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“When Donald Trump thinks about climate change, the only word he can muster is ‘hoax,’” Joe Biden said in a speech announcing his new $2 trillion climate plan yesterday, “When I think about climate change, the word I think of is ‘jobs’” he added. His new climate plan will launch a national effort aimed at creating […]
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by Julia Pyper, host/producer, Political Climate podcast, Contributing Editor at Greentech Media The urgency of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 hasn’t dwindled amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. But renewed calls to address long-standing racial injustices further underscore that climate solutions can no longer function in a silo. House Democrats’ new “Congressional Action Plan for […]
Continue Reading 695 wordsA coalition of nearly 300 progressive groups that span the environmental and civil rights movements have been working together for a year to hammer out the pillars of a climate justice plan they want to see passed, and the House Climate Crisis Committee adopted much of it in the comprehensive Solving the Climate Crisis Action Plan released on Tuesday.
Why This Matters: When they work together in a coalition, these groups have real political muscle.
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By Miro Korenha and Monica Medina When we launched Our Daily Planet over two years ago, we wanted to change the conversation about conservation and climate change – to make these issues a key part of the political and policy discussion so that they would finally be addressed. We firmly believed then and still do […]
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Bloomberg News reports that Peabody Energy, the largest coal producer in the country, operated two coal mines on Navajo and Hopi reservation lands that pulled so much water from the Navajo Aquifer that many wells and springs have now run dry. This comes when water is more necessary than ever for essential hygiene since Covid-19 has hit the Navajo Nation harder than any state.
Why This Matters: Peabody never replenished the aquifer water it took under a suspect agreement with the Tribes — as much as 1.3 billion gallons of water from the aquifer annually — and one-third of residents have no running water in the midst of the worst pandemic in generations.
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Between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, a trail of 150 petroleum factories makes up one of the most rampant petrochemical industries in the nation for the past century. It’s also led to some of the nation’s most polluted air and water giving the region the ominous nickname of “Cancer Alley” due to the concentrations of […]
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By Monica Medina and Miro Korenha Monuments have been much in the news lately. In Decatur, Georgia on Thursday night, thanks to a Judge’s order, the county finally took down the Confederate Monument in the central square. It is one of a few monuments to the Confederacy remaining in Atlanta. State law protects them, unfortunately, […]
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Yesterday a startling study was published which analyzed 32 million U.S. births to reveal that pregnant women who are exposed to air pollution, high temperatures and ozone are more likely to have premature, underweight or stillborn babies. What’s worse is that Black mothers are at the highest risk of these pregnancy complications. As the New […]
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The rallying cry “I Can’t Breathe” that has been heard and seen at protests across the country was invoked by environmental justice advocates on Tuesday in Congress because it also applies to the harmful impact of pollution being experienced by these communities, and it is especially acute in minority communities also seeing disproportionate impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Why This Matters: Under the guise of “helping” communities after the COVID crisis, the administration is making things even worse for so many Americans that are already struggling under the burden of discriminatory pollution and its cascading harms to their health and well-being.
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The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) yesterday issued another rule dealing a blow to 40 years of settled law on the authority of states and tribes under the Clean Water Act to block fossil fuel projects such as natural gas pipelines and coal terminals that could pollute state waterways.
Why This Matters: The EPA is turning the Clean Water Act on its head and undercutting states and tribes that are protecting the clean water and the health of their citizens.
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This past weekend we witnessed nationwide protests against police brutality and outcries for justice for the killing of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and countless other black Americans who have lost their lives to racial violence. While Our Daily Planet is a platform to bring awareness to climate change and the environment, we needed […]
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Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Houston Chronicle reported on Friday that the state of Texas has waived all monitoring and reporting requirements for oil and chemical companies because the companies claim they do not have the staff to conduct tests or file reports.
Why This Matters: The state only denied 10 of 140 requests for regulatory relief.
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