Environment

It simply wouldn’t be an election year in the United States without the fictitious “war on coal” talking point rearing its ugly head. But something is different this year. In years past, the “war on coal” was admittedly fake, but today we really do have presidential candidates who have expressed interest in making the industry a thing of the past, and those quotes are being used as a catalyst to rally voters in coal-dependent states like West Virginia and Kentucky.

Mergers like Bayer's rumored takeover of Monsanto 'would make it even harder for farmers, consumers and communities to build a vibrant, sustainable food system' German chemical giants Bayer AG and BASF SE are both considering takeovers of U.S. seed behemoth Monsanto, according to news reports on Thursday. Of the potential Bayer takeover of Monsanto, valued at roughly $40 billion, Bloomberg noted that it "would create the world’s largest supplier of seeds and farm chemicals."

Democratic Senator Joe Manchin from West Virginia has always been at odds with the majority of his fellow Democrats in terms of environmental protection, but his statements a few weeks ago show that he might have actually become an enemy to the environment.

Today, in a surprise ruling from the bench in the critical climate case brought by youths against the State of Washington’s Department of Ecology, King County Superior Court Judge Hollis Hill ordered the Department of Ecology to promulgate an emissions reduction rule by the end of 2016 and make recommendations to the state legislature on science-based greenhouse gas reductions in the 2017 legislative session.

You might have heard that quote from outspoken American author Upton Sinclair, who once wrote: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” TV presenter and science advocate Bill Nye “the Science Guy” dusted off Sinclair’s 1935 quote in a new video, in which he challenged climate science denialist and weatherman Joe Bastardi to two $10,000 bets. Nye bet Bastardi, a regular guest on conservative media, that 2016 would be one of the top ten hottest years on record.

27 states, led by coal-heavy West Virginia, are suing the federal government to stop the plan, and the Supreme Court issued a stay last February that bars its implementation until all legal challenges have been resolved. That means the ball is now in a D.C. Circuit Court that is not expected to make a decision on the case possibly until as late as this fall.

When we published a paper in 2013 finding 97% scientific consensus on human-caused global warming, what surprised me was how surprised everyone was. Ours wasn’t the first study to find such a scientific consensus. Nor was it the second. Nor were we the last.

“Despite the recent Paris Agreement on global warming, the fossil fuel industry is still systematically trying to stall progress, and using shareholder funds to do so,” warns a new report by London non-profit organisation InfluenceMap. According to InfluenceMap’s research, last year international oil giants ExxonMobil and Shell, along with three powerful industry trade associations, spent US$114 million (£80.8m) in an effort to obstruct climate legislation.

TransCanada received permission from federal regulators to re-start the Keystone Pipeline a week after a 168,000-gallon spill in South Dakota. The pipeline started back up on Sunday morning at a reduced operating pressure. The incident has given ammunition to a group appealing the decision by the South Dakota Public Utility Commission (PUC) to re-certify TransCanada’s permit to build the Keystone XL Pipeline, despite President Obama’s denial of a permit needed to cross international borders.

The Pacific coast of North America is becoming more acidic as human-produced carbon dioxide emissions dissolve into the water and communities from B.C. to California must take action now to offset changes that are already affecting West Coast marine life, say leading ocean scientists.