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The luminous glow of light pollution prevents nearly 80 percent of people in North America from seeing the Milky Way in the night sky. That's according to a new atlas of artificial night sky brightness that found our home galaxy is now hidden from more than one-third of humanity.

New Mexico today sued the Environmental Protection Agency and the owners of the Gold King Mine for more than $136 million over economic setbacks and environmental damages suffered by the state due to the Aug. 5 dumping of more than 3 million gallons of toxic waste into the Animas River. The suit was filed on behalf of the state by Attorney General Hector Balderas and the New Mexico Environment Department. It demands reimbursement of $889,327 for short-term emergency-response costs paid by the state, more than $6 million to pay for long-term monitoring of the Animas and $130 million for lost...

upreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts rejected a plea Thursday to block a contentious air pollution rule for power plants in a big victory for the Obama administration. Roberts’s order came despite his court’s 5-4 decision last year ruling that the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) regulation, known as the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, is illegal. Michigan led a group of 20 states last month — empowered by the Supreme Court’s recent unprecedented decision to halt the EPA’s carbon dioxide rule for power plants — in asking the court to live up to its ruling last year and block the...

By Timothy Cama - 03/03/16 10:35 AM EST Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts rejected a plea Thursday to block a contentious air pollution rule for power plants in a big victory for the Obama administration

Rio Has Given Up On Its Goal To Clean Up The Water In Time For The Olympics When bidding to host the 2016 Summer Olympics, Rio de Jaineiro promised the International Olympics Committee that it would eliminate 80 percent of the sewage found in the city's notoriously filthy water, and would fully regenerate the lagoon in which rowing and kayaking events will be held. Now a few months from the start of the games, Rio has given up on keeping those promises. Outside The Lines' Bonnie Ford has a thorough examination of the current state of Rio's water pollution, and...

Pollution cancels more than 220 Beijing flights: Xinhua CNBC.com staff | @CNBC 22 Hours Ago More than 220 flights at Beijing's Capital International Airport were canceled Friday as pollution caused poor visibility, China's official Xinhua news agency reported. Beijing's pollution alert level was upgraded to yellow on Friday from Thursday's blue, Xinhua reported Friday, noting that the four color-coded levels, in order from most severe to least, are red, orange, yellow and blue. Beijing has issued two red alerts in December -- its only two ever. A red alert dramatically limits car use, advises schools to close, shuts down outdoor...

Purple haze: lilac sky at night highlights China's smog blight Images showing Nanjing city shrouded in a violet fug - said to be caused by a pollution spike at sunset - follow two red alerts for Beijing over toxic air A Nanjing sunset, when the purple twilight and dense smog combined to give the appearance of a purple haze. Photograph: Weibo Tom Phillips in Beijing Wednesday 23 December 2015 06.16 GMT Photographs appearing to show one of China's most famous cities shrouded in a spectacular violet mist went viral on Wednesday, as millions of citizens choked on the country's latest...

Smog cloud bigger than 40 Beijings suffocates northern China 21 December 2015 12:00 • Ryan Kilpatrick •1 min read A 660,000 square kilometer smog cloud has smothered much of northern China, engulfing the national capital as well as 70 other cities in neighbouring Hebei, Henan and Shandong provinces. Chinese media have said the expanse of air pollution is more than 40 times the size of Beijing itself, which has issued its second-ever red alert over air pollution levels. Air Quality Index readings for north China on Monday morning. Photo: HKFP. The red alert, the highest tier in a four-colour warning...

It’s caked in clay, but looks solid enough as the backhoe gently hoists Joan Fitzgerald’s 500-gallon fuel oil tank out of the ground and into the air and deposits it on her front lawn in Clifton. But back in the excavated hole, dark residue stains the dirt and the odor of petroleum is heavy above the pit. "I can smell it," she said. Environmental consultant Steve Rich chops at the clay. Underneath holes appear in the 66-year-old steel. Daylight shines through some that are as big as dimes. "I think, unfortunately, quite a bit of oil might have come out,"...

India would reject a deal to combat climate change that includes a pledge for the world to wean itself off fossil fuels this century, a senior official said, underlying the difficulties countries face in agreeing how to slow global warming. Almost 200 nations will meet in the French capital on Nov. 30 to try and seal a deal to prevent the planet from warming more than the 2 degrees Celsius that scientists say is vital if the world is to avoid the most devastating effects of climate change. To keep warming in check, some countries want the Paris agreement to...

It’s a banner day for thrift and spending control in the federal government. Earlier, Ed already talked about the cash bonanza at the VA, but that’s being followed up by breaking news from the Environmental Protection Agency. You probably recall that unpleasant little incident at the Gold King mine in Colorado where they spilled millions of gallons of toxic sludge into the local river system. Well, the contractor who was employed by the agency during that particular disaster has been identified and the EPA had a good, long talk with them. The result was to award them millions of...

STOCKHOLM (AP) - The U.N.'s environmental authority has quietly raised its assessment of the level at which global greenhouse gas emissions must peak to avoid dangerous climate change, as governments seek a new accord to fight global warming. In its first four annual emissions reports in 2010-2013, the United Nations Environment Program said emissions must not exceed 44 billion tons in 2020 for the world to limit global warming to 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F).

There is no renewables revolution in China A new study suggests air pollution is even worse than thought in China where pollution is sky-high everywhere. Some 83% of Chinese are exposed to air that, in America, would be deemed by the EPA either to be unhealthy or unhealthy for sensitive groups. Almost half of the population of China experiences levels of PM2.5 that are above America’s highest threshold. Berkeley’s Earth scientific director, Richard Muller, says breathing Beijing air is the equivalent of smoking almost 40 cigarettes a day. China emits more CO2 than the US and Canada put together—up 171%...

Okay; repeat after me: fracking does not pollute your drinking water. As Sean Hackbarth over at the Chamber of Commerce noted, a Yale study found no evidence that fracking, which is used in the process of extracting natural gas, causes drinking water to become undrinkable: Organic compounds found in drinking water aquifers above the Marcellus Shale and other shale plays could reflect natural geologic transport processes or contamination from anthropogenic activities, including enhanced natural gas production. Using analyses of organic compounds coupled with inorganic geochemical fingerprinting, estimates of groundwater residence time, and geospatial analyses of shale gas wells and...

Why did one of the world's top physicists—ever—sign the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation's Open Letter to Pope Francis on Climate Change, which challenges climate alarmism, though he's a liberal, a Democrat, likes President Obama, and has a strong background in climate science? His interview with the UK Register and his foreword to a new study titled Carbon Dioxide: The Good News reveal some of his reasons. Freeman Dyson believes increasing atmospheric CO2 content does more good than harm and that President Obama "chose the wrong side" in the climate debate. He explains that climate change "is not a...

The New York Times (10/6, Chang, Subscription Publication) posts a feature on NASA Planetary Protection Officer Catharine Conley, whose job “is not so much protecting Earth from aliens as protecting other planets from Earth.” Conley is responsible for making sure than NASA missions to Mars and elsewhere do not pollute or contaminate alien worlds.

City-parish president candidates Joel Robideaux and Dee Stanley navigated questions on coal-generated power, the disruption an elevated interstate might cause in Lafayette and whether the city has too many traffic signals — all posed at a Thursday evening forum sponsored by the local chapter of the Sierra Club. In a campaign season where the candidates have often found themselves repeatedly addressing the same issues in the string of debates and forums leading up to the Oct. 24 election, Stanley and Robideaux covered some new ground at the environmental group’s forum at the Lafayette Public Library downtown. Robideaux, a longtime state...

Paris’s “day without cars” last week led to such a dramatic drop in both air and noise pollution that the mayor’s office is now planning more vehicle-free days in the French capital. Airparif, which measures city pollution levels, said levels of nitrogen dioxide dropped by up to 40% in parts of the city on Sunday 27 September... Najdovski, a member of the Europe Ecology-Green (EELV) party, admitted he was disappointed that only one third of Paris was handed over to pedestrians and cyclists on 27 September... added: “My dream Paris would be a city without cars.

The second of two Los Angeles beaches closed after hypodermic needles, condoms and tampon applicators washed ashore has reopened. [Snip] Excessive bacteria levels were also found in the water. Sanitation District spokeswoman Tonya Durrell said crews collected at least 200 pounds of waste from the beaches.