Today's Top 5

Trump Repeal of Climate Rules Means Paris Target Now Out of Reach

The U.S. would have had to ramp up its climate ambitions to help slow global warming to the 2 degrees C goal, but under Trump, it's going in the opposite direction. - InsideClimate News

Republican Green Group Attempts to Temper Trump on Climate Change

President Donald Trump's outspoken doubts about climate change and his administration's efforts to roll back regulation to combat it have stirred a sleepy faction in U.S. politics: the Republican environmental movement. The various groups represent conservatives, Catholics and the younger generation of Republicans who, unlike Trump, not only recognize the science of climate change but want to see their party wrest the initiative from Democrats and lead efforts to combat global warming. - Reuters

Union Chief Strikes Back at 'Insanity' of Trump Budget Cuts to EPA

John O’Grady, head of the employees’ union at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, rips into the Trump administration for its budget-slashing proposal that he says is aimed at destroying the agency that safeguards the nation’s air and water. - Yale Environment 360

India Gives Ganges, Yamuna Rivers Same Rights as a Human

Two of India's most iconic rivers, considered sacred by nearly a billion Hindus in the country, have been given the status of living entities to save them from further harm caused by widespread pollution. The High Court in the northern state of Uttarakhand ruled Monday that the Ganges and the Yamuna rivers be accorded the status of living human entities, meaning that if anyone harms or pollutes either river, the law would view it as no different from harming a person. - Associated Press

We Might Soon Resurrect Extinct Species. Is It Worth the Cost? 

With enough determination, money and smarts, scientists just might revive the woolly mammoth, or some version of it, by splicing genes from ancient mammoths into Asian elephant DNA. The ultimate dream is to generate a sustainable population of mammoths that can once again roam the tundra. But here’s a sad irony to ponder: What if that dream came at the expense of today’s Asian and African elephants, whose numbers are quickly dwindling because of habitat loss and poaching? - The New York Times

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