Trump Rule Would Exclude Climate Change in Infrastructure Planning

WASHINGTON — Federal agencies would no longer have to take climate change into account when they assess the environmental impacts of highways, pipelines and other major infrastructure projects, according to a Trump administration plan that would weaken the nation’s benchmark environmental law.

Sections of unused pipe, intended for the Keystone
 XL project, near Gascoyne, N.D., in 2014

The proposed changes to the 50-year-old National Environmental Policy Act could sharply reduce obstacles to the Keystone XL oil pipeline and other fossil fuel projects that have been stymied when courts ruled that the Trump administration did not properly consider climate change when analyzing the environmental effects of the projects.

According to one government official who has seen the proposed regulation but was not authorized to speak about it publicly, the administration will also narrow the range of projects that require environmental review. That could make it likely that more projects will sail through the approval process without having to disclose plans to do things like discharge waste, cut trees or increase air pollution.

Read the story from The New York Times by Lisa Friedman - “Trump Rule Would Exclude Climate Change in Infrastructure Planning.”

Twitchers say $375m road's 80,000 cars a day will be bad news for birds

They come from Siberia to enjoy a slice of Australian bush wedged between housing estates and highways in the suburban sprawl of south-east Melbourne.

Twitchers say Braeside Park's unique birdlife is under threat.

The sharp-tailed sandpiper – an unassuming, small, brown bird – makes the long flight to feast on worms and insects during the warmer months on the grassy banks of the Braeside Park shallows.

They are among nearly 200 species to be found in the park – 296 hectares of woods and grassland where, if you can’t see the birds, it is quiet enough to hear them.

But bird watchers, conservationists and residents warn the planned Mordialloc Freeway will threaten the area and the animals that call it home.

Read the story by Timna Jacks from The Age - “Twitchers say $375m road's 80,000 cars a day will be bad news for birds.”

90 Companies Helped Cause the Climate Crisis—They Should Pay for It

Pacific Northwest forests are on fire. Several blazes are out of control, threatening rural towns, jumping rivers and highways, and covering Portland, Oregon, Seattle, and other cities in smoke and falling ash. Temperatures this summer are an average of 3.6 degrees higher than the last half of the 20th century, according to the University of Washington Climate Impacts Group analysis published in The Seattle Times.

Firefighters attempt to save the Casa Loma fire
 station in the Santa Cruz Mountains near Loma
Prieta, California on September 27, 2016.

Fire crews have been battling fires for months. In spite of all the effort, though, officials expect the fires to continue burning until major rains come sometime this fall. Meanwhile, firefighting coffers are running dry as costs run into the hundreds of millions.

Read the Yes! magazine story by Sarah Van Gelder - “90 Companies Helped Cause the Climate Crisis—They Should Pay for It.”