If you’ve ever looked at a disposable bottle of water with suspicion before tossing it into a bin, you’re far from alone. On August 8, leading scientists across globe published an editorial in The Lancet warning there is “strong evidence” that plastics harm human health and natural ecosystems at every stage of production and consumption — from fracking for the fossil fuels used to make plastics…
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Kimbrelle Kyereh lives just a few hundred feet from the massive chemical storage tanks in St. Rose, in southeastern Louisiana. Oily fumes sometimes drift into her home, bringing headaches, nausea and insomnia. On one such night, she grabbed her son at 3 a.m. and fled to an all-night IHOP. In 2023, after years of coping with the noxious odors, Kyereh began collecting air samples in her yard…
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Physicist Ronald Koopman appeared at a Southern California Air District meeting in 2018 to talk about what seemed like an arcane scientific topic: hydrofluoric acid dispersion and water mitigation testing. Hydrofluoric acid, also known as hydrogen fluoride or HF, is used to manufacture a range of materials, including refrigerants, gasoline, fluorine-based pesticides and fluoropolymers like…
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Sweeping revisions to U.S. climate policy in the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term have spawned a wave of protective litigation, legal challenges aimed not at advancing new climate goals but at preventing the rollbacks of existing regulation and preserving hard-won legal gains. The challenges to the Trump administration’s regulatory rollbacks, funding freezes and dismantling…
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The US Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the former Monsanto company in a closely watched case that limits people’s ability to sue pesticide companies for alleged illnesses or injuries. The decision was made in a 7-2 split, with Justice Brett Kavanaughoffering the majority opinion and Justice Ketanji Brown-Jackson writing the dissenting opinion. The case, Monsanto v Durnell…
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A South Carolina federal judge ruled last week that the Trump administration’s termination of hundreds of environmental justice grants was illegal, a decision that could impact $20 million in federal funding rescinded from the Walker River Paiute Tribe in Nevada. The Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to terminate the $2.8 billion Environmental and Climate Justice Block Grant Program…
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