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...