The decision comes after a ProPublica and Guardian investigation revealed that the EPA had found that one of the fuels had a huge cancer risk
This article is co-published with ProPublica, a non-profit newsroom that investigates abuses of power
The US Environmental Protection Agency is planning to withdraw and reconsider its approval for Chevron to produce 18 plastic-based fuels, including some that an internal agency assessment found are highly likely to cause cancer.
In a recent court filing, the federal agency said it “has substantial concerns” that the approval order “may have been made in error”. The EPA gave a Chevron refinery in Mississippi the green light to make the chemicals in 2022 under a “climate-friendly” initiative intended to boost alternatives to petroleum, as ProPublica and the Guardian reported last year.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
09/30/2024 - 05:00
09/30/2024 - 04:58
With the last coal-fired plant closing on Monday, we chart the rise and fall of the once-indispensable fuel that powered modern Britain
End of an era as Britain’s last coal-fired power plant shuts down
Britain’s transition to a low-carbon future has reached a milestone with the closure of its last remaining coal-fired power plant at Ratcliffe-on-Soar in Nottinghamshire.
The shutdown of the 57-year-old power plant on Monday ends more than 140 years of coal power generation in the UK – an industrial story closely interwoven with Britain’s socioeconomic and political history.
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09/30/2024 - 00:00
Academics say there has been no serious response from FAO to their complaints of ‘serious distortions’ in report
More than 20 scientific experts have written to the UN’s food agency expressing shock at its failure to revise or withdraw a livestock emissions report that two of its cited academics have said contained “multiple and egregious errors”.
The alleged inaccuracies are understood to have downplayed the potential of dietary change to reduce agricultural greenhouse gases, which make up about a quarter of total anthropogenic emissions and mostly derive from livestock.
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09/29/2024 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 30 September 2024; doi:10.1038/s44183-024-00081-7
A review of marine genetic resource valuations
09/29/2024 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 30 September 2024; doi:10.1038/s44183-024-00085-3
Australia is reforming its ineffective Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, which currently allows the export of four threatened species listed under the Act along with additional species recognized as globally threatened. We propose three recommendations for the new legislation: (1) apply the same precautions to commercially harvested species as other threatened species; (2) mandate annual reviews of threatened species status; and (3) assess species listed on global conservation conventions.
09/29/2024 - 18:01
UK’s 142-year history of coal-fired electricity ends as turbines at Ratcliffe-on-Soar plant in Nottinghamshire stop for good
A deep history of British coal – from the Romans to the Ratcliffe shutdown
Britain’s only remaining coal power plant at Ratcliffe-on-Soar in Nottinghamshire will generate electricity for the last time on Monday after powering the UK for 57 years.
The power plant will come to the end of its life in line with the government’s world-leading policy to phase out coal power which was first signalled almost a decade ago.
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09/29/2024 - 10:00
The lassitude that distinguishes our moment is born of sorrow and buried rage. We act like colonial subjects because, in effect, that’s what we are
“Kids these days are such snowflakes! So flaccid and self-involved, so doomy and anxious. If it’s not the drugs, it’s the screen time, right? I mean, what’s their problem?”
I try to sidestep conversations like these. Engaging saps so much time and energy. But avoiding them leaves me feeling dirty. Not because I’ve forgone an opportunity to win an argument, but because I know I’ve failed to defend those who need and deserve my solidarity.
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09/29/2024 - 09:28
Two countries agree to modifications beneath Matterhorn peak, one of Europe’s highest summits
Switzerland and Italy have redrawn a border that traverses an Alpine peak as melting glaciers shift the historically defined frontier.
The two countries agreed to the modifications beneath the Matterhorn, one of the highest mountains in Europe, which straddles Switzerland’s Zermatt region and Italy’s Aosta valley.
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09/29/2024 - 08:00
‘The Grapevine’, which connects the metropolis to the state’s agricultural hub, now serves as a window to the effects of climate crisis
Wildfires. Snowstorms. Falling boulders. DC Williams has long given up on predicting what the day will bring on Interstate 5 near Tejon Pass, an eight-lane stretch of highway that winds through the steep mountains north of Los Angeles.
Williams has been an officer with the California Highway Patrol and worked in this area for 11 years. On a chilly day this spring, he wore a thick black jacket even as he sat inside his Ford Explorer on a bridge overlooking the highway.
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09/29/2024 - 07:00
Rightwing US thinktank claimed in report that non-profit holding trainings is ‘corruptly influencing the courts’
A rightwing organization is attacking efforts to educate judges about the climate crisis. The group appears to be connected to Leonard Leo, the architect of the rightwing takeover of the American judiciary who helped select Trump’s supreme court nominees, the Guardian has learned.
The Washington DC-based non-profit Environmental Law Institute (ELI)’s Climate Judiciary Project holds seminars for lawyers and judges about the climate crisis. It aims to “provide neutral, objective information to the judiciary about the science of climate change as it is understood by the expert scientific community and relevant to current and future litigation”, according to ELI’s website.
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