Justice & Health - Inside Climate News

In the First Community Meeting Since a Fatal Home Explosion, Residents Grill Alabama Regulators, Politicians Over Coal Mining Destruction

By Lee Hedgepeth — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 21:33:54 +0000

Dozens of residents expressed fear and frustration over what they call “mining mayhem.” The regulators and politicians acknowledged for the first time that there may be a need for changes.

By Lee Hedgepeth

Undermined: Eighth in a series about the impacts of longwall mining in Alabama.

Nonprofit Law Center Asks EPA to Take Over Water Permitting in N.C.

By Lisa Sorg — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 17:35:31 +0000

The unprecedented move highlights regulatory tensions between Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, and an environmental rule-making commission controlled by appointees of Republican state legislative leaders.

By Lisa Sorg

RALEIGH, N.C.—The Southern Environmental Law Center is petitioning the Environmental Protection Agency to take over the state’s water permitting authority, an unprecedented move for North Carolina.

California Climate and Health Groups Urge Legislators to Pass Polluter Pays Bills

By Liza Gross — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 09:00:00 +0000

As the state’s legislative session draws to a close, activists urge their representatives to pass bills they call critical to protecting communities and the planet from fossil fuel extraction.

By Liza Gross

Dozens of activists gathered outside the state Capitol in the scorching Sacramento sun Monday to make a last push against the industry that’s largely responsible for the climate crisis shattering one heat record after another.

EPA Thought Industry-Funded Scientists Could Support Its Conclusion That a Long-Regulated Pesticide Is Not a Cancer Risk

By Liza Gross — Tue, 27 Aug 2024 09:05:00 +0000

The consultants, who worked for Dow, the pesticide’s manufacturer, help corporate interests defend their products against environmental and health regulations.

By Liza Gross

On a Southern California spring morning in 1973, a tanker truck driver jackknifed his rig and dumped the agricultural fumigant he was transporting onto a city street. A Los Angeles Fire Department emergency response team spent four hours cleaning up the chemical, 1,3-dichloropropene, or 1,3-D, a fumigant sold as Telone that farmers use to kill nematodes and other soil-dwelling organisms before planting.

New Lake Okeechobee Plan Aims for More Water for the Everglades, Less Toxic Algae

By Amy Green — Mon, 26 Aug 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Instead of prioritizing flood control above all else, the strategy is designed to balance all the needs of the watershed. “This plan marks a cultural shift on the part of the Army Corps of Engineers.”

By Amy Green

At the heart of the vast watershed that forms Florida’s fragile Everglades is Lake Okeechobee. A century ago the water of the state’s largest lake spilled effortlessly beyond its southern shore, flowing eventually into the sawgrass prairies of the river of grass.

As Global Hunger Levels Remain Stubbornly High, Advocates Call for More Money to Change the Way the World Produces Food

By Georgina Gustin — Mon, 26 Aug 2024 08:55:00 +0000

High-level policy discussions have built momentum for “food system transformation” that would help farmers address the climate crisis.

By Georgina Gustin

As much of the world heads into the fall harvest season and agriculture once again enters international policy conversations, humanitarian groups are calling for fundamental changes to the global food system—not only to feed the world’s hungry but also to enlist more farmers in solving the climate crisis.

‘It’s Just No Place for an Oil Pipeline’: A Wisconsin Tribe Continues Its Fight to Remove a 71-Year-Old Line From a Pristine Place

By Phil McKenna — Sun, 25 Aug 2024 09:05:00 +0000

A proposed reroute of a pipeline would still jeopardize the “Everglades of the North,” the EPA warns, including wild rice beds that the Bad River tribe depends on.

By Phil McKenna

ODANAH, Wis.—“This is the last turn and the end of the fourth hill of life, when Bad River, as a spirit, transforms into something other, something extraordinary,” Mike Wiggins said as he rounded a final bend in one of the largest and most pristine wetlands on the shores of Lake Superior, one of the biggest freshwater lakes in the world.

US District Court Throws Out Federal Agency’s Assessment Allowing More Drilling for Fossil Fuels in the Gulf of Mexico

By Aman Azhar — Sun, 25 Aug 2024 09:00:00 +0000

The lawsuit before the court showed the staggering scale of ecological damage a bad federal assessment can cause to endangered and federally protected sea creatures.

By Aman Azhar

The United States District Court for the District of Maryland has tossed a flawed environmental assessment that grossly underestimated harms to endangered and threatened marine species from oil and gas drilling and exploration in the Gulf of Mexico.

Coal Baron a No-Show in Alabama Courtroom as Abandoned Plant Continues to Pollute Neighborhoods

By Dennis Pillion — Sat, 24 Aug 2024 09:05:00 +0000

The son of West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice was hailed as a hero five years ago when his family’s company purchased a troubled coke plant in North Birmingham that had polluted three historically Black neighborhoods. Now, a judge says the Justices’ Bluestone Coke is on a “superhighway to contempt.”

By Dennis Pillion

BIRMINGHAM, Ala.— Chief U.S. District Judge David Proctor is fed up.

Apache Group is Carrying a Petition to the Supreme Court to Stop a Mine on Land Sacred to the Tribe

By Noel Lyn Smith — Thu, 22 Aug 2024 09:00:00 +0000

The prayer journey will pass through other tribal communities threatened by resource extraction while trying to stop a mine that claims it could satisfy a quarter of the U.S. demand for copper.

By Noel Lyn Smith

GALLUP, New Mexico—A group of Apache opposing a copper mine in the Oak Flat area of Arizona stopped to make their case in New Mexico on their way to Washington, D.C., where they will file a petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their case against the federal government.