Letter from workers, which EPA claims is ‘unlawful’, says agency is no longer living up to its mission
The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday put on administrative leave 139 employees who signed a “declaration of dissent” about its policies, accusing them of “unlawfully undermining” the Trump administration’s agenda.
In a letter made public Monday, the employees wrote that the agency is no longer living up to its mission to protect human health and the environment. The letter represented rare public criticism from agency employees who knew they could face blowback for speaking out against a weakening of funding and federal support for climate, environmental and health science.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
07/03/2025 - 19:11
07/03/2025 - 17:28
NAACP plans to sue over massive Memphis data center near Black residents, who have long dealt with pollution
Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI has been granted a permit to run methane gas generators at its massive data center in Memphis, Tennessee. The county health department approved the permit for the 15 machines late Wednesday, a move that has sparked outcry from the local community and environmental leaders, who say the generators pollute their neighborhoods.
“Our local leaders are entrusted with protecting us from corporations violating on our right to clean air, but we are witnessing their failure to do so,” said KeShaun Pearson, the director of the local environmental non-profit Memphis Community Against Pollution.
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07/03/2025 - 16:53
Costa Rica-based inter-American court of human rights says states have obligation to respond to climate change
There is a human right to a stable climate and states have a duty to protect it, a top court has ruled.
Announcing the publication of a crucial advisory opinion on climate change on Thursday, Nancy Hernández López, president of the inter-American court of human rights (IACHR), said climate change carries “extraordinary risks” that are felt particularly keenly by people who are already vulnerable.
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07/03/2025 - 13:00
Israel-based study finds that by 2050 average daily milk production could be reduced by 4% as a result of worsening heat stress
Dairy production will be threatened by the increasing frequency and intensity of heatwaves, a study has found.
Drawing on records from more than 130,000 cows over a period of 12 years, the researchers report that extreme heat reduces dairy cows’ ability to produce milk by 10%.
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07/03/2025 - 12:12
Commissioner says two women were attacked by female elephant that was with a calf
Two female tourists from the UK and New Zealand have been killed by an elephant while on a walking safari in a national park in Zambia, police in the southern African country have said.
The Eastern Province police commissioner, Robertson Mweemba, said the victims, who he named as 68-year-old Easton Janet Taylor from the UK and 67-year-old Alison Jean Taylor from New Zealand, were attacked by a female elephant that was with a calf.
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07/03/2025 - 09:11
Plans announced by environment secretary mean many upland farmers may be incentivised to stop farming
Some farms in England could be taken entirely out of food production under plans to make more space for nature, the environment secretary has said.
Speaking at the Groundswell farming festival in Hertfordshire, Steve Reed said a revamp of post-Brexit farming subsidies and a new land use plan would be aimed at increasing food production in the most productive areas and decreasing or completely removing it in the least productive. In reality, this means many upland farmers may be incentivised to stop farming.
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07/03/2025 - 08:07
When Siberian volcanoes kicked off the Great Dying, the real climate villain turned out to be the rainforests themselves: once they collapsed, Earth’s biggest carbon sponge vanished, CO₂ rocketed, and a five-million-year heatwave followed. Fossils from China and clever climate models now link that botanical wipe-out to runaway warming, hinting that losing today’s tropical forests could lock us in a furnace we can’t easily cool.
07/03/2025 - 06:50
More people reporting problems as climate crisis means plants and trees flower earlier, extending the pollen season
Pollen levels were so extreme in parts of Europe during spring that even people not known to suffer allergies felt the effects of hay fever, data has shown.
The Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (Cams) observed a seasonal rise in grass and olive pollen release and transport across southern Europe and “extreme levels” of birch pollen in north-eastern regions, it said on Thursday.
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07/03/2025 - 06:00
Document detailing the new program says zebrafish and rats from a North Carolina lab will be up for adoption
The US Environmental Protection Agency is launching a new program to adopt some of its 20,000 lab animals in the wake of Trump administration plans to dramatically cut the regulator’s research arm.
The Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (Peer) non-profit obtained and revealed an EPA document announcing the adoption program. The document announced adoptions for zebrafish and rats from an EPA lab in North Carolina.
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07/03/2025 - 06:00
Political interference and chaotic cuts to staff, programs and grants at the National Science Foundation are producing ‘devastating consequences’
A generation of scientific talent is at the brink of being lost to overseas competitors by the Trump administration’s dismantling of the National Science Foundation (NSF), with unprecedented political interference at the agency jeopardizing the future of US industries and economic growth, according to a Guardian investigation.
The gold standard peer-reviewed process used by the NSF to support cutting-edge, high-impact science is being undermined by the chaotic cuts to staff, programs and grants, and by meddling by the so-called department of government efficiency (Doge), according to multiple current and former NSF employees who spoke with the Guardian.
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