Earth Week

Criminal prosecution and convictions of polluters have fallen to quarter-century lows under the Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency, deepening three years of overall enforcement declines, according to Justice Department statistics. And while the administration says it’s focusing on quality over quantity in pollution c...

Swedish teenage environmental activist Greta Thunberg says time is running out to halt climate change and she’s urging European politicians “to panic.” Thunberg told EU lawmakers Tuesday: “I want you to act as if the house is on fire.” She said that “if our house was falling apart you wouldn’t hold three em...

In a striking speech delivered from deep below the ocean’s surface, the Seychelles president on Sunday made a global plea for stronger protection of the “beating blue heart of our planet.” President Danny Faure’s call for action, the first-ever live speech from an underwater submersible, came from one of the many island nati...

Eager to jump-start the stalled Keystone XL oil pipeline and other energy projects, President Donald Trump has acted to assert executive power over pipelines and such infrastructure. He issued a new permit for Keystone XL and insisted this exercise of presidential authority was not subject to judicial review. Then he signed an executive order clari...

The Yupik Eskimo village of Kotlik on Alaska’s northwest coast relies on a cold, hard blanket of sea ice to protect homes from vicious winter Bering Sea storms. Frigid north winds blow down from the Arctic Ocean, freeze saltwater and push sea ice south. The ice normally prevents waves from forming and locks onto beaches, walling off villages....

For any investor, measuring opportunity against risk is critical. And for real estate investors in particular, risk is rising exponentially in the age of climate change. To that end, big real estate firms are pouring significant resources into calculating climate risk and its likely effect on property portfolios — everything from increasingly extre...

Earth’s glaciers are melting much faster than scientists thought. A new study shows they are losing 369 billion tons of snow and ice each year, more than half of that in North America. The most comprehensive measurement of glaciers worldwide found that thousands of inland masses of snow compressed into ice are shrinking 18 percent faster than...

To help the environment by cutting down on non-compostable plastics, many people have begun saying no to plastic straws and are bringing reusable bags to the grocery store instead of accepting new plastic ones. But many more small steps like those can be taken. “There are so many simple changes you can make at home,” says Melissa Ozawa,...

What happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic. And scientists studying global warming are trying to learn why, TODAY reports. That’s why Al Roker headed to Utqiagvik, Alaska, considered ground zero for climate change, and learn from the scientists gathering critical information there that could help save the Earth. Formerly known as Barrow,...

Cities around the world marked Earth Hour on Saturday by turning off lights at 8:30 p.m. local time in a call for global action on climate change. Earth Hour, spearheaded by the World Wildlife Fund, calls for greater awareness and more sparing use of resources, especially fossil fuels that produce carbon gases and lead to global warming. Beginning ...

President Donald Trump exceeded his authority when he reversed bans on offshore drilling in vast parts of the Arctic Ocean and dozens of canyons in the Atlantic Ocean, a U.S. judge said in a ruling that restored the Obama-era restrictions. U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason in a decision late Friday threw out Trump’s executive order tha...

The federal government sued California on Thursday over a water policy it said violates the state’s environmental protection law. The U.S. Department of Justice filed suit in Sacramento federal court to block a contentious plan approved in December to increase river flows in the San Joaquin River and three tributaries to help revive dwindling...