Category: News Archive

After a long year of environmental disasters across the globe and in the midst of a public health crisis that has killed well over a million people, six “environmental heroes” were announced on Monday as winners of the 2020 Goldman Environmental Prize, an annual honor that recognizes grassroots activists from each of the world’s inhabited continental regions.
“These six environmental champions reflect the powerful impact that one person can have on many,” John Goldman, president of the Goldman Environmental Foundation, said in a statement. “In today’s world, we witness the effects of an imbalance with nature: a global pandemic, climate change, wildfires, environmental injustices affecting those most at risk, and constant threats to a sustainable existence.”
Read more…
Photo credit: Goldman Environmental Foundation

Read the story of William Sanjour, who blew the whistle on the EPA and throughout his career.
How long does it take to fight the good fight? How long can one stand in the arena and continue the battle? For some whistleblowers, it can be decades, and William Sanjour is a case in point. For half his life, he has been a whistleblower and a whistleblower advocate. He was the point man in a court case that reverberates to this day, and he outsmarted many people who tried desperately to silence him.
Read more…

When Joe Biden delivered his first speech as president-elect two weeks ago, he focused on his mandate to “marshal the forces of science and the forces of hope in the great battles of our time.” Climate change was high on that list. After another year of unprecedented climate disasters, Biden will enter office with the most ambitious plans of any incoming president to wean our country off fossil fuels.
To deliver on his promises of “getting climate under control,” Biden will need to follow the prevailing science that suggests the United States achieve about a 45 percent reduction in its greenhouse gas pollution by 2030. He can’t afford to wade through years of congressional gridlock to get there. Instead, he will have to exploit the broad powers of the executive branch, using existing law to get as close as possible to the target.
Read more…
Photo credit: C-Span, Zuma

Environmental justice has found its way into President-elect Joe Biden’s transition plan as a “key consideration” for policy-making, and advocates are cautiously optimistic. And though a divided Congress is likely, they suspect an infrastructure bill — long promised but never delivered under the Trump administration — is a potential avenue for investing in communities that have borne the brunt of pollution and environmental racism.
These “frontline” communities, whose populations are predominantly Black or other people of color, are those that experience the first and worst consequences of climate change and other environmental problems.
The new administration’s ability to allocate 40 percent of clean energy and infrastructure investment benefits to these communities, as Biden called for in his campaign plan, will likely depend on whether Republicans retain control of the Senate following two Jan. 5 runoff elections in Georgia. Even with the potentially split legislature, however, those who have worked alongside Biden’s campaign or in previous administrations are convinced that the president-elect’s best chance to invest in environmental justice is through targeted infrastructure spending.
Read more…
Photo credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

On Nov. 16, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announced the first round of grantees from his “Earth Fund,” which has committed to ultimately channel $10 billion to climate change-related causes and groups. In this first crop, 16 organizations will receive a total of $791 million, making Bezos the world’s biggest backer of climate activism. In one day, he single-handedly boosted the total amount of climate-related philanthropic funding available in the US by around 11%.

But the list of recipients is raising some objections—both because of its potential to greenwash Amazon’s own climate accountability, and because it significantly favors well-funded Beltway institutions over grassroots groups that arguably need the money more.

Read more…
Photo credit: Reuters / Francis Mascarenhas

Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the selection of the California Office of Planning and Research’s Strategic Growth Council to receive $200,000 for trainings to communities to address air quality and COVID-19 – the respiratory disease shown to disproportionately impact individuals exposed to higher levels of air pollution.
“EPA is working to improve the environment and public health conditions of low-income and minority communities that have been disproportionately impacted by the COVD-19 pandemic,” said EPA Pacific Southwest Regional Administrator John Busterud. This grant assistance will provide meaningful tools for those Californians in the greatest of need.”
Read more…