Birds and birding news
Science and nature blogging
Conservation and biodiversity
Climate change and environmental politics
- Climate change will impose tremendous costs on the U.S., much higher than previous estimates.
- Environmentalists won some key legal rulings in the fight to save Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments. In particular, the Trump administration will need to inform them of any development plans, and the trial will stay in DC rather than Utah.
- This week the Trump administration announced that they would weaken regulations for both mercury emissions and radiation exposure, as well as safety rules designed to prevent another disaster like the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill.
- The administration also argues that the world will warm 4°C by 2100 and make any greenhouse gas emissions cuts useless.
- In better news, the Obama administration's Waters of the U.S. rule finally went into force when a judge blocked the Trump administration's attempt to revoke it. The rule protects streams and wetlands from development.
- Climate change is likely to increase the severity of air pollution, especially in the eastern U.S.
- The New Jersey state legislature is working on a bill to ban plastic bags, plastic straws, and styrofoam containers. It would become the broadest plastics ban in the country if it passes.
- The EPA will finally begin cleaning up Berry's Creek in the New Jersey Meadowlands, which has one of highest concentrations of mercury and other contaminants in the world. Much of the waste came from an industrial site that was first designated as a Superfund site in 1984, but the cleanup has been plagued by delays.
- The Supreme Court's new term began with arguments over the critical habitat designation for the dusky gopher frog.
- Most of the eastern US experienced record-breaking overnight temperatures during the month of September.