Other writing

Even as the European Union rolls out aggressive plans for reducing plastic waste, countries are importing cheap ethane gas to fuel their plastics industries.

The accession of Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court cements a conservative majority that is likely to give polluting industries freer rein, limit the ability of citizens to sue, and call into question the very basis of the EPA to issue and enforce regulations.

FIFTY YEARS AGO, a group of Democratic and Republican senators spent months working together to tackle a danger they all agreed was harming Americans’ health and lives. The bill they produced won unanimous Senate approval.

Ocean justice, as Ayana Elizabeth Johnson describes it, is where ocean conservation and issues of social equity meet: Who suffers most from flooding and pollution, and who benefits from conservation measures?

As wildfires and storms raged, and even the Arctic broiled and burned, scientists’ dire climate warnings came to life in frighteningly vivid fashion in 2020. With political leaders and the public preoccupied by COVID-19, the world careened closer to the brink of environmental catastrophe.

Oil and gas giants, mining interests, and coal-fired power plants have all received financial and regulatory relief as governments around the world enact pandemic recovery plans. These moves threaten to create a dirty, high-carbon legacy that long outlasts the current crisis.