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As someone who regards the integrity of the climate as the single most consequential matter of long-term public policy, I have found the barrage of news from Washington jarringly disconnected from reality, writes Frederick Hewett.
The iceberg, known as A23a, has been on a journey following the current into warmer waters for months. Now, it has begun the predicted and natural process of breaking apart, and eventually melting.
OAK BLUFFS – Federal regulators have walked back permits for offshore wind farms south of Martha’s Vineyard that were expected to land cables at Barnstable beaches. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced plans to revoke approvals for New England Wind 1 and 2.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s false claims linking autism to vaccinations are receiving new scrutiny now that President-elect Donald Trump has picked him to lead HHS.
Credit scores, not disaster risk, play a major role in home insurance prices — muting what could be an important market signal of physical risk
Bill McKibben on an expert rebuke to a report from the U.S. Department of Energy that attempts to downplay the dangers of climate change.
The White House wants more affordable electricity, but is delaying Revolution Wind and other clean energy projects that can meet rising demand.
There’s been deep irony in Sacramento this summer, as some normally environmentally oriented state senators deep-sixed what could have been the year’s most important potential new environmental law. At issue was whether oil companies could be held liable for damage from future wildfires caused at least in part by climate change. The state Senate Judiciary Committee vote on the measure came just two days after a Louisiana jury held oil giant Chevron liable by for $744.6 million to restore damage to Louisiana’s coastal wetlands. The case was the first of many pending against oil companies that have supposedly lied about whether their policies led to land loss along that state’s coast, reaching from the mouth of the Mississippi River. Keeping alive California’s somewhat similar bill (SB222) to allow for assessing damages after California fires would have required seven votes in committee, but it only got five, from Democrats Scott Wiener, of San Francisco; Ben Allen, of Santa Monica; John Laird, of Santa Clara; Henry Stern, of Los Angeles; and Akilah Weber Pierson, of La Mesa. Several senators avoided going on the record directly against this bill by abstaining from voting on it, which was essentially as good as voting “no.”
President Donald Trump’s 2026 budget proposal includes the total elimination of the Community Services Block Grant, a little-known but vitally important
New data shows that great white sharks are spending more time in the chilly waters off New England and Atlantic Canada. That means boaters, beachgoers and fishermen who spend time in the northern waters are learning to live with the sharks made famous 50 years ago by the movie Jaws.
For state officials looking at ways to reduce traffic congestion, water transportation is high on the list. The MBTA is expanding its water transportation operation and Boston mayoral candidates are touting the transit mode as they make their pitches to voters.
Yesterday, MA Governor Maura Healey and Lt. Governor Kim Driscoll launched the Commonwealth’s first-in-the-nation 25-year Biodiversity Conservation Goals at Mass Audubon’s Long Pasture Wildlife Sanctuary in Barnstable, overlooking the Great Marsh. The plan sets ambitious statewide targets to protect, restore, sustain, and connect Massachusetts’ lands, waters, and wildlife. These goals include preserving 30% of the Commonwealth’s lands and waters by 2030, restoring 75% of critical habitats by 2050, strengthening local food systems, and expanding access to community green spaces. Massachusetts also announced it will be the first state to join the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), deepening its commitment to national and global leadership.
When Washington announced a “framework deal” with China in June, it marked a silent shifting of gears in the global political economy. This was not the beginning of U.S. President Donald Trump’s imagined epoch of “liberation” under unilateral American greatness or a return to the Biden administration’s dream of managed great-power rivalry. Instead, it was the true opening of the age of weaponized interdependence, in which the United States is discovering what it is like to have others do unto it as it has eagerly done unto others.
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Sept 5 (Reuters) - Technology giant Apple (AAPL.O), opens new tab was accused by authors in a lawsuit on Friday of illegally using their copyrighted books to help train its artificial intelligence systems, part of an expanding legal fight over protections for intellectual property in the AI era.
The developer behind Revolution Wind, a large — and nearly complete — wind farm near Massachusetts and Rhode Island, is suing to overturn the Trump administration's stop-work order.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Connecticut, Rhode Island and the developer of an offshore wind farm 12 miles southwest of Martha’s Vineyard that would power 350,000 homes in the two states said Thursday that they’re suing the Trump administration for stopping the nearly completed project. Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha accused President Donald Trump of waging an “all-out assault” on the wind energy industry. The states’ lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Rhode Island, describes the Revolution Wind project as a “cornerstone” of their clean energy future, abruptly halted by federal officials without “statutory authority, regulatory justification or factual basis.”
Parents question if synthetic fabrics, the most significant environmental pollutants, are suitable for children
Scientists in Brazil found microplastics in the brain tissue of cadavers, according to a new study published Monday in the journal JAMA Network Open.
As the GOP kills incentives, Rewiring America is offering free online tools and weekly calls to get more clean energy and efficient appliances into homes.
Over the past year, several studies about highly dangerous signals of Antarctica on the edge of major abrupt change have appeared in scholarly publications. These studies in premier publications expose rapid changes, e.g. (1) discovery of the western Antarctic Peninsula as one of the fastest warming places on Earth (2) ocean currents threaten to collapse Antarctic Ice Shelves (3) present day mass loss rates are a precursor for West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapse (4) an unexpected ice collapse hints at worrying changes on the Antarctic coast. The new scientific narrative has scientists very nervous.
The NextGen Acela trains, as Amtrak calls them, are faster and lighter than the current fleet. They're scheduled to start revenue service along the Northeast Corridor on Thursday.
The market fell on news suggesting the AI bubble could be about to burst. If only people paid as much attention to news about climate risks. U.S. stock market watchers clearly care about the tightly correlated, highly concentrated nature of the current bubble—seven tech giants (Microsoft, Apple, Nvidia, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Tesla) account for more than a third of the entire market value of the S&P 500, with Nvidia alone accounting for 8 percent. Their earnings are growing enormously quickly, at a rate of about 14 percent, while the other 493 companies' earnings are growing at just 3 percent. And all this growth and value is tied to AI, and the idea, common since 2023, that companies that have to do with artificial intelligence are worth investing in. Focus on the potential that the bubble could suddenly burst is so intense that three tiny pieces of recent news—Sam Altman saying there's a bubble, MIT researchers saying companies are not finding AI investments profitable, and an NYT piece saying Meta is thinking about reorganizing its AI staff—led to a significant selloff, sending the market value of the S&P 500 down $1 trillion. (For an excellent discussion of all this, listen to Ed Elson and Josh Brown here.) If we were able to take tightly correlated, highly concentrated physical climate risks as seriously as the Magnificent Seven's market cap, two pieces of recent news would be grabbing attention. First, according to a recent study published in Nature, Antarctica is showing signs of rapid, abrupt change, and is fast approaching a threshold that would cause at least 9 feet of sea level rise, flooding coastal areas where hundreds of millions of people live.
The Revolution Wind farm was slated to start sending power to homes and businesses in Rhode Island and Connecticut starting next year.
HARWICH – The Massachusetts Department of Transportation and the Department of Energy Resources have cut the ribbon on a new solar canopy at the MassDOT Park-and-Ride location in Harwich. MassDOT h…
A National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) pilot program will utilize citizen science to help expedite hurricane disaster recovery. The space agency -- along with the Globe Program, a global science and education program -- is spearheading its new Response Mapper program, which will use before-and-after photos submitted by the public to track conditions on the ground. Through the summer and fall, NASA is inviting the public to participate in the program, especially for those who live in the Southeast, where many tropical cyclones can have an impact.
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Scoop.it!
