Environmental News Archive
President Trump signed an executive order Tuesday scrapping a controversial Environmental Protection Agency rule that expanded the agency's jurisdiction over the nation's waterways during the second term of former President Obama.
The regulation, known as the Waters of the U.S. rule, broadened the definition of the type of water body that would fall under EPA's formidable clean water enforcement powers, making everything from streams to ditches and watering holes subject to the EPA's and Army Corps of Engineers' oversight.
Trump executive order scraps EPA water rule
Biologists say half of all species could be extinct by end of century
One in five species on Earth now faces extinction, and that will rise to 50% by the end of the century unless urgent action is taken. That is the stark view of the world’s leading biologists, ecologists and economists who will gather on Monday to determine the social and economic changes needed to save the planet’s biosphere.
“The living fabric of the world is slipping through our fingers without our showing much sign of caring,” say the organisers of the Biological Extinction conference held at the Vatican this week.
DuPont settles lawsuits over leak of chemical used to make Teflon
DuPont and Chemours Co have agreed to pay $671 million in cash to settle thousands of lawsuits involving a leak of a toxic chemical used to make Teflon, the companies said on Monday.
Shares of Chemours jumped 13 percent. The company said it would pay half of the settlement, although liability for litigation connected with the chemical was passed onto it when DuPont spun it off in 2015.
In addition, Jefferies analyst Alexander Laurence said the liability was $300 million below Wall Street estimates, and DuPont shares rose 1 percent.
"The facts around climate change are undeniable. It’s happening."
There's a glacier in Antarctica so immense that, if it melted, would raise sea levels globally by 3.5 metres.
It's melting. Right now.
"The facts around climate change are undeniable. It's happening," Australian glaciologist Ben Galton-Fenzi told The Huffington Post Australia. "The research we do now isn't about trying to convince ourselves it's real, because it's irrefutable. What we're trying to do is understand what the response time of the system is going to be into the future, so we can adapt to it."
The Totten glacier is the biggest in east Antarctica. The glacier itself is around 120 kilometres long, 30 kilometres wide and drains some 538,000 square kilometres of the continent. That's an area bigger than California. The ice is kilometres thick, but it's melting at 70 metres a year in some spots. A study released in December reported warmer water was melting the Totten ice from below.
At least 14 killed by avalanche in Pakistan
At least 14 people were killed in an avalanche that buried several houses in the village of Sher Shall, part of the town of Chintral, located in the Hindu Kush mountains in northwestern Pakistan.
According to CNN, six women, six children and two men were among the dead. Officials fear more people are trapped beneath the thick wall of snow.
The Pakistani state media said rescue personnel are doing their best to search for bodies and deliver recovery supplies, like blankets, stoves and food. Inclement winter weather has made search and rescue efforts difficult. Many of the local roads are blocked by snow and ice.
7.7-magnitude earthquake in Chile, tsunami warning lifted
A 7.7-magnitude earthquake hit Chile Sunday. There were tsunami warnings, but they have been lifted.
The quake hit 150 miles southwest of Puerto Montt, at a depth of 9 miles, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.
Chile's national emergency office issued an alert and ordered an evacuation.
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A 148-year-old temperature record broken in Australia
Sydney has just broken a record that has stood since 1868 - the overnight temperature stayed above 27C.
In December 1868, Sydney registered a minimum temperature of 26.3C, a record that had stood ever since. On Tuesday night, the minimum was 27.1C. It also makes it the second hottest night on record for any month of the year, a Bureau Of Meteorology spokesperson said.
Sydney is experiencing high temperatures, at day and night, and in December, that is surprisingly uncommon.
Tuesday saw a maximum temperature of 39C and on Wednesday, it was 37.5.
After 5-year study, scientists say unchecked Arctic melting may bring irreversible change
Quickly melting ice in the Arctic with no effort to stop it may someday bring a stage where critical ecological change is uncontrollable, a team of international scientists said in a "groundbreaking" new report Friday.
In the Arctic Resilience Report, released Friday, the team of scientists said Arctic ice is melting faster than ever before and it will probably only get worse. In fact, the ecological change currently happening in the Arctic region is unprecedented, they say, and could one day become irreversible.
World on track to lose two-thirds of wild animals by 2020, major report warns
The number of wild animals living on Earth is set to fall by two-thirds by 2020, according to a new report, part of a mass extinction that is destroying the natural world upon which humanity depends.
The analysis, the most comprehensive to date, indicates that animal populations plummeted by 58% between 1970 and 2012, with losses on track to reach 67% by 2020. Researchers from WWF and the Zoological Society of London compiled the report from scientific data and found that the destruction of wild habitats, hunting and pollution were to blame.
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- Category 4 Matthew heads for Bahamas and South Florida; hurricane watch issued
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