Environment

A CSIRO study has found 39% less plastic pollution in and around Australian coastal cities over ten years. It also found more places with no rubbish at all.

In an internal FEMA memorandum obtained by Grist, the Trump administration announced it plans to dismantle the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, is known for responding to extreme weather like hurricanes and wildfires — the kinds of disasters that are becoming more intense and common as climate change gets worse. But the agency also has a program that sends billions of dollars to communities, municipalities, and states proactively so that they can prepare for these events before they hit.

B.C.’s energy regulator quietly let one of Canada’s biggest oil and gas companies dodge the rules for thousands of ‘non-compliant’ pipelines

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Half a century of oil exploration has left the world’s largest rainforest scarred by deforestation, water contamination and air pollution. Indigenous lands have been infringed and economic disparities exacerbated. Now a new wave of drilling threatens to perpetuate this destructive legacy.

The Amazon now holds nearly one-fifth of the world’s recently discovered oil and natural gas reserves, establishing itself as a new global frontier for the fossil fuel industry.

Almost 20 percent of global reserves identified between 2022 and 2024 are located in the region, primarily offshore along South America’s northern coast between Guyana and Suriname. This wealth has sparked increasing international interest from oil companies and neighboring countries like Brazil, which is looking to exploit its own coastal resources. (...)

Here’s what you need to know about one of the fastest-growing environmental and social movements worldwide—to secure legal rights for ecosystems and other parts of the natural world.

Scientists at UNIL and Unisanté classified 35 commonly used drugs in Switzerland based on their impact on the aquatic biodiversity. The aim of this research is to provide medical staff with a tool for considering the environmental risks associated with certain common drugs when prescribing them. The proposed list is subject to change when new data become available, their rarity being a limiting factor for classification.

Colombia’s state-led oil company Ecopetrol caused more than 600 instances of major environmental damage between 2010 and 2016, according to internal data leaked by one of their former employees. Mongabay contributor Mie Hoejris Dahl reports that the leaked information suggests the company kept track of spills internally but did not adequately report them to the government.

According to data shared by whistleblower Andrés Olarte Peña with the Environmental Investigation Agency, an international environmental NGO, Ecopetrol failed to report about a fifth of these sites, and none have been fully cleaned up. The investigation also reveals that Ecopetrol had a database to map and monitor 1,200 individuals in areas where the company operates.

In a continued effort to expedite rebuilding after Los Angeles' devastating firestorms, Gov. Gavin Newsom this week suspended California environmental laws for utility providers working to reinstall key infrastructure.

Arctic sea ice has recorded its smallest winter peak extent since satellite records began 47 years ago, new data reveals.

In a week in which the Global Plastics Treaty is being negotiated, researchers from RIKEN & the University of Tokyo unveil a solution for marine pollution.

Losing bees will result in a chain reaction felt through entire ecosystems and food chains, including our own.

Drone data uncovers how water vapor leaves Greenland, revealing gaps in climate models and risks for sea level rise.

Long before the large-scale Earth Day protests on April 22, 1970 – often credited with spurring significant environmental protection legislation – Native Americans stewarded the environment. As sovereign nations, Native Americans have been able to protect land, water and air, including well beyond their own boundaries.

Their actions laid the groundwork for modern federal law and policy, including national legislation aimed at reducing pollution. Now the Trump administration is seeking to weaken some of those limits and eliminate programs aimed at improving the environments in which marginalized people live and work.

As an environmental historian, I study how Native Americans have shaped environmental management. Tribal nations are the longest stewards of the lands today known as the United States. My work indicates not only that tribal nations contributed to the origins and evolution of modern environmental management on tribal and nontribal lands, but also that they are well poised to continue environmental management and scientific research regardless of U.S. government actions.

Coca-Cola products will be account for up to 1.33 billion pounds of plastic waste in oceans and waterways annually by 2030, Oceana reports.

The agency is taking requests from companies wanting to shed emission restrictions for mercury and other toxic substances.

Canadian deep-sea mining firm The Metals Company (TMC) has announced it “initiated a process” with U.S. regulators to apply for both exploration and exploitation licenses, potentially circumventing the international regulator. TMC’s process with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration falls under the Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act of 1980 (DSHMRA), which was established as an interim legal framework for the recovery of seabed mineral resources prior to the creation of an international regulatory framework under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

TMC made the announcement via a press release and a public-facing investor call just before the conclusion of the latest meeting of the 36-member council of the International Seabed Authority (ISA), the U.N.-affiliated regulator responsible for overseeing deep-sea mining in international waters.

NAIROBI, Kenya — Many African cities are now characterized by deafening traffic noises and suffocating gas emissions, and are becoming limitless concrete jungles as urbanization takes hold and human settlements squeeze out natural forests. But, in Kenya’s capital city of Nairobi, a unique restoration technique known as the Miyawaki method is restoring local ecosystems, which have been lost due to urban sprawl and competing needs, by creating forest islands in urban areas. […]

After a week, efforts still continue to contain a fire that killed at least 28 people and destroyed tens of thousands of hectares of land

The world needs massive amounts of critical minerals to power the transition to clean energy. But as countries and industries explore new mining opportunities, a major question looms: Can all of this extraction be done without the same environmental and human costs associated with fossil fuels?

Featured in the Special Series:

• A guide to the 4 minerals shaping the world's energy future | To address climate change, we're going to need a whole lot of metal.

• Chile’s lithium boom promises jobs and money — but threatens a critical water source

• Beneath Greenland’s ice lies a climate solution — and a new geopolitical battleground Modern society, and the clean energy revolution, depend on rare earth elements. Can Greenland help break China's stranglehold on the market?

• Digging for minerals in the Pacific’s graveyard: The $20 trillion fight over who controls the seabed

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More info here: https://sealevel.nasa.gov/

Truck driver Lee Seung-joo was driving through South Korea's Andong mountains when the wildfires hit, engulfing the area in flames and turning it into "a literal hell".