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 - Spotlight On World Water Day

One In Four Children Will Live With Water Scarcity By 2050

Within two decades, 600 million children will be in regions enduring extreme water stress, with a great deal of competition for the available supply. The poorest and most disadvantaged will suffer most, according to research published by the children’s agency, Unicef, to mark World Water Day on Wednesday. - The Guardian

Five Water Warriors Defending Rights From North Dakota to Chile

Activists and environmentalists lead the struggle to protect water sources across the planet, from the top of the continents of the Americas in Alaska all the way down to Argentina. Often, their activism is dangerous work. Resistance movements against unwanted hydroelectric dam projects, in particular, have seen a violent crackdown, with more than 40 activists killed in recent years in Mexico, Central America and Colombia, according to GeoComunes. - TeleSur

The Business of Wastewater

On this year's World Water Day, the UN has called for much more wastewater to be treated and recycled. The organization also emphasized that wastewater is an "essential component of a circular economy." - Deutsche Welle

Water Wars? Experts Urge Rethink of Our Relationship With Water

The United Nations has already warned that water shortages will hit a record high in 2030, while some experts caution that water — arguably human beings' most valuable resource after air — could become the next commodity over which communities and nations will wage bitter fights, and even start wars. While climate change and global warming are some of the main causes behind deepening water problems, other less discussed factors are also playing a major part in the crisis, with the main issue being mismanagement and extraction of underground water sources. - TeleSur

Farm Policy In Age of Climate Change Creating Another Dust Bowl

Over the past decade, farmers in the Great Southern Plains have suffered the worst drought conditions since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. They've battled heat, dust storms and in recent weeks, fires that devoured more than 900,000 acres and killed thousands of cattle.These extreme conditions are being fueled by climate change. But a new report from an environmental advocacy group says they're also being driven by federal crop insurance policy that encourages farmers to continue planting crops on compromised land, year after year. - InsideClimate News

Today's Top 5 Trending: Latin American Environmentalists, Schools and Lead, Climate Politics, Scotland Closes Last Coal-Fired Power Plant

For Latin American Environmentalists, Death is a Constant Companion

Two-thirds of environmentalists who died violently around the world since 2002 lost their lives in that region. For the five years ending in 2014, more than 450 were killed, according to an international network of conservationist groups. Over half were in Honduras and Brazil. - Washington post

Schools Nationwide Still Grapple With Lead in Water 

This winter’s crisis in Flint, Mich., has cast new attention on lead in water supplies. But problems with lead in school water supplies have dragged on for years — aggravated by ancient buildings and plumbing, prolonged by official neglect and tight budgets, and enabled by a gaping loophole in federal rules that largely exempts schools from responsibility for the purity of their water. - New York Times

Where Do The Remaining Presidential Candidates Stand On Climate Change?

We are now officially through half of the United States Presidential election primary and caucus season, and there are currently 5 contenders left in the Republican and Democratic parties vying for their party’s respective nomination. Delegate math shows that Governor John Kasich has no chance to become the Republican nominee, so we’re left with four real candidates to examine. - De Smog Blog

Climate Change May Be a Burning Issue, But Election Campaign Tells a Different Story

While Alaska is clearly on the melting edge of climate change, this fundamental shift barely registered in the Republican caucus held earlier in March and won by Ted Cruz. Even though Democratic candidates have been more willing to discuss climate change, the topic wasn't front and centre ahead of Saturday’s caucus. - The Guardian

Scotland Closes Last Coal-Fired Power Plant

Scotland may be home to golf, haggis, and Sean Connery — but it’s no longer hospitable to coal. On March 24, Scottish Power shut down Longanett power station, its last standing coal-fired power plant. - Grist

Today's Top 5 Trending

The Crisis Within: How Toxic Stress and Trauma Endanger Children

It has long been known that growing up in impoverished and dangerous neighborhoods dims life prospects. But now a commanding body of medical research presents a disturbing, biological picture of why. It suggests that the stress itself — if left unchecked — is physically toxic to child development and health. - St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Colombian Court Bans Oil, Gas and Mining Operations in the Paramos

Colombia’s Constitutional Court has ruled against a controversial legal loophole permitting oil, gas and mining operations in the country’s paramos - high altitude eco-systems. Colombia’s paramos are the most extensive on earth and supply more than 70% of the country’s population with water, according to the Bogota-based Alexander von Humboldt Institute. - The Guardian

Scientists Urge American Geophysical Union to Cut Ties With Exxon

A letter from more than 100 researchers calls on the AGU to drop the oil giant as a sponsor of its annual earth science conference, the largest of its kind. - InsideClimate News

Ocean Acidification Expected to Cause Skeletal Deformities in 50 Percent of Juvenile Corals

Tiny juvenile corals face skeletal deformities as ocean acidification gets worse. New research shows that as more atmospheric carbon dioxide is absorbed in the ocean, corals develop deformed and porous exoskeletons, which does not provide the support required for a long and fruitful life. - International Business Times

Efficacy of Compensation for Nuclear Workers Program Under Scrutiny

An investigation by the McClatchy DC news service found that fewer than half of the people who have applied for benefits have received them, and workers’ complaints are often suspended in the complex process of paperwork or court hearings, with some claims languishing in the system for up to 10 years. A new documentary coming out in March, titled Safe Side of the Fence, questions why side-by-side workers with similar ailments would receive different judgments from the Department of Labor on the validity of their claims. - Santa Fe New Mexican

Today's Top 5 Trending

"In Alaska, Obama Will Be in Middle of Oil and Climate Change Battle"

As Mr. Obama comes north for what the White House has described as an examination of the effects of climate change, Alaska is battling over oil — its chief source of revenue — and the thorny implications of drilling.  -- The New York Times

"Even the Bottom of the Grand Canyon is Now Contaminated"

Fish and other creatures in remote stretches of the Colorado River are contaminated with levels of mercury and selenium known to harm wildlife. -- National Geographic News

"Colombia to End Glyphosate Coca Farm Spraying"

After nearly 20 years of international and local pressure, Colombia may finally stop spraying suspected carcinogens on its own population. -- Newsweek

"Judge Throws Major Obama Water Rule Into Doubt"

The legal and practical morass surrounding the Obama administration's controversial water rule just got more muddied yesterday. -- Greenwire

"China To Relocate Almost 1000 Chemical Plants in Wake of Tianjin Blasts"

Industry minister, Miao Wei, says local government and companies involved would have to subsidize plans made to help improve pollution levels. -- The Guardian