"GLASGOW, Scotland — A crucial U.N. climate summit opened Sunday amid papal appeals for prayers and activists’ demands for action, kicking off two weeks of intense diplomatic negotiations by almost 200 countries aimed at slowing intensifying global warming and adapting to the climate damage already underway."
"The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Thursday announced a revised strategy for reducing lead exposure, with a focus on communities that have had a disproportionate amount.
The draft plan would focus on identifying communities with especially high levels of both lead exposure and blood lead levels. The agency would next develop national standards and guidance to address those exposures and enforce existing regulations.
"A coalition of environmental and animal rights groups petitioned the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) yesterday to abandon a "sweetheart" deal with factory farm owners—and start enforcing air pollution regulations."
"Centuries of land loss and forced relocation have left Native Americans significantly more exposed to the effects of climate change, new data show, adding to the debate over how to address climate change and racial inequity in the United States."
"The White House has told allies in Congress that climate change programs in Democrats' spending bill will range between $500 billion and $555 billion, according to four sources familiar with the negotiations."
"Hot off the heels of releasing its PFAS road map last week, EPA has found that a deeply controversial “forever chemical” that has contaminated drinking water in North Carolina is, indeed, toxic to humans and will be subject to a drinking water advisory."
Beat reporters Hal Bernton and Mark Kaufman both found the dramatic changes wrought by climate change to be at the center of their coverage — as their work was elevated to prize-winning heights. Bernton, covering climate impacts in northwestern Alaska at a large newspaper, and Kaufman, covering CO2 globally for a digital platform, talk about the lessons of their recent beat coverage with SEJournal’s Inside Story.
Plastic waste, already the subject of preliminary international talks, could be increasingly targeted after UN meetings in early 2022. Meanwhile, this ubiquitous product is polluting land, ocean and air in its various forms, as well as through little-understood microplastic particles. The latest TipSheet has the backstory on efforts to forge an international plastics treaty, as well as ideas for how to cover plastic pollution locally.
"Navajo Nation continues to hold strong on its stance against radioactive waste being dumped near its lands, while also pushing for the waste to be removed completely."
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