An Inconvenient Truth from Gregg Treinish: "90 Percent of Every Liter of Water on Earth Has Plastic In It"
Men's Journal — Gregg Treinish, the 35-year-old founder of Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation (ASC), is shocked at how far micro-plastic pollution has spread into the environment. His group has found tiny plastic beads and fibers in samples from the most remote tropical seas and glacial meltwaters.
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What Indigenous Cultures Can Teach Us About Managing Arctic Change
Arctic Deeply—As climate change ushers new plants and animals into the Arctic, new conservation models are needed, and we’d be wise to learn from the region’s original inhabitants, says Finnish geographer Tero Mustonen.
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Donald Trump Reverses Offshore Drilling Ban, Orders “Bow to Stern” Review of Regulations
Men's Journal – On Friday President Trump signed an executive order mandating a review of the latest five-year plan for offshore natural gas and oil leasing, which the Obama administration finalized in November, as well as all regulations related to leasing energy development, including wind, in federal waters. The order also reverses President Obama’s ban on offshore drilling in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas off northern Alaska.
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Scientists Flag the Arctic’s New Chemical Threats
Arctic Deeply – For decades, wind, river and ocean currents have carried DDT, PCBs and other persistent organic chemical pollutants into the Arctic from industrial and agricultural production elsewhere in the world, creating serious health problems for humans and wildlife as they accumulate in the food chain.
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The Messy Consequences of the Arctic's Thawing Permafrost
Arctic Deeply – The 2015 Paris agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions may not prevent as much as half of the permanently frozen soils at the Earth's highest latitudes from thawing, according to a new study.
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Final Countdown: 30 Days of Public Comment Before EPA Overhaul
Men's Journal – Some 56 programs at the Environmental Protection Agency are being targeted for funding cuts or elimination, according to a leaked internal agency memo published last week by the Washington Post.
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Coal, Public Lands, and Mining in America: A Cheat Sheet
Men's Journal – On March 29 Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke signed an order to end the Obama administration’s 2016 moratorium on new leases to mine coal on federal lands. The order also killed an ongoing analysis of the program’s impacts on the environment, particularly how the carbon dioxide created by burning that coal would hinder U.S. efforts to blunt the worst impacts of climate change.
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President Trump’s Executive Order on Climate Change and Energy: What You Need to Know
Men's Journal – President Donald Trump has begun to make good on his vow to dismantle President Obama’s climate and energy policies. On Tuesday, March 28, Trump signed a sweeping executive order that unmakes Obama administration efforts to slash emissions from coal-fired power — the greatest source of climate-altering greenhouse gas pollution — and prepare communities for the effects of global warming. Here's a breakdown of what it means for the country's energy and climate policy.
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How Congress Just Rolled Back Public Input on Public Lands
Men's Journal — A congressional move to rescind the Bureau of Land Management’s “Planning 2.0” rule is on its way to President Trump’s desk.
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That’s a Wrap for One Weird Arctic Winter
Arctic Deeply – Strangely warm temperatures are sending the Arctic Ocean's sea ice on a downward spiral that could have far-reaching implications for the region's people and wildlife. The strange winter of 2016-17 has closed with air temperatures over the Arctic Ocean still several degrees above freezing, and sea ice poised to set a record low not seen over nearly four decades of satellite tracking.
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Still Under Investigation for Animal Abuse, Tiger Temple Spins Off a New Zoo
Men's Journal – The monks of Tiger Temple are touting a new big cat attraction. Even as the government of Thailand continues to investigate allegations of animal abuse and illegal tiger breeding and trafficking at the Buddhist monastery, a legal offshoot of the temple is constructing a 10-acre, $3.4 million zoo facility near the original temple.
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The Endangered Species Act Put on the "Threatened" List
Men's Journal – During the Obama years, hundreds of Republican-backed bills aimed at weakening the Endangered Species Act were introduced by Congress, and proceeded to go nowhere. But now that the Trump White House shares their anti-regulatory zeal, the Republican majority in Congress is moving fast to curb a half-century of protection for the country's most vulnerable wildlife.
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Neil deGrasse Tyson Reveals the "Seeds of the Unraveling of Our Informed Democracy"
Men's Journal - Neil deGrasse Tyson, the astrophysicist and director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History, can turn any conversation toward science. That's the premise of his show Star Talk (the season finale runs on National Geographic Channel tonight), where he invites non-scientist celebrities - from Bill Maher to Whoopi Goldberg - on to talk about how science rules their world.
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The Diesel Emissions Scandal: What Cars Can You Trust?
Men's Journal – It looks like the conspiracy charges against Oliver Schmidt, Volkswagen's top emissions compliance executive in the U.S., aren't the end of potential emissions cheats by diesel-engine carmakers. A few days after Schmidt's arrest by the FBI last week, regulators announced that Fiat Chrysler Automobiles had not disclosed software that hid regulation-breaking excesses of oxide of nitrogen emissions.
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Cold Octobers May Be Gone Forever in Alaska’s Arctic
TakePart – Most of Alaska just sweated through the hottest October on record, according to new figures released today by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Overall temperatures in the state were 4 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20-century average, with the Arctic communities of Nome, Kotzebue, and Barrow seeing record-setting highs, said Rich Thoman, a climate scientist with the Alaska Region of NOAA's National Weather Service.
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President Trump Could Trash the Paris Agreement, but Why Would He Want To?
TakePart – Candidate Donald Trump promised supporters that he would "cancel" the Paris Agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and stave off catastrophic climate change. President Donald Trump will be able to make good on that vow, although only in terms of United States participation in the accord.
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California Voters Saved the First Statewide Plastic Bag Ban
TakePart — The nation’s first statewide ban on those flimsy plastic grocery bags will take effect in California, thanks to the defeat of an industry-backed ballot measure to overturn it.
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Fine Print: Florida's 'Pro-Solar' Ballot Measure is Anything But
TakePart – A Florida ballot initiative backed by energy utilities and an array of right-leaning organizations could damage efforts to expand solar power in the state. Now an eleventh-hour attempt by opponents to get it removed from the ballot has failed.
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