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"May was another exceptionally busy month for severe thunderstorms and tornadoes in the United States, pushing weather disaster costs to their second-highest amount on record to date. Eleven separate billion-dollar weather disasters this year have together caused over $25 billion in damage and 84 deaths."
"The number of companies weighing possible PFAS settlements in a nationwide case is likely to grow as a federal court moves into the next phases of litigation."
"Despite the growing danger from climate-driven disasters, there is no single, reliable count of who is dying as a result of extreme weather in the United States. For any given weather disaster, multiple government agencies publish independent — and often widely differing — death counts."
"More than seven years after Congress mandated that EPA swiftly alert the public to surges in lead contamination in drinking water, EPA’s inspector general has found the agency still isn’t ready to roll out an action plan."
"A week after his presidential inauguration, Joe Biden cited the climate and biodiversity crises as reasons to set a sweeping new goal – to conserve at least 30% of America’s vast lands and waters by the end of the decade. Three years on, new protections have spurred meaningful progress towards meeting the target by 2030."
"Dozens of Donald Trump’s supporters have been requiring medical help at his rallies in the scorching US south-west but it seems lost on him that his plans to reverse climate policies and “drill, baby, drill” for fossil fuels will only worsen extreme weather, campaigners say."
"Lobby groups representing water utilities, as well as the chemical and manufacturing industries, have filed court challenges to a Biden administration rule that seeks to limit the presence of toxic chemicals in drinking water."
"A major Canadian oil field in the province of Saskatchewan would likely have reached the end of its life eight years ago. But thanks to carbon capture and storage, a technology widely touted by the oil and gas industry and some political leaders as a key solution for climate change, the field could still be producing 1.5 million barrels of oil annually by the year 2100."
"The apparent shift from the Plains to the South has perplexed researchers, who aren’t sure if the change is permanent and if climate change is playing a role."
"Every time you take a breath, you could be inhaling microplastics."
"A federal circuit court has upheld a recent prohibition on helicopter tours over Mount Rushmore National Memorial and Badlands National Park in South Dakota, rejecting motions from aircraft companies to repeal the ban."
"City officials are taking their first public step toward cleaning up hazardous waste in a popular park after a local graduate student last year called out a 45-year comedy of errors by federal, state and local agencies that allowed the dumped drums and chemicals to escape remediation."
"Outside the steps of her South Bronx apartment, Jill Hanson is thinking about the lack of green spaces as another hot summer descends upon New York City. Her neighborhood, Mott Haven, is among 80 communities considered highly threatened by humidity and high temperatures under a new Heat Vulnerability Index developed by Columbia University and the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene."
"The Environmental Defense Fund, entering controversial territory, will spend millions of dollars examining the impact of reflecting sunlight into space as global warming worsens."
"In unincorporated Marion County, around 800 to 900 households—approximately 40 percent of all homes—do not have access to public drinking water, according to government estimates, a figure one water expert called “staggering.”"
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