Category: News Archive

U.S. formally exits Paris climate change pact amid election uncertainty

Post author By CHEJ Intern
Post date November 5, 2020

BERLIN — The United States on Wednesday formally left the Paris Agreement, a global pact forged five years ago to avert the threat of catastrophic climate change.

The move, long threatened by President Donald Trump and triggered by his administration a year ago, further isolates the U.S in the world but has no immediate impact on international efforts to curb global warming.

Some 189 countries remain committed to the 2015 Paris accord, which aims to keep the increase in average temperatures worldwide “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), ideally no more than 1.5C (2.7 F), compared to pre-industrial levels. A further six countries have signed, but not ratified the pact.

Scientists say that any rise beyond 2 degrees Celsius could have a devastating impact on large parts of the world, raising sea levels, stoking tropical storms and worsening droughts and floods.

Photo Credit: Brendan Smialowksi / AFP via Getty Images

Tags climate change, Paris Accord, Paris Agreement, United States

Backyard Talk News Archive

No We Still Aren’t Done. Honestly, I can’t wait for 2020 to be done.

Post author By Lois Gibbs
Post date November 5, 2020

This year has been one of the most challenging since I fought along side my neighbors in Love Canal. For those not familiar, Love Canal is a dumpsite full of 20,000 tons of toxic chemicals, located in Niagara Falls, NY.

I bought a puppy. I needed something to help cope that wouldn’t destroy my health.

Like fighting to obtain relief from the Love Canal leaking dumpsite this year has been one crisis after another. One friend, ally, family member after another feeling sick, worried about COVID or passing away – – alone. Our work at CHEJ had to be totally transformed from face-to-face to virtual. Our leaders who are primarily living in polluted and low income communities told us no one is enforcing the laws and regulations and people are dying. We were powerless to do anything about it.

The election has not yet been declared but it looks like Biden’s going to win and Trump loose. Time will tell because every vote needs to be counted. I’m patiently waiting . . . maybe not so patiently . . . but willing to wait as long as it takes because that is how our democracy must work – count every single voice.

So like many of you – I just wish this year would end. 2021 has got to be better. But at least I now have my happy, oblivious and active puppy to distract me for a little while each day from this crazy world that continues to spin out of control.

It’s time to take my little Buddy for a walk.

Homepage News Archive

‘Crossroads of the climate crisis’: swing state Arizona grapples with deadly heat

Post author By CHEJ Intern
Post date November 4, 2020

Even now, Ivan Moore can’t think why his father didn’t didn’t tell anyone that the air conditioning in their house was busted. “I honestly don’t know what was going through his mind,” he said.

That week three years ago, temperatures in Phoenix, Arizona were forecasted to top 115F (46C). Moore, his wife and two children went to the mountains for a camping trip, and his dad Gene, stayed behind. A few days later, Gene died.

The air conditioning had been blowing hot air. “He’d opened a window but it was too hot,” Moore said. “My dad’s heart basically gave out on him.”

Phoenix – America’s hottest city – is getting hotter and hotter, and Moore’s father is one of the hundreds of Arizonans who have succumbed to the desert heat in recent years.

Photo Credit: Caitlin O’Hara/The Guardian

Tags Arizona, climate change, climate crisis

Homepage News Archive

People of color more likely to live without piped water in richest US cities

Post author By CHEJ Intern
Post date November 4, 2020

People of color in some of America’s wealthiest cities are significantly more likely to live in houses without indoor plumbing essential for running water, new research reveals.

Clean, safe, affordable water is essential for human health and economic survival. Yet access to running water is not universal in the United States, ostensibly the richest country in the world.

Nationwide, almost half a million homes do not have piped water, with the majority – 73% – located in urban areas. In fact, almost half the houses without plumbing are located in the country’s top 50 cities.

Photo credit: Christin Lola/Getty Images/iStockphoto

Tags Environmental Justice, people of color, water quality

Homepage News Archive

Pipeline Company Agrees to Pay $800,000 in Fines, Road Fixes

Post author By CHEJ Intern
Post date November 3, 2020

A natural gas pipeline company and one of its contractors has agreed to pay $300,000 to settle allegations that they violated Massachusetts environmental protection laws during the construction of a natural gas pipeline in 2017, and another $500,000 to repair a stretch of road damaged during the project, the state attorney general’s office said.

Kinder Morgan subsidiary Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. damaged a vernal pool and other protected wetland resources areas, degraded water quality in a cold water fishery, and discharged 15,000 gallons of contaminated pipeline test water directly onto the ground during construction of the pipeline through Sandisfield and Otis State Forest, according to a statement Monday from Attorney General Maura Healey.

Homepage News Archive

Americans May Add Five Times More Plastic to the Oceans Than Thought

Post author By CHEJ Intern
Post date November 3, 2020

The United States contribution to coastal plastic pollution worldwide is significantly larger than previously thought, possibly by as much as five times, according to a study published Friday.

The research, published in Science Advances, is the sequel to a 2015 paper by the same authors. Two factors contributed to the sharp increase: Americans are using more plastic than ever and the current study included pollution generated by United States exports of plastic waste, while the earlier one did not.

Photo credit: Francisco Robles/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Homepage News Archive

What Voters in Battleground States Think About Climate Change

Post author By CHEJ Intern
Post date November 3, 2020

Climate change has emerged as a major issue for voters this year, both nationally and in crucial battleground states like Arizona and Florida, new polls from The New York Times and Siena College suggest.

Nationwide, 58 percent of Americans said they were either “very concerned” or “somewhat concerned” about their communities being harmed by climate change, according to a survey conducted in mid-October, with 39 percent saying they were “not too concerned” or “not at all concerned.”

Photo credit: The New York Times/Sienna College Poll

News Archive

Trump’s EPA rewrote the rules on air, water energy. Now voters face a choice on climate change issues

Post author By CHEJ Intern
Post date October 30, 2020

Cherise Harris noticed a change in her eldest daughter soon after the family moved a block away from a 132-year-old coal-fired power plant in Painesville, Ohio.

The teen’s asthma attacks occurred more frequently, Harris said, and she started carrying an inhaler with her at all times.

The family didn’t know it at the time, but Painesville’s municipal-owned plant emits nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide – two pollutants that the American Lung Association says inflames air passages, causing shortness of breath, chest tightness, pain and wheezing.

Photo credit: Getty Images

News Archive

Duke study finds high PFAS levels in Pittsboro residents’ blood

Post author By CHEJ Intern
Post date October 30, 2020

A new Duke University study has found that the concentrations of some potentially cancerous per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — or PFAS — are two to four times higher in the blood of Pittsboro residents than the U.S. population as a whole.

The study also found that some types of PFAS chemicals found in Pittsboro residents’ blood are “strikingly similar” to those found in the blood of Wilmington residents during an earlier study conducted by N.C. State and East Carolina universities.

Photo credit: Pxfuel, Creative Commons

News Archive

The $16 Million Was Supposed to Clean Up Old Oil Wells; Instead, It’s Going to Frack New Ones

Post author By CHEJ Intern
Post date October 30, 2020

North Dakota’s top oil and gas regulator had a problem. With winter bearing down, his department had yet to spend $16 million in federal coronavirus relief funds earmarked for cleaning up abandoned oil and gas well sites across the state, and the arrival of cold weather would halt the work.

If the money wasn’t spent by the end of the year, the state would lose it. So Lynn Helms, director of the state’s Department of Mineral Resources, proposed a different use for the funds: paying oil companies to hydraulically fracture new wells.

Photo credit: William Campbell/Corbis via Getty Images

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