During Senate Confirmation EPA Nominees Are Asked if They Can Remain Uncontaminated by Scott Pruitt
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt reacts while testifying before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee on the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies on budget on Capitol Hill last month.AP Photo/Andrew Harnik Looking for news you can trust?Subscribe to our free newsletters. At a Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday for two nominees to serve in the Environmental Protection Agency as…
Here’s Something to Think About the Next Time You Grab a Plastic Straw
MonrudeeGetty Looking for news you can trust?Subscribe to our free newsletters. This story was originally published by CityLab and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Summer is here and so are frozen daiquiris, iced lattes, lemonades, hibiscus mint teas, root-beer floats, frozen margs, Arnold Palmers, chocolate milk, nitro cold brews, bloody marys, Capri Suns, milkshakes,…
NYT: Scott Pruitt Paid Coal Billionaire Cash for Courtside Basketball Seats
Looking for news you can trust?Subscribe to our free newsletters. First-class flights totaling more than $105,000, a $43,000 secure phone booth, a $50-a-night condo linked to lobbyists, $1,560 on a dozen customized fountain pens, and now a pair of $130 basketball tickets purchased in cash from a billionaire coal executive. The list of controversial purchases by Environmental…
New Study of Bitcoin’s Energy Use Makes You Libertarian Nerds Look Even Worse Than Usual
Artur Widak/NurPhoto/ZUMA Looking for news you can trust?Subscribe to our free newsletters. This story was originally published by Grist and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Bitcoin’s energy footprint has more than doubled since Grist first wrote about it six months ago. It’s expected to double again by the end of the year, according to a…
Sulfur Dioxide Damages Lungs, and Scott Pruitt Is Letting More of It in Our Air
Mother Jones illustration Looking for news you can trust?Subscribe to our free newsletters. Nearly a quarter of the nation’s coal-fired power plants in 2017 lacked pollution controls limiting emissions of lung-damaging sulfur dioxide, even though some of their counterparts have been using the controls for almost 40 years. Federal data show this disparity. It leaves…
“Holy Shit. This is Dangerous:” Nixon, a Soviet Bomb Test, and a Top-Secret Climate Study
dzika_mrowka/iStock/Getty Looking for news you can trust?Subscribe to our free newsletters. This story was originally published by Undark and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. On March 23, 1971, the Soviet Union set off three Hiroshima-scale nuclear blasts deep underground in a remote region some 1,000 miles east of Moscow, ripping a massive crater in the…