Climate

Thursday and Friday the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will hold the final in its series hearings on its proposed rule to clean up carbon pollution from coal fired power plants. There will be a lot of theater, and a lot of opposition as well as support. Some of the opposition comes from workers from […]

A spirited press conference in Times Square today launched the People’s Climate March, the largest climate action in world history. “The voice of youth is crucial in the People’s Climate March.” Photo credit: greenelent Scheduled for Sept. 21 in New York City, the People’s Climate March will coincide with September’s UN Climate Summit, where world […]

The mineral-stained canyon walls and the plunging water levels at Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir, are the most visible signs of the driest 14-year period in the Colorado River Basin’s historical record. The Colorado River flows past irrigated fields in Arizona. During a dry decade, most of the water losses in the seven-state basin […]

American scientists have just confirmed that parts of Australia are being slowly parched because of greenhouse gas emissions, which means that the long-term decline in rainfall over south and south-west Australia is a consequence of fossil fuel burning and depletion of the ozone layer by human activity. Southern Australia has been experiencing declining rainfall since […]

Pope Francis called for more respect for nature in an address at the University of Molise, an agricultural region in southern Italy. Francis said the destruction of South America’s rain forests and other forms of environmental exploitation is a sin of modern times. The Earth should be allowed to give her fruits without being exploited, Pope […]

The Eco-Justice Working Group of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting has announced that more than $2 million of assets have been divested from fossil fuels and reinvested in a new Quaker Green Fund offered by Friends Fiduciary Corporation. Image courtesy of 350.org By doing so, Philadelphia area Religious Society of Friends join a growing number of religious communities, […]

A Los Angeles city councilman is thinking big and long range when it comes to cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Paul Koretz said the city should target a cut of 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050, according to the Los Angeles Times. “The climate crisis is no longer out there in the future,” Koretz told reporters at […]

History is often made by strong personalities wielding bold new political, economic or religious doctrines. Yet any serious effort to understand how and why societies change requires examination not just of leaders and ideas, but also of environmental circumstances. The ecological context (climate, weather and the presence or absence of water, good soil and other resources) […]