
  and 16 Months of Tunneling
  
  

  Aug. 20 2024 -Another 700 municipalities have similarly antiquated combined sewer systems, designed to overflow into rivers and creeks during storms and heavy rains. Climate change is making the problem much worse.

• • Greenpeace Tries a Novel Tactic
  in Lawsuit Over Dakota Access Pipeline

  The Environmental Group, Threatened to Use New European Rules to Try Limiting Potential Damages
  
  

  Aug. 17, 2024 - Greenpeace recently unveiled a new strategy for fighting a costly lawsuit by an energy company that the group contends is designed to silence critics of the oil industry.

  The suit, first filed in federal court in 2017, alleged that Greenpeace had incited the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota in 2016 and 2017, and it sought $300 million in damages.

• • The Mpox Emergency

  What We Should Know
  
  

  Aug. 16, 2024 - The World Health Organization has declared that an outbreak of mpox, a viral infection that spreads through close contact, represents a global health emergency for the second time in two years.

  Mpox is a viral infection that causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions, and while usually mild, it can kill. Children, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems, such as those with HIV, are all at higher risk of complications.

• • What Arizona’s Mining Boom Will Do to Its Water

  Nearly 80 percent of Arizona Lacks Any Form of Groundwater Regulation, Allowing Big Users Like The Copper Mines Supplying The Energy Transition to Consume Vast Amounts of the Scarce Resource
  
  

  Aug. 9, 2024 - Overlooking a ridge in the Galiuro Mountains, one of Arizona’s famed Sky Islands that provide refuges for wildlife in the hot Sonoran Desert, Melissa Crytzer Fry and her husband, Steve, stand above what could one day become an underground mine.

  Steve pulls up a map showing Faraday Copper’s proposed mine site on a tablet and points to surrounding locations that would become mining pits, waste piles or facilities for the project. A creek that feeds into the river below them, at the mountains’ base, would become six open pits.

• • Researchers in Singapore Have Uncovered a New Candida Clade

  Already Present in Several Countries, it Could Be a Global Threat
  
  

  Aug. 7, 2024 -Candida auris, a multidrug-resistant fungal pathogen, is a global threat. It’s highly transmissible, persistent in healthcare environments, and can cause significant mortality rates among vulnerable patient groups.

  Now, recent research has uncovered a new, sixth clade of C. auris in Singapore. This means the pathogen is more diverse (and possibly more dangerous) than we knew — posing more problems for health officials worldwide.

• • Living Close to Pesticide Use Linked to Higher Stillbirth Risk

  Living Within Half a Kilometer From Pesticide Use During Early Pregnancy or Even Prior to Conception May Be a Problem
  
  

  Aug. 7, 2024 -Pregnant women and the developing fetus are particularly vulnerable to pesticides. The mothers experience physiological changes during pregnancy (including altered hormone levels and immune system activity), while the fetus is vulnerable to toxin exposure. It makes sense that if pesticides were to cause any damage, this is where you’d see it first.

  Researchers looked at pesticide use in Arizona and analyzed whether living within 500 meters of the pesticide application site has any effect on stillbirth. The data included 1,237,750 births and 2,290 stillbirths from 2006 to 2020.

• • Legal Fight Over Legacy Oil Industry Pollution Heats Up in West Texas

  Lawsuit Contends That Oil Companies Including Chevron Failed to Properly Plug and Decommission Wells on Private Property, Challenging Common Assumptions About Plugged Wells
  
  

  Aug. 6, 2024 - A dozen people huddle around a 10-foot deep hole in the parched West Texas soil. The group falls silent in anticipation as well-control specialist Hawk Dunlap, in a red jumpsuit, scrapes at the soil with a shovel. A lawyer in a hardhat peers down and trains his iPhone camera on the excavation.

  Dunlap unearths what was buried decades ago.

  Not a cadaver, but a plugged oil well.

• • E.P.A. Pulls From the Market a Weedkiller Harmful to Fetuses

  The Herbicide, Used Widely on Crops Including Broccoli and Onions, Can Cause Low Birth Weight and Impaired Brain Development
  
  

  Aug. 6, 2024 -In a move not seen for almost 40 years, the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday issued an emergency order suspending all uses of a weedkiller linked to serious health risks for unborn babies.

  Fetuses exposed to the herbicide dimethyl tetrachloroterephthalate, also known as DCPA or Dacthal could suffer from low birth weight, impaired brain development, decreased I.Q., and impaired motor skills later in life

• • Engineers Create Truly Green Hydrogen Gas

  Using Only Seawater,
  Soda Cans, and Caffeine
  
  

  Aug. 1, 2024 -The global shipping industry is alone responsible for three percent of the total greenhouse gas emissions humans produce. If nothing is done to make shipping green, in a few decades, this sector will produce over 10 percent of the emissions.

  A new study from MITresearchers reveals a practical and scalable solution to this problem. The study authors have devised an emission-free approach to produce green hydrogen fuel for maritime applications such as boats, naval ships, commercial vessels, and even submarines.

• • This Scientist Has a Risky Plan to Cool Earth

  There’s Growing Interest
  
  

  Aug. 1, 2024 -David Keith was a graduate student in 1991 when a volcano erupted in the Philippines, sending a cloud of ash toward the edge of space.

  Seventeen million tons of sulfur dioxide released from Mount Pinatubo spread across the stratosphere, reflecting some of the sun’s energy away from Earth. The result was a drop in average temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere by roughly one degree Fahrenheit in the year that followed...

• • Where Half of Houston’s Chemical Air Pollution Originates

  Three Facilities Are Responsible
  
  

  July 30, 2024 -Just three facilities account for more than half of chemical air pollution from industrial sources around Houston, home to the nation’s largest petrochemical and refinery complex, according to a new report.

  Air Alliance Houston, an environmental nonprofit, analyzed data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxics Release Inventory, a database of industrial emissions, to identify the largest sources of chemical releases in Harris County between 2018 and 2022.

• • ‘World’s First Oil Town’ Wrestles With Its Fossil Fuel Legacy

  Cop29 Host Baku Has Cleaned Up Since Its Black City Days – But This Summit Needs to Do More Than Whitewash the Facade Of A Petrostate
  
  

  July 29, 2024 -Just a few miles from the site of the next UN climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, is a district that for more than a century was known as Black City. Every house and factory was thickly stained with soot, from the oil that was extracted and refined here, by the shores of the Caspian Sea.

  Click now for more.

• • Grabbing CO2 Out of Air Without Electricity

  A Nature-Inspired Membrane Driven By Humidity Does the Trick
  
  

  July 25, 2024 -The big problem with capturing carbon dioxide from air is how little of the greenhouse gas is present in the atmosphere. Its low concentration—only about 0.04% of air—slows down chemical reactions needed for removal. It also requires direct air capture methods to first spend a lot of energy concentrating the carbon dioxide.

  A team of researchers in the UK have come up with a solution to these two issues. In a paper published in the journal Nature Energy, they report a novel membrane that, driven by a difference in humidity, can grab carbon dioxide out of air.

• • World Must Turbocharge the Fossil Fuel Phaseout

  As Warned by
  the UN Secretary-General
  
  

  July 25, 2024 -Ongoing deadly heat waves around the world, set against the backdrop of a seemingly endless series of annual, monthly and daily heat records on every continent and ocean, prompted United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to make an urgent call to “turbo charge” cuts to fossil fuels.

  “All countries must deliver by next year nationally determined contributions, or national climate action plans, aligned to limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius,” Guterres said Thursday to the press in New York.


• • What Octopus and Squid Pigment
  Could Do for the Environment

  Could Make Sunscreen For Us
  
  

  July 25, 2024 -Cephalopods (the group that includes octopuses and squids) are masters of disguise. They have fine-tuned mechanisms to adapt and change their pigments depending on their current needs. Sorry, chameleons, when it comes to pigments, no one does it better than cephalopods.

  Northeastern University graduate Camille Martin and associate professor Leila Deravi thought they could use this. They aren’t looking to design a color-shifting cloak or anything like that. Instead, they’re working on something much more tangible — and much more important — sunscreen.

• • New York City’s Marshes, Resplendent and Threatened

  Productive Ecosystems For Shorebirds and Other Fauna, The Marshes Are Relentlessly Pounded By Sea Level Rise and Storm Surges...
  
  

  July 24, 2024 -Walter Mugdan looks out at the marshes that make up part of Udall’s Cove Park and Preserve in Little Neck, Queens. He points out the ospreys that inhabit one of the nesting platforms in the area, hoping to catch one of them diving down into the marsh for food.

  Click now to read on.

• • E.P.A. Moves Toward Regulating
  a Widely Used, Dangerous Chemical

  Vinyl Chloride is the Culprit
  
  

  July 24, 2024 -The Biden-Harris administration said Wednesday that it was taking its first steps toward potentially regulating vinyl chloride, a versatile yet cancerous and flammable chemical used widely to make plastic for PVC pipes and packaging.

  Experts and environmental groups had been urging the federal government to more stringently regulate the chemical after a train shipment of it derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, last year, prompting officials to perform a large controlled burn that sent a black cloud of smoke over the surrounding area, raising health concerns.

• • Looking From Space, Researchers Find
  Pollution Spiking Near E-Commerce Hubs

  Truck-Related Releases of Nitrogen Dioxide, Which Can Cause Asthma, Concentrated Around Some 150,000 Warehouses Nationwide
  
  

  July 24, 2024 -They are mammoth warehouses large enough to fit football fields inside them, handling many of the more than 20 billion packages Americans send and receive each year.

  But for people who live around them, the round-the-clock semitrailer traffic at these giant hubs significantly worsens air pollution, according to a new NASA-funded study that tracked pollutants from space.

• • Biden Administration Targets Domestic
  Emissions of Climate Super-Pollutant

  With Eye Toward
  U.S.-China Climate Agreement
  
  

  July 23, 2024 -The first details of a potential, and possibly massive, climate agreement between the U.S. and China were announced at a climate summit at the White House on Tuesday.

  The initiative could significantly reduce emissions of nitrous oxide, a potent and largely overlooked greenhouse gas that also harms the ozone layer. Targeting this N2O pollution from a limited number of chemical plants in the two countries offers an opportunity to quickly reduce a large volume of greenhouse gas emissions at little cost.

• • Utilities are Using AI Tech, Sensors to Stop Wildfires

  Here's How It's Being Done
  
  

  July 23, 2024 -Utilities and public departments across the United States are using sensors and artificial intelligence (AI) tech to monitor for wildfires and Anchorage, Alaska is among the latest to follow suit.

  The Anchorage Fire Department and Chugach Electric have adopted a new automated monitoring system for the Anchorage Hillside, Alaska’s News Source reported. So far, the fire department has installed 25 FIRE-SPY systems from GRIDWIDE – an “always on” monitoring solution installed on overhead transformers. The system monitors and detects flames, smoke, gas, temperature, and humidity. When an abnormal condition is detected, an automated alert is sent to operators and first responders.

• • Hydrothermal Eruption Sends Tourists Running in Yellowstone
  

  Part of Biscuit Basin, Just North of Old Faithful, is Closed After a Recent Hydrothermal Explosion
  
  

  July 23, 2024 -Vlada March was visiting Yellowstone National Park with her family Tuesday morning when an explosion sent hot water and rocks into the air, spreading debris and destroying a nearby boardwalk.

  “It was extremely scary,” said March, a real estate agent from Palm Desert, Calif. “Within seconds, rocks went flying and a black cloud formed in the air. We couldn’t see the sun for a few seconds.”

  Click to read and/or watch video.

• • 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.

• • Earthquakes Struck Alongside Volcanic Inferno
  

  Pompeii’s Double Tragedy
  
  

  July 19, 2024 -Almost 2,000 years after the catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE, new discoveries are reshaping our understanding of the event’s full impact. Recently, scientists unearthed two skeletons in the ruins of Pompeii suggesting earthquakes may have significantly compounded the deadly effects of the volcanic eruption.

  A team of researchers from the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) and Pompeii Archaeological Park found two male skeletons, approximately 50 years old, inside a collapsed building...