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
Florida Youth Sue Governor for Climate Action
Climate change poses a key risk to low-lying Florida. When Climate Central ranked the 25 U.S. coastal cities that would be most vulnerable to coastal flooding in 2050 due to sea level rise projections, 20 of them were in the Sunshine State.
But Florida Governor Rick Scott has a history of sticking his head in the disappearing sand. In 2015, reports surfaced that his government had banned the Florida Department of Environmental Protection from even using the words "climate change" in reports. Though he denies those charges, he also denies climate change. When asked to comment on it, he famously replied, "I'm not a scientist."
Now, the group with the most to lose from his inaction are forcing him to act.
On Monday, eight young Florida residents sued the state government to force it to implement a research-based "climate recovery plan," the Miami Herald reported.
The plaintiffs range in age from 10 to 20 and are part of a growing trend of groups heading to the courts to either force action on or receive damages for the impacts of climate change.
In fact, the young people are represented by Our Children's Trust, the non-profit behind a similar case brought by 21 young people against the federal government, claiming it violated their rights by basing the national energy plan on fossil fuels that cause the climate to change in ways that will imperil their futures. The federal case received an Oct. 29 trial date earlier this month. The youngest plaintiff in the Florida case, 10-year-old Levi Draheim, is also named in the federal suit.
One of the Florida plaintiffs, University of Miami marine science student Delaney Reynolds, reached out to Our Children's Trust, inspired by their federal case, and signed up to join the Florida case they were already planning.
"Gov. Scott says he's not a scientist. Well, neither are most of the people that are forced to take action because the state is failing us," Reynolds told the Miami Herald.
Our Children's Trust also has similar cases pending in Alaska, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon and Washington.
But the fact that Florida has to be sued into action is especially counter-intuitive. According to the Miami Herald, Miami Beach has already spent $125 million keeping flood water out of its streets, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates streets in Miami could flood every day as early as 2070.
Florida doctors have also observed that climate change is already impacting the health of their patients.
The suit reprimands Scott's government both for failing to reduce the state's carbon dioxide emissions and for failing to act to protect the coasts.
But Scott's spokesperson McKinley Lewis denied those charges. "The Governor signed one of the largest environmental protection budgets in Florida's history last month—investing $4 billion into Florida's environment. The Governor is focused on real solutions to protect our environment—not political theater or a lawsuit orchestrated by a group based in Eugene, Oregon," he told the Miami Herald in a statement.
Senior Our Children's Trust attorney Andrea Rodgers expects the case to go to trial by the end of 2018.
The Russian military is taking measures to protect the residents of a remote Arctic settlement from a mass of polar bears, German press agency DPA reported.
The move comes after regional authorities declared a state of emergency over the weekend after sightings of more than 50 bears in the town of Belushya Guba since December.
This year's letter from Bill and Melinda Gates focused on nine things that surprised them. For the Microsoft-cofounder, one thing he was surprised to learn was the massive amount of new buildings the planet should expect in the coming decades due to urban population growth.
"The number of buildings in the world is going to double by 2060. It's like we're going to build a new New York City every month for the next 40 years," he said.
Over the past few years, it seems vegan cooking has gone from 'brown rice and tofu' to a true art form. These amazing cooks show off the creations on Instagram—and we can't get enough.
By Shana Udvardy
After a dearth of action on climate change and a record year of extreme events in 2017, the inclusion of climate change policies within the annual legislation Congress considers to outline its defense spending priorities (the National Defense Authorization Act) for fiscal year 2018 was welcome progress. House and Senate leaders pushed to include language that mandated that the Department of Defense (DoD) incorporate climate change in their facility planning (see more on what this section of the bill does here and here) as well as issue a report on the impacts of climate change on military installations. Unfortunately, what DoD produced fell far short of what was mandated.
Trump is losing his rallying cry to save coal. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) voted on Thursday to retire two coal-fired power plants in the next few years despite a plea from the president to keep one of the plants open.
Earlier this week, the president posted an oddly specific tweet that urged the government-owned utility to save the 49-year-old Paradise 3 plant in Kentucky. It so happens that the facility burns coal supplied by Murray Energy Corporation, whose CEO is Robert Murray, is a major Trump donor.