Trump EPA to hold unneeded ‘critique’ to challenge climate science

Coal, by Flicker user oatsy40 (Used Under CC License)The best analog to EPA administrator Scott Pruitt's latest action might be for the U.S. Geological Survey to undertake a "scientific critique" of theories that the world is round. After all, numerous authoritative sources over the years have raised doubts that the Earth is not flat. Surely their views deserve to be aired. Late last week, it...

Trump EPA backs away from attacking California emission waiver

Golden Gate Bridge, connecting San Francisco and Marin County, CaliforniaSometime between March 1 and 7, a specific page vanished from the website of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Amidst coverage of the removal of the word "science" from the mission statement of the EPA's Science and Technology Office, it went largely unnoticed. First posted in December 2008, and modified several times over the next eight...

Solar jobs have grown 20 percent a year since 2012; coal, not so much

Photovoltaic solar power field at Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, TennesseeHere's a little quiz on a topic much discussed over the past couple of years: jobs. How many people work in the U.S. coal industry? Not just miners, but office staff, too. And, how many people work for solar-energy companies in the U.S.? DON'T MISS: Clean energy provides far more U.S. jobs than fossil fuels: analysis Coal mining was a mainstay of...

California joins Germany in climate coalition to support Paris pact

California state capitol, SacramentoThe 50 states that make up the U.S. don't get to set their own foreign policies (neither do Canadian provinces). But that doesn't necessarily prevent them from working with other countries on matters of mutual interest. And that's just what California is doing in an agreement announced this weekend that expands its efforts to battle climate change...

Coal-country voters laugh at politicians who deny climate change

Coal, by Flicker user oatsy40 (Used Under CC License)The "war on coal" has long been a talking point of politicians running for elected office in the state of Kentucky. The state was once home to a booming coal industry that has floundered over the years as cheaper fracked natural gas has supplanted coal for electricity generation. The state's coal industry job losses have thus been due to the surge...

Study Trump cited in Paris pullout speech can’t be taken seriously

Donald TrumpIn his speech on Thursday announcing that the U.S. would pull out of the Paris climate treaty it signed last fall, President Donald Trump cited a number of statistics of the dire effects that treaty would supposedly have on the U.S. economy. In general, data, statistics, and analysis are good—if properly constructed, with assumptions that...

U.S. out of Paris pact, so Elon Musk off Trump business councils

'Revenge of the Electric Car' premiere: Elon Musk arrives in a Tesla RoadsterFulfilling a campaign pledge, President Donald Trump said yesterday that he will set in motion plans to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Pact that it joined last fall. In turn, Tesla CEO Elon Musk responded that he will have to pull out of Trump's business advisory councils of CEOs and executives, which he had joined in January. Musk was...

Two words the Trump Administration can’t say: climate change

Donald TrumpDuring President Donald J. Trump's half-hour meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican yesterday, the pope gave the president a copy of his 2015 encyclical calling for urgent, drastic cuts in fossil-fuel emissions. It is unclear whether the U.S. president will peruse the document. Back at home, however, his administration is continuing unabated in...

Trump names vocal renewable-energy critic to oversee…renewable energy

The White House, Washington, D.C.  [Creative Commons license by dcjohn]While the news headlines on President Donald Trump mostly address potential scandals, his administration has also lagged significantly in appointing top-level officials to run government agencies. Those that have been appointed often have an adversarial relationship to the missions of the agencies they run. Scott Pruitt, for example, is now...

Could California climate-change rules raise gas price enough to backfire?

Gas pumpCalifornia has by far the most aggressive climate-change policies in the nation, and the state is a global leader in plans to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions. It's also the world's eighth-largest economy, with a growing population, soaring economic output, and a resolutely progressive legislature. While its zero-emission vehicle policies may get...

EPA gets 29,000 comments on proposed elimination of environmental rules

Smog obscures George Washington Bridge, 1973 [From EPA Documerica series]Much of the news out of Washington, D.C., these days has to do with the possibility of political scandal. But the wheels of government keep turning, and significant changes are happening at numerous agencies charged with missions as diverse as collecting intelligence, supporting education, and protecting the environment. Few groups are seeing...

Ruling that EPA must regulate carbon emissions: now 10 years old

Chrome exhaust pipeAnniversaries often provide an opportunity to reflect on important past events, review what has happened since, and reflect upon the future. April 2 of this year marks the 10th anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling in Massachusetts vs EPA in which the EPA was forced to regulate carbon emissions. The passing of this anniversary was marked by an...

Even oil companies now acknowledge electric cars are coming

2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV electric car at EVgo fast-charging station, Newport Centre, Jersey City, NJAdvocates have long suggested that electric vehicles will begin to take over daily driving duties, slowly but surely, from the internal-combustion engine. Now, even oil companies are starting to acknowledge that there may be reality in that dream of the future. France's Total SA, one of the world's largest oil producers, released its future...

Did EPA head ask coal lobby to fight Paris climate pact? Claim disputed

Coal, by Flicker user oatsy40 (Used Under CC License)The Trump administration is either having a robust internal debate on its climate positions or floundering incoherently as various interests vie for the president's attention. Its intentions for the Paris Climate Agreement that the U.S. signed last year remain entirely unclear. On Monday, Trump's EPA administrator Scott Pruitt reportedly asked a...

Pruitt won’t kill EPA ‘endangerment’ finding on climate change

Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt, 2014The current EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, does not accept the scientific consensus on human contribution to climate change, though he has given some contradictory statements on that matter. His views correspond closely to those of his boss, President Donald Trump, who notoriously compared the science to bovine excrement in a tweet and called...

The day without coal: Britain’s first one since 1882

Coal, by Flicker user oatsy40 (Used Under CC License)The Industrial Revolution that started around 1750 in England was powered largely by coal. With Watt's invention of the steam engine and the emergence of railways in the mid-nineteenth century, the carbon-dense fuel was central to the change from an agricultural economy to an industrial one. Last Friday, however, marked a watershed moment for...