Climate
Facing Intransigence From Manchin, Environmentalists Look for Ways to Slash Carbon Pollution
Last week, Senator Joe Manchin, the Democrat from West Virginia who has made a personal fortune from his fossil fuel investments, pulled the rug out from underneath Democrats’ climate agenda. The senator said he would not vote for the Clean Energy Performance Program, or CEPP, the flagship climate policy of the Build Back Better legislation that would require power companies to rapidly replace fossil fuels with renewables such as solar and wind.
By lupu alexandra4 years ago in Earth
What Does Cloture Have to Do With Climate Change?
The FY2022 federal budget contains some of the most important climate policy of our lives. Some of it isn’t specifically about climate but will nonetheless have huge impacts on emissions. The construction of affordable housing in the nation’s increasingly unaffordable cities, for example, will help low-income people who are most likely to have old cars with terrible emissions drive less—or not at all. Making existing affordable housing more energy efficient is sound climate policy as well as an anti-poverty measure. Other aspects of the budget, like the maybe-it’s-dead-and-maybe-it-isn’t Clean Energy Performance Program (CEPP), are clearly aimed at cutting fossil fuel emissions (more on that below). All of these proposals have been designed to fit into a reconciliation bill—an arcane, complicated form of budgeting that Congress resorts to when all is not harmonious in the halls of government.
By lupu alexandra4 years ago in Earth
Heeding the Pandemic’s Warnings
When Katey Hedger walked into the Satria Bird Market in Bali in March 2021, the first thing to hit her was the smell. “There were droppings everywhere, all over the floor, and the floor was wet,” Hedger says. “I tried my best not to touch anything.”
By lupu alexandra4 years ago in Earth
We Don't Deserve Beavers
Tar Creek doesn’t seem like an inviting home for wildlife. For more than 70 years, miners blasted open the earth underneath the Oklahoma waterway in search of lead and zinc. Today, mountains of waste material from the mines tower above what is now classified by the EPA as a Superfund site. Groundwater that flows through the abandoned mines flushes toxic heavy metals, including cadmium and lead—both potent neurotoxins even at low concentrations—into the creek. The water runs bright orange.
By lupu alexandra4 years ago in Earth
Massive Milkweed Restoration Could Help Save the Monarch Butterfly
Common milkweed isn’t a particularly finicky plant—it has “weed” in its name for a reason and can be found growing on roadsides, empty lots, and old fields. But over the last two decades, Asclepias syriaca, which is primarily found in the Midwest and eastern United States, has disappeared from most agricultural landscapes. Along with it, the population of the iconic migratory monarch butterfly, Danaus plexippus plexippus, which relies on the plant for reproduction, has also crashed, so much so that it is being considered for endangered status. Assuming the key to saving the monarch is bringing back milkweed, a new study in the journal Environmental Research Letters looks at exactly where conservationists need to plant Asclepias to revive the dwindling butterfly population.
By lupu alexandra4 years ago in Earth
An Earth Loving God: 5 Reasons to be an Eco-Friendly Christian and How to Become One
Denying global climate change. The flat Earth movement. Anti-evolutionists. There are several scientific debates that have not shed a positive light on some very conservative folk out there. I suppose that shouldn’t be that big a deal. We’re all allowed to think what we want so long as we’re not hurting anyone, right?
By Selys Rivera4 years ago in Earth
Who’s Afraid of a Carbon Capture Pipeline?
Last summer, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a barn burner of a report laying out an unpleasant reality: Cutting CO2 emissions is no longer enough—countries also need to capture CO2 and store it away. Historically, the United States has been late to the party when it comes to implementing IPCC recommendations, but when the report dropped, the United States was already in the early stages of a very specific boom in carbon capture infrastructure—specifically, new pipelines that would carry captured CO2.
By lupu alexandra4 years ago in Earth
The Time to Ensure a Livable Planet Is Now
After years of dedicated campaigning on many fronts, we find ourselves on the precipice of seeing Congress pass the largest investment in climate action, clean energy, and environmental justice in history. Recently, the Sierra Club held a field call with staff and volunteer leaders on which serious concerns were raised regarding the oil and gas leasing provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022 as proposed. I feel those concerns in my bones. My father worked in fossil fuels, I have spent my career working with communities subjected to multi-generational impacts by the cruelty and killing wrought by the fossil fuel industry. I want every local leader, every volunteer, and every supporter to know that the leadership of the Sierra Club hears and shares these extremely valid concerns about the provisions in this bill that would force continued leasing for oil and gas extraction. We are also immensely grateful to our community who called or met with your members of Congress, wrote a letter to the editor, attended a protest, donated, or talked to your friends and family to build momentum for the positive things in the IRA. We wouldn't have made it to this point if it wasn't for the hard work and dedication of our grassroots leaders, chapters, and organizers who built an intersectional movement that helped redefine what is possible.
By lupu alexandra4 years ago in Earth
Greenland is unstable! New York, USA to disappear as sea levels rise?
The problem of glacier melting caused by global warming is becoming more and more serious, and the Arctic region is one of the larger areas of the global glacier coverage, but in recent years, the warming of the Arctic region is already "beyond expectation" state.
By [email protected]4 years ago in Earth
The umbrella that protects the wind and rain
"Tic tic, tic......" For the third time, the alarm rang, I reluctantly got out of the blanket, with that blurred blinking eyes looked at a few hands on the alarm clock, and faintly said, "Uh, eight o'clock." A few seconds later: "Yikes! It's eight o'clock!" The expression immediately changed from just dumbfounded to shocked, quickly put on clothes, and pick up the school bag, towards the direction of the school, all the way to speed.
By Celia R Mueller4 years ago in Earth
The taste of winter
Already in the depths of winter, more and more fascinating, I'm talking about the mood. Regrettably, there is no snow in Kunming, a few days ago cooling, light rain, and snow, symbolically floating little snowflakes, not much time to stop, eager for the snow-capped winter but did not appear in front of us stunningly.
By Celia R Mueller4 years ago in Earth
