Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico and seven other Democratic senators introduced a bill Tuesday to regulate or ban a neurotoxic insecticide if the Environmental Protection Agency cannot prove it is safe. An organophosphate, the insecticide named chlorpyrifos has been banned from household use for more than 15 years, but it’s still widely used on crops like broccoli and almonds. By […]
Sonny Perdue, the political hack appointed to be secretary of agriculture, once labeled mainstream climate science “so ridiculous and so obviously disconnected from reality.” As if having a science denier running the Department of Agriculture weren’t disastrous enough, Pr*sident Trump has now, as expected, picked another political hack—a former right-wing talk-radio host named Sam Clovis—to be the undersecretary of research, education, […]
“Bizarre” is too kind a word to describe the interview The New York Times conducted Wednesday with the man squatting in the White House. It was brimful of the narcissism, nastiness, and delusionary nonsense that we have come to expect from Donald J. Trump in his six months pretending to be the best president America has ever had. By […]
Scott Pruitt, the Environmental Protection Agency-hating chief of the EPA, wants to have a televised debate among scientists on climate change. When my colleague Mark Sumner read the news about this, he pictured a climate Thunderdome in which two scientists enter and a hunk of the public leaves still believing that there really is a debate to be had. By […]
While Donald Frederickovich was making nice with Vladimir Vladimirovich and having daughter Ivanka keep his seat warm at the adults table during parts of the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, the assembled leaders struggled to come up with climate language in their final communique that the world’s 20 richest nations could all agree to. Thanks to the stubborn climate […]
As the nation prepared for the holiday weekend last Friday, 17 tea party Republicans—members of the Congressional Western Caucus—sent a letter to secretary of Interior Ryan Zinke asking that he downsize or eliminate 27 national monuments across the western United States. By Meteor Blades Although the Western Caucus is theoretically open to anyone in Congress, all 70 members […]
In case you missed it, a divided three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday that Scott Pruitt, the Environmental Protection Agency-hating EPA administrator, overstepped his authority by delaying enforcement of the standards in a rule designed by the Obama administration to reduce methane emissions from new equipment at oil and gas operations. The court ordered Pruitt to […]
Remember that decades-old phrase “think globally, act locally”? The message behind it made a big splash Monday. Activists are needed to turn the message into reality. By Meteor Blades While the Trump regime works diligently to turn its lethal, climate science-denying lunacy into federal policy, 1,400 American mayors have added their numbers to the resistance against it. In a unanimous vote Monday, the typically staid […]
As noted here and here, the Trump regime is intent on wrecking the Environmental Protection Agency. And it is clear from the comments of the head of EPA’s Board of Scientific Counselors that the wrecking will include making propaganda and other lies part of the agency’s mission going forward. How much long-term damage will be done by this and […]
“When we first entered into this, we understood the history, we knew the facts, we knew the laws. We still have to bring it all up. […] Just because [the situation] is legally right, it’s morally and ethically wrong. What happened at Standing Rock is a movement, and you don’t see the benefits of a movement […]
Former Vice President Al Gore gave an upbeat speach in London last night, comparing today’s climate movement to the great movements of the past—such as the abolition of slavery—which encountered fierce, long-lasting resistance along the way to ultimate triumph. He sees Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement as just one bump on the road. By Meteor Blades Gore […]
Hundreds of U.S. mayors are demonstrating one way to resist Donald Trump’s climate and energy agenda: They’ve joined an alliance pledging to keep supporting the Paris climate agreement that Trump has announced he will abandon. By Meteor Blades Activists ought to link arms with these mayors, phone or write them, and applaud them for taking a stand against […]
While Donald Trump was pissing off Europeans a week ago, White House economic adviser Gary Cohn said of his views on climate change: “He came here to learn. He came here to get smarter. His views are evolving, which is exactly as they should be.” By Meteor Blades That’s just about the funniest thing any insider has said […]
Pr*sident Donald Trump—the man who lied about all the environmental awards he has received and vacillated between being a total numbskull on climate change and just another opportunist who bends with the wind as long as it doesn’t mean erecting turbines within sight of his golf courses—told the world Thursday what has been expected with trepidation since November […]
In this era when every day can bring another profoundly disturbing bit of news about climate change, it’s easy to miss the good news about what’s being done to keep it from becoming worse than it could be. What’s happening in the world of clean, green energy is one of those bright spots. By Meteor Blades Not […]