Postcard from California: Big Oil is not dead yet
By Bill Walker
As California advances toward its goal of virtually eliminating the use of fossil fuels in 20 years, the state has dealt the oil and gas industry a barrage of body blows.
Opinion
The perils of plastics extend to our pets
By Aidan Charron
By now, you’d practically have to be living on Mars not to have heard about the health risks associated with plastics and the toxic chemical cocktail used to produce them.
Congress should follow science and reject Bayer push to block lawsuits
By Nathan Donley
Millions of American users of glyphosate-based Roundup have likely assumed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would never have approved the pesticide unless it was safe.
Postcard from California: The human cost of living with wildfires
By Bill Walker
The toll of wildfire in California is staggering: In the last 10 years, wildfires have burned more than 13.6 million acres of the state and taken the lives of 144 people, including 15 firefighters. The state estimates property damages from the more than 93,000 wildfires in those years at nearly $250 billion.
Postcard from California: Are corporate “climate offsets” just greenwashing?
By Bill Walker
Apple touts the newest model of the Apple Watch as its first “carbon neutral” product – made with “100% clean energy” and “recycled and renewable materials” and shipped by “lower-carbon modes” instead of by air. But a close look at the watch’s environmental specs shows that reducing emissions of greenhouse gases in its manufacturing and supply chain only goes so far.
Corrupt politics, not science, power the US EPA
By Evaggelos Vallianatos
When I started my job in the Office of Pesticide Programs at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1979, many things quickly surprised and disappointed me – a pattern that persisted through my 25-year career there.
Postcard from California: State emits more of an obscure climate-heating gas than the entire rest of the US
By Bill Walker
Among US states, California is a leader in efforts to cut emissions of the greenhouse gases that fuel the climate crisis. But just three counties in Southern California emit far more of one little-known greenhouse gas than all other US states combined.
An herbicide so hazardous that courts have banned it twice
By Bill Freese
In early February, something rather extraordinary happened in the world of American farming. For the second time, a federal court banned the hazardous herbicide dicamba, which has been wreaking havoc on farmers, rural communities and the natural world for seven long years. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) re-approved dicamba after the first court action. Will it do so once again?
When measuring a farm’s carbon footprint – Britain has the right answer
By Dean Dickel
The key to achieving climate mitigation in agriculture depends on an accurate measure of carbon sequestration and emissions of major greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide.
Postcard from California: The global plastics crisis is a threat to human health
By Bill Walker
Last April, an annual assessment of the clarity of Lake Tahoe found it was the clearest it had been since the 1980s. But just months later, scientists reported that the iconic alpine lake straddling the California-Nevada border had alarming levels of a nearly invisible form of pollution: microplastics.