Fading Winters, Hotter Summers Make the Northeast America’s Fastest Warming Region Connecticut’s average temperature has risen 2 degrees Celsius since the late 19th century, double the average for the Lower 48 states.
By Abby Weiss As a kid growing up in Watertown, Connecticut, Daniel Esty would create his own backyard ice skating rink and flood it with a garden hose. Now, when Esty tries to create an ice rink with his own children in their backyard in nearby Cheshire, the water rarely freezes. See Also: In Michigan, Dams Plus Climate Change Equals a Disastrous Mix New Study Shows Global Warming Increasing Frequency of the Most-Destructive Tropical Storms 50 Years From Now, Many Densely Populated Parts of the World Could be Too Hot for Humans In Dozens of Cities East of the Mississippi, Winter Never Really Happened read more
Trump Plan Would Open Huge Area of Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve to Drilling The plan includes Teshekpuk Lake and other ecologically sensitive areas that offer habitat for threatened species and are critical to an Indigenous native village. By Sabrina Shankman Along the northern edge of Alaska, millions of square miles of land are home to countless animal species—hundreds of thousands of caribou, scores of threatened bird species, polar bears and more. This isn’t the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, although the same is true there. It’s the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, a few hundred miles west of the refuge, and some of its most ecologically sensitive lands may soon be open for business to the oil industry. See Also: Banks’ Vows to Restrict Loans for Arctic Oil and Gas Development May Be Largely Symbolic In Alaska’s North, Covid-19 Has Not Stopped the Trump Administration’s Quest to Drill for Oil On Baffin Island in the Fragile Canadian Arctic, an Iron Ore Mine Spews Black Carbon 3 Arctic Wilderness Areas to Watch as Trump Tries to Expand Oil & Gas Drilling read more
Crushed by Covid-19, Airlines Lobby for a Break on Emissions Offsets
A U.N. agency is set to announce whether it will grant airlines a reprieve that could keep them from having to purchase carbon offsets for years. By Kristoffer Tigue A United Nations agency will likely decide Friday whether to make changes to an agreement aimed at offsetting carbon emissions from international flights beyond the year 2020. It could provide much needed reprieve for airlines, but with potential costs to the climate. See Also: In the Midst of the Coronavirus, California Weighs Diesel Regulations Fossil Fuel Emissions Push Greenhouse Gas Indicators to Record High in May Could the Flight Shaming Movement Take Off in the U.S.? JetBlue Thinks So. read more
Pennsylvania Grand Jury Faults State Officials for Lax Fracking Oversight Attorney General Josh Shapiro said Republican and Democratic administrations alike had failed to probe health risks related to air and water pollution. By Marianne Lavelle As the fracking boom transformed Pennsylvania over the past decade, the state’s environmental and health agencies systematically failed to protect the state’s citizens from the risks of the operations, a special state investigative grand jury said in a report released Thursday. See Also: Minnesota and the District of Columbia Allege Climate Change Deception by Big Oil Texas Justices Hand Exxon Setback in California Climate Cases In Setback to Industry, the Ninth Circuit Sends California Climate Liability Cases Back to State Courts Honolulu Sues Petroleum Companies For Climate Change Damages to City
