Pollution | Environment.org

The mood was grim at a town hall meeting called by the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday. The gathering came one day after The New York Times reported a bombshell — Lee Zeldin, the agency’s administrator, plans to dismantle its Office of Research and Development, eliminating 50 to 75 percent of its 1,500 or so chemists, toxicologists, biologists, and other experts. The department, which conducts essential research to inform federal policies, plays a critical role in the agency’s mission to safeguard public health and the environment. Laying off most of its staff, many of whom are career scientists, would leave the EPA without the independent and rigorous science needed to develop effective regulations. No one consulted the office’s leaders about the plan.

Maureen Gwinn, who leads the Office of Research and Development, or ORD, is not a political appointee, and …

A greener Ramadan: How Atlanta-area mosques are cutting food waste during the Muslim holy month

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One evening in early March, Nina Ansari frowns as she picks up an untouched plate of rice left on the floor of the masjid she attends near her home in Stone Mountain. “Would anyone like to take this?” she asks a group of women standing nearby. When no one responds, she picks it up. Her hands are already full of the pizza and curry leftovers that her kids didn’t finish. If she doesn’t take the rice home, it will be thrown out. “There’s a lot of waste that happens during Ramadan,” says Nina, 38, who grew up in Georgia.

During the Muslim holy month — a time of spiritual rejuvenation through increased prayer and daylight fasting — masjids may serve hundreds of visitors for iftar, the sunset meal that marks the breaking of the fast. Some also serve a meal …

The wildlife all around us is doing fascinating things. Are you noticing?

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The vision

“Yes, plants and animals face daunting threats on our warming, crowded planet, particularly in a society that seems increasingly disconnected from the natural world. But unlike most global challenges, this one can be addressed — in part, at least — right on our very doorsteps.”

— Biologist and author Thor Hanson, in Close to Home

The spotlight

I love watching my dog. I could sit and admire him all day — because I love him, and I find him very cute and very funny. Paying attention to him brings me joy, but it also serves a purpose. It helps me notice if he’s acting strangely, if he needs something from me, if he’s about to snarf something he shouldn’t. It makes me a better caregiver.

Seldom do I extend this kind of focus to creatures (or plants for …

‘It’s all been scrapped’: Bootcamps for women in wildland firefighting canceled after DEI cuts

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While Mikaela Balkind was working on her degree at the University of Washington in 2018, she was looking for a way to bridge her two interests in natural resource management and climate science. So when she came across a friend’s Instagram post about a women in wildland firefighting bootcamp, she thought to herself, “Wow, this is perfect.”

Over two weekends in Vale, Oregon, she learned skills like how to dig a fire line and use different tools and equipment during a fire deployment, all part of training she would need for a red card, the main certification a wildland firefighter needs to work.

But the bootcamp offered something else, too — a less intimidating entry point into the male-dominated field where approximately 13 percent of firefighters are women.

“It’s just sometimes easier to take that first step when you feel …

How Trump’s trade war could impact US electricity prices — and state climate plans

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On Tuesday, President Donald Trump initiated a trade war with Canada and Mexico, America’s two largest trading partners. Following through on weeks of threats, he imposed 25 percent tariffs on imported goods from Mexico and Canada and a lower 10 percent tariff on imports of Canadian energy resources.

Canada and Mexico’s leaders quickly struck back. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau unveiled an immediate 25 percent tariff on $ 20.5 billion worth of goods from the United States and promised to extend the tax to another $ 85 billion in products in late March. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced she also planned to unveil retaliatory tariffs this coming Sunday.

Trump’s tariffs, which are widely expected to raise prices for U.S. consumers, are also poised to upend the American electricity market. All U.S. power grids except for Texas’ have some level of …

America’s avocado obsession is destroying Mexico’s forests. Is there a fix?

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Avocados are entrenched in American cuisine. The rich, creamy fruit, swaddled in a coarse skin, is often smashed into guacamole, slathered on toast, or minced into salads.

The nation’s demand for Persea americana has surged by 600 percent since 1998. Most of the avocados consumed in the U.S., and many of those eaten elsewhere in the world, are a single variety grown in Michoacán, a state in west-central Mexico with an immensely profitable export industry worth at least $ 2 billion annually. But this “green gold rush” has come at a steep climatic cost, as vast tracts of protected land are razed for orchards.

“We are losing the forest,” said Alejandro Méndez López, who has been the secretary of environment in Michoacán since 2022. Every year, up to 24,700 acres are illegally cleared for avocado production. “The main …

What climate change means for bird flu — and the soaring price of eggs

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Buying eggs at the grocery store has become a major headache for U.S. consumers, with the average price of a dozen large eggs in a typical American city reaching $ 4.95 last month. Since the start of 2020, the cost of eggs has increased by nearly 240 percent, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Recently, acquiring eggs has become a game of luck — as shoppers find barren cooler cases and limits on how many cartons they can buy at the grocery store. The kitchen staple has gotten so hard to come by that thieves stole 100,000 eggs — worth $ 40,000 — off of a distribution trailer in Pennsylvania earlier this month.

President Donald Trump ran his reelection campaign on, among other things, a promise to bring down the cost of groceries. But in …

Republicans once embraced ‘green banks.’ Trump is trying to raid them.

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Lee Zeldin, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, announced last week that he had uncovered evidence of a massive fraud perpetrated by the Biden administration. In a video posted to social media, the former Republican congressman from New York said that Biden’s EPA had “parked” roughly $ 20 billion at a private bank, “rushing to get billions of your tax dollars out the door before Inauguration Day.”

The Biden administration’s plan, Zeldin said, was for the bank to distribute the money to a handful of nonprofits, which would then send it out to “NGOs and others” for climate-related spending. But he vowed to stop that plan. “The days of irresponsibly shoveling boatloads of cash to far-left activist groups in the name of environmental justice and climate equity are over,” he said.

But the scheme Zeldin described is not …

Environment.org

Category: Pollution

‘Caught off guard’: EPA proposes to fire hundreds of scientists

A greener Ramadan: How Atlanta-area mosques are cutting food waste during the Muslim holy month

The wildlife all around us is doing fascinating things. Are you noticing?

The vision

The spotlight

‘It’s all been scrapped’: Bootcamps for women in wildland firefighting canceled after DEI cuts

How Trump’s trade war could impact US electricity prices — and state climate plans

America’s avocado obsession is destroying Mexico’s forests. Is there a fix?

What climate change means for bird flu — and the soaring price of eggs

Republicans once embraced ‘green banks.’ Trump is trying to raid them.