"Since almost two centuries ago—not long after it was identified bubbling up in a creek in western New York—the flammable below-ground substance composed of methane and other hydrocarbons has been called "natural gas" in the U.S. Now, some environmental activists say it's time to ditch that label."
"More than a month after heavy storms eroded a section of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, work crews are still scrambling to complete repairs and shore up flood defenses in the face of a weeklong heat wave that threatens to trigger widespread snowmelt in the Sierra Nevada."
"All barge traffic will be halted across a wide swath of the Upper Mississippi River for weeks, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Thursday, as record winter snowfall in the upper Midwest is now melting and flooding into waterways."
"In Congress, there is sudden bipartisan momentum to reinstitute tariffs on Chinese components. The U.S. solar industry is alarmed."
"The League of Conservation Voters and Climate Power said Thursday it would run attack ads against five Republicans who voted to repeal tax credits for renewable energy as part of the GOP debt limit bill."
"House Democrats on Thursday released their permitting reform proposal after House Republicans advanced an energy bill that included measures aimed at streamlining the approval process for projects."
"Over the past three years, undisclosed BC Hydro employees quietly awarded more than $430 million in contracts — without any competition — to three dozen companies and consultants for work on the troubled Site C hydro dam, according to a list obtained by The Narwhal."
"Regulators repeatedly documented — but did little to address — problems at a Houston-area tank farm before a disastrous fire struck in March 2019. The fire released toxic chemicals into nearby communities for weeks."
"East Africa’s worst drought in at least 40 years, which has displaced more than a million people and pushed millions more to the brink of famine, would not have happened if not for human-caused climate change, a network of extreme-weather scientists said Thursday."
Meet SEJ member Rick Weiss! In 2017, Rick founded SciLine, a philanthropically funded, free, nonprofit service that connects journalists directly to scientists and science-based facts for news stories, on deadline. He founded the organization in response to changes in the journalism landscape that saw a loss of specialty science reporters from many local newsrooms and a need to help local and general assignment reporters integrate more research-backed evidence into their reporting.
