Today's Top 5

Trump Moves Decisively to Wipe Out Obama's Climate Legacy

President Trump will take the most significant step yet in obliterating his predecessor’s environmental record Tuesday, instructing federal regulators to rewrite key rules curbing U.S. carbon emissions. The sweeping executive order also seeks to lift a moratorium on federal coal leasing and remove the requirement that federal officials consider the impact of climate change when making decisions. The order sends an unmistakable signal that just as President Barack Obama sought to weave climate considerations into every aspect of the federal government, Trump is hoping to rip that approach out by its roots. - Washington Post

When Is It Time To Retreat From Climate Change?

While managed retreat is not always the right choice for communities threatened by climate change,  it may be the right choice more often than we’re willing to admit. Well more than a hundred million people are expected to face displacement by rising seas before the end of the century. - The New Yorker

Lamar Smith, Unbound, Lays Out Political Strategy at Climate Doubters Conference

Representative Lamar Smith (R–TX) rarely expresses his true feelings in public. But speaking yesterday to a like-minded crowd of climate change doubters and skeptics, the chairman of the science committee in the U.S. House of Representatives acknowledged that the committee is now a tool to advance his political agenda rather than a forum to examine important issues facing the U.S. research community. - Science

Villagers Vote To Ban Massive Gold Mining Project in Colombia

 Residents of a town in central Colombia sent a clear message on Sunday to the powers that be that they don’t want a large-scale mining operation in their backyard. In an almost unanimous vote of 6,165 of 6,296 voters (about 98 percent), inhabitants of the Colombian municipality of Cajamarca voted against one of the world’s largest planned gold mines. Dubbed La Colosa, the open-pit mine is a project of world’s third largest gold producer, AngloGold Ashanti. - Mongabay

Deal Ups Flow of Funding For Flint Water Fallout

Michigan will spend an additional $47 million to help ensure safe drinking water in Flint by replacing lead pipes and providing free bottled water under a proposed settlement announced Monday. The money is in addition to $40 million previously budgeted to address Flint’s widespread lead-contamination crisis. The state also will set aside $10 million to cover unexpected costs, bringing the total to $97 million. - The Detroit News

Today's Top 5

Trump to Sign Executive Order Undoing Obama's Clean Power Plan

Donald Trump will on Tuesday sign an executive order to unravel Barack Obama’s plan to curb global warming, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency said on Sunday, claiming the move would be “pro-growth and pro-environment”. - The Guardian

Trump Megadonors Also Back Group That Casts Doubt On Climate Science

The Mercers’ attendance at the two-day Heartland conference offered a telling sign of the low-profile family’s priorities: With Trump in office, the influential financiers appear intent on putting muscle behind the fight to roll back environmental regulations, a central focus of the new administration. - Washington Post

Drought and War Heighten Threat of Not Just One Famine, But Four

For the first time since anyone can remember, there is a very real possibility of four famines — in Somalia, South Sudan, Nigeria and Yemen — breaking out at once, endangering more than 20 million lives. International aid officials say they are facing one of the biggest humanitarian disasters since World War II. And they are determined not to repeat the mistakes of the past. - The New York Times

'Human Fingerprint' Found on Global Extreme Weather

The fingerprint of human-caused climate change has been found on heatwaves, droughts and floods across the world, according to scientists. The discovery indicates that the impacts of global warming are already being felt by society and adds further urgency to the need to cut carbon emissions. A key factor is the fast-melting Arctic, which is now strongly linked to extreme weather across Europe, Asia and north America. - The Guardian

In California, Salt Taints Soil, Threatening Food Security

In much of California’s flat, sunny San Joaquin Valley, canals deliver the irrigation water that has made the state an agricultural powerhouse, supplying one-third of vegetables and two-thirds of fruit and nuts eaten in the United States. But along the west side of the valley, some fields are sprouting not crops, but solar panels. The water that made this agricultural land productive also spelled its doom. Because most water contains salt, irrigating adds salt to soil over time, especially in arid and semi-arid places with little rainfall and poor drainage. - Environmental Health News

Today's Top 5

Biologists Say Half the World's Species Could Be Extinct By End of Century

One in five species on Earth now faces extinction, and that will rise to 50% by the end of the century unless urgent action is taken. That is the stark view of the world’s leading biologists, ecologists and economists who will gather on Monday to determine the social and economic changes needed to save the planet’s biosphere. “The living fabric of the world is slipping through our fingers without our showing much sign of caring,” say the organisers of the  Biological Extinction conference held at the Vatican this week. - The Guardian

Proposed Trump Budget Would Hike Defense Budget, Cut EPA

Trump is slated to sign documents as soon as Monday compelling the EPA to begin undoing recent regulations, including the Clean Power Plan that slashes greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation and the Waters of the U.S. rule that defined which waterways are subject to pollution regulation. - Bloomberg

Millions Without Water in Chile Capital After Floods

Rainstorms and landslides in Chile have contaminated a major river forcing the authorities to cut off drinking water to at least four million people in the capital, Santiago. Officials said the water supply from the Maipo river would be cut to most of the city until the water flowed clear. - BBC

New Jersey Lowers Childhood Blood Lead Level Benchmark to Increase Early Intervention

Lead screening and treatment requirements for New Jersey children are about to get tighter as the state establishes stricter guidelines to better care for those at risk. New Jersey adopted the most up-to-date benchmark from the federal Centers of Disease Control and Prevention to determine when and how a child should be treated for elevated levels of lead in their blood. Health experts said research now finds that even low levels can lead to developmental problems. - Press of Atlantic City

Coal Industry Casts Itself As Clean Energy Player

President Trump has questioned the science behind climate change as “a hoax” in positioning himself as a champion of coal. The three largest American coal producers are taking a different tack. Seeking to shore up their struggling industry, the coal producers are voicing greater concern about greenhouse gas emissions. Their goal is to frame a new image for coal as a contributor, not an obstacle, to a clean-energy future — an image intended to foster their legislative agenda. - New York Times

Today's Top 5

No Mention of Health in Pruitt's First Meeting With EPA Staff

Usually, new administrators at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are welcomed at headquarters without too much fanfare. That is, until today. Scott Pruitt — the new EPA administrator nominated to the position by President Donald Trump — gave his welcome address to his agency Tuesday after garnering more "no" votes on the Senate floor than any other EPA nominee since the agency was founded in 1970. - Mashable

Pruitt Questions EPA's Authority To Regulate Carbon

Scott Pruitt is questioning whether his agency is empowered to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Pruitt, whom the Senate confirmed Friday on a mostly party-line vote of 52-46, already made waves in his first hours as EPA chief. In his first interview since his nomination in December, with Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel, Pruitt said "it's a fair question" whether EPA has the "tools" to restrict carbon dioxide emissions. - E&E News

Study: Mercury in Fish, Seafood May Be Linked to Higher Risk of ALS

Many people think of fish and seafood as being healthy. However, new research suggests eating certain species that tend to have high levels of mercury may be linked to a greater risk of developing amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Questions remain about the possible impact of mercury in fish, according to a preliminary study released Monday that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 69th annual meeting in Boston in April. - CBC

Feeding the Global Lust for Leather

About 90 percent of Bangladesh’s leather is tanned in Hazaribagh. And the country’s economy depends heavily upon leather and the manufacture of leather goods — which explains in no small measure the government’s reluctance to crack down on polluters. In 2015 and 2016 Bangladesh produced about $1.5 billion in leather and leather goods, most of it exported, according to the Bangladesh Board of Investment. Leather and leather goods represent the country’s second largest export, after garments. Turmoil in Hazaribagh threatens to upend the country’s efforts to increase its tiny share of the more than $200 billion global leather market. Should that come to pass, it would be just one more step in a long journey for the tanning industry, which has spent decades hopscotching across the globe, assiduously fleeing regulation and rising labor costs, and leaving long-lasting toxic footprints at each stop. - Undark

Trump to Roll Back Obama's Water, Climate Rules Through Executive Action

President Trump is preparing executive orders aimed at curtailing Obama-era policies on climate and water pollution, according to individuals briefed on the measures. - Washington Post

Today's Top 5

Scott Pruitt Doesn't Know Power of the EPA

The President-elect’s pick to head the E.P.A., the Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, has argued before Congress that the agency “was never intended to be our nation’s frontline environmental regulator,” and that the states should have primary authority. That argument is now a favorite among conservatives. But according to Philip Angell, who became an E.P.A. special assistant in 1970, Pruitt’s interpretation ignores the history and intent of the laws that define the agency’s mission. The statutes give the E.P.A. “the primary authority to set standards and enforce them if the states won’t do it,” he told me. “The whole point was to set a federal baseline.”  - The New Yorker

Civil Rights Panel: Flint Water Crisis Linked to 'Systemic Racism'

The Flint drinking water crisis has its root causes in historical and systemic racism, the Michigan Civil Rights Commission said Friday in a hard-hitting report that calls the public health catastrophe " a complete failure of government" and recommends a rewrite of the state's emergency manager law and bias training for state officials. The report, unanimously adopted at a meeting of the commission at the Northbank Center in downtown Flint, also calls for the creation of a "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" — a model that was used in South Africa after apartheid — as a way of rebuilding government trust and credibility by listening to and addressing specific concerns raised by Flint residents. - Detroit Free Press

Climate Change Is Transforming The World's Food Supply

Climate change is poised to affect the world's food supply in three key ways, experts say. "There will be impacts on the quantity, quality and location of the food we produce," said Dr. Sam Myers, a medical doctor and senior research scientist studying environmental health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. "We've never needed to increase food production more rapidly than we do today to keep up with global demand." - Live Science.

Murray Energy CEO Claims Global Warming Is A Hoax

Murray Energy is the country's largest coal miner. Many of its mines are in Appalachia, a region that would suffer some of the biggest impacts of the rule. Murray also successfully sued to delay implementation of the Clean Power Plan, which would regulate planet-warming carbon emissions from power plants. Asked about the economic analysis behind President Barack Obama's energy regulations, Murray said, "There's no scientific analysis either. I have 4,000 scientists that tell me global warming is a hoax. The Earth has cooled for 20 years." It was not immediately clear who the 4,000 scientists Murray referenced are. - CNBC

Majority of Science Teachers Are Teaching Climate Change, But Not Always Correctly

Most public middle and high school science teachers in the United States are devoting two hours or less per course to the topic of climate change —and they are often getting the facts wrong, according to a new study published Thursday in the journal Science. While three out of four teachers are teaching the issue, only half of those instructors are correctly explaining that humans are driving climate change. An even smaller number of teachers are aware of how overwhelming the scientific consensus on the issue is. - InsideClimate News

Today's Top 5 Trending

What Will Be the Health Impact of California's Methane Leak?

One big unknown clouds the aftermath of the Los Angeles County methane disaster: the health effects for thousands of people living nearby who were exposed to the gas while it leaked for three and a half months. - InsideClimate News

As Mozambique's Rivers Dry Up, So Does Hope of a Harvest

As southern Africa grapples with devastating drought, maize fields lie empty, the soil is like sand and water must be shared between cattle and people. - The Guardian

Zika Outbreak Could Be Omen of Global Warming Threat

The global public health emergency involving deformed babies emerged in 2015, the hottest year in the historical record, with an outbreak in Brazil of a disease transmitted by heat-loving mosquitoes. Can that be a coincidence? - New York Times

Moving Beyond the Autobahn: Germany's New Bike Highways

With the recent opening of a “bike highway,” Germany is taking the lead in Europe by starting to build a network of wide, dedicated bicycle thoroughfares designed to lure increasing numbers of commuters out of their cars and onto two wheels. - Yale Environment 360

What Scalia's Death Means for Environment and Climate

Here's what Antonin Scalia's legacy on environment reveals about the importance of the next Supreme Court on the EPA Clean Power Plan and other matters. - US News and World Report