Kill Your Lawn | NYT Opinion

#killyourlawn :: Kill Your Lawn | NYT Opinion

– Seen from above, it’s not the undulating rows of square houses that make American suburbia so recognizable. It’s the wide rivers of lush, almost neon-green grass that cut through the landscape. And on long, hot summer days, the lawn is where suburban living reaches its idyllic peak.

But while the lawn may be a powerful symbol of American postwar prosperity, it’s also an ecological dead zone that’s sucking the nation’s aquifers dry.

In this video essay we argue that it’s time to kill your lawn, not just to save the planet, but for your own health and sanity too. And while the idea of euthanizing such a beloved member of the family might seem harsh, we show the alternatives that could make the loss more bearable.

BIODIVERSITY, CLIMATE, ENVIRONMENT, KILLYOURLAWN, PLANTS, WATER, NATIVE PLANTS

#environment #climate #plants #water #nativeplants #suburbia

Kill Your Lawn Season 2 Teaser

Mar 30, 2024

First Episode Airs April 24th on EarthxTCrime Pays But Botany Doesn't

Biden approves the massive Willow project – Don't Give Up!

 This morning, President Biden formally approved the Willow Master Development Project, a massive oil drilling development across federal land in Alaska’s western Arctic.

Despite his promises to stop drilling on federal lands, and against the actions of millions who urged his administration to stop Willow, President Biden decided to approve the massive oil project. The project would lock-in pollution equivalent to the emissions of 76 coal-fired power plants over the next 30 years.

The world cannot afford to develop any new fossil fuel reserves to have a chance of keeping global temperatures below the 1.5°C threshold outlined in the Paris Agreement. The Biden administration must prioritize a just transition to renewable energy, stop new fossil fuel projects, and phase-out existing fossil fuel infrastructure. 

Developing new fossil fuel projects is incompatible with a livable climate and puts communities' health and safety at risk. The Willow project will disproportionately harm the Alaska Native Village of Nuiqsut, which is already burdened by existing fossil fuel infrastructure and the impacts of climate change.

We'll keep you updated about what's next in the fight against Willow. In the meantime, here are links to a few of the responses from us and our partners that you can read and amplify:

1. This statement from the Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic (SILA)on how the approval of the Willow project abandons our climate promises.

2. This TikTok from Elise Joshi of Gen Z for Climate Change calling on people to flood President Biden's social media with outrage over the decision.

3. This reaction from the People vs. Fossil Fuels coalition to the approval of the Willow project and abandonment of Biden’s climate promises.

4. This Twitter thread from us at Oil Change International echoing frontline calls condemning Biden’s approval of the Willow project.

Thanks,

Allie Rosenbluth
U.S. Program Co-Manager
Oil Change International

Oil Change International campaigns to expose the true costs of fossil fuels and facilitate the coming transition towards clean energy. We are dedicated to identifying and overcoming barriers to that transition.

Want to support our work further? Click here to donate.
We are a 501(c)(3) organization and all donations are fully tax deductible.

NIRS Statement in Response to the Inflation Reduction Act: Climate Compromises and Sacrifices Are Not Justifiable

 On Friday, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) passed the House and is headed to President Biden’s desk to be signed into law. This bill could have been our best – and maybe our only – chance to make real progress on fighting climate change and creating a just environmental and economic future. It should've been a major success for climate policy. 

It is a deep disappointment that the IRA is not truly a climate bill and is certain to harm the very communities that most need action on climate. With the IRA, our elected leaders have chosen to side with dirty energy industries, their financiers and investors, corporate media, and political opportunists to prop up the dirty energy status quo with hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies, financing, and devil’s bargains. 

NIRS joins the many frontline and BIPOC-led organizations that have pointed out they cannot support the bill. The compromise between climate action and climate destruction in the IRA is not one we can accept. NIRS urges Congress and the White House to go back and develop a policy that truly addresses climate change and environmental injustice – including restoration and repair of the harms caused by fossil fuels and nuclear energy. 

We refuse to accept that frontline communities must be sacrificed yet again for nuclear, fossil, and other dirty energy interests. We stand in solidarity with the frontline communities and we will not stop fighting for a just, equitable, and sustainable future. 

Read our full statement on the IRA here.

Logging is destroying southern forests — and dividing US environmentalists

More than 150 conservation, environmental, and social justice organizations have accused The Nature Conservancy of "promoting false climate solutions."

Logging is destroying southern forests — and dividing US environmentalists

4 Gorillas to Save the Earth: Election Protection, No Nukes, Military Money for Solartopia, Kill King CONG

4 Gorillas to Save the Earth:

 Election Protection, No Nukes,
Military Money for Solartopia,
Kill King CONG

By Harvey Wasserman

The Greta/AOC generation is marching for our place on this planet.  

We can all turn off lights, get off plastic, go vegan, ride bikes, sail the Atlantic, demand eco-straws, solarize our homes. 

But four gorillas block our way to survival.  They demand a next step of mass action far beyond anything we can do as individuals:

1. ELECTION PROTECTION:  Big corporations have stolen our democracy When Jeb Bush ripped Florida 2000 for brother W, the corporate Democrats did nothing but rant at Ralph Nader.  But Jeb was ALWAYS going to get George exactly the votes as he needed.  Trumputin did it in 2016.  In 2020, stripped voter rolls and flipped vote counts could again steal the Electoral College.  Our Mother Earth DEMANDS universal hand-counted paper ballots, easy and open registration, fair access to the polls and much more.  This year Al Gore should shift his climate organizing to election protection—-and do it with Ralph. 

2)   NO NUKES:  Reactors are killing us all.  They (430 worldwide, 96 in the US) spew heat, radiation, and carbon.  Chernobyl killed more than a million people and cost more than a trillion dollars.  Fukushima is poisoning the Pacific.  More will explode.  Radwaste is out of control.  Fantasy designs (thorium, fusion, etc) are absurd.  All existing reactors can be replaced with cheaper, cleaner, safer, more reliable and more job-producing solar, wind, batteries, and LED/efficiency.  DO IT NOW!!…before the next one blows!

3)  MILITARY MADNESS:  America’s imperial military (Earth’s worst polluter) wastes trillions.  We need our soldiers here installing wind turbines, solar panels, batteries, efficiency/LED lighting, planting trees and hemp.  The trillions wasted on worthless weapons (war is a racket!) must instead ride us to Solartopia. 

4)  KILL KING CONG (Coal, Oil, Nukes & Gas):  WE need to own & run the fossil-nuke corporations.  The “free market” is a myth.  A handful of billionaires sucks up our cash.  Why do we bail them while they kill us and our planet?

Corporations are not human.  They care about nothing except money.  We need to control, own and reshape these industrial death machines. 

We need to tax heat, carbon, and radiation.  Plant a trillion trees and an ocean of hemp.  Fund Solartopia with the military budget.  Own/control these “too-big-to-fail/kill-us-all ” corporations.  

NOW!  

———

Harvey Wasserman’s People’s Spiral of US History:  From Deganawidah to Solartopia will soon appear at www.solartopia.org.  His Green Power & Wellness Show is podcast at prn.FM; California Solartopia airs at 90.7FM-KPFK/Pacifica, Los Angeles.  

Unprecedented New Map Unveils Illegal Mining Destroying Amazon

The illegal La Pampa gold mine, seen here in 2017, has devastated the Peruvian Amazon and spread poisonous mercury.

A first-of-its-kind map has unveiled widespread environmental damage and contamination of the Amazon rainforest caused by the rise illegal mining. 

The survey, released Monday by the Amazon Socio-Environmental Geo-Referenced Information Project (RAISG), identifies at least 2,312 sites and 245 areas of prospecting or extraction of minerals such as gold, diamonds and coltan in six Amazonian countries—Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela. It also identified 30 rivers affected by mining and related activities.

more: Unprecedented New Map Unveils Illegal Mining Destroying Amazon

#COP24 :: Civil society rises up as fossil fuel companies and climate deniers block progress at COP24 Katowice climate talks - Friends of the Earth International

Katowice, Poland, 14 December 2018: As the UN climate talks go into their final hours in Katowice, progress on the ‘Paris Rulebook’ and other key decisions, like acknowledging the landmark Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 1.5 degrees report, has been terrifyingly slow. Negotiations are not on track to pass the tests of science or justice, with obstruction from key fossil fuel-pushing governments.

Sara Shaw, Climate Justice and Energy International Program Coordinator for Friends of the Earth International said:

‘We always knew this was going to be a tough conference, taking place deep in the heartlands of the Polish coal industry, with companies like Shell, Exxon and BP inside the negotiations promoting the myth that we can stop climate change without dismantling the fossil fuel industry. But it is still devastating to see countries like the US, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Kuwait destroy our chances of a safe and liveable planet by blocking progress at every juncture. It has been known for over 50 years that greenhouse gases cause climate change. Yet here we stand on the brink of catastrophe because corporate interests and fossil fuel money have infiltrated the climate talks to perpetuate the dirty energy system regardless of the cost for people and planet. The fact that Shell boasted this week of how it helped to write the Paris Agreement is only more evidence of this reality.’

more: Civil society rises up as fossil fuel companies and climate deniers block progress at COP24 Katowice climate talks - Friends of the Earth International

You Are Stealing Our Future: Greta Thunberg, 15, Condemns the World’s Inaction on Climate Change | Democracy Now!

Fifteen-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg addressed the U.N. plenary last night in Katowice, Poland, condemning global inaction in the face of catastrophic climate change.


"…Until you start focusing on what needs to be done, rather than what is politically possible, there is no hope. We cannot solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis. We need to keep the fossil fuels in the ground, and we need to focus on equity. And if solutions within the system are so impossible to find, then maybe we should change the system itself…"

transcript: You Are Stealing Our Future: Greta Thunberg, 15, Condemns the World’s Inaction on Climate Change | Democracy Now!

Why Green New Deal Advocates Must Address Militarism

(Photo: Sunrise Movement / @SunriseMvmt)

Where is the call for the New Peace Deal that would free up hundreds of billions from the overblown military budget to invest in green infrastructure?

In the spirit of a new year and a new Congress, 2019 may well be our best and last opportunity to steer our ship of state away from the twin planetary perils of environmental chaos and militarism, charting a course towards an earth-affirming 21st century.

The environmental crisis was laid bare by the sobering December report of the UN Climate panel: If the world fails to mobilize within the next 12 years on the level of a moon shot, and gear up to change our energy usage from toxic fossil, nuclear and industrial biomass fuels to the already known solutions for employing solar, wind, hydro, geothermal energy and efficiency, we will destroy all life on earth as we know it. The existential question is whether our elected officials, with the reins of power, are going to sit by helplessly as our planet experiences more devastating fires, floods, droughts, and rising seas or will they seize this moment and take monumental action as we did when the United States abolished slavery, gave women the vote, ended the great depression, and eliminated legal segregation.

Some members of Congress are already showing their historic mettle by supporting a Green New Deal. This would not only start to reverse the damage we have inflicted on our collective home, but it would create hundreds of thousands of good jobs that cannot be shipped overseas to low wage countries…

more: Why Green New Deal Advocates Must Address Militarism

#COP24 :: Tackle climate or face financial crash, say world's biggest investors

UN summit urged to end all coal burning and introduce substantial taxes on emissions

Global investors managing $32tn issued a stark warning to governments at the UN climate summit on Monday, demanding urgent cuts in carbon emissions and the phasing out of all coal burning. Without these, the world faces a financial crash several times worse than the 2008 crisis, they said.

The investors include some of the world’s biggest pension funds, insurers and asset managers and marks the largest such intervention to date. They say fossil fuel subsidies must end and substantial taxes on carbon be introduced.

Ministers arrive at the UN climate summit in Katowice, Poland, on Monday for its crucial second week, when the negotiations on turning the vision of the Paris agreement into reality reach a critical point, with finance for fighting global warming a key area of dispute.

“The long-term nature of the challenge has, in our view, met a zombie-like response by many,” said Chris Newton, of IFM Investors which manages $80bn and is one of the 415 groups that has signed the Global Investor Statement. “This is a recipe for disaster as the impacts of climate change can be sudden, severe and catastrophic…”

more: Tackle climate or face financial crash, say world's biggest investors | Environment | The Guardian

#COP24 :: Largest ever group of global investors call for more action to meet Paris targets

The group of 414 institutional investors with $31 trillion under management say governments must take serious steps to cut emissions

The 414 global investors - which represent US$31 trillion of assets-under-management - say they are deeply concerned about the “ambition gap” that exists between governments’ commitments and what is needed to limit the global temperature increase to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels.

They say that gap is increasing the physical risks from climate change and hampering investors’ ability to properly allocate trillions of dollars needed to support the much-needed transition to a low carbon economy.

They have signed a “Global Investor Statement” to be handed to world leaders this week at the COP24 - the 24th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Poland…

more: Largest ever group of global investors call for more action to meet Paris targets | Environment | The Guardian

Native Knowledge: What Ecologists Are Learning from Indigenous People - Yale E360

From Alaska to Australia, scientists are turning to the knowledge of traditional people for a deeper understanding of the natural world. What they are learning is helping them discover more about everything from melting Arctic ice, to protecting fish stocks, to controlling wildfires.

While he was interviewing Inuit elders in Alaska to find out more about their knowledge of beluga whales and how the mammals might respond to the changing Arctic, researcher Henry Huntington lost track of the conversation as the hunters suddenly switched from the subject of belugas to beavers. 

It turned out though, that the hunters were still really talking about whales. There had been an increase in beaver populations, they explained, which had reduced spawning habitat for salmon and other fish, which meant less prey for the belugas and so fewer whales.

“It was a more holistic view of the ecosystem,” said Huntington. And an important tip for whale researchers. “It would be pretty rare for someone studying belugas to be thinking about freshwater ecology.”

Around the globe, researchers are turning to what is known as Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) to fill out an understanding of the natural world. TEK is deep knowledge of a place that has been painstakingly discovered by those who have adapted to it over thousands of years. “People have relied on this detailed knowledge for their survival,” Huntington and a colleague wrote in an article on the subject. “They have literally staked their lives on its accuracy and repeatability…”

more: Native Knowledge: What Ecologists Are Learning from Indigenous People - Yale E360

Maps Give Detailed Look at Dramatic Land Use Change Over Two Decades - Yale E360

Landscape change between 1992 and 2015. White reflects little change. Darker shades reflect the greatest rate of change in each category. CREDIT: TOMASZ STEPINSKI/UC

A new map that stitches together 24 years of satellite observations provides a detailed look at striking changes in land use and widespread environmental degradation. According to the map, 22 percent of Earth’s habitable surface has been significantly altered since 1992, primarily from agricultural-driven deforestation.

“We already knew about deforestation or wetland loss or increasing urbanization,” said Tomasz Stepinski, a geographer at the University of Cincinnati and a co-author of the new map. “But now we can see exactly where all of that is happening… What makes this so depressing is that it’s examining a timescale that is shorter than our lifetime.”

The map illustrates widespread losses of wetlands in the Southeastern United States; the rapid disappearance of the Aral Sea, which “dried up in the 1990s after farmers in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan diverted its tributaries for cotton fields,” a press release explained; deforestation in the tropics; and the expansion of the Sahara Desert…

more: Maps Give Detailed Look at Dramatic Land Use Change Over Two Decades - Yale E360

climate ::: #COP24 articles at EcoWatch

UN: Nations Must Triple Action to Avoid Disastrous Climate Change

The United Nations issued a wake-up call to world leaders on Tuesday for urgent climate action.

Despite national pledges to curb planet-warming emissions, the current pace of government action is "insufficient" to limit global warming to well below 2 C this century, much less the more ambitious 1.5 C target, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) determined in its 2018 Emissions Gap Report.

5 Things to Know Before Next Week's Critical UN Climate Talks

Next week, heads of state and representatives from roughly 200 countries will descend in Katowice, Poland for the 24th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, informally known as COP24.

Trump Team Plans 'Sideshow on Coal' at UN Climate Talks

No one really expects the coal-friendly Trump administration to take significant action on climate change, but this is just trolling.

A new exclusive from Reuters claims that the president's team will "set up a side-event promoting fossil fuels" at the global climate summit this December, aka COP 24, in Katowice, Poland.

MORE: COP 24 tag at EcoWatch

Climate: A New Story | Charles Eisenstein

Flipping the script on climate change, Eisenstein makes a case for a wholesale reimagining of the framing, tactics, and goals we employ in our journey to heal from ecological destruction

With research and insight, Charles Eisenstein details how the quantification of the natural world leads to a lack of integration and our “fight” mentality. With an entire chapter unpacking the climate change denier’s point of view, he advocates for expanding our exclusive focus on carbon emissions to see the broader picture beyond our short-sighted and incomplete approach. The rivers, forests, and creatures of the natural and material world are sacred and valuable in their own right, not simply for carbon credits or preventing the extinction of one species versus another. After all, when you ask someone why they first became an environmentalist, they’re likely to point to the river they played in, the ocean they visited, the wild animals they observed, or the trees they climbed when they were a kid. This refocusing away from impending catastrophe and our inevitable doom cultivates meaningful emotional and psychological connections and provides real, actionable steps to caring for the earth. Freeing ourselves from a war mentality and seeing the bigger picture of how everything from prison reform to saving the whales can contribute to our planetary ecological health, we resist reflexive postures of solution and blame and reach toward the deep place where commitment lives.

The print version is available on Amazon or from the publisher directly. Other online booksellers, such as IndieBound carry the book as well. Or better yet, ask for it at your local bookstore.

Climate: A New Story | Charles Eisenstein

Science Says Saving the Planet Could Really Be as Simple as Saving Trees – Mother Jones

The role of forests in combating climate change risks being overlooked by the world’s governments, according to a group of scientists that has warned halting deforestation is “just as urgent” as eliminating the use of fossil fuels.

Science Says Saving the Planet Could Really Be as Simple as Saving Trees – Mother Jones

Here's how to respond to those misleading posts claiming our recent fires are all about tree huggers | President Trump is wrong about wildfire prevention (Opinion) - CNN

just a few items cobbled together...

this first one thanks to California Chaparral Institute on Facebook –

Here's how to respond to those misleading posts claiming our recent fires are all about tree huggers preventing logging and a supposed fuel build up via past fire suppression.

1. Most of California's most devastating fires were far from any forest (see map below).

2. For those few devastating fires that were near forests, all of those forests around the communities destroyed had the kind of suggested thinning and fuel treatments misinformed commentators claim didn't exist.

3. Much of the area around Paradise that burned in the Camp Fire had burned 10 years ago, had been salvage logged, and was composed of habitats other than forest (e.g. post fire shrublands). The wind-driven ember rain that destroyed the town came primarily from open grassland/post fire/mixed woodland environments northeast of the town. A large percentage of the trees within the devastated town did not burn. See the fire progression map here and match it with the current view on Google Earth:
https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/map/6250/4/90791

4. Climate change is drying the state. Dryer conditions lead to a more flammable landscape. We may see more of the kind of winds that powered the Camp Fire into Paradise. More fires will dramatically alter the kinds of habitats we are used to seeing. Non-native weed filled landscapes that dominate places like Riverside County will likely become more common. More on this issue here:
http://www.californiachaparral.com/threatstochaparral.html

It is more than discouraging when someone claims our wildfires are all about forests, dead trees, lack of logging, or unnatural fuel build up via past fire suppression. Such claims are a disservice to the families who have lost so much and hamper our efforts to solve the problem.

What is it about? Flammable homes and communities located on flammable terrain.

Please see our solutions in our letter to Governor Brown below.

Here is a well-researched article on the Woolsey Fire from the LA Times:
http://www.latimes.com/proj…/la-me-woolsey-fire-progression/

Here's how to protect your home from wildfire:
http://www.californiachaparral.com/bprotectingyourhome.html

Here's our information flyer on external sprinklers:
http://www.californiachaparral.com/…/INDEPENDENT_EXTERNAL_S…

Here's why Governor Brown and the California State Legislature failed us - they ignored the real problem:
http://www.californiachaparral.com/…/Gov_Brown_2017_Wildfir…

Here are the most devastating wildfires in California to November 17, 2018 (fire, structures burned, fatalities):

Fires 2017-2018
Camp/12,263/71 (as of 11/17/2018)*
Tubbs/ 5636/ 22
Redwood/ 546 / 9
Carr/ 1599/ 8
Atlas/ 783/ 6
Nuns/ 1355/ 3
Woolsey/500+/3 (as of 11/17/2018)
Thomas/ 1063/ 2
Ferguson/ 131/ 2
Mendocino/ 277/ 1

Previous devastating fires prior to 2017 where losses were also unrelated to forests and dead trees:
Tunnel (1991)/ 2900 /25
Cedar (2003)/ 2820/ 15
Harris (2007)/ 548/ 8
Old (2003)/ 1003/ 6
Witch Creek (2007)/ 1650/ 2
Butte (2015)/ 921/ 2
Jones (1999)/ 954/ 1
Paint (1990)/ 641/ 1

Significant forested area involved, but not seriously impacted by dead trees:
Valley (2015)/ 1955/ 4
*Camp Fire involved forest within the fire perimeter, but most of the area within/near the devastated town of Paradise was a mix of habitats.

President Trump is wrong about wildfire prevention (Opinion) - CNN

(CNN)With the shocking loss of thousands of homes and dozens of lives in the Camp and Woolsey fires in Northern and Southern California, people are looking for answers as they try to understand how a tragedy such as this can be prevented in the future.

As people struggled to evacuate, President Donald Trump in a tweet blamed the fires on poor forest management and repeated the claims before his visit to California. While Trump did not explicitly call for an expansion of logging in his latest response, he has previously touted this strategy as a way to curb fires. Meanwhile, the federal government is moving to allow commercial logging in areas such as the Los Padres National Forest outside Santa Barbara, claiming it will prevent fires. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has also blamed "environmental terrorist groups" for preventing the government from properly managing forests.

It is deeply troubling that Trump and his administration would support logging as a way to curb fires when studies have shown it's ineffective. In the most comprehensive scientific analysis conducted on the issue of forest management and fire intensity -- which looked at more than 1,500 fires on tens of millions of acres across the Western United States over three decades -- we found that forests with the fewest environmental protections and the most logging actually tend to burn much more intensely, not less.

This may seem counterintuitive, but logging leaves behind combustible twigs and branches on the forest floor, which can make fires spread faster. It also reduces the cooling shade of the forest canopy, which creates hotter and drier conditions, and the invasive weeds that take over readily burn. Denser forests buffer and reduce the winds that drive wildland fires, but this effect is largely eliminated by logging.

The fact is that Northern California's Butte County, which has been ravaged by the Camp Fire, had been heavily logged in previous years. In the area immediately to the east of Paradise, dead trees had been extensively logged and removed on both private and public lands, and commercial "thinning" operations had been conducted across large expanses of the nearby Plumas National Forest, supposedly to protect nearby towns from wild land fire…

more: President Trump is wrong about wildfire prevention (Opinion) - CNN

As California Burns, Trump and Zinke Use Catastrophe to Benefit Industry | Earthjustice

U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke wrote recently that “radical environmentalists would rather see forest and communities burn than see a logger in the woods. ” In Zinke’s zero-sum equation, the devastating wildfires in California would stop if those radical environmentalists would let the timber industry cut down more trees.

The truth is that Zinke and House Republicans are using the destruction across the West as an excuse to chip away at bedrock environmental laws created to ensure that science drives decisions about the future of our nation’s forests.

Everyone agrees that we must protect homes and lives from the catastrophic effects of fires, but Zinke’s argument is dangerously oversimplified, cynically disingenuous and downright false. And that’s not the worst part. He also proclaims that climate change has “nothing to do” with these wildfires, even as scientists and firefighting officials unanimously assert that climate change is creating the conditions that allow destructive wildfires to thrive. These types of fires will only grow in intensity and frequency if we do nothing to address climate change…

more: As California Burns, Trump and Zinke Use Catastrophe to Benefit Industry | Earthjustice

see also: 

Trump, offering no evidence, blames deadly California fires on “gross mismanagement of the forests”

Camp Fire: The Terrifying Science Behind California’s Massive Blaze | WIRED

U.S. Military Is World’s Biggest Polluter | EcoWatch

Abandoned Air Force Base in Greenland. Ken Bower

(May, 2017) Last week, mainstream media outlets gave minimal attention to the news that the U.S. Naval station in Virginia Beach had spilled an estimated 94,000 gallons of jet fuel into a nearby waterway, less than a mile from the Atlantic Ocean. 

While the incident was by no means as catastrophic as some other pipeline spills, it underscores an important yet little-known fact—that the U.S. Department of Defense is both the nation's and the world's, largest polluter.

more: U.S. Military Is World’s Biggest Polluter

IPCC climate change report calls for urgent action to phase out fossil fuels – as it happened | UN report on global warming carries life-or-death warning

UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says coal-fired electricity must end by 2050 if we are to limit global warming rises to 1.5C

• Full report: We have 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe, warns UN
• Overwhelmed by climate change? Here’s what you can do

more:  IPCC climate change report calls for urgent action to phase out fossil fuels – as it happened | Environment | The Guardian

Preventing an extra single degree of heat could make a life-or-death difference in the next few decades for multitudes of people and ecosystems on this fast-warming planet, an international panel of scientists reported Sunday. But they provide little hope the world will rise to the challenge.

UN report on global warming carries life-or-death warning | phys.org