{"id":73516,"date":"2025-07-18T20:09:19","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T20:09:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/73516\/"},"modified":"2025-07-18T20:09:19","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T20:09:19","slug":"world-is-investing-twice-as-much-in-clean-energy-as-fossil-fuels-its-not-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/73516\/","title":{"rendered":"World is investing twice as much in clean energy as fossil fuels. It’s not enough"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted from The Journal of Uncharted Blue Places.<\/a><\/p>\n

Researchers at the REPEAT Project<\/a>, an undertaking of Princeton University\u2019s ZERO Lab, have in a new report evaluated the impacts of the Republican-designed legislation slashing energy tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act and other actions. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act will, the report states, reduce capital investment in U.S. electricity<\/a>\u00a0and clean fuels production by $500 billion and raise U.S. household and business energy expenditures by $28 billion annually in 2030 and $50 billion annually in 2035. That will mean an estimated $280 extra the average household will pay for electricity come 2035.<\/p>\n

ZERO Lab chief Jesse Jenkins told <\/a>Rog\u00e9 Karma at The Atlantic, \u201cIt\u2019s hard to think of a bigger self-own. We\u2019re effectively raising taxes on the country\u2019s main sources of new power at a time when electricity prices are already rising.\u201d<\/p>\n

The act will cut additions of solar electricity-generating capacity between now and 2035 by 140 gigawatts and wind capacity additions by 160 gigawatts. That nearly 25% of today\u2019s total U.S. generating capacity from ALL sources.<\/p>\n

ZERO Lab chief Jesse Jenkins said \u201cIt\u2019s hard to think of a bigger self-own. We\u2019re effectively raising taxes on the country\u2019s main sources of new power at a time when electricity prices are already rising.\u201d<\/p>\n

Besides lopping off this much-needed addition of clean energy, the report estimates the act will jack up U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by roughly an extra 190 million metric tons annually in 2030 and and an extra 470 million metric tons in 2035. That last figure is equivalent to 10% of total U.S. emissions in 2024.<\/p>\n

Karma writes:<\/p>\n

\n

The purported justification for these cuts is that renewables are unreliable energy sources pushed by woke environmentalists, and the country would be better served by doubling down on coal and natural gas. \u201cMore wind and solar brings us the worst of two worlds: less reliable energy delivery\u00a0and\u00a0higher electric bills,\u201d\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0Energy Secretary Chris Wright in an op-ed [June 27]. In fact, renewable energy is cheap and getting cheaper. Even without the tax credits, the price of onshore wind has\u00a0fallen<\/a>\u00a0by 70 percent, solar energy by 90 percent, and batteries by more than 90 percent over the past decade. The IRA, by making these sources even more affordable, was\u00a0projected<\/a>\u00a0to save American consumers an average of $220 a year in the decade after its passage.<\/p>\n

The cost savings from renewables are so great that in Texas\u2014Texas, mind you\u2014all of the electricity\u00a0growth<\/a>\u00a0over the past decade has come from wind and solar alone. This has made energy grids\u00a0more\u00a0reliable, not less. During the summer of 2023, the state faced several near failures of its electricity grid; officials had to\u00a0call on residents<\/a>\u00a0to conserve energy. The state responded by building out new renewable-energy sources to stabilize the grid. It worked. \u201cThe electrical grid in Texas has breezed through a summer in which, despite milder temperatures, the state again reached record levels of energy demand,\u201d\u00a0The New York Times\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0last September. \u201cIt did so largely thanks to the substantial expansion of new solar farms.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, the energy secretary\u2019s description of wind and solar\u2014as unreliable and expensive\u2014is more aptly applied to fossil fuels.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Everybody who voted for the OBBBA yet claim not to be\u00a0climate science deniers are lying. They are, in fact,\u00a0 reshaping energy policy in the most denier way possible. This\u00a0will reverse recent U.S. reductions of carbon emissions while jacking up electricity costs and exacerbating extreme weather events with more fossil fuel burning. And who do you suppose they will blame?<\/p>\n

\u2014Meteor Blades<\/p>\n

RELATED<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

\nYou can also find me @meteorblades.bsky.social<\/a><\/p>\n

WEEKLY ECO-VIDEO<\/p>\n

RESOURCES & ACTION<\/p>\n

GREEN QUOTE<\/p>\n

\u201cThis [Republican megabill] props up the dirty and expensive technologies of the past while strangling the clean energy investments that are creating millions of jobs across the country.\u00a0At a time when we need new energy more than ever, Republicans are punishing the plentiful wind and solar power that can be quickly added to the grid.\u201d \u2014 Manish Bapna<\/strong>, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council<\/p>\n

GREEN BRIEFS<\/p>\n

The world is investing twice as much\u00a0in clean energy as\u00a0fossil fuels. It\u2019s still not enough<\/a><\/p>\n

Canary Media publishes a new chart <\/a>each week highlighting some aspect of the green transition. Here\u2019s the latest:<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot2025-07-16at7.46.01AM.png\"<\/p>\n

Dan McCarthy reports that $2.2 trillion will be\u00a0invested this year in clean energy<\/a>, efficiency, and electrification, according to the International Energy Agency. That\u2019s twice as much as\u00a0will be invested in fossil fuels.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Led by China, since the Paris Agreement was okayed in 2025, installations of wind and solar have soaring from slightly more than\u00a04% of global electricity generation\u00a0to\u00a015% in 2024. In that period\u00a0solar has grown 800%, and photovoltaics will be the\u00a0energy category that attracts the most investment this year. These investments, of course, mean\u00a0ever more generation of clean electricity.<\/p>\n

Just a couple of\u00a0problems. First up, despite this growth of clean energy installations,\u00a0climatologists and activists keep pointing out that large as these investments are, they aren\u2019t enough to meet global pledges made in 2023. To do so requirea a doubling of renewables investmenta, and a tripling of energy efficiency and electrification.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s pullback from climate goals thanks to election\u00a0gains of right-wing forces in Europe and in the United States where the retreat is most visible as the Trump administration\u00a0cuts budgets and staffs, deep-sixes climate and energy data, and works to demolish\u00a0or sabotage climate-friendly rules and policies.<\/p>\n

And, third, even with record-breaking clean energy investments, carbon missions are still on the rise<\/a>\u00a0because electricity demand is on the rise. In the developed countries, a substantial amount of that demand comes from energy-devouring AI data centers, and the juice to run many of them comes from fossil fuels, in particular, natural gas-fired turbines.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2014Meteor Blades<\/p>\n

Could giving A\u00a0pod of dolphins\u00a0legal rights help protect them?<\/a><\/p>\n

In 2018, former Daily Kos Community Director Neeta Lind and I were part of a 10-member\u00a0Indigenous delegation from various U.S. tribes\u00a0to New Zealand to meet with activists and officials to discuss their newly agreed conveyance of legal rights to the Whanganui River<\/a>. This was promoted into existence by activists of the M\u0101ori people who are descended from the island nation\u2019s first human inhabitants.\u00a0<\/p>\n

New Zealand\u2019s was one of the world\u2019s first such efforts. Since then, Mexico City has adopted rights of nature as part of its municipal constitution. The Indian supreme court has ruled in favor of \u201cMother Nature.\u201d All rivers are now under rights of nature legal protection in Bangladesh. In addition, some 30 communities in the United States have adopted similar policies.<\/p>\n

\"Whanganui
\nA slice of the Whanganui River in Whanganui National Park<\/p>\n

As Lisa Bachelor reports at The Guardian, South Korean activists want to give\u00a0legal personhood\u00a0to a pod of Indo-Pacific bottlenose\u00a0dolphins, a species that the International Union for the Conservation of Nature labels \u201cnearly threatened.\u201d The pod around Jeju Island includes\u00a0about 130 of the dolphins, many of them showing scars from encounters with boats and\u00a0Jet Skis, as well as abandoned nets and other fishing gear.<\/p>\n

One activist known as\u00a0\u00a0\u201cDolphin Man\u201d\u00a0\u2014 Jeongjoon Lee, a Korean director who documents\u00a0and tries to\u00a0help\u00a0the bottlenose population. He says:\u00a0\u00a0\u201cBecause the dolphins cannot cut the fishing lines themselves, we decided to cut them for them. In one case, we had to cut wire from two different places, one was going in through the dolphin\u2019s face to its body, and another from around its tail where it had become tangled.\u201d<\/p>\n

He and others have tried to interest local people in protecting the dolphins and have published a brochure in which they are all pictured and named as part of the effort.<\/p>\n

\n

Now, a coalition of campaigners and environmentalists want to take things further. They are hoping to have the bottlenose population recognised as a \u201clegal person\u201d, which would give them additional rights and make it easier to protect them.<\/p>\n

The idea is part of\u00a0a growing movement<\/a>\u00a0to recognise rights in law of nonhuman species and places, and is the first attempt in Korea to give such status to an animal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea is that if an individual or a company threatens their livelihood, then we could act on behalf of the dolphins to sue them or to take action in another way,\u201d says Miyeon Kim, who works at Marine Animal Research and Conservation (Marc),\u00a0the local NGO<\/a>\u00a0responsible for naming the dolphins.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Wherever rights of nature laws are considered, the process is complicated, and it\u2019s no different in Korea, where organizations that work with the dolphins have been pushing the idea\u00a0for two years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2014Meteor Blades<\/p>\n

RESEARCH & STUDIES<\/p>\n

Climate Change Degrades Nutritional Value of Crops<\/a><\/strong>. Climate change is silently sapping the nutrients from our food. Researchers fine that rising CO2\u00a0and higher temperatures are not only reshaping how crops grow but are also degrading their nutritional value especially in vital leafy greens like kale and spinach.\u00a0Presented July 8 in Antwerp at the annual conference of the Society for Experimental Biology.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

New Research Shows More Extreme Global Warming Impacts Looming for the Northeast<\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong>Nor\u2019easters, with their heavy precipitation and strong winds, pose significant threats to cities along the U.S. east coast, often leading to devastating impacts.\u00a0Analysis of nor\u2019easter characteristics reveals\u00a0the strongest nor\u2019easters are becoming stronger, with both the maximum wind speeds of the most intense nor\u2019easters and hourly precipitation rates increasing since 1940.\u00a0Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.<\/a><\/p>\n

Melting Arctic ice bolstering North Atlantic Ocean currents, for now<\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong>One particularly alarming consequence of rising global temperatures is the potential collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a conveyor-belt-like system of ocean currents driven by the sinking of cold, salty waters in the North Atlantic. Despite rising temperatures and receding Arctic sea ice, however, measurements suggest that the AMOC has endured and even strengthened in recent decades. Published in\u00a0Science Advances<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Unprecedented acidification expected for corals in Hawai`i\u00a0waters<\/a>.<\/strong>\u00a0Across the globe, oceans are acidifying as they absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, threatening coral reefs and many other marine organisms. Oceanographers at the University of Hawai\u02bbi at M\u0101noa have\u00a0revealed that unprecedented levels of ocean acidification are expected around the main Hawaiian Islands within the next three decades. Published in the\u00a0Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Agro-pastoral activities accelerated mountain soil erosion for 3,800 years<\/a>.<\/strong> During those four millenniums, agro-pastoral activities have accelerated alpine soil erosion at a pace four to 10 times faster than their natural formation.\u00a0Published in\u00a0Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Heart disease deaths worldwide linked to chemical widely used in plastics<\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong>DEHP, a chemical used in plastics, may have contributed to over 356,000 heart-related deaths globally in 2018\u2014most heavily in Asia and the Middle East. The chemical, linked to inflammation in arteries, is found in items like food packaging and medical gear. Scientists now warn of its massive health and economic costs.\u00a0 Published in eBioMedicine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

HALF A DOZEN OTHER THINGS TO READ (OR LISTEN TO)<\/p>\n

Amid setbacks for the U.S., the global energy transition goes on<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>by Dan McCarthy<\/strong> at Canary Media.\u00a0In China<\/strong>,\u00a0<\/strong>the world\u2019s biggest carbon emitter, wind and solar capacity overtook coal and gas in the first quarter of\u00a02025\u00a0\u2014 a first, according to a Global Energy Monitor report<\/a>\u00a0released this week. The country is still building and using immense amounts of fossil fuels, but reports suggest its\u00a0emissions may finally be in reverse<\/a>.\u00a0In the European Union,\u00a0<\/strong>solar was the largest source of electricity across all of June. It\u2019s the first time solar has led the pack for an entire month in the\u00a0EU,\u00a0according to a new Ember report<\/a>, producing\u00a022% of the region\u2019s electricity. Meanwhile, coal fell to its lowest-ever level.\u00a0Ireland\u00a0shuttered its last coal plant<\/a>\u00a0in late June, becoming Europe\u2019s\u00a015th\u00a0coal-free country. Italy and Spain are slated to close their last major coal plants this summer, too.\u00a0Across the entire world,\u00a0<\/strong>$2\u00a0is now\u00a0invested in clean energy<\/a>, efficiency, and the grid for every $1\u00a0invested in fossil fuels. That\u2019s serious progress, and a big reason why clean energy is growing so rapidly worldwide. Last year,\u00a0more than\u00a090%<\/a>\u00a0of the new electricity built globally was clean energy. Meanwhile,\u00a0EV\u00a0adoption\u00a0is set to leap\u00a025%<\/a>\u00a0this year, compared with\u00a02024, setting yet another record even amid headwinds in the U.S., according to BloombergNEF.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Four
\nFour members of Science Moms pose for a selfie at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, December 2024. From left to right: Joellen Russell, Erica Smithwick, Claudia Benetiz-Nelson, and Emily Fischer.<\/p>\n

Science Moms lean into \u2018humanness\u2019 to educate on climate change risk<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>by\u00a0Frances Mack <\/strong>at <\/strong>The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.\u00a0The flood that swept through Camp Mystic in Texas this month is every parent\u2019s worst nightmare. Hours or days of fear and uncertainty, feeling powerless to help, and, for the families of the 27 campers and staff members who perished, the most painful news imaginable. Although flash flooding is a recurring problem in the region, climate change exacerbates the problem. Scientists in Europe have already conducted a rapid assessment and determined that the storm dropped\u00a07%\u00a0more rain<\/a>\u00a0than it would have otherwise because of global warming.\u00a0The fact that so many children and young people lost their lives underscores the importance of educational groups like\u00a0Science Moms<\/a>, a nonpartisan organization started\u00a0in 2019<\/a>\u00a0by\u00a0climatologist Katharine Hayhoe and other leading climate scientists and mothers<\/a>. The group works to demystify climate change and motivate moms to demand plans and solutions that will protect the planet for their kids\u2014and their kids from dangerous, climate-change fueled extreme weather events.<\/p>\n

\"The
\nThe cover of World Without End by Jean-Marc Jancovici and Christophe Blain. Penguin Books Ltd.<\/p>\n

Facing Climate Anxiety With Visual Comedy: \u2018World Without End\u2019 Graphic Artist Christophe Blain<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>by\u00a0Craig Thompson<\/strong> at EcoWatch.\u00a0Jean-Marc Jancovici<\/a>\u00a0is a well-known lecturer in France, and on YouTube, on the topics of energy and climate change. He focuses on the deep history and interconnections of the Earth\u2019s consumption apparatus \u2013 how things are made, what things are made of, how energy is created, distributed and burned, and how the energy needs of the future should be met.\u00a0Christophe Blain<\/a>\u00a0is a French graphic artist known for his humorous historical works, most notably\u00a0Weapons of Mass Diplomacy<\/a>. But a few years ago, he was struck by current events in his home country. \u201cIn the summer of 2018, there were severe heat waves,\u201d Blain said. \u201cI realized they were linked to global warming. I said to myself, \u2018This is it, we\u2019re here.\u2019 I was very anxious for a year.\u201d He began talking to his brother to see what could be done.\u00a0[…]\u00a0The result of this meeting of minds is\u00a0World Without End<\/a>, a full-length graphic book that melds Jancovici\u2019s words with Blain\u2019s vibrant and comical illustrations to tell the story of energy: where we\u2019ve been, and where we might be headed. It\u2019s a long-form book version of one of his lectures, rich in data, theory and commentary, propelled by Blain\u2019s unique method of visual storytelling in which a reader never gets lost or overwhelmed.<\/p>\n

The Permitting Crisis for Renewables<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>by Robinson Meyer <\/strong>and Charlie Clynes\u00a0<\/strong>at Heatmap News.\u00a0A solar farm 40 minutes south of Columbus, Ohio. A grid-scale battery near the coast of Nassau County, Long Island. A sprawling wind farm \u2014 capable of generating enough electricity to power 100,000 homes \u2014 at the northern edge of Nebraska. These projects \u2014 and hundreds of others \u2014 will never get built in the United States. They were blocked and ultimately killed by a regulatory sea-change that has reshaped how local governments consider and approve energy projects. One by one, counties and municipalities across the country are passing laws that heavily curtail the construction of new renewable power plants. These laws are slowing the energy transition and raising costs for utility ratepayers. And the problem is getting worse.The development of new wind and solar power plants is now heavily restricted or outright banned in about one in five counties across the country, according to a new and extensive survey of public records and local ordinances conducted by Heatmap News.<\/p>\n

\"Pigs
\nPigs clear fields of weeds at Blue Dasher Farm. It saves on machinery and labor, and is healthy for the pigs and the people who eat them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Food giants graded a \u201cD\u201d on sustainable farming practices<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>by Shannon Kelleher <\/strong>at The New Lede.\u00a0Major food corporations are failing to effectively support farming practices that protect human and environmental health, according to an assessment of 20 companies released Thursday by a corporate watchdog group. The\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0scored corporate programs and policies related to regenerative agriculture \u2014\u00a0a type of farming that prioritizes healthy soil \u2014 determining that, on average, the companies \u00a0deserved \u00a0a near-failing grade of \u201cD.\u201d\u00a0The nonprofit group As You Sow, which said it based its analyses on industry reports and other publicly available data, assigned the lowest grades to W.K. Kellogg Co., known for popular cereals including Frosted Flakes and Rice Krispies, and B&G Foods, Inc., whose brands include Crisco and Cream of Wheat. Companies earning the highest scores included PepsiCo, the global snack and beverage giant, as well as McCain Foods and Lamb Weston, both known for their French fries and other potato products. Regenerative farming practices have been\u00a0surging in popularity<\/a>\u00a0in recent years, driven by concerns that industrial agricultural practices are contributing to global warming, polluting waterways, degrading soil health, harming delicate ecosystems and endangering human health and the health of many important species with widespread use of toxic chemicals.<\/p>\n

In the Sweltering Southwest, Planting Solar Panels in Farmland Can Help Both Photovoltaics and Crops<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>by Tina Deines<\/strong> at Inside Climate News.\u00a0For 12 years, researcher Gret Barron-Gafford has been investigating agrivoltaics, the integration of solar arrays into working farmland. This practice involves growing crops or other vegetation, such as pollinator-friendly plants, under solar panels, and sometimes grazing livestock in this greenery. Though a relatively new concept, at least 604 agrivoltaic sites have popped up across the United States, according to\u00a0OpenEI<\/a>.\u00a0Researchers like Barron-Gafford think that, in addition to generating carbon-free electricity, agrivoltaics could offer a ray of hope for agriculture in an increasingly hotter and drier Southwest, as the shade created by these systems has been found to decrease irrigation needs and eliminate heat stress on crops. Plus, the cooling effects of growing plants under solar arrays can actually make the panels work better. But challenges remain, including some farmers\u2019 attitudes about the practice and funding difficulties.<\/p>\n

WEEKLY BLUESKY SKEET<\/p>\n

ECOPINION<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s Logging Push Thrusts a Dagger at the Heart of Wilderness<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>by Ted Williams\u00a0<\/strong>at Yale E360. On June 23, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced the administration\u2019s decision to abolish the rule that bans roads in 58.5 million roadless acres of the 193 million acres managed by the U.S. Forest Service, including 9.37 million acres of Tongass National Forest in southeast Alaska.The Tongass is Earth\u2019s largest essentially intact temperate rainforest and the ancestral homeland of the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian peoples. It includes glaciers, mountains, fjords, and most of the Alexander Archipelago\u2019s 1,100 islands. It\u2019s drained by 15,700 miles of streams and rivers that sustain some of the continent\u2019s healthiest populations of Pacific salmon (all five species), steelhead, rainbow, Dolly Varden, and coastal cutthroat trout. The Tongass is an important sanctuary for wildlife, much of it imperiled elsewhere. In winter, it\u2019s warmer than my home state of Massachusetts, which it exceeds in size by 11.7 million acres.\u00a0Throughout the Tongass\u2019s roadless section, old-growth Sitka spruce, western hemlock, red cedar and yellow cedar stabilize soil, shade and cool salmonid habitat, sequester carbon, and pump out oxygen. Some of these trees were alive in the Middle Ages. Secretary Rollins did not mention any of that in her statement that called the roadless rule \u201cdisastrous.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot2025-07-15at12.18.38PM.png\"
\nKate Yoder<\/p>\n

Why the federal government is making climate data disappear<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0by Kate Yoder<\/strong> at Grist. For 25 years,\u00a0a group of top experts has been tracking the ways that climate change threatens every part of the U.S. Their findings informed the\u00a0National Climate Assessments<\/a>, a series of congressionally mandated reports released every four years that translated the science into accessible warnings for policymakers and the public. But that work came to a halt this spring when the Trump administration abruptly\u00a0dismissed all 400 experts<\/a>\u00a0working on the next edition. Then, on June 30, all of the past reports\u00a0vanished<\/a>\u00a0too, along with the federal website they lived on. The erasure of the National Climate Assessments isn\u2019t the elimination of climate information by the administration but it\u2019s\u00a0\u00a0\u201cby far the biggest loss we\u2019ve seen,\u201d said Gretchen Gehrke, who monitors federal websites with the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative. The National Climate Assessments were one of the most approachable resources that broke down how climate change will affect the places people care about, she said. The reports were also used by a wide swath of stakeholders \u2014 policymakers, farmers, businesses \u2014 to guide their decisions about the future.\u00a0<\/strong>While the reports have been\u00a0archived elsewhere<\/a>, they\u2019re no longer as easy to access. And it\u2019s unclear what, if anything, will happen to the report that was planned for 2027 or 2028, which already existed in\u00a0draft form<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The EPA\u2019s Lee Zeldin Is Unleashing a Chemical Nightmare<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0by Kate Aronoff\u00a0<\/strong>at The New Republic.\u00a0EPA\u00a0chief Lee Zeldin\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0Thursday\u00a0an effort to \u201ccompile everything we know about contrails and geoengineering\u201d and release it to the public. Contrails are cloud-like trails of condensation left behind by aircraft, known as \u201cchemtrails\u201d to those who believe they\u2019re signs of the government clandestinely drugging the population with dangerous chemicals for the purposes of population control.\u00a0\u00a0Zeldin is\u00a0giving chemtrail theorists more credence than they\u2019ve enjoyed in previous administrations,\u00a0<\/strong>and arguably elevating some crackpot theories as legitimate lines of inquiry. But the resources EPA links to largely\u00a0debunk<\/a>\u00a0the fringe theories. The real scandal isn\u2019t that Zeldin is talking about chemtrails, or even that the EPA seems to have devoted some amount of state resources to disproving the more conspiratorial beliefs of the MAGA coalition. Out in the open, Zeldin\u2019s EPA has been dismantling protections against precisely the sorts of dangers that right-wingers warn are coming from alleged deep-state conspiracies:\u00a0<\/strong>toxic, cancer-causing chemicals that corporations have lobbied to freely inject into our air, water, food, and bodies. For instance, the EPA\u00a0withdrew<\/a>\u00a0a Biden-era proposal that would require plastics produced by Chevron and other major Republican donors to be free of 18 chemical contaminants.<\/p>\n

NEPA: The Accepted Lies and Mistakes About This Critical Environmental Law<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0by Alejandro E. Camacho<\/strong> and Robert L. Glicksman<\/strong> at The Revelator.\u00a0In 2020, Trump 1.0\u00a0adopted the first significant\u00a0revisions<\/a>\u00a0to the regulations of the Council on Environmental Quality that govern agency compliance with National Environmental Protection Act\u00a0since their initial adoption in 1978. These revisions sharply scaled back opportunities for public input, completely contrary to Congress\u2019 intent when it enacted NEPA in 1969. President Biden\u00a0restored the pre-2020 status quo<\/a>\u00a0while retaining some of the streamlining the critics desired. But\u00a0Trump 2.0\u00a0 seeks a more permanent, more radical, and more dangerous solution. CEQ is trying to\u00a0repeal in their entirety<\/a>\u00a0the regulations that have governed NEPA for more than\u00a045 years. This would leave individual agencies free to adopt their own, disparate versions of NEPA review, with attendant inconsistencies and uncertainties. The Trump administration has also introduced what it calls \u201calternative NEPA procedures<\/a>\u201d that ludicrously reduce project timelines, even for major projects, from what would normally require a couple of years to evaluate carefully to as little as two weeks.<\/p>\n

Trump Administration Sets Stage for Attack on National Monuments<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0by\u00a0Morgan Sjogren<\/strong> at Sierra magazine. When it comes to monuments, no decisive actions have been taken in the wake of the Department of Justice opinion saying a president can abolish or shrink national monuments. John Leshy, who served as an Interior official in both the Carter and Clinton administrations, thinks this is because of public support for monuments. “I think they’re hesitating, frankly, because all the opinion polls show that monuments and protecting public lands are incredibly popular practically everywhere across the board,\u201d Leshy said. \u201cSo, I think that makes them a bit nervous.” The bipartisan support for national monuments is incredibly strong: 89 percent of Western voters support<\/a>\u00a0maintaining existing monument designations. In Utah, over 70 percent of voters support continuing to protect Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument<\/a>. “Americans more broadly care so deeply about the fate of their federal lands and have a deep and abiding love and appreciation for national monuments,\u201d Bloch, who is also the legal director for SUWA, said. \u201cNo surprise that in Utah, four of our five national parks were born from national monuments. As national monuments, nobody looks back on those designations as a bad idea.”<\/p>\n

\"Looking
\nLooking down at the Colorado River, Lees Ferry, and the Paria River.<\/p>\n

Colorado River users come to their senses<\/strong><\/a>?\u00a0by Jonathan P. Thompson<\/strong> at The Land Desk.\u00a0After years of bickering, wrangling, fighting, and digging in their heels, representatives of the seven Colorado River Basin states may have finally agreed on a \u201crevolutionary\u201d way to split up the river\u2019s waters: They\u2019re going to base it on how much water is actually in the river at any given time. So, apparently, in this world, \u201crevolutionary\u201d is a synonym for the most common sense, obvious, and, really, necessary way to do things. […]\u00a0While this may be the closest the states have come to reaching some sort of consensus on how to run the River beyond 2026, it seems as if there is still many sticky details to work out. How are they going to agree on a fixed percentage? What will the minimum release be? And how will that fly with the Upper Basin during years such as 2002, when the natural flow at Lees Ferry was a mere 5.8 million acre-feet? Time\u2019s running out.<\/p>\n

OTHER GREEN STUFF<\/p>\n

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