Climate change may have made an unexpected appearance at the raucous 2020 presidential debate last night, but it's equally important to quiz state and local candidates on the topic too. The latest TipSheet offers environment and energy journalists a list of 10 key climate change questions to ask in reporting elections in your coverage area.
"The Trump administration has rejected scientific evidence linking the pesticide chlorpyrifos to serious health problems, directly contradicting federal scientists’ conclusions five years ago that it can stunt brain development in children."
"The Amazon has already seen more forest fires this year than in all of 2019, according to satellite data made available in August 2020 by a new NASA fire analysis tool."
"The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Tuesday diminished studies linking a widely-used pesticide associated with brain damage in children, a move that could enable years of continued use of controversial chlorpyrifos."
More revelations of Trump administration duplicity on the science front, per the new WatchDog opinion column, which reports on a scoop about political appointees trying to warp weekly public health data to ensure they don’t undercut Trump’s political messaging. Oh, and Bob Woodward’s new book affirming the president knew of COVID-19’s dangers early on, but deliberately played them down.
"A giant new vessel, OceanXplorer, seeks to unveil the secrets of the abyss for a global audience."
"Facebook’s plan to combat climate misinformation running rampant on its site is here. It is a... “climate science information center” of facts, figures, and news stories about the climate crisis that obscures the systematic changes needed to address climate change while peddling tips that mirror Big Oil talking points. The whole thing is a giant hand-wave to distract us from looking at the real solutions to climate change and the role Facebook is playing in corroding them."
"Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden excoriated President Trump on Monday over his environmental record as wildfires continued to burn through much of the West and as the president used a trip to California to question the scientific consensus that climate change is a leading cause of the devastating blazes."
Bird brains, despite the dictum, are anything but deficient. In fact, a new book by science and nature writer Jennifer Ackerman reveals how scientists, driven by rising diversity in their own ranks and by the leverage of new technologies, are gaining a dramatically new understanding of the complexities of bird behavior. BookShelf has a review of “The Bird Way.”
"When President Trump flies to California on Monday to assess the state’s raging forest fires, he will come face to face with the grim consequences of a reality he has stubbornly refused to accept: the devastating effects of a warming planet."
