A federal judge ordered the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to take action to fight air pollution entering New York and Connecticut from five other states, Reuters reported.
A new study from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows an "unexpected and persistent increase" in global emissions of an ozone-depleting chemical even though an international treaty forced production to completely halt by 2010.
NOAA scientists suggest that emissions are most likely from new, unreported production from an unidentified source in eastern Asia.
The Earth's protective ozone layer is not recovering uniformly from the damage caused to it by industry and other human activities. And scientists are not sure why it isn't.
An international research team says the ozone, which protects humans and other species from harmful ultraviolet radiation, is continuing to recover at the poles. But recovery at lower latitudes, where far more people live, is not.
By Jake Johnson
Hailed as an example of how concerted global action can help solve a planetary crisis, a new study conducted by NASA scientists documented the first direct evidence that an international effort to ban chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) has led to the recovery of the Antarctic ozone hole.
By Elena Craft
Michael Honeycutt—the man set to lead the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) prestigious Science Advisory Board—has spent most of his career as a credentialed counterpoint against almost anything the EPA has proposed to protect human health.
Fortunately, his lone voice for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality rarely carried beyond the Lone Star State. Until now.
More than 15,000 scientists have signed a chilling article titled “World Scientists' Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice," urging global leaders to save the planet from environmental catastrophe.
The plea, published Monday in the international journal BioScience, is likely the largest-ever formal support by scientists for a journal article with 15,372 total signatories, Motherboard noted. The scientists represent 184 countries and have a range of scientific backgrounds. Prominent signatories include Jane Goodall, E.O. Wilson and James Hansen.
The hole in Earth's ozone layer is the smallest it's been since 1988, NASA satellite estimates observed.
While the ozone hole is still enormous—measuring about 19.6 million square kilometers (7.6 million square miles, or 2.5 times the size of the U.S.) at its annual peak extent this Sept. 11—that's much smaller compared to the average area of ozone hole maximums since 1991 of roughly 26 million square kilometers (10 million square miles).
By David Doniger and Alex Hillbrand
This is a big year for the Montreal Protocol—the 30th anniversary of the world's most successful environmental protection agreement.
Every country on Earth is a party to this treaty, which has prevented catastrophic destruction of the ozone layer that protects us from the sun's dangerous ultraviolet radiation. Phasing out ozone-destroying chemicals has also provided a huge climate protection side-benefit, because many of those chemicals are also powerful heat-trapping agents. Countries took climate protection a step farther by adopting the Kigali Amendment to phase down hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) in October 2016.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced Tuesday evening that it is delaying implementation of the 2015 smog standard. The standard is a key health protection for millions of people in the U.S.
"The EPA found that meeting the standard would save lives and prevent asthma attacks in children," said Seth Johnson, an Earthjustice attorney who represents a coalition of public health and environmental groups in litigation over the smog standard.
