"China is the world’s No. 1 polluter. It burns more coal than the rest of the world combined. ... On Tuesday, the country set out to claim another title that reflects its ambitions to change all that: keeper of the world’s largest financial market devoted to cleaning up the air."
The CDC has apparently banned seven politically incorrect words and phrases, including “science-based," from budget documents. And a no-bid media contract for the EPA may include opposition research on agency employees. That, plus a climate tweet reprimand and more, in the latest edition of WatchDog.
As President Trump continues to fill environment and energy leadership positions in 2018, one source of stories will be potential conflicts of interest for appointed regulators and agency leaders. This week's TipSheet runs down more than 20 key appointments to watch at EPA, Interior, Ag, Energy and more.
"The Beaufort Gyre, a key Arctic Ocean current, is acting strangely. Scientists say it may be on the verge of discharging a huge amount of ice and cold freshwater that could kick off a period of lower temperatures in northern Europe."
"Melting permafrost and major storms are eating away at the coastal Alaskan village of Newtok. Residents are desperate to move, but the U.S. has no climate change relocation plan that could help them."
"The effort by U.S. EPA to publicly debate mainstream climate science is on ice."
In 2017, the New York Times launched a new desk to cover climate, and produced many stories presenting unique views of climate change and its impacts using in-depth journalism and stunning interactive graphics. The New York Times collected the stories December 6, 2017.
"The Pentagon has been praised for starting to address global warming, but a report for Congress finds the risks aren't tracked well enough at facilities overseas."
"Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke brought the leader of a California park to his office last month to reprimand him for climate change-related tweets the park had sent via Twitter, two sources close to the situation said."
"Extreme weather left its mark across the planet in 2016, the hottest year in recorded history. Record heat baked Asia and the Arctic. Droughts gripped Brazil and southern Africa. The Great Barrier Reef suffered its worst bleaching event in memory, killing large swaths of coral. Now climate scientists are starting to tease out which of last year’s calamities can, and can’t, be linked to global warming."
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