Today's Top 5 Trending: Honduras Activists, Coal Exec Sentenced, Antarctic Ice Sheet Predictions, Coral Die-Offs, Flint Lawsuit

Why Is Honduras the World's Deadliest Country for Environmental Activists? 

My story today on the environmental as an important battleground for human rights, and why Honduras has become so dangerous for indigenous and environmental activists. - The Guardian

Coal Exec Gets Maximum Sentence in West Virginia Mining Disaster

Former Massey Energy Co. CEO Don Blankenship, who rose from humble beginnings in Mingo County to become the wealthy and powerful chief executive of one of the region’s largest coal producers, will serve one year in prison and pay a $250,000 fine for a mine safety criminal conspiracy, a judge decided Wednesday. - Charleston Gazette

Antarctica in the Year 2500

A new scientific study predicts varying scenarios in which climate change could cause the West Antarctic ice sheet to melt in the coming decades and centuries. If greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced significantly, seas around the world could rise to potentially catastrophic levels before 2100. This graphic shows what could happen by 2500. - Los Angeles Times

Scientists Blame El Nino, Warming for 'Gruesome' Coral Death

Kiritimati is where El Nino, along with global warming, has done the most damage to corals in the past two years, experts said. While dramatic images of unprecedented total bleaching on Australia's Great Barrier Reef are stunning the world, thousands of miles to the east conditions are somehow even worse. - Associated Press

Michigan Claims Immunity in Flint Class Action Lawsuit

Attorneys for the state and Gov. Rick Snyder are asking a judge to dismiss one of several class action lawsuits filed on behalf of Flint residents over the city’s ongoing water contamination crisis, claiming immunity in federal court. A motion filed Monday with U.S. District Judge John Corbett O’Meara argues the federal court does not have jurisdiction to hear the case and that plaintiff claims against Snyder are “not viable.” - Detroit News

Today's Top 5 Trending: Australia Clean Energy, Environment and Conflict, Trump Denies Climate, Environmental Justice, Africa's Drought

Australia Announces $1 Bn Clean Energy Fund, In Break With Past

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Wednesday said the country would establish a A$1 billion ($761.60 million) clean-energy innovation fund, in a major departure from his predecessor's much maligned approach to combating climate change. - Reuters

How Exploiting the Earth Can Fuel Violent Conflict

At the end of May, the U.N. Environment Assembly will convene for the second time ever in Nairobi, Kenya, to discuss the United Nations’ sustainable development goals and the environmental challenges facing today’s world. And it looks like one major theme to be addressed — one that’s a growing concern among world leaders and activists — is the link between violent conflict and an increasingly over-exploited natural world. - Washington Post

Trump Denies Climate Change Poses Serious Threat

Republican presidential candidates haven't exactly set a high bar for their understanding of climate science during the 2016 race so far. However, front-runner Donald Trump wins the prize for the most confounding denial of global warming expressed by a major party's presidential candidate to date. - Mashable

North Carolina Groups Say People of Color Bear Brunt of Hog Factory Farms

All eyes have been on the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, but it is by no means the only city where the poorest residents face environmental damage and lax government oversight. Further to the South, in rural North Carolina, another, less-known battle is taking shape. This crisis involves the lasting impact of pollution from large concentrated animal feeding operations housing pigs. Now a group of citizens is claiming that the state’s $3 billion pork industry is disposing of its waste in a manner that disproportionately and negatively affects residents of color, and that the negotiating efforts are being stalled by the pork industry. - Civil Eats

Why Is Nobody Talking About Africa's Drought? 

Millions in parts of eastern and southern Africa are facing the worst drought in three decades. Only 15 percent of the $155 million needed for relief aid has been funded to date. - Christian Science Monitor

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El Niño Causing Global Food Crisis, UN Warns

Severe droughts and floods triggered by one of the strongest El Niño weather events ever recorded have left nearly 100 million people in southern Africa, Asia and Latin America facing food and water shortages and vulnerable to diseases including Zika, UN bodies, international aid agencies and governments have said. - The Guardian

Pacific Nations Desperate for Climate Action

New Zealand climate scientists have echoed desperate cries from small Pacific nations in the firing line of rising seas. Representatives from 17 Pacific states, including Kiribati President Anote Tong, have been meeting leaders and experts in Wellington this week as part of Victoria University's Pacific Climate Change Conference. - New Zealand Herald

Global Warming in Overdrive: Hottest January Ever Recorded

January was the globe's most unusually warm month ever recorded, and the past three months have been the most unusually warm three-month period on record as well, according to new findings from NASA. - Mashable

Experts Call On Feds to Re-Evaluate World's Most Heavily Used Herbicide

U.S. and European health officials need to take a fresh look at assumptions about the safety and health impacts of glyphosate herbicides, according to a group of health scientists worried about the chemicals’ explosive worldwide growth. - Environmental Health News

Six Things I Would Ask Presidential Candidates About Food and Farming 

Slow-motion ecological crises haunt the country's main farming regions, and diet-related maladies generate massive burdens on the US health care system. Over the next three frantic weeks—with five debates and more than two dozen primaries—the two major-party candidates may well emerge. If Tom Philpott were a debate moderator or a reporter on the trail, here are some questions he would ask them. - Mother Jones

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State Air Board Criticizes Southern California Smog Regulators Over Adoption of Industry-Backed Rules

The state Air Resources Board has criticized Southern California smog regulators for adopting industry-backed regulations to control emissions from the region's largest facilities, saying they may violate state law and will harm people's health. - Los Angeles Times

Battle Over Dominion Coal-Ash Ponds Heads to State Water Board This Week

After months of contentious debate, a state regulatory board will decide this week whether to allow Dominion Virginia Power to divert water from coal-ash ponds into a nearby creek after treating that water to remove pollutants. - Washington Post

Company Behind Methane Leak Is Ordered to Offset the Climate Damage

California Gov. Jerry Brown ordered Southern California Gas Co. to pay for a mitigation program to offset damage to the world's climate from a massive methane leak at an underground natural gas storage facility in Los Angeles. - InsideClimate News

El Niño Heat Peaks, But Impacts Still to Come

It looks like this El Niño — which will rank among the strongest on record — has passed its peak in terms of tropical ocean temperatures, but it’s not going away anytime soon. In fact, the biggest El Niño impacts on the U.S., like rain and snow for California, are probably still to come. - Climate Central

'Flaring' Wastes 3.5% of World's Natural Gas

The United States has the greatest number of flares, but Russia leads the world in the total volume of flared natural gas. In 2012, the 143 billion cubic metres of gas flared led to the emission of more than 350 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, around 10% of the annual emissions of European Union member states. - Nature