As people in North and South Carolina continue to confront flooding and other massive damage from Hurricane Florence, it’s heartbreaking to watch them have to deal with yet another hazard: the toxic coal ash leaked from coal ash ponds and landfills in the region. Even more infuriating is the denial coming from the company responsible […]
As expected, the U.S. Department of the Interior on Tuesday released a final rule that reverses Obama-era restrictions on methane emissions from oil and gas operations. President Obama’s 2016 methane waste rule, which never went into effect, required fossil fuel companies on tribal and public lands to reduce emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas […]
By Kelly Kizer Whitt Relief from the heat of summer and long days baking in the sun is on its way. The Northern Hemisphere’s fall equinox occurs on Sept. 22 at 6:54 P.M. PDT. The harvest moon—the full moon that comes closest to the equinox—is just two nights later, on Sept. 24 at 7:53 P.M. […]
By Elliott Negin A decade after pledging to end its support for climate science deniers, ExxonMobil gave $1.5 million last year to 11 think tanks and lobby groups that reject established climate science and openly oppose the oil and gas giant’s professed climate policy preferences, according to the company’s annual charitable giving report released this […]
A federal judge on Thursday halted the first Yellowstone-area grizzly bear trophy hunts in four decades. Wyoming and Idaho’s grizzly hunt was set to begin this Saturday, Sept. 1 and would have allowed a potential kill of 23 bears outside of Yellowstone National Park. But U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen in Missoula, Montana granted a […]
By Jim Motavalli The future of the auto industry is increasingly likely to be electric—although you wouldn’t necessarily know that from sales numbers. Just under 200,000 plug-in cars were sold in the United States last year (out of a new-car market of 17.25 million). In California, cars with plugs made up 4.6 percent of the […]
The California State Assembly on Tuesday voted 43-32 on a bill that aims for 100 percent renewable energy by 2045, one of the nation’s toughest clean energy mandates. Should the bill become law, California has to entirely transition away from fossil fuel electricity in less than three decades. Utilities would also have to get 50 […]
By David Gessner I am sitting near the top of the eastern ear, or rather the eastern earlobe, of Bears Ears, the redock buttes that give our most controversial national monument its name. From up here I can look back on my starting point, the meadow far below and two miles north where a big […]
By Katie O’Reilly In the 12 years since Sierra began highlighting the best environmental practices of colleges and universities, the competition to be the ecofriendliest in all of academia has gotten fierce. This year, we received a record 269 responses from qualified institutions, which now include Canadian schools and community colleges. Our annual Cool Schools […]