Big Banks’ Trillion-Dollar Finance For Fossil Fuels ‘Shocking’ — Report
"The world’s biggest 60 banks have provided $3.8tn of financing for fossil fuel companies since the Paris climate deal in 2015, according to a report by a coalition of NGOs."
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"The world’s biggest 60 banks have provided $3.8tn of financing for fossil fuel companies since the Paris climate deal in 2015, according to a report by a coalition of NGOs."
" Environmental groups have filed a lawsuit seeking to preserve protections for 3.4 million acres (1.4 million hectares) of northern spotted owl habitat from the US-Canada border to northern California, the latest salvo in a legal battle over logging in federal old-growth forests that are key nesting grounds for the imperiled species."
"Renewable energy development would dry up in the nation's fifth-largest wind energy-producing state under a measure being debated in the Kansas Legislature this week, critics of the proposal warn."
"Top congressional Republicans are warning Democrats against splitting up the upcoming infrastructure package, raising new doubts for the prospects of bipartisan cooperation on a top Biden priority in the months ahead."
"Consumers trying to avoid toxic chemicals in their nonstick cookware face convoluted advertising claims that can confuse even the most well-informed buyers."
"The number of bald eagles — a species that once came dangerously close to extinction in the United States — has more than quadrupled over the last dozen years despite massive declines in overall bird populations, government scientists announced Tuesday."
"The EPA will review and evaluate its scientific advisory committees to ensure they include “top-tier experts,” agency chief Michael Regan said in a Tuesday email to employees."
"Hotter summers in Iraq are blasting soldiers sitting inside armored vehicles. Flooding is threatening the world’s largest navy base. Russian submarines are prowling the melting Arctic. Now NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg wants to make global warming a major focus of the military alliance’s strategy and planning, pushing environmental issues to the center as a security threat."
"President Biden’s next big thing would fuse the rebuilding of America’s creaky infrastructure with record spending to fight climate change, a combination that, in scale and scope, represents a huge political shift, even for Democrats who have been in the climate trenches for decades."
"Wildfire smoke was associated with a far greater number of pediatric respiratory care visits than other sources of airborne fine particles, according to a new study, even when wildfires were less severe."
"Texas is crisscrossed by thousands of miles of freeways, but a Houston-area county is suing the state to stop one of them being expanded, arguing the air pollution and displacement will primarily harm minority communities."
"Conservatives have long argued against regulating fossil fuel production for the climate’s sake, claiming that doing so would interfere with the holy free market. A new study shows that’s a total fairy tale because the invisible hand isn’t responsible for dirty fuels’ market dominance—implicit government subsidies are. The findings show those subsidies total in the billions each year."
"The world stands on the cusp of a massive shift from fossil fuels to clean electricity, but many are worried that the transition won't be fair. Already, electric cars and efficient heating technologies are showing up disproportionately in wealthy neighborhoods. The U.S. faced a very similar problem almost a century ago with electricity, the energy revolution of that time. Most cities had been electrified by the 1930s, but many rural areas had not, because private electric companies saw little profit in string wires down lonely country roads."
"Just before the Trump administration headed out the door, a federal agency this past December cleared the way for a private company to begin pumping groundwater from under the Mojave Trails National Monument in Southern California."
"At a normal tide on a normal day on the Southern California coast, ankle-high waves glide over a narrow strip of gold sand. On one side sits the largest body of water in the world. On the other, a row of houses with a cumulative value in the hundreds of millions of dollars, propped on water-stained stilts.
Property value ebbs and flows, but when it comes to coastal real estate "the trend lines are pretty clear," says California state Sen. Ben Allen, squinting in the sun. "And they're not pretty."