Tag Archives: Climate Change

Leak at First CO2 Injection Site in US Exposes Dangerous Folly of Carbon Capture

“This incident puts an exclamation point on concerns communities across the country have been raising for years about the dangers the CCS industry poses to public safety and drinking water,” said one climate group.

By Jake Johnson. Published 9-13-2024 by Common Dreams

Chevron refinery in North Salt Lake, Utah. Photo: arbyreed/flickr/CC

Environmental groups said Friday that a newly reported leak at the first CO2 injection site in the United States highlights the threat—and false promise—of carbon capture and storage efforts, which climate advocates have long criticized as a ploy by the fossil fuel industry to preserve its extractive business model.

E&E News reported Friday that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has “issued a violation notice to the operator of the country’s first carbon dioxide injection wells for permanent storage, alleging that the company hasn’t complied with its federal permit.”

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‘Astonishing’ Study Shows Infant Deaths Rise in US When Bat Populations Fall

Experts hailed the study as “groundbreaking” and “sobering” for the connections it draws between ecosystem and human health.

Mexican free-tailed bats outside Frio Cave near Concan, TX. Photo: dizfunkshinal/Wikimedia Commons/CC

By Edward Carver. Published 9-6-2024 by Common Dreams

Bat die-offs in the U.S. led to increased use of insecticides, which in turn led to greater infant mortality, according to a “seminal” study published Thursday that shows the effects of biodiversity loss on human beings.

Eyal Frank, an environmental economist at the University of Chicago, authored the study, which was published by Science, a leading peer-reviewed journal.

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‘Major Power Milestone’: US Green Groups Cheer Wind, Solar Overtaking Coal

“This historic milestone marks a significant win for clean energy advocates, for ratepayers, and for people and communities across the country,” said one climate leader.

By Jessica Corbett. Published 8-14-2024 by Common Dreams

Wind turbines in southern California Photo: Erik Wilde/Wikimedia Commons/CC

U.S. climate advocates this week are celebrating new federal data that show wind and solar have generated more power than coal during the first seven months of 2024 and are on track to do so for the entire calendar year.

“This is the kind of news we like to see!” Food & Water Watch said of the data on social media Tuesday. “Ensuring a livable climate for all depends on us making a swift and just transition to clean energy like wind and solar.”‘

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Indigenous Land Defender Named Amnesty’s First ‘Prisoner of Conscience’ in Canada

“This fight has been going on for 240 years,” said Likhts’amisyu Clan Wing Chief Dsta’hyl of the Wet’suwet’en Nation. “Now, we are all ‘prisoners of conscience’ because of what the colonizers have done to us.”

By Brett Wilkins. Published 8-1-2024 by Common Dreams

Likhts’amisyu Clan Wing Chief Dsta’hyl of the Wet’suwet’en Nation, shown here in an undated photo, has been named Amnesty International’s first-ever prisoner of conscience in Canada. (Photo: Chief Dsta’hyl’s family/Amnesty International/X)

Amnesty International on Wednesday made what it called the “unprecedented decision” to designate as Canada’s first-ever “prisoner of conscience” an Indigenous leader convicted for actions taken while defending his people’s land against a fracked gas pipeline.

Likhts’amisyu Clan Wing Chief Dsta’hyl of the Wet’suwet’en Nation was arrested in 2021 for violating a court order to not obstruct the construction of TC Energy’s Coastal GasLink liquefied natural gas (LNG) pipeline. The hereditary chief is currently under house arrest for contempt of court.

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Critics Warn Manchin-Barrasso Permitting Bill ‘Is Taken Straight From Project 2025’

“You thought Project 2025 was just a threat after the election? It’s actually happening *right now,*” said one climate campaigner.

By Brett Wilkins Published 7-26-2024 by Common Dreams

The Chevron refinery in North Salt Lake, Utah Photo: arbyreed/flickr/CC

Climate and environmental defenders on this week implored U.S. senators to block a permitting reform bill introduced this week by Sens. Joe Manchin and John Barrasso that campaigners linked to Project 2025, a conservative coalition’s agenda for a far-right overhaul of the federal government.

Common Dreams reported Monday that Manchin (I-W.Va.) and Barrasso (R-Wyo.)—respectively the chair and ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee—introduced the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024.

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US Voter Registrations Surge as Republicans Try to Limit Ballot Access

One group said it has registered over 100,000 new voters since U.S. President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 race.

By Brett Wilkins Published 7-26-2024 by Common Dreams

Voting rights activists participate in a voting rights rally in Washington DC on 8-27-2021. Photo: Edward Kimmel/flickr/CC

The group behind a popular get-out-the-vote technology platform said Friday that it’s registered more than 100,000 new U.S. voters since President Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential race, a surge that came amid mounting Republican efforts to make it harder to register and vote.

Vote.org said that 84% of voters registered in the new wave are under age 35. Nearly 1 in 5 new registrees is 18 years old. Andrea Hailey, the group’s CEO, said that “since 2020, we have led the largest voter registration drive in U.S. history,” with more than 7.8 million people registered.

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Biden Proposes New Protections From Oil and Gas Drilling in Western Arctic

While applauding the proposal, climate advocates said they would “keep fighting to ensure there’s no new oil extraction on a single acre” of the region.

By Julia Conley. Published 7-13-2024 by Common Dreams

Teshekpuk Caribou in the National Petroleum Reserve in northwest Alaska. Photo: Bureau of Land Management/flickr/CC

Indigenous groups in Alaska were joined by climate advocates on Friday in welcoming the Biden administration’s proposal to expand protections from oil and gas drilling in the Western Arctic, though some groups emphasized that the federal government should not stop with the newly announced effort.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) said it was opening a 60-day comment period regarding a potential expansion of areas protected from drilling in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR-A), also known as the Western Arctic.

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‘All of Our Tricks Worked’: Spoof ExxonMobil Ad Nails Just How Easy It’s Been for Big Oil

“Do you have any idea how easy it is to get you off our backs with a little bullsh*t about your responsibilities to the planet?”

By Brett Wilkins. Published 7-9-2024 by Common Dreams

Exxon Knew – Divest rally at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas, TX on May 25, 2016 . Photo: 350 .org/flickr/CC

A new parody ExxonMobil advertisement released Tuesday by a group founded by Adam McKay—the Academy Award-winning writer and director of the blockbuster doomsday climate comedy Don’t Look Up—mocks humanity for letting Big Oil get away with causing one of the biggest existential threats of all time.

“There’s a world we all want to live in again. A world where the air is pure and crisp and clean and fills your lungs with joy. A world where you can drink water from any river or creek and your house will still be there tomorrow if it rains,” the narrator of Yellow Dot Studio’s latest parody video says in the two-minute clip. “Here at Exxon, we believe in that world, and we’re working hard to make sure that our customers believe that we believe in that world.”

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‘Monumental’: Advocates Applaud Federal Rule to Protect Workers From Extreme Heat

The administration has established that “every worker in America has the right to shade, water, and rest while working in temperatures that could kill them,” a labor leader said.

By Edward Carver. Published 7-2-2024 by Common Dreams

Screenshot: FOX13 Now

Labor advocates celebrated on Tuesday following the Biden administration’s announcement of a proposed rule to protect workers from extreme heat—the first national workplace heat safety standard.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), an agency within the U.S. Department of Labor, published the rule, which the administration says would protect about 36 million indoor and outdoor employees from heat-related injuries and illnesses. It follows similar regulations that five states have approved in recent years.

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‘Unprecedented’ and ‘Very Dangerous,’ Hurricane Beryl Explodes Into Category 4 Storm

“The climate crisis is here. This is an emergency. Politicians need to start acting like it.”

By Jon Queally. Published 6-30-2024 by Common Dreams

A satellite image of Hurricane Beryl as churns toward the southeast Caribbean on Sunday, June 20, 2024. (Image: NOAA)

Meteorologists, climate campaigners, and extreme weather experts expressed shock and horror Sunday as Hurricane Beryl exploded into an “extremely dangerous” Category 4 storm as it headed into the warm waters of the southern Caribbean with a level of intensification characterized as unprecedented.

The National Hurricane Center on Sunday morning called it a “very dangerous situation” due to “potentially catastrophic hurricane-force winds, a life-threatening storm surge, and damaging waves” for the numerous mainland and island nations in Beryl’s path.

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