Today's Top 5

Glyphosate Faces Wave of Wave of Legal Challenges As Alleged Carcinogen

Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s marquee product, Roundup, is coming under fire from hundreds of legal challenges across the U.S., with individuals alleging that the herbicide is carcinogenic and linked to cases of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Whether the cases pay out for plaintiffs remains to be seen. But at the very least, they represent a big opportunity for litigators, with some thinking “glyphosate” could become a legal buzzword on par with asbestos. - St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Scientists Are Conspicuously Absent From Trump's Government

President Trump has moved to fill just one of 46 key science and technology positions that help the government counter risks ranging from chemical and biological attacks to rising seas, a Washington Post analysis has found. The vacancies in the 46 Senate-confirmed posts range from the president’s science adviser, to the administrators of NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, to the chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. - Washington Post

Cook Inlet Gas Leak Remains Unmonitored As Danger to Marine Life Is Feared

As the underwater methane leak in Cook Inlet, Alaska continues well into its third month, even basic environmental monitoring has been impossible because of ice cover. The ice also prevents any repair to the pipeline or response to the leak. While much about the natural gas pipeline leak remains unknown, including its exact location or how the methane may be affecting the inlet's endangered beluga whales, enough is known to make some environmental scientists concerned about a potential environmental disaster in the making. - InsideClimate News

The West's Throwaway Culture Has Spread Waste Worldwide

Packaging – much of it single-use food wrapping – has created a rubbish problem that now pollutes every corner of the world. Manufacturers got us into this mess, but it’s up to us to dig ourselves out – and here’s how. - The Guardian

Arctic Sea Ice Driven By Natural Swings, Not Just Mankind

Natural swings in the Arctic climate have caused up to half the precipitous losses of sea ice around the North Pole in recent decades, with the rest driven by man-made global warming, scientists said on Monday. The study indicates that an ice-free Arctic Ocean, often feared to be just years away, in one of the starkest signs of man-made global warming, could be delayed if nature swings back to a cooler mode. - Reuters

 

Today's Top 5

Dark Future Seen For Environment As Trump's EPA Begins Radical Shakeup

America’s environmental laws are undergoing the most radical shakeup since the 1970s. Rules around climate change, water pollution and vehicle fuel standards are all in the process of being redrawn. Coal, oil and gas companies are being ushered onto public land and waters. Areas of scientific research are set to be sidelined. - The Guardian

Struggling With Japan's Nuclear Waste, Six Years After Fukushima Disaster

Six years after the largest nuclear disaster in a quarter-century, Japanese officials have still not solved a basic problem: what to do with an ever-growing pile of radioactive waste. Each form of waste at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, where three reactors melted down after an earthquake and a tsunami on March 11, 2011, presents its own challenges. - The New York Times

Shell CEO Warns of Disappearing Public Patience On Carbon Emissions

Royal Dutch Shell CEO Ben van Beurden offered a fretful and grim assessment Thursday of a dangerous disconnect between his industry and the public. "I do think trust has been eroded to the point where it starts to become a serious issue for our long term future," he said at the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston. Van Beurden touted the company's work on low-carbon energy and push for carbon taxes, but emphasized that the transition of the global energy system that's now dominated by fossil fuels is a decades-long endeavor, while the public's in a different place. "Societal acceptance of the energy system as we have it is just disappearing," he said, adding Shell needs an "almost activist" approach itself on engaging with the public and policymakers on energy transition. - Axios

The US Has One Inspector For Each 5,000 Miles of Pipeline

There are 2.7 million miles of pipeline snaked across the US. Some of the pipes carry hazardous chemicals, others carry crude oil, and still others carry highly pressurized natural gas. And when it comes to safety, all of them are under the care of 528 government inspectors. That’s more than 5,000 miles of pipeline or more than twice the length of the United States, per inspector. - Quartz

EPA's Environmental Justice Head Resigns After 24 Years. He Wants To Explain Why.

The resignation of Mustafa Ali comes as the Trump administration considers layoffs and budget cuts at the EPA that, if enacted, would eliminate the environmental justice budget and cut funding to grants for pollution cleanup. Ali, a founder of the program in 1992 who has worked there since, told Mother Jones he resigned because he was concerned the administration's proposals to roll back its environmental justice work would disproportionately affect vulnerable communities. "That is something that I could not be a part of," Ali says. - Mother Jones