Today's Top 5

Exposure to Pollution Kills Millions of Children: WHO Report

Exposure to polluted environments is associated with more than one in four deaths among children younger than 5, according to two World Health Organization reports published Monday. Worldwide, 1.7 million children's deaths are attributable to environmental hazards, such as exposure to contaminated water, indoor and outdoor pollution, and other unsanitary conditions, the reports found. - Washington Post

Confidential DAPL Memo: Standing Rock Not a Disadvantaged Community Impacted By Pipeline

The Dakota Access Pipeline builder claimed that mostly white Bismarck communities along its original route would have more minorities impacted than one near tribe's reservation. - InsideClimate News

California Won't Meet Climate Goals Without Much More Dense Housing in Cities

The state has pledged to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 40% below 1990 levels by 2030. To do so, Southern Californians will have to drive nearly 12% less by that date than they did five years ago, cutting their miles on the road every day from 22.8 to 20.2, according a Los Angeles Times estimate based on data from state and regional climate and planning officials. Getting people out of their cars in favor of walking, cycling or riding mass transit will require the development of new, closely packed housing near jobs and commercial centers at a rate not seen in the United States since at least before World War II, according to a recent study by permit and contractor data analysis website BuildZoom. - LA Times

Insurance Vital, But No Magic Bullet for Drought in Africa

Last year, southern African states appealed for $2.9 billion in aid when the region was hit with its worst drought in 35 years, affecting 39 million people. Now, drought in the continent's east is pushing millions into hunger. Insurance can be triggered more quickly than international aid, which can take months to fund. ARC's cover is based on a pre-agreed plan for how the government will use the payout. - Thomson Reuters

Floating Hospitals Treat Those Affected By Rising Seas

It may sound like science fiction, but for many Bangladeshis, their only hope for treatment is on a floating hospital. And by day they may send their kids to floating schools. These are just a few of the ways they are adapting to the effects of climate change. - National Geographic

Today's Top 5

As Construction Near Standing Rock Restarts, Pipeline Fights Flare Across US

While the Standing Rock Sioux and neighboring tribes attempt to halt the project in court, other opponents of the pipeline have launched what they’re calling a “last stand,” holding protests and disruptive actions across the U.S. In North Dakota, where it all began, a few hundred people continue to live at camps on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, using them as bases for prayer and for direct actions to block construction. Last week, camps were served eviction notices from Gov. Doug Burgum and from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, demanding that they clear the biggest camp, Oceti Sakowin, by Wednesday and a smaller camp, Sacred Stone, within 10 days. - The Intercept

Border Wall Would Cleave Tribe, and Its Connection to Ancestral Land

Mr. Trump’s plan to build a 1,954-mile wall from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico will have to overcome the fury of political opponents and numerous financial, logistical and physical obstacles, like towering mountain ranges. Then there are the 62 miles belonging to the Tohono O’odham, a tribe that has survived the cleaving of its land for more than 150 years and views the president’s wall as a final indignity. A wall would not just split the tribe’s traditional lands in the United States and Mexico, members say. It would threaten an ancestral connection that has endured even as barriers, gates, cameras and Border Patrol agents have become a part of the landscape. - New York Times

Politics-Wary Scientists Wade Into Trump Fray in Boston

Many scientists view political activism as a potential taint or threat to the absolute empiricism that science strives for—or simply feel they cannot afford to take time away from their work. But several said Sunday that they believe they no longer have the luxury of remaining in their labs. Instead, participants in the Rally To Stand Up For Science said they felt compelled to speak out against the new Trump administration’s use of “alternative facts,” climate change denial and restrictions on immigrants—many of whom work in medicine and science. - Scientific American

Republicans Push Texas As Unlikely Green Energy Leader

Texas, the most Republican-dominated, oil-rich and fracking-friendly of states, has found itself with the improbable status of being a national leader in renewable wind energy. Texas has 11,592 turbines and an installed wind capacity of 20,321 megawatts, according to the American Wind Energy Association: three times as much capacity as the next state, Iowa. (California is third.) For the 12-month period ending in October last year, wind provided 12.68% of Texas’s electricity production – equivalent to powering 5.7 million homes. - The Guardian

Wet Winter Has Improved Colorado River Basin's Water Forecast, But Drought Endures

California is not the only place in the West confronting startling amounts of rain and snow. Drought conditions have declined substantially across the region in recent weeks, with heavy storms replenishing reservoirs and piling fresh powder on ski resorts.Yet there is one place where the precipitation has been particularly welcome and could be transformative: the Colorado River basin, which provides water to nearly 40 million people across seven states. - Los Angeles Times

Today's Top 5

Trump's likely science adviser calls climate scientists 'glassy-eyed cult'

The man tipped as frontrunner for the role of science adviser to Donald Trumphas described climate scientists as “a glassy-eyed cult” in the throes of a form of collective madness. William Happer, an eminent physicist at Princeton University, met with Trump last month to discuss the post and says that if he were offered the job he would take it. Happer is highly regarded in the academic community, but many would view his appointment as a further blow to the prospects of concerted international action on climate change. - The Guardian

Oroville Is a Warning for California Dams, As Climate Change Adds Stress

The threat of catastrophic flooding from the damaged Oroville Dam in Northern California this week — forcing the evacuation of nearly 200,000 people because of what environmental groups had asserted in 2005 was a design flaw — presented a warning sign for California, where a network of dams and waterways is suffering from age and stress. It also demonstrated that older dams may not be designed to deal with the severe weather patterns California has experienced because of global warming. - New York Times

Clean Energy Grows Globally, But Many of World's Poorest Are Left In the Dark

Energy access, efficiency and renewables are on the rise in many developing nations, but in places like Sub-Saharan Africa, the energy situation is still grim and hundreds of millions remain unconnected, according to a new World Bank report.  - The Daily Climate

Trump Signs Law Rolling Back Disclosure Rules For Energy and Mining Companies

President Trump signed his first piece of legislation on Tuesday, a measure that could presage the most aggressive assault on government regulations since President Reagan. The bill cancels out a Securities and Exchange Commission regulation that would have required oil and gas and mining companies to disclose in detail the payments they make to foreign governments in a bid to boost transparency in resource-rich countries. It is the first of a series of bills Congress is considering that would take advantage of the Congressional Review Act of 1996, which had been used only once before today. - Washington Post

Standing Rock Sioux Make New Court Filing To Stop Dakota Access Pipeline

The filing calls the Army Corps of Engineers' action in issuing a final easement for the pipeline “arbitrary, capricious, and contrary to law.” - Washington Post

Today's Top 5

Judge Rejects Standing Rock Request to Block Dakota Access Pipeline Drilling

A federal judge has rejected a request from indigenous tribes to block drilling of the Dakota Access pipeline, the latest blow to the Standing Rock Sioux after Donald Trump fast-tracked final permits for the last phase of construction. The tribe has argued that it’s unlawful for Trump’s administration to throw out the lengthy environmental review process that the US army corps of engineers began under Obama, which would have required close scrutiny of potential harms and consideration of alternative routes. Trump has been an investor in the pipeline operator Energy Transfer Partners, and its CEO donated to his presidential campaign. - The Guardian

Oroville Dam: Feds and State Ignored Warning 12 Years Ago

More than a decade ago, federal and state officials and some of California’s largest water agencies rejected concerns that the massive earthen spillway at Oroville Dam — at risk of collapse Sunday night and prompting the evacuation of 185,000 people — could erode during heavy winter rains and cause a catastrophe. - San Jose Mercury News

Trump Would Face Legal Battle For Dumping Climate Treaty

A complicated legal battle awaits the Trump administration if it tries to withdraw from the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, said the Congressional Research Service in a new report. The paper, released last week, examines the long-standing debate between the legislative and executive branches over the process for backing away from agreements under domestic and international law. - Greenwire

Heat Waves Scorch The Arctic, Australia, Parts of the US

For climate scientists, the relative warmth in the Arctic is arguably the most troubling. Temperatures in the far north of the planet have risen more than 20 degrees above normal on average in the past week, according to data from the Danish Meteorological Institute. Last week, the National Snow and Ice Data Center announced that the polar ice cap in January stood at a record low for the 38 years it has collected satellite data. Compared to a year earlier, which set the previous record for the smallest January ice cap, the North Pole had lost a Wyoming-sized area of ice. - InsideClimate News

Trump Administration Wants King Gold Mine Case Dismissed

The Trump administration is asking a federal court to dismiss a lawsuit by New Mexico and the Navajo Nation over a 2015 mine-waste spill caused by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The Justice Department filed a brief Monday arguing that the EPA, as a government agency, has sovereign immunity because its workers and contractors were trying to clean up the abandoned Gold King Mine when it caused the spill in Colorado. The government is continuing the same argument of the Obama administration, which concluded in January that the EPA was legally barred from paying out the $1.2 billion in claims from people, businesses, governments and others who said they were harmed by the spill. - The Hill