This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience while browsing it. By clicking 'Got It' you're accepting these terms.
Most recent
Trending
Top Videos
The best of EcoWatch, right in your inbox. Sign up for our email newsletter!
Top EPA Official 'Bullied' Scientist to Change Congressional Testimony
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) chief of staff pressured the leader of its Board of Scientific Counselors to change her congressional testimony to downplay the impact of the agency's mass dismissal of scientists from the board, the New York Times reports.
According to emails obtained by the Times, EPA chief of staff Ryan Jackson requested that Dr. Deborah Swackhamer, a retired science and public policy professor, keep to agency "talking points" on the dismissals ahead of a May 23 appearance before the House Science Committee.
Jackson also requested Swackhamer tell the committee a "decision had not yet been made" on final dismissals, despite notices being sent to multiple scientists earlier that month.
"I was stunned that he was pushing me to 'correct' something in my testimony," Swackhamer told the Times. "I was factual, and he was not. I felt bullied."
For a deeper dive:
For more climate change and clean energy news, you can follow Climate Nexus on Twitter and Facebook, and sign up for daily Hot News.
EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
India is home to 21 of the world's 30 most polluted cities, but recently air pollution levels have started to drop dramatically as the second-most populated nation endures the second week of a 21-day lockdown amidst coronavirus fears, according to The Weather Channel.
By Eddie Ndopu
- South Africa is ground zero for the coronavirus pandemic in Africa.
- Its townships are typical of high-density neighbourhoods across the continent where self-isolation will be extremely challenging.
- The failure to eradicate extreme poverty is a threat beyond the countries in question.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the use of two malarial drugs to treat and prevent COVID-19, the respiratory infection caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, despite only anecdotal evidence that either is proven effective in treating or slowing the progression of the disease in seriously ill patients.
A team of scientists drilled into the ground near the South Pole to discover forest and fossils from the Cretaceous nearly 90 million years ago, which is the time when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, as the BBC reported.
Trending
The challenges facing the world's oceans are well known: plastic pollution could crowd out fish by 2050, and the climate crisis could wipe out coral reefs by 2100.