Free Republic

The European Union is proposing bans on plastic products like cotton buds, straws, stirs and balloon sticks when alternatives are easily available in an attempt to cut marine litter. The European Commission said its proposal would seek to cut marine litter in half for the ten most prominent items and avoid environmental damage estimated at over $250 billion over the next dozen years. …

Kat Taylor — the wife of billionaire environmentalist and political activist Tom Steyer — protested Harvard University’s fossil fuel investments by resigning from the Harvard Board of Overseers one day before her six-year term was due to expire. Taylor had enough of Harvard University’s fossil fuel investments. She stepped down from her position as a member of the Harvard Board of Overseers on Tuesday. In her resignation letter, Taylor decried the school’s “failure” to “adopt ethical commitments,” according to the Harvard Crimson.

Many people awaited last Sunday’s Falcon 9 launch from Cape Canaveral of a highly classified US payload. The launch had been delayed for weeks, speculation as to the satellite’s purpose was rampant, and successfully delivering national security satellites to orbit is an important part of SpaceX’s business. The launch, however, remains shrouded in mystery.Shortly after the launch, Bloomberg reported that the satellite was lost, due to US Strategic Command saying they were not tracking any objects. The Wall Street Journal suggested that Congress was being briefed on a failure, and that it was due to a failure of the satellite...

Shortly after taking office, Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt set out to permanently limit the agency’s regulatory power in what he billed as a “Back to Basics” agenda focusing on cleaning up toxic waste and providing safe drinking water ― but not curbing new industrial pollution.

California is poised to meet its goal to reduce greenhouse gases 33 percent, to 1990 levels, by the year 2020. Its targets for use of more renewable energy by that date are, in some cases, already exceeded. ...hold on tight for what comes next. The state’s overarching plan was intended to ease industry and consumers into a carbon-free future bit by bit; ten years in, the training wheels are off. Emissions-reduction must hit 40 percent by 2030 and twice that by 2050. In 12 years, half the state’s energy must come from renewable sources. 14 million buildings must operate twice...

Theresa May is to announce a war on plastic waste, with proposed policies including plastics-free aisles in supermarkets and a tax on takeaway containers. The prime minister will set out her ambition to eliminate all avoidable plastic waste within 25 years in a major speech on Thursday in which she will promise the UK will lead internationally on environmental issues. But campaign groups said the aspirations would need to be backed up by legislation. They also warned that leaving the EU risked weakening environmental protections, and called for the government to promise it would not water down green standards in...

Scientific studies used by the Obama administration to help justify tough environmental regulations are coming under intensifying scrutiny, with critics questioning their merit as the Trump EPA reverses or delays some of those rules. In one case, agencies determined the research used to prop up a ban on a particular pesticide was questionable. On another front, the Environmental Protection Agency never complied with a congressional subpoena for the data used to justify most Obama administration air quality rules. “EPA regulations are based on secret data developed in the 1990s,” Steve Milloy, who served on President Trump’s EPA transition team, told...

Devastating wildfires fueled by climate change are “the new normal”, California’s governor has said. Jerry Brown said vast fires, such as the ones that have ravaged southern California in recent days, “could happen every year or every few years”. “We’re facing a new reality in this state,” he said. Mr Brown made the comments after surveying the damage in Ventura County, north of Los Angeles. Thousands of firefighters have been battling the fires since Monday. Mr. Brown, a Democrat who has attacked the Trump administration’s stance on climate change, said: “We’re facing a new reality in this state, where fires...

A startling and honestly distressing view is beginning to receive serious consideration in both academic and popular discussions of climate change ethics. According to this view, having a child is a major contributor to climate change. The logical takeaway here is that everyone on Earth ought to consider having fewer children. Although culturally controversial, the scientific half of this position is fairly well-established. Several years ago, scientists showed that having a child, especially for the world’s wealthy, is one of the worst things you can do for the environment. That data was recycled this past summer in a paper showing...

Representatives for Norway’s government appeared in an Oslo court on Tuesday after environmental groups including Greenpeace brought a case over drilling in the Arctic. Greenpeace, along with environmentalist youth group Natur og Ungdom (Nature and Youth), has sued the Norwegian state over licenses it awarded in 2016 for oil prospecting in the Barents Sea. The Scandinavian country is western Europe’s biggest oil producer. A third group, called the Grandparents Climate Campaign, has also joined the case against the state. The plaintiffs accuse Norway of violating the Paris Agreement on climate change and a section of the country’s constitution amended in...

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency has named a slate of new members to federal science advisory boards, including several who work for chemical and fossil-fuel interests. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced his appointments Friday, after saying he would block scientists who receive federal research grants from serving. That change ruled out many highly qualified experts from colleges and universities, who the EPA chief said had potential conflicts of interest. […] Pruitt named Paul Gilman as the new chair of EPA’s Board of Scientific Counselors. Gilman is a former EPA official who now works as a senior vice president...

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday he intends to replace the outside experts that advise him on science and public health issues with new board members holding more diverse views. In announcing the changes, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt suggested many previously appointed to the panels were potentially biased because they had received federal research grants. The 22 boards advise EPA on a wide range of issues, including drinking water standards and pesticide safety. “Whatever science comes out of EPA shouldn’t be political science,” said Pruitt, a Republican lawyer who previously served as the attorney general of Oklahoma....

Brooklyn school kids, meet Meatless Mondays. Fifteen public schools in the borough will ditch meat on their Monday menus starting this spring, Mayor de Blasio announced during a visit to P.S. 1 in Sunset Park. And what’s good for the students is good for the mayor, he said. “At Gracie Mansion, we are now going to be instituting Meatless Mondays as well — and that will be for our family meals and for the events we have at Gracie Mansion and when we have guests over for dinner,” de Blasio said. […] “I am very proud of all the students;...

Norway, a world leader of zero-emission vehicles, on Thursday proposed a “Tesla tax” aimed at cutting a tax advantage granted to large electric cars, in a heavily criticized move. Electric cars, which have hitherto been exempted from heavy taxes imposed on other vehicles, accounted for 20 percent of new registrations in the Nordic country since the beginning of this year, an unprecedented market share in the world. In a 2018 finance bill presented to the parliament on Thursday, the right-wing minority government suggested removing a one-off tax exemption for new electric cars weighing more than two tonnes. The proposal was...

Attorneys for the Trump administration said a federal judge has no authority to second-guess a presidential permit for the Keystone XL oil pipeline as they seek to stop a lawsuit that would block the project. Justice Department attorneys are due in U.S. District Court in Montana on Wednesday to defend the administration’s March approval of the 1,179-mile pipeline — a lightning rod in the debate over what to do about climate change. The TransCanada proposal would transport Canadian crude oil through Montana and South Dakota to Nebraska, where it would connect with an existing system of lines to carry oil...

Despite the promise of creating 600 permanent jobs, the ethane cracker plant being built about 40 minutes northwest of Pittsburgh by car continues to face scrutiny from environmental groups. Shell Chemical Appalachia decided in 2012 that Beaver County would be the site of a new $6 billion plant to manufacture plastics. Shell chose the Beaver County location because of its proximity to natural gas supplies and because the majority of North American polyethylene — the most common plastic — customers are in a 700-mile radius of Pittsburgh. In a statement published on its website, Shell said it expects to employ...

Maryland is suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for failing to act on a petition requiring power plants in five upwind states to reduce pollution, the state’s attorney general and an official in Gov. Larry Hogan’s administration said Wednesday. The Hogan administration says 70 percent of Maryland’s ozone problem originates in upwind states. Maryland petitioned the EPA in November for a finding that 36 power plant units in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia are emitting air pollution affecting Maryland in violation of the Clean Air Act’s “good neighbor provision.” In January, the EPA issued a six-month extension to...

Pope Francis has warned history will judge world leaders who do not act as he blasted climate change sceptics in the wake of Hurricanes Irma and Harvey. The pontiff said the recent storms meant the effects of climate change could be seen "with your own eyes". There have been four major Atlantic hurricanes in less than three weeks. But US Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt said it was an inappropriate time to discuss what role climate change may have played. Mr Pruitt - who has previously said he "would not agree" carbon dioxide is a primary contributor to global...

Solar panel units for the roofs of Norwegian homes are to be sold in-store for the first time by electronics retailer Elkjøp. The electronics chain has noticed a strong growth in demand for the solar units in its online stores, reports Dagens Næringsliv. Now the technology will be available in physical shops for the first time. Solar panel power in Norwegian homes has tripled in the last year in terms of overall effectivity, according to the report. […] The technology developer said that he wanted to take solar power from the “niche market to the mass market”. …

WILLIAM NARDI - UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS BOSTON SEPTEMBER 5, 2017 Earth as lover, not mother Four years ago, when art Professor Elizabeth Stephens filmed the documentary “Ecosexual Love Story,” in which she and her partner licked trees, played with mud, and made love with the environment while naked, the term “ecosexuality” was still somewhat unknown. But a lot has happened since then, and ecosexuality isn’t such a mystery anymore — Google trends show interest in the term has increased exponentially over the last 12 months, seemingly exploding. That interest can be traced in part back to Stephens, a UC Santa...