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Atmospheric CO2 Levels

(Monthly Averages)

Nov. 13, 2024: 426.2 ppm
10 years ago: 396 ppm
Pre-industrial base: 280
Safe level: 350 ppm

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT

Page Updated:
Jan. 20, 2025

• 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

• • A Key ‘Weakness’ in L.A.’S Wildfire
  Strategy Went Unaddressed for Years

  L.A. Relied Almost Entirely on Overburdened “Hand Crews” from Other Jurisdictions to Handle its Brush Fire Emergencies
  
  

  Jan. 18, 2025 - Two years before wildfires incinerated swaths of Los Angeles, the city’s Fire Chief Kristin M. Crowley identified “one significant area of weakness” in her department’s ability to contain wildfires.

  L.A. had no specialized wildland unit to respond to daily brush fires and scrape vegetation, dig ditches and do the other labor to ensure blazes did not spread or rekindle, she wrote on Jan. 5, 2023, asking for $7 million to assemble its own squad..

• • Coastal Marine Ecosystems Have
  Intrinsic Value—and Legal Rights

  Ecuador’s Constitutional Court Concluded that the Government Must Set Limits on Human Activity, Like Industrial Fishing, to Protect Marine Ecosystems’ Natural Cycles
  
  

  Jan. 17, 2025 - The Constitutional Court of Ecuador ruled that coastal marine ecosystems have legal rights that must be protected, potentially requiring stricter limits on human activities like industrial fishing.

  Those ecosystems, the court said, have a right to maintain their natural “life cycles, structure, functions and evolutionary processes” and the Ecuadorian government must adopt sufficient protective measures to ensure those “vital processes” persist.

• • More Americans Than Ever Are Living in Wildfire Areas

  L.A. Is No Exception
  
  

  Jan. 15, 2025 - Fierce winds and months of drought set the conditions for the catastrophic wildfires in Los Angeles this month. But the growth of housing in and around the city’s fire-prone hills over the past few decades also played a major role.

  Most of the homes that have been damaged or destroyed so far were nestled in or near hillsides covered with highly flammable vegetation. Even dense urban neighborhoods like Altadena were vulnerable to embers blown from the burning hills nearby.

• • Planet-Warming Gas Levels Rose More Than Ever in 2024

  Leaving a Key Global Climate
  Target Hanging by a Thread
  
  

  Jan. 14, 2025 - Concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) are now more than 50% higher than before humans started burning large amounts of fossil fuels.

  Last year, fossil fuel emissions were at record highs, while the natural world struggled to absorb as much CO2 due to factors including wildfires and drought, so more accumulated in the atmosphere.

  The rapid increase in CO2 is "incompatible" with the international pledge to try to limit global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, the Met Office says.

• • Rainfall That Could Cause Landslides

  The Next Threat to L.A.?
  
  

  Jan. 16, 2025 - While winds and flames continued to ravage Los Angeles, small teams began creeping onto the charred soils left in their wake.

  Roughly a dozen members of the California Watershed Emergency Response Teams and the U.S. Forest Service are studying the edges of the Eaton and Palisades fires to determine what patches of land burned most severely. Soon, they’ll issue hazard maps to help people prepare for what comes next: the near-certain threat of floods and landslides that will loom for days, months and even years while the city recovers.

• • Imitation Meat Is Processed, But...

  Can It Also Be Healthy?
  
  

  Jan. 16, 2025 - It’s not exactly the best moment to pitch ultraprocessed foods as healthy and delicious, but that’s exactly what two major producers of plant-based meat are trying to do.

  Beyond Mea wants to convince people that its vegan versions of meat products are good for you. So does its competitor, Impossible Foods, which recently changed its packaging colors from green to blood red, all the better to woo carnivores.

• • The Cost to Clean Up Toxic PFAS Pollution

  Could Top £1.6tn in UK and Europe
  
  

  Jan. 15, 2025 - The cost of cleaning up toxic forever chemical pollution could reach more than £1.6tn across the UK and Europe over a 20-year period, an annual bill of £84bn, research has found.

  The number of British pollution hotspots is also on the rise. If emissions remain unrestricted and uncontrolled, the costs of cleanup will reach £9.9bn a year in the UK, according to the findings of a year-long investigation by the Forever Lobbying Project, a cross-border investigation involving 46 journalists and 18 experts across 16 countries.

• • In a First, the E.P.A. Warns of
  ‘Forever Chemicals’ in Sludge Fertilizer

  Levels of PFAS in Sewage Sludge Used as Fertilizer Can Pose Risks Sometimes Exceeding Safety Thresholds “By Several Orders Of Magnitude.”
  
  

  Jan. 14, 2025 - For the first time, the EPA on Tuesday warned that “forever chemicals” present in sewage sludge that is used as fertilizer can pose human health risks.

  In an extensive study the agency said that, while the general food supply isn’t threatened, the risk from contaminated fertilizer could in some cases exceed the E.P.A.’s safety thresholds “sometimes by several orders of magnitude.”

• • US hazardous Waste is Sent to Mexico –
  Where a ‘Toxic Cocktail’ of Pollution Emerges

  A Guardian and Quinto Elemento Lab Investigation Finds Very High Levels of Lead and Arsenic in Homes Near a Factory Processing US toxic Waste
  
  

  Jan. 14, 2025 -Raquel Villarreal lives in a bright-yellow house in Mexico’s Monterrey metropolitan area with her family and nine cats. Here, the emergency medicine doctor has raised three daughters, one of whom died at the age of 14.

  Just steps away is an industrial plant that operates 24 hours a day, emitting pollution that neighbors say blankets the neighborhood and which Villarreal says is hard to remove from her car.

• • Los Angeles Region Braces for Dangerous Winds

  Death Toll Rises to 24
  
  

  Jan. 13, 2025 - Firefighters are working to contain three active blazes in the Los Angeles area ahead of a predicted return of winds that stoked devastating wildfires that have burned an area bigger than San Francisco and killed at least 24 people.

  A red flag warning is in place for parts of the city and county, with wind gusts of up to 70 mph forecast between 4 a.m. Tuesday and noon Wednesday — strong enough to potentially cause “explosive fire growth,” according to National Weather Service officials.

• • Salt Water From the Ocean to Battle Wildfires?

  Why Firefighters in LA Can’t Use It
  
  

  Jan. 13, 2025 - The wildfire season in Los Angeles has barely begun, yet the hills of the Pacific Palisades are already ablaze, forcing thousands to flee their homes. With relentless Santa Ana winds driving flames across dry, brittle brush, firefighters face a herculean battle to keep the inferno at bay.

  By the weekend, the Palisades Fire alone had charred over 36,000 acres and claimed at least 25 lives, while smoke choked the skies above neighborhoods on edge. Resources are stretched thin, hydrants have run dry, and questions loom over whether freshwater supplies can hold out.

• • A Surprising Byproduct of Wildfires:

  Contaminated Drinking Water
  
  

  Jan. 12, 2025 - Thousands of firefighters are working to contain the blazes of multiple fires across Los Angeles. Months from now when the fires are extinguished and the rain comes, however, a hidden threat could put communities at risk once again.

  When the mayor of Las Vegas, N.M., issued a warning in 2022 to its 13,000 residents, it wasn’t over a fire — they had recently lived through the state’s largest wildfire in its history: Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak.

• • The Celebrity Homes that Burned in the L.A. Fires

  Taking Closer Look
  
  

  Jan. 10, 2025 - Out-of-control wildfires around and within Los Angeles have killed at least 10 people and engulfed entire neighborhoods, forcing at least 180,000 people to flee as the blazes enter their third day.

  Included in the wreckage are luxury homes owned by Hollywood stars, who grieved and commiserated like anyone else, albeit in public. Here’s what we know about the most rich and famous of the fires’ victims.

• • Did Power Lines Help Start the L.A. Fires?

  What We Know
  
  

  Jan. 10, 2025 - Dozens of homes in the Altadena area, including some near Eaton Canyon, still had power when the Eaton fire sparked near a large transmission tower and distribution pole around 6:15 p.m. Tuesday, according to a grid-monitoring company and interviews with residents.

  The fact that electricity was moving along transmission lines between Eaton Canyon’s hillside and nearby homes at a time of high wildfire risk raises safety concerns, according to two experts interviewed Thursday.

• • 11 Killed, 37,000 Acres Burned by California Wildfires

  Palisades Fire (Only 8 Percent Contained)
  
  

  Jan. 10, 2025 - The blaze has burned through more than 21,000 acres in and around Pacific Palisades and killed at least two people. Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley said the fire has destroyed more than 5,300 structures since Tuesday. The fire is now spreading toward Brentwood, where the Getty Center is located.

  There's more, so click now to read on.

• • U.S. Efforts to Cut Emissions Stalled in 2024

  Increased Power Demand is to Blame
  
  

  Jan. 9, 2025 - America’s efforts to cut its climate change pollution stalled in 2024, with greenhouse gas emissions dropping just a fraction, 0.2 percent, compared to the year before, according to estimates published Thursday by the Rhodium Group, a research firm.

  Despite continued rapid growth in solar and wind power, emissions levels stayed relatively flat last year because demand for electricity surged nationwide, which led to a spike in the amount of natural gas burned by power plants.

• • Puerto Rico's Power Crisis

  New Energy Tzar Appointed
  to Tackle the Issue
  
  

  Jan. 9, 2025 - Puerto Rico’s new governor appointed a so-called energy czar on Wednesday to help pull the U.S. territory out of a power-supply crisis.

  The nomination of Josué Colón comes days after a massive blackout hit the island, leaving nearly all its 3.2 million inhabitants in the dark as they prepared for New Year’s Eve.

  “Right now, we’re in an emergency,” said Gov. Jenniffer González Colón. “Our electrical system is in such a precarious situation that anything can cause the power to go out.”

• • Search Widens for Tibet Quake Survivors

  Scientists Have New Answers
  
  

  Jan. 9, 2025 - Authorities moved more than 47,000 people to shelters in earthquake-hit Tibet, Chinese officials said on Thursday, while rescuers widen a massive combing effort for survivors near the foothills of the Himalayas, despite slim survival odds.

  It is not yet clear how many are still missing after Tuesday's quake of magnitude 6.8 killed 126 and injured 188, but more than 48 hours later, experts say those trapped under rubble are likely to have died of hypothermia.

• • Planting the Wrong Trees in the Wrong Places?

  Can Diminish Their Cooling Benefits
  
  

  Jan. 7, 2025 - Urban trees need to be planted strategically to maximize their ability to help keep cities cool, according to a new analysis. The study is the first to offer a comprehensive global assessment of the effect of trees on urban temperature, drawing together a literature that until now has been plentiful but piecemeal.

  Tree planting has become a popular strategy to combat the urban heat island effect, the tendency for cities to be a few degrees warmer than surrounding areas. Urban heat is becoming a bigger and bigger problem as the global climate warms, and numerous projects and campaigns have been launched to promote tree planting in cities around the world.

• • ‘Forever Chemicals’ Are Causing Health Problems in Some Wildlife

  Impacts on Turtles
  have Now Been Documented
  
  

  Jan. 7, 2025 - “Forever chemicals” are pervasive, and researchers have in recent years been ringing the alarms about the negative impacts on human health. But humans aren’t the only animals to be concerned about.

  Freshwater turtles in Australia exposed to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, experienced changes to their metabolic functions, environmental biochemist David Beale and colleagues report in the Dec. 15 Science of the Total Environment.

• • Thailand Bans Imports of Plastic Waste to Curb Toxic Pollution

  Campaigners Welcome Move but...
  
  

  Jan. 7, 2025 - Thailand has banned plastic waste imports over concerns about toxic pollution, as experts warn that failure to agree a global treaty to cut plastic waste will harm human health.

  A law banning imports of plastic waste came into force this month in Thailand, after years of campaigning by activists. Thailand is one of several south-east Asian countries that has historically been paid to receive plastic waste from developed nations.

• • What Will Power the A.I. Revolution?

  It Could End Up Increasing Emissions, at Least in the Short Term
  
  

  Jan. 7, 2025 - Last week, Microsoft announced that it would spend approximately $80 billion during this fiscal year to build data centers for its booming artificial intelligence business.

  That gargantuan sum is a testament to the opportunity that Microsoft and other tech giants see in A.I.

  It also has the makings of a climate conundrum.

• • ‘Forever Chemicals’ Reach Tap Water via Treated Sewage

  Wastewater, Even After Treatment to Make it Drinkable, Contains High PFAS Levels
  
  

  Jan. 6, 2025 - As the world grapples with climate change, population growth and dwindling supplies of fresh water, more people are set to rely on treated wastewater to sustain their daily lives.

  But wastewater, even after treatment, contains high levels of harmful “forever chemicals” that are already contaminating the drinking water of millions of Americans, researchers said in a study published on Monday that analyzed wastewater samples nationwide.

• • Heavy Snow and Ice Move From Midwest to Mid-Atlantic

  Hundreds of Thousands of Customers from Missouri to Virginia were Suffering Power Outages...
  
  

  Jan. 6, 2025 - A wide-reaching winter storm dropped more than a foot of snow and closed major highways in parts of the Midwest as it continued its trek eastward Monday. In parts of the Great Plains, snow totals exceeded anything that had been seen in decades. At least three fatalities were reported in two traffic incidents in the Midwest.

  Click now for more of the story.

• • ‘Ironic’: Climate-Driven Sea Level
  Rise Will Overwhelm Major Oil Ports

  Ports Including in Saudi Arabia and the US Projected to Be Seriously Damaged by a Metre of Sea Level Rise
  
  

  Jan. 4, 2025 - Rising sea levels driven by the climate crisis will overwhelm many of the world’s biggest oil ports, analysis indicates.

  Scientists said the threat was ironic as fossil fuel burning causes global heating. They said reducing emissions by moving to renewable energy would halt global heating and deliver more reliable energy.

• • Biden to Block Oil Drilling Across
  625 Million Acres of U.S. Waters

  Affecting Future Oil and Gas Leasing Across Parts of the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, the Eastern Gulf of Mexico and the Northern Bering Sea
  
  

  Jan. 4, 2025 - President Joe Biden will move Monday to block all future oil and gas drilling across more than 625 million acres of federal waters — equivalent to nearly a quarter of the total land area of the United States, according to two people briefed on the decision who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the announcement is not yet public.

  Click now for additional information.

• • ‘A Place For Kids to Play and a Place to Store Water’

  The Stormwater Capture Zone
  that is Also a Playground
  
  

  Jan. 3, 2025 - For a city that is almost small enough to fit inside Manhattan’s Central Park just a few miles away, a lot of history has played out within the narrow borders of Hoboken, New Jersey.

  It was the site of the first organized baseball game in 1846, home of one of the US’s first breweries in the 17th century and the place where Oreo cookies were first sold in 1912. And, as any Hobokenite will tell you, the Mile Square City, as it is called, is also known for something else.

• • How an Antacid For the Ocean Could Cool the Earth

  A New Technology Promises to Remove Carbon From the Atmosphere and Prevent Ocean Acidification
  
  

  Jan. 3, 2025 - The world’s oceans stow vast amounts of carbon dioxide. Now, a growing group of scientists and companies say they’ve found a way to increase that storage capacity by tweaking ocean water chemistry.

  The technique, known as ocean alkalinity enhancement, usually involves dissolving acid-neutralizing rocks in the ocean, allowing it to absorb more carbon dioxide.

• • This Hidden Mineral is Crumbling
  Thousands of Home Foundations Across New England

  Pyrrhotite Causes Cracks in Concrete. But Research on How Widespread the Issue Might Be Has Only Scratched the Surface
  
  

  Jan. 3, 2025 - In 2020, Karen Bilotti and her husband, Sam, started to notice fine lines in their basement’s concrete walls. Ordinarily, they might not have given them a second thought. But the Bilottis had recently heard about a growing group of nearby homeowners in Massachusetts with larger cracks in their foundations, and Sam began to worry.

  “‘With our luck, our house is probably affected,’” Karen recalled him saying. “And I’m like, ‘You’re crazy. You’re absolutely ridiculous. There’s no way.’”

  Through core testing, scientists and engineers had determined the culprit behind fissures like those in their neighbors’ homes was pyrrhotite, a mineral made up of sulfur and iron found in some concrete aggregates.

• • Not a Happy New Years Eve For Puerto Rico

  Power is Restored to Nearly All of Puerto Rico After a Major Blackout
  
  

  Jan. 2, 2025 - Power was restored to nearly all electrical customers across Puerto Rico on Wednesday after a sweeping blackout plunged the U.S. territory into darkness on New Year’s Eve.

  By Wednesday afternoon, power was back up for 98% of Puerto Rico’s 1.47 million utility customers, said Luma Energy, the private company overseeing transmission and distribution of power in the archipelago. Lights returned to households as well as to Puerto Rico’s hospitals, water plants and sewage facilities after the massive outage that exposed the persistent electricity problems plaguing the island.

• • Underwater Volcano Off Oregon Coast

  Scientists Anticipate the Submarine Volcano Will Erupt Before the End of 2025
  
  

  Jan. 2, 2025 - In the depths of the Pacific Ocean, 470 kilometers off the Oregon coast, a drama is unfolding. Axial Seamount, one of the most active underwater volcanoes in the world, is swelling with magma. Scientists believe it will erupt before the end of 2025—a bold prediction, but one based on decades of monitoring and a unique volcanic rhythm.

  Bill Chadwick, a geophysicist at Oregon State University, likens the situation to a pressure cooker nearing its limit...

• • Detecting Hidden Moisture in Your Walls

  This Radar System Can Do Just That
  
  

  Jan. 2, 2025 - Mold is one of the most significant challenges for homeowners, and once it takes hold, it can be incredibly difficult to eliminate. Preventing mold is the best approach, and the cornerstone of mold prevention is managing humidity. Now, researchers from Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have developed a method using microwave radar to monitor the moisture content in wood inside walls.

  “We know microwave radar shows great promise for this, because it’s well known that it can measure the moisture in wood samples,” ORNL’s Philip Boudreaux said. “But can it measure moisture in wood that is inside a wall to detect high-moisture issues before they become a big problem? That’s the challenge.”

• • Bird Flu Strikes Again

  Severe Case Confirmed in the US
  
  

  Jan. 2, 2025 - A patient in Louisiana has been hospitalized with a severe case of bird flu (H5N1). This is the first instance of serious illness from this virus in the United States. Although health officials emphasize that the risk to the general public remains low and the virus still isn’t transmitted from human to human, this as a stark reminder that avian influenza remains a persistent and pervase threat, especially to those in close contact with birds and other animals.

  Click now to read all about it.

• • Will Yellowstone National Park Erupt?

  Scientists Have New Answers
  
  

  Jan. 1, 2025 - With its famous hot springs and gushing geysers, Yellowstone is one the most iconic national parks in the country and astonishes millions of visitors every year.

  Those awe-inspiring sights are thanks to the magma buried miles beneath the surface, part of one of the world’s largest active volcanic systems. How exactly the magma is stored there — and therefore, how it would erupt — has been a mystery.

• • Marine Protection Efforts in 2024

  They Were Still a Drop in the Ocean
  
  

  Jan. 1, 2025 - In 2022, the world agreed at a U.N. biodiversity summit to protect 30% of Earth’s land and water by 2030. While protected areas already account for almost 15% of the planet’s land, protection for the world’s oceans is lagging far behind, at just over 8%.

  In 2024, several new marine protected areas (MPAs) helped nudge the needle, but there’s still much more work to be done.

• • Calif. Will Force Insurers to Cover Fire-Prone Areas

  But Rates Will Rise
  
  

  Dec. 31, 2024 - Insurance companies that pulled back from fire-prone areas of California in recent years will have to start covering those regions again if they want to stay in the state — but they can pass more costs on to customers.

  A regulation announced this week by the California Department of Insurance requires insurers to increase the writing of comprehensive policies in disaster-prone areas by 5 percent every two years up to a certain threshold...

• • Ecuador: Hydropower Was Its Answer to Climate Change

  Until the Rivers Ran Dry
  
  

  Dec. 30, 2024 - Just a decade ago, the small, resource-rich nation of Ecuador was embarking on a bold transition to hydroelectric power.

  It was one of many South American countries betting that their abundant rivers, harnessed by dams, could satisfy growing energy needs — and help drive economic expansion, lifting millions from poverty and leading the way into a new era of prosperity.

• • Period Products Best for the Environment

  Here’s How They Stack Up
  
  

  Dec. 30, 2024 - Menstruation may sometimes fill us with dread, but using the right period products can take environmental anxiety out of the equation.

  We have more menstrual products to choose from than any of our foremothers, but from an environmental perspective, one option leaves all others in the dust.

• • The Not-So-Green Ferry

  Emits More CO2 than Old Diesel Ship
  
  

  Dec. 30, 2024 - The carbon footprint of a long-delayed new "green" ferry will be far larger than the 31-year-old diesel ship that usually serves the route between the Scottish mainland and the island of Arran.

  Material Evolution produces cement at its Wrexham base that it claims has 85% fewer emissions than many traditional products.

  An emissions analysis by CalMac has calculated MV Glen Sannox will emit 10,391 equivalent tonnes of CO2 a year compared with 7,732 for MV Caledonian Isles.

• • The E.P.A. Promotes Toxic Fertilizer

  3M Told It of Risks Years Ago
  
  

  Dec. 27, 2024 - In early 2000, scientists at 3M, the chemicals giant, made a startling discovery: High levels of PFAS, the virtually indestructible “forever chemicals” used in nonstick pans, stain-resistant carpets and many other products were turning up in the nation’s sewage.

  The researchers were concerned. The data suggested that the toxic chemicals, made by 3M, were fast becoming ubiquitous in the environment.

• • Five Years After Philadelphia Refinery’s
  Closure, Pollution Concerns Persist

  There is Still an Incredibly Large Amount of Polluting Industrial Facilities in South and SW Philly
  
  

  Dec. 26, 2024 -When the South Philadelphia refinery was permanently shuttered by a catastrophic explosion in 2019 after some 160 years in operation, many residents and environmentalists welcomed it as the long-overdue end of the city’s biggest single source of air pollution.

  Neighbors in so-called fenceline communities around the sprawling 1,300-acre site three miles south of City Hall said they would at last be free of the air emissions blamed for high rates of asthma and cancer, even if their groundwater remained polluted by petroleum-related substances from decades of leaks and spills.

• • Can North Wales Become a Green Hub of Europe?

  Material Evolution Aims to Produce 120,000 Tons of Low-Carbon Cement Annually
  
  

  Dec. 23, 2024 - A low-carbon cement firm could be a step on the way to north Wales becoming the "green hub of Europe," its boss has claimed.

  Material Evolution produces cement at its Wrexham base that it claims has 85% fewer emissions than many traditional products.

  Co-founder Dr Liz Gilligan said the location and area's industrial heritage made it the perfect place "for the industries of the future to be built from the knowledge of the past".

• • Glass Barriers Keep Venice’s Iconic Basilica Dry

  Protecting Against Sea-Water Erosion
  
  

  Dec. 22, 2024 - It’s a simple solution, but one that may keep the marble columns and valuable mosaics of Venice’s iconic St. Mark’s Basilica safe from seawater-induced erosion: A set of glass barriers installed around the 900-year-old church has kept its floors dry during frequent high tides.

  Even after it evaporates, water leaves behind salt crystals that corrode the marble bases of the columns and the floor mosaics, said Mario Piana, the architect and restoration expert in charge of St. Mark’s.

• • CO2 Emissions From New North Sea Drilling Sites

  Would Match 30 Years’
  Worth From UK Households
  
  

  Dec. 20, 2024 -Potential new North Sea oil and gas fields with early stage licences from the UK would emit as much carbon dioxide as British households produce in three decades.

  The finding has led to calls to the government to reject demands from fossil fuel producers for the final permits needed to allow their operations to go ahead.

• • Youth Climate Activists Get Major
  Win in Montana Supreme Court

  The Court Agreed that the State’s Energy Policies Violated Montanans’ Constitutional Right to a Clean Environment
  
  

  Dec. 18, 2024 -The Montana Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a landmark victory for youth climate activists, affirming a decision by a lower court last year that the state’s energy policies violated their constitutional rights to a clean environment.

  Many of the 16 young people who brought the case, Held v. Montana, testified during the trial about the extreme weather they had witnessed in their home state, which is a major player in oil, gas and coal.....

• • E.P.A. Allows California to Ban
  Sales of New Gas-Powered Cars by 2035

  The Trump Administration is Expected to Revoke the Program...
  
  

  Dec. 18, 2024 -The Biden administration on Wednesday granted California and 11 other states permission to ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035, one of the most ambitious climate policies in the United States and beyond.

  The widely expected move by the Environmental Protection Agency is one of the last steps that the administration has taken to enact major climate policies before the end of President Biden’s term next month.

• • New York City Introduces a Congestion Tax for Cars

  Can it Really Work?
  
  

  Dec. 17, 2024 -If you’ve ever driven through Manhattan during rush hour, you know the drill: honking horns, endless idling, and the creeping frustration of moving at a snail’s pace. Traffic in New York is among the worst in the world, costing $9 billion a year. NYC’s traffic is its bloodstream — but the veins are clogged.

  After years of wrangling, millions in infrastructure investments, and promises to tackle gridlock, the city’s congestion pricing plan is finally set to kick into action on January 5th, 2025. Most cars looking to go below Manhattan’s 60th street will have to pay $9 per day, while larger trucks and tourist buses will pay $21.6.

• • Texas Groundwater Contamination

  Regulators Report More
  Than 250 New Cases
  
  

  Dec. 16, 2024 -Texas agencies reported 252 new cases of groundwater contamination during 2023 in the Texas Groundwater Protection Committee annual report.

  The latest report compiles 2,870 open cases of groundwater contamination, some of which date back decades. Nearly every county in Texas is impacted by the problem. During 2023, Texas regulators notified 34 local authorities—from El Paso to Houston—that newly identified contamination could impact their public drinking water.

• • The Violent Mayotte Cyclone

  Several Hundreds,
  Maybe Thousands, May Have Died
  
  

  Dec. 16, 2024 - Several hundred people and possibly even thousands may have been killed when the most powerful cyclone in nearly a century hit the French Indian Ocean archipelago of Mayotte, a senior local French official said on Sunday.

  "I think there will certainly be several hundreds, maybe we will reach a thousand, even several thousands," prefect Francois-Xavier Bieuville said on local media channel Mayotte La 1ere.

• • Russian Tanker Sinks in Black Sea Spilling 4,300 Tons of Oil

  Moscow Accused of Recklessness Due to Risk of Ecological Damage As Second Tanker Runs Aground
  
  

  Dec. 15, 2024 -A Russian tanker carrying more than 4,000 tonnes of oil products has sunk in the Black Sea amid stormy conditions while a second has run aground, threatening an ecological disaster.

  The cargo ship Volgoneft-212 snapped in half on Sunday after being hit by a large wave. Video showed its bow end sticking vertically out of the water. The boat got into difficulties off the east coast of occupied Crimea, 5 miles (8km) from the Kerch strait, Russian media reported.

• • ‘Amazon of the Seas’ Threatened by Oil and Gas Developments

  A New Report Warns Fossil Fuel Developments in the Coral Triangle Pose Increased Risks For Ecological Disaster in the Ocean
  
  

  Dec. 14, 2024 - Last year, in late February, an oil tanker named the Princess Empress sank off the east coast of Mindoro Island in the Philippines. Up to 200,00 gallons of thick black industrial oil poured into the Philippine Sea’s crystalline waters, contaminating coral reefs, seagrass beds and mangrove forests. More than than 20,000 families whose livelihoods depended on fishing and tourism were rendered jobless and short on food for several months.

  Click now for the rest of the story.

• • Supreme Court to Hear Challenge
  to California Tailpipe Emissions Limits

  The Justices Agreed to Decide Whether Industry Groups Have Suffered the Sort of Injury That Gave Them Standing to Sue Over an Unusual Waiver
  
  

  Dec. 13, 2024 -The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to consider whether business groups may challenge an unusual federal program that lets California set its own limits on tailpipe emissions to combat climate change.

  The groups, including fuel producers and sellers, told the justices that the court’s intervention was needed to prevent California from effectively setting national policy.

• • Federal Regulators Say An Alabama
  Coal Mine’s Plans May Violate Law

  Leaving Citizens At Risk
  
  

  Dec. 13, 2024 - For what may be the first time in its history, the Alabama Surface Mining Commission, charged with regulating the surface impacts of underground coal mining in the state, has been put on formal notice by its federal counterpart to force a coal mine’s compliance with the law or face further regulatory action.

  Click now for more information.

• • Circuit Boards Made from Leaves
  Could Green Up Electronics’ Act

  Millions of Tons of Hard-to-Recycle Electronic Circuit Boards are Burned or End Up in Landfills
  
  

  Dec. 12, 2024 -In a new spin on green electronics, researchers have made a biodegradable electronic circuit board from tree leaves. Such leaf-based electronics, or “leaftronics” as the team from Dresden University of Technology (TU Dresden) has dubbed it, could reduce millions of tons of waste that humans produce every year.

  Today, the world produces over 50 million metric tons of electronic waste a year. That number that is slated to double by 2050. And printed circuit boards (PCBs) – the flat boards onto which all the circuit chips, wires and other components of an electronic gadget are soldered–-constitute a big share of this e-waste.

• • A Major California Oil Producer Eyes Carbon Storage

  Thousands of Idle Wells Await Cleanup
  
  

  Dec. 12, 2024 - At the start of 2020, California Resources Corp., one of the state’s largest oil and gas producers, was in financial trouble. The firm’s stock price had plunged, and its credit rating was in junk bond territory.

  Then the pandemic struck, roiling international oil markets. A few months later, in July 2020, CRC and nearly two dozen of its subsidiaries filed for bankruptcy, citing the “unprecedented market conditions.” The company was nearly $5 billion in debt.

• • Ocean Heat Wiped Out Half These Seabirds Around Alaska

  About Four Million Common Murres Were Killed By a Domino Effect of Ecosystem Changes...
  
  

  Dec. 12, 2024 -The first evidence was the feathered bodies washing up on Alaskan beaches. They were common murres, sleek black-and-white seabirds that typically spend months at a time away from land. But in 2015 and 2016, officials tallied 62,000 emaciated corpses from California to Alaska.

  Since then, scientists have been piecing together what happened to the birds, along with other species in the northeast Pacific that suddenly died or disappeared...

• • Earth’s Inner Core May Be Changing Shape

  The Entire Surface of the Inner Core, or Small Patches of It, May Be Swelling and Contracting
  
  

  Dec. 12, 2024 -Earth’s inner core, a solid metal ball gyrating within the molten outer core, may be both slowing down and changing shape.

  Recent analyses of earthquake waves have suggested that around 15 years ago, the inner core’s rotation may have slowed so much that it appeared to pause or reverse direction relative to the surface. But a new analysis suggests something more must be changing at Earth’s center.

• • ‘Forever Chemical’ Found in Mineral
  Water from Several European Countries

  Contamination Thought to Stem From the Heavy Application Of Pesticides Containing TFA, a Type of PFAS
  
  

  Dec. 12, 2024 -Mineral water from several European nations has been found for the first time to be contaminated with TFA, a type of PFAS “forever chemical” that is a reproductive toxicant accumulating at alarming levels across the globe.

  The finding is startling because mineral water should be pristine and insulated from manmade chemicals. The contamination is thought to stem from the heavy application of pesticides containing TFA, or compounds that turn into it in the environment, which are used throughout the world.

• • Arctic Tundra Shifts to Source of Climate Pollution

  This, According to New Report Card
  
  

  Dec. 11, 2024 - The icy region at the top of the globe, lashed by wildfire and pelted with increasingly heavy precipitation, has tipped into “uncharted territory,” scientists reported Tuesday.

  The Arctic tundra has shifted from storing carbon in the soil to becoming a carbon dioxide source, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and its partner researchers concluded in their 19th annual Arctic Report Card.

• • The 2004 Tsunami Killed Hundreds of Thousands...

  Are We Better Prepared Now?
  
  

  Dec. 11, 2024 -Twenty years ago, the seafloor west of Indonesia abruptly pushed upward as a deep undersea fault, where two of Earth’s tectonic plates meet, slipped. The upward shove violently shifted the seawater above, transferring deadly energy from ground to water, and sending the water speeding toward land.

  The series of tsunamis generated by that magnitude 9.2 earthquake reached towering heights; Indonesia’s Banda Aceh, close to the epicenter, was engulfed by a wall of water 51 meters tall. The waves killed an estimated 230,000 people across 15 countries, with tens of thousands more reported missing.

• • How Much Cleaner Energy Could Save America, in Lives and Money

  Widespread Adoption of Heat Pumps Could Prevent Thousands of Premature Deaths and Save Billions on Energy Bills
  
  

  Dec. 10, 2024 -Electric heat pumps, the most affordable and energy efficient way to heat and cool homes, continue to outsell gas furnaces nationwide. They can also reduce outdoor pollution and, as a result, save lives, according to a report issued on Tuesday.

  The study, by Rewiring America, a nonprofit group that promotes electrification, calculated that if every American household got rid of furnaces, hot water heaters and clothes dryers powered by oil or gas and replaced them with heat pumps and electric appliances, annual greenhouse gas emissions could drop by about 400 million metric tons.

• • Can the Gambia’s Bold Plan to Cut Plastic Pollution Work?

  It's Ambitious, but Ambition Builds the World’:
  
  

  Dec. 10, 2024 -Travelling through the Gambia, it is hard to avoid the makeshift dumpsites burning along the roadsides, filling the air with toxic fumes. Outside the tourist areas, beaches and waterways are littered with plastic rubbish.

  The Gambia has long acknowledged it has a problem with plastic. For nearly a decade, it has attempted to solve it through legislation, including an anti-littering law in 2007 and a ban on plastic bags in 2015.

• • Cotton-and-Squid-Bone Sponge
  Can Soak up 99.9% of Microplastics

  Filter Performs Well in Removing Plastic Pollution from Water. Chinese Researchers Think It May Be Scalable
  
  

  Dec. 10, 2024 -A sponge made of cotton and squid bone that has absorbed about 99.9% of microplastics in water samples in China could provide an elusive answer to ubiquitous microplastic pollution in water across the globe, a new report suggests.

  Just as importantly, the filter’s production appears to be scalable, the University of Wuhan study authors said in the paper, which was peer-reviewed and published in the journal Science Advances.


• • Thousands in UK Without Power and
  Train Services Disrupted After Storm Darragh

  As Many As 66,000 People Still Without Electricity After Gusts Up to 90mph Brought Down Power Lines
  
  

  Dec. 9, 2024 -Tens of thousands of homes are facing a third night without power and train lines have been disrupted after Storm Darragh caused widespread damage across the UK.

  Two men died at the weekend when trees fell on their vehicles in separate incidents during the fourth named storm of the season. Hundreds of flood alerts were in place across England, Wales and Northern Ireland on Monday, forcing the cancellation of dozens of train services.

• • Generative AI is an Energy Hog

  Is the Tech
  Worth the Environmental Cost?
  
  

  Dec. 9, 2024 -It might seem like magic. Type a request into ChatGPT, click a button and — presto! — here’s a five-paragraph analysis of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and, as an added bonus, it’s written in iambic pentameter. Or tell DALL-E about the chimeric animal from your dream, and out comes an image of a gecko-wolf-starfish hybrid. If you’re feeling down, call up the digital “ghost” of your deceased grandmother and receive some comfort .

  Click now to learn more.

• • EPA Bans Two Cancer-Causing Chemicals Used in Everyday Products

  Michal Freedhoff, EPA Assistant Administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention Said The Bans Will Protect Workers, Consumers and Residents From the Chemical’s Harms
  
  

  Dec. 9, 2024 -The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday banned two known carcinogens used in a variety of consumer products and industrial settings that can seep into the environment through the soil and waterways.

  The new rules, which underscore President Joe Biden’s efforts to enact key protections against harmful chemicals before leaving office, include the complete ban of trichloroethylene — also known as TCE — a substance found in degreasing agents, furniture care and auto repair products.

• • Fire Crews Make Progress in Malibu Blaze
  

  Thousands Remain Evacuated
  
  

  Dec. 9, 2024 (NBC NEWS) -California firefighters made progress Wednesday battling a Malibu wildfire that exploded under high winds this week, although more than 6,000 people remained forced from their homes, officials said.

  The so-called Franklin Fire destroyed at least nine structures and damaged six others as it churned through hills in the seaside community, coming close to Pepperdine University, fire authorities said at a news conference Wednesday.

• • Kitty Litter and the Planet

  We’ve Got the Scoop on Traditional Clay Box Fillers and the Alternatives
  
  

  Dec. 9, 2024 -House training cats is easy. Most will use a litter box instinctively before they’re a month old. But what’s the environmental cost of the litter they’ll need over the years?

  Some new cat box fillers are marketed as more sustainable than conventional litters, including a few that claim to be flushable or compostable. (Spoiler: They’re not.) Others are made from agricultural leftovers like walnut shells.

• • The Opioid Crisis Has Reached the Gulf of Mexico’s Dolphins

  Dophins Have Been Found With Several Drugs, Including Fentanyl, in Their Fat Reserves
  
  

  Dec. 6, 2024 -Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid up to 100 times more potent than morphine, is a lifesaver for managing severe pain. However, it’s become a key actor in the escalating opioid crisis that has devastated communities in the US and abroad. Overdose deaths involving fentanyl have surged and show no sign of slowing down — currently, fentanyl is the deadliest drug in the US.

  In the new study, a team of researchers and students from Texas A&M University and NOAA analyzed 89 common bottlenose dolphin blubber samples, including 83 collected through live-animal biopsy.

• • Common Air Pollutants (and Traffic Noise) Linked to Infertility

  Both For Men and For Women
  
  

  Dec. 6, 2024 -Infertility is a growing global concern, affecting millions. Beyond age, lifestyle, and medical conditions, new research is highlighting the alarming role that environmental pollutants like air and noise pollution can have on fertility.

  Two studies from Denmark and the United States now provide compelling evidence of these risks. They show how everyday pollutants seriously impair reproductive outcomes.

• • Their Fertilizer Poisons Farmland

  Now, They Want
  Protection From Lawsuits
  
  

  Dec. 6, 2024 -For decades, a little-known company now owned by a Goldman Sachs fund has been making millions of dollars from the unlikely dregs of American life: sewage sludge.

  The company, Synagro, sells farmers treated sludge from factories and homes to use as fertilizer. But that fertilizer, also known as biosolids, can contain harmful “forever chemicals” known as PFAS linked to serious health problems including cancer and birth defects.

• • Can We Decarbonize the Steel Supply Chain?

  A Startup Just Raised $300M to Try Something Unique
  
  

  Dec. 5, 2024 -A clip from a new Billy Bob Thornton show called Landman has gone viral recently for its star’s poignant diatribe over the supposed dirty secrets of clean energy.

  “There’s nothing clean about this,” Thornton’s character Tommy says. “Do you have any idea how much diesel they have to burn to mix that much concrete? Or make that steel and haul this s*** out here and put it together with a 450-foot crane?”

  “In its 20-year lifespan, it won’t offset the carbon footprint of making it,” he says, referencing a nearby wind turbine.

• • Seagrasses Capture Carbon 35
  Times Faster Than Tropical Rainforests

  Scientists Are Working to Save Them
  
  

  Dec. 4, 2024 - An underwater gardening experiment along the East Coast aims to restore a type of seagrass called eelgrass, at risk of extinction due to rising sea surface temperatures.

  Click now for the complete story.

• • E.P.A. Again Seeks Limits on a Harmful Pesticide

  After a Court Overturned a Ban, the Agency Has Proposed Restricting Chlorpyrifos to 11 Food Crops, Illustrating the Limits of Federal Regulation
  
  

  Dec. 4, 2024 -Almost 25 years after federal regulators curbed household use of a pesticide linked to learning disorders in children, and three years after a total ban on its use on food crops, the chemical is again being applied to everything from bananas to turnips in most states.

  The saga of this pesticide, which has the unwieldy name chlorpyrifos, is a stark reminder of why so many Americans are alarmed about industrial farming and the food supply.

• • Common Air Pollutants (and traffic Noise) Linked to Infertility

  Both For Men and For Women
  
  

  Dec. 3, 2024 - Infertility is a growing global concern, affecting millions. Beyond age, lifestyle, and medical conditions, new research is highlighting the alarming role that environmental pollutants like air and noise pollution can have on fertility.

  Two studies from Denmark and the United States now provide compelling evidence of these risks. They show how everyday pollutants seriously impair reproductive outcomes.

• • Quenching the Thirst of Drought-Stricken West Texas

  Can Recycled Oilfield Water Do It?
  
  

  Dec. 3, 2024 - There is water in all the wrong places in this corner of West Texas.

  The Pecos River runs dry through this small town mired in severe drought. But Lake Boehmer, a pool of toxic water flowing from underground, lies just a few miles south. To the north, a well blew out on a ranch late last year and spewed salty water sky high.

• • Nations Fail to Reach an Agreement on Plastic Pollution

  Talks on the World’s First Treaty To Tackle Plastic Pollution Will Continue in Coming Months, Delegates Said
  
  

  Dec. 1, 2024 -Diplomats at a United Nations conference in Busan, South Korea, failed to reach agreement on the world’s first treaty to tackle plastic pollution on Sunday. They said they would reconvene in future months to try again.

  At what was supposed to be the final round of talks, nations struggled to bridge wide differences that remained over critical issues, including whether the treaty should include limits on plastics production itself.

• • Saudis Lead Pushback Against Global Plastic Treaty

  Delegates From More Than 170 Countries Work to salvage a Plastic Pollution Treaty
  
  

  Nov. 30, 2024 -A week after Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, was accused of being a “wrecking ball” jeopardizing global climate talks, Saudi officials are leading an effort to block a United Nations deal to tackle plastic pollution, negotiators said.

  Delegates from more than 170 nations have been engaged in tense negotiations in Busan, South Korea, to draft a global plastic treaty that addresses the growing problem of plastic waste.

• • The U.S. Is Building an Early Warning
  System to Detect Geoengineering

  Why This is Needed
  
  

  Nov. 28, 2024 -In a guarded compound at the foot of the Rockies, government scientists are working on a new kind of global alarm system: One that can detect if another country, or maybe just an adventurous billionaire, tries to dim the sun.

  Every few weeks, researchers in Boulder, Colo., release a balloon that rises 17 miles into the sky. Similar balloons are launched with less frequency from sites in Alaska, Hawaii and New Zealand; Reunion Island, near the coast of Africa; and even Antarctica. They make up the building blocks of a system that would alert American scientists to geoengineering.

• • Talking About REAL Natural Gas

  Taxing Farm Animals’ Farts and Burps
  
  

  Nov. 26, 2024 -Denmark, known for its inventive restaurants and elegant design studios, is about to become known for something more basic: the world’s first belch and manure tax.

  That’s because there are five times as many pigs and cows in Denmark as there are people...

• • Big Oil and Chemical Companies
  Teamed Up to “End Plastic Waste,” But...

  They Produced 1,000 Times
  More than they Cleaned Up
  
  

  Nov. 25, 2024 -In 2019, the world’s largest oil and petrochemical companies launched the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, branding it as a $1.5 billion solution to the escalating crisis of plastic pollution. On paper, it sounds promising. In reality, it appears to be little more than a glossy PR exercise.

  Over five years, the Alliance has removed just 119,000 tonnes of plastic waste—an amount dwarfed by the 132 million tonnes produced by its leading members during the same period. For every tonne cleaned, these companies created over 1,000. Meanwhile, they continue to lobby against plastic bans and limits on plastic production.

• • Musk Says He Wants to Save the Planet, But...

  But Tesla’s Factories
  Are Making It Dirtier
  
  

  Nov. 24, 2024 -Elon Musk made big promises to Wall Street about Tesla’s TSLA 3.41%increase; green up pointing triangle new Model Y SUV in 2022, and the company was ramping up its production in Austin, Texas, when environmental problems threatened to derail his plans.

  The door to the plant’s giant casting furnace, which melts metal to be molded into the Model Y’s parts, wouldn’t shut, spewing toxins into the air and raising temperatures for workers on the floor to as high as 100 degrees. Hazardous wastewater from production—containing paint, oil and other chemicals—was also flowing untreated into the city’s sewer, in violation of state guidelines.

• • COP29 Falls Short of Global Climate Finance Needs

  Rich Nations Pledge $300 Billion a Year in Aid, But...
  
  

  Nov. 24, 2024 -After spending two weeks making vague statements about challenging geopolitics, but no explanation of why they spend trillions of dollars per year on fossil fuel subsidies, developed countries at COP29 finally said they would increase climate spending to help developing countries from the current commitment of $100 billion annually to $300 billion a year by 2035.

  The money will help developing countries build renewable energy capacity and adapt to increasingly severe climate impacts on an overheating planet. But it’s far from what they asked for, and far from what’s needed.

• • The World Seeks an End to Plastic Pollution

  Talks Go On in South Korea
  
  

  Nov. 24, 2024 -Many nations hope to reduce the half a billion tons of plastic made each year. But pushback from plastic and oil producers, and Donald Trump’s election, could scuttle an agreement.

  On the heels of contentious climate talks in Azerbaijan, negotiators from around the globe are descending on Busan, South Korea, this week with another formidable goal: the world’s first treaty designed to tackle plastic pollution’s explosive growth.

• • The Human Cost of Global Warming in 2024

  Far From the Climate Talks
  
  

  Nov. 23, 2024 -The dissonance is jarring.

  Inside a stadium in the authoritarian petrostate of Azerbaijan, diplomatic deliberations to slow down climate change are snagged over money.

  Outside, the burning of fossil fuels has exacted incalculable human losses. Millions of people are suffering. Nature is losing.

• • NYC's Underground Steam System May Be Key to a Greener Future

  Some 100 Miles of Steam Pipes Snake Below Manhattan, Delivering Low-Carbon Vapor to Some Big-Name Customers
  
  

  Nov. 22, 2024 - A network of underground pipes has pumped steam into a spattering of Manhattan buildings for more than 140 years, quietly powering their heating and cooling systems with little fanfare, save for the occasional orange steam stack dotting the island’s streets.

  Now, as the biggest US city seeks to curb its carbon emissions, that 106-mile subterranean network delivering 370-degree vapor to a small subsect of New York’s skyline may have a bigger role to play.