Environment

The Associated Press reports: Sea turtles and marine birds will be protected under a new Florida law that bans the intentional release of balloons. The law, signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, replaces an existing ban of releasing ten or more balloons within 24 hours. The Legislature approved the bill with bipartisan support in March and the law is praised …

Axios reports: Flooding — which has gotten increasingly severe in an era of extreme weather — costs the U.S. economy an estimated $179.8 to $496 billion per year in 2023 dollars, according to new data from Democrats on the Senate Joint Economic Committee. The estimates are the equivalent of over 1% of 2023’s gross domestic product, the report notes. It …

Miami’s ABC affiliate reports: One day after a video went viral showing a group of teens dumping trash just off the Boca Inlet, the public has responded with outrage. “It’s shocking, disheartening, a lot of anger, and honestly, the thing that was most shocking to me is the age of the people on the boat,” said Madeline Kaufman of Debris …

Gothamist reports: Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez said on Tuesday that the event will be the biggest to date, with drivers getting the boot from sections of 53 streets between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Saturday, April 20. That’s up from 30 car-free streets during last year’s event. Major areas where cars will be banned include Broadway in Manhattan from …

Ars Technica reports: The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday finalized a ban on the only type of asbestos still used in the US, chrysotile asbestos. This move was decades in the making. Chrysotile asbestos, aka “white asbestos,” is still imported, processed, and used in the US for diaphragms (including those used to make sodium hydroxide and chlorine), sheet gaskets, brake …

The Guardian reports: Emergency teams worked through the night to bolster defensive barriers around the evacuated fishing town of Grindavik as lava from the fourth volcanic eruption on Iceland’s Reykjanes peninsula since December flowed towards it. After weeks of warnings that semi-molten rock was building up under the ground, the Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO) said the eruption, at 8.23pm local …

The New York Times reports: The Triassic was the dawn of the dinosaurs. The Paleogene saw the rise of mammals. The Pleistocene included the last ice ages. Is it time to mark humankind’s transformation of the planet with its own chapter in Earth history, the “Anthropocene,” or the human age? Not yet, scientists have decided, after a debate that has …

The Associated Press reports: Earth last year shattered global annual heat records, flirted with the world’s agreed-upon warming threshold and showed more signs of a feverish planet, the European climate agency said Tuesday. In one of the first of several teams of science agencies to calculate how off-the-charts warm 2023 was, the European climate agency Copernicus said the year was …

NPR reports: As 2023 draws to a close, it’s going out on top. “It’s looking virtually certain at this point that 2023 will be the hottest year on record,” says Zeke Hausfather, climate scientist at Berkeley Earth, a non-profit that analyzes climate trends. Though temperature records from December have yet to be finalized, climate scientists at the National Oceanic and …

The Washington Post reports: For the past several years, a small group of scientists has warned that sometime early this century, the rate of global warming — which has remained largely steady for decades — might accelerate. Temperatures could rise higher, faster. The drumbeat of weather disasters may become more insistent. And now, after what is poised to be the …

Reuters reports: Representatives from nearly 200 countries agreed at the COP28 climate summit on Wednesday to begin reducing global consumption of fossil fuels to avert the worst of climate change, a first of its kind deal signaling the eventual end of the oil age. The deal struck in Dubai after two weeks of hard-fought negotiations was meant to send a …

Reuters reports: Destruction across the Amazon rainforest so far this year has slowed dramatically, down 55.8% from the same period a year ago in a major turnaround for the region vital to curbing climate change, according to an analysis provided to Reuters. The analysis by the nonprofit Amazon Conservation’s MAAP forest monitoring program offers a first look at 2023 deforestation …

Reuters reports: The world’s largest iceberg is on the move for the first time in more than three decades, scientists said on Friday. At almost 4,000 square km (1,500 square miles), the Antarctic iceberg called A23a is roughly three times the size of New York City. Since calving off West Antarctica’s Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf in 1986, the iceberg — which …

The Associated Press reports: An exploding population of hard-to-eradicate “super pigs” in Canada is threatening to spill south of the border, and northern states like Minnesota, North Dakota and Montana are taking steps to stop the invasion. In Canada, the wild pigs roaming Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba pose a new threat. They are often crossbreeds that combine the survival skills …

Bloomberg News reports: The people of Iceland are bracing for what could be the country’s most devastating volcanic eruption in 50 years, with a small fishing town at risk of being destroyed. There’s a significant likelihood of magma busting to the surface over the coming days at Grindavik, home to over 3,600 people, the Met Office said on Sunday. More …

The Hill reports: A federal appeals court on Thursday is tossing the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) ban on a pesticide that has been linked to brain damage in children. The decision from the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals to send the rule back to the agency does not preclude the agency from reinstating the ban in the future. Chlorpyrifos has …

Roll Call reports: A group of GOP-led states and industry groups on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to prevent the EPA from enforcing a Biden administration emissions and clean air rule. Ohio, Indiana and West Virginia filed a lawsuit to challenge the so-called Good Neighbor Rule, and last month a federal appeals court in Washington declined to stop the program …

The New York Times reports: Saltwater is swiftly pushing its way up the Mississippi River and is expected to contaminate most of the New Orleans public drinking water supply on Oct. 28. President Biden declared a state of emergency on Wednesday, releasing federal funds to Louisiana. Officials are concerned about saltwater corroding lead pipes, which could leach heavy metals into …

Bloomberg News reports: This summer was the warmest on record globally by a large margin as extreme heat waves impacted North America, Europe and Asia, according to Europe’s Earth observation agency Copernicus. Temperatures in June, July and August were 0.66 degrees Celsius above the average between 1991 and 2020, Copernicus said. Last month was the warmest August on record globally …

Reuters reports: Japan started releasing treated radioactive water from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean on Thursday, a polarizing move that prompted China to announce an immediate blanket ban on all aquatic products from Japan. China is “highly concerned about the risk of radioactive contamination brought by… Japan’s food and agricultural products,” the customs bureau said …