"A growing number of scientists are backing laws recognizing that nature has inherent rights and intrinsic value. A group of wetlands scientists wants the critical ecosystems they study to be next."

"As the Trump administration cracks down on both environmental policies and progressive activism, the Sunrise Movement, the youth-led climate justice organization that popularized calls for a Green New Deal, is widening its mission to fight authoritarianism."

"On March 1, under a clear sky, hundreds of people flocked to Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park—not to picnic but to protest. Two weeks earlier, the National Park Service had fired roughly 1,000 employees."

"Nearly 85% of the 13.1 million acres the Trump administration is opening to coal leasing is private or state-owned and unlikely to be mined anytime soon, except for land adjacent to existing coal mines, analysts say."

"The Environmental Protection Agency announced earlier this month that it would stop making polluting companies report their greenhouse gas emissions to it, eliminating a crucial tool the US uses to track emissions and form climate policy. Climate NGOs say their work could help plug some of the data gap, but they and other experts fear the EPA’s work can’t be fully matched."

"For much of the 20th century, a sprawling complex in the desert of southeastern Washington state turned out most of the plutonium used in the nation’s nuclear arsenal, from the first atomic bomb to the arms race that fueled the Cold War. Now, after decades of planning and billions of dollars of investment, the site is turning liquid nuclear and chemical waste at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation into a much safer substance: glass."

"When faced with testimony that Zug Island’s EES Coke Battery is one of Michigan’s worst sulfur dioxide polluters, an attorney for the facility said Monday: “So what?” The DTE Energy-owned facility was “permitted to do so,” said Michael Hindelang, attorney for the utility and its subsidiaries that are defendants in the EPA’s Clean Air Act lawsuit over the emissions."

"The Trump administration has begun prioritizing the review of new, potentially hazardous chemicals used in data centers that public health advocates and environmental attorneys warn could endanger workers, communities and the environment."

"The state repealed the utility’s 2030 emissions target in July. Duke’s response? A plan to slash solar and wind, double down on gas — and burn more coal."

"If you’re young, pregnant and Latina, chances are you live near agricultural fields sprayed with higher levels of brain-damaging organophosphate pesticides."