As a student studying journalism and sustainability at the University of Florida, Max Chesnes has ambitions. (Surfing on all seven continents is one.) But he wouldn’t have had the ambition to place his first major environmental story without attending this year’s SEJ conference in Flint and learning from the smart and talented journalists in attendance. Read more and please give now.
"Lee Martin loved her 104-acre farm in Wetzel County, West Virginia. The family raised chickens there and rode horses. The kids played in mud puddles. They all took walks in the woods. ... Then, starting in about 2012, Martin had to begin sharing the farm with Stone Energy."
"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has quietly folded its Climate and Health Program into a branch that studies asthma and expunged the word climate from the name of the newly consolidated office, the agency confirmed on Thursday."
"The Trump administration moved closer on Thursday to opening thousands of miles within Alaska’s pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas leasing, issuing a draft report that concluded the polar bears, caribou and other wildlife could safely share their untouched wilderness with oil and gas producers."
"State attorneys general from Maine to South Carolina joined a lawsuit filed by conservationists seeking to block the Trump administration from allowing seismic testing in the Atlantic Ocean that could harm marine mammals and lead to drilling off the Eastern Seaboard for the first time in decades."
"U.S. and Norwegian oil majors Chevron and Equinor have become the latest target of activist investors moving to force five of the biggest oil companies to commit to fixed emissions targets and align with the Paris climate agreement."
"While big oil and gas companies provided the cash for anti-regulation campaigns, the farm lobby offered up a sympathetic face: the American farmer."
"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency granted oil major Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) a financial hardship waiver this year temporarily freeing its Montana refinery from U.S. biofuel laws, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters."
"If the new Democratic House of Representatives brings back a panel to address global warming, the Tampa Bay area will have a prominent seat at the table. U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor is likely to chair the climate change committee if it materializes, giving the region a powerful voice in Congress' efforts to address this looming threat."
"By the middle of this century, climate change is likely to punch a hole through the busiest stretch of rail in North America. Parts of Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor route, which carries 12 million people each year between Boston and Washington, face “continual inundation.”"
