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

It's the Golden Age of Climate Denial

This is a golden moment for the skeptic movement. Last week Scott Pruitt disputed the scientific consensus that human activity is the primary contributor to climate change.  As Oklahoma's attorney general, Pruitt initiated, signed onto, or filed briefs in 14 different lawsuits challenging the EPA's climate regulations. He once fielded a letter from one of Oklahoma's largest energy companies criticizing one of those regulations, which he tweaked a few words in, put his own letterhead on, and promptly sent to the EPA. Now he'll be in charge of regulating the environmental impact of the nation's energy companies. So now that the fringe theorists are in charge, who is left for them to convince? - Esquire

Pruitt's Office Deluged With Angry Calls After He Questions the Science of Climate Change

The calls to Pruitt’s main line reached such a high volume by Friday that agency officials created an impromptu call center, according to three agency employees. The officials asked for anonymity out of fear of retaliation. By Saturday morning calls went straight to voice mail, which was full and did not accept messages. At least two calls received the message that the line was disconnected, but that appeared to be in error. While constituents sometimes call lawmakers in large numbers to express outrage over contentious policy issues, it is unusual for Americans to target a Cabinet official. - Washington Post

Garbage Dump Landslide Kills at least 46 in Ethiopian Capital, Scores More Missing

At least 46 people have died and dozens more have been injured in a giant landslide at Ethiopia’s largest rubbish dump outside Addis Ababa, a tragedy squatters living there blamed on a biogas plant being built nearby. Dozens of homes of squatters who lived in the Koshe landfill site, on the outskirts of the capital, were flattened when the largest pile of rubbish collapsed on Saturday. Some blamed the collapse on a new biogas plant being constructed on top of the hill. - The Guardian

Scientists Race To Prevent Wipeout of World's Coral Reefs

The world has lost roughly half its coral reefs in the last 30 years. Scientists are now scrambling to ensure that at least a fraction of these unique ecosystems survives beyond the next three decades. The health of the planet depends on it: Coral reefs support a quarter of all marine species, as well as half a billion people around the world. Even if the world could halt global warming now, scientists still expect that more than 90 percent of corals will die by 2050. Without drastic intervention, we risk losing them all. - Associated Press

Engineers Hope 3D-Printed Reefs Can Slow Bleaching Crisis

Fake reefs may be less vulnerable to climate change and more durable in the changing ocean chemistry than natural reefs. Scientists are using 3D-printing technology that enables them to create fake reefs mimicking the texture and architectural structure of natural reefs in ways that haven’t been achieved in prior restoration efforts. Experimental installations of these 3D-printed reefs are now going on in the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, the Persian Gulf, and Australia. - National Geographic

Today's Top 5

Climate Scientists Face Harassment, Threats and Fears of 'McCarthyist' Attacks

Threats and badgering of climate scientists peaked after the theft and release of the “Climategate” emails – a 2009 scandal that was painfully thin on scandal. But the organized effort to pry open cracks in the overwhelming edifice of proof that humans are slowly baking the planet never went away. Scientists are now concerned that the election of Donald Trump has revitalized those who believe climate researchers are cosseted fraudsters. - The Guardian

Standing Rock Protesters Arrested, Camps Burn

Most of the Dakota Access pipeline opponents abandoned their protest camp Wednesday ahead of a government deadline to get off the federal land, and authorities moved to arrest some who defied the order in a final show of dissent. The camp has been home to demonstrators for nearly a year as they tried to thwart construction of the pipeline. Many of the protesters left peacefully, but police made some arrests two hours after the deadline. - CBS

Exxon Relents, Wipes Oil Sands Reserves From Its Books

ExxonMobil announced Wednesday that it had wiped off its books all 3.5 billion barrels of tar sands oil reserves at one of its projects in Canada. Because of recent low oil prices, the company said none of those reserves can be considered economical according to the accounting rules of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The accounting change at its Kearl project, a momentous if expected development, represented a turnaround for the company, which has long resisted calls to revise its reserves estimates. Over the past decade, Exxon had steadily increased its holdings in Canada's tar sands to become a leading producer there. - InsideClimate News

What Next For Renewables In Cities?

A complex range of factors is shaping how and why cities adopt renewable energy, from costs to the need for stable power supplies. - The Guardian

Cracking the Case of the Counterfeit Makeup

Global seizures of counterfeit perfume and cosmetics jumped 25 percent from 2011 to 2013, according to a recent report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, making them a growing sector of the $461 billion annual trade in pirated and counterfeit goods. In 2015 the Department of Homeland Security, whose purview includes customs and thus counterfeits, began Operation Plastic Beauty after helping to bust a scheme on Long Island, N.Y., to make ersatz Vaseline, ChapStick, and other personal-care products, then sell them in Chinese-made counterfeit packaging. - Bloomberg Businessweek