Pollution

"Los Angeles County supervisors voted unanimously Wednesday to phase out oil and gas drilling and ban new drill sites in the unincorporated areas of the nation’s most populous county."

"The hole in the ozone layer that develops annually is “rather larger than usual” and is currently bigger than Antartica, say the scientists responsible for monitoring it."

"The developer of an oil refinery near Theodore Roosevelt National Park will keep its construction permit active, even after it has faced delays and received two extensions."

"The U.S. subsidiary of Formosa Plastics Corporation will pay $2.85 million to settle civil charges it violated federal air pollution laws after a series of fires and explosions at its petrochemical manufacturing plant in Texas injured some of its workers, the Justice Department said on Monday."

"The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on Wednesday that it will propose a rule to set the first-ever limits on the amount of chemicals called PFAS can be discharged."

"EPA plans to propose the nation’s strongest rules against methane emissions this month, escalating the Biden administration’s use of regulatory tools to reduce greenhouse gases from fossil fuel companies."

"When wildfire smoke descends over a city or town, as it does increasingly often for tens of millions of people in the American West, public health officials have a simple message: Go inside, shut doors and windows. Limit outdoor activities. New research shows that may not be enough to protect a person's health."

"An oil spill unleashed by Hurricane Ida is highlighting longstanding concerns about the more than 18,000 miles of decommissioned pipelines that still snake through the Gulf of Mexico, even though they no longer transport crude and natural gas."

"Governments around the world gave 20% more in overseas aid funding to fossil fuel projects in 2019 and 2020 than to programmes to cut the air pollution they cause."

"Fire season has become a hard-to-breathe reality in much of the western United States. But the blazes may affect more than air quality or even human lungs. A recent study attributes as many as 7,000 preterm births in California to wildfire smoke exposure."