Weekend Reader for January 7

Weekend Reader for January 7

This week, the Trump Administration reprised a Reagan-Era blunder.

In the early 1980's President Reagan and Interior Secretary James G. Watt proposed opening up virtually the entire U.S. coastline -- Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic oceans -- to offshore oil exploration. Problem was, the oil industry had virtually no interest in entering most of the areas proposed.


Current oil and gas prices are extremely low. Offshore oil and gas exploration and drilling is inherently more expensive than land-based drilling. Oil prices would have to once again shoot through the roof if there were any expectation that the oil industry actually wants the gift that it's being offered. The New York Times has the national view, while the Tampa Bay Times reports on how Florida's Republican governor is set to battle the White House on offshore drilling.

Top Weekend News

From Lisa Friedman of the New York Times:Expect environmental battles to intensify in 2018.

From the AP's Seth Borenstein: Ocean oxygen levels are taking a plunge. A new study also shows a dramatic increase in coral bleaching.

With a metro area of thirty million, Jakarta is one of the world's largest cities. They're contemplating a future underwater.

You may not have heard of Paul Nyden. The pioneering environmental journalist died this week at age 72. Nyden was among the first to report on mountaintop removal, the then-new coal mining method that lived up to its own name, blasting the tops of mountains to bits to remove the coal seams below, with the resulting waste rock dumped into valleys and streams below. Nyden stood up to the dominant coal industry as a reporter for the Charleston (WV) Gazette, mentoring other fearless reporters like Ken Ward, Jr., who had the difficult task of writing Nyden's obituary .

This Week in Trump

The Interior Department is axing regulations that don't comport with a Trump World view: Conservation and climate change need no longer be considered in many agency decisions.

Over at EPA, they're moving quickly to write new climate change rules that could wipe out any last vestige of Obama's climate policy.

While you were away..... Good rundown from Outside Magazine on Trump Administration rollbacks over the holidays.

The Interior Department also ended a decades-long standoff over building a road through wilderness on the Alaska Peninsula.

Opinions and Editorials

Michael Mann is a deeply respected climate scientist, at least among those who respect science. He offers this piece on the much discussed "Bomb Cyclone" and cold snap in the Northeast.

Writing for the Center for Health Journalism, Dr. Daniel Turner-Lloveras writes that EPA's unwillingness to ban chloprpyrifos would guarantee more illness and death among farm workers.

When wildfires threaten lives and raze entire communities, other hazards can get obscured. This op-ed highlights the added toxic risk from burning carpets laden with toxic chemicals.

From this week's Living On Earth: Peter Dykstra joins Steve Curwood to assess the environment and politics as the year turns, and finds little cause to think the current deregulatory push by the Trump Administration will change. Still, the states have become bright spots in the renewable energy sector and Congress is showing a bit more commitment to climate action.

Losing Bears Ears: Amy Irvine, a Utah mom, on what it means to see the new Bears Ears National Monument drastically reduced in size.

Obama quote that he'll never live down

The Obama Administration also tried a less ambitious expansion of offshore drilling. Shortly before Deepwater Horizon's blowout, he said this about how oil spills didn't much happen anymore. Ouch.

Montana youth climate lawsuit
Credit: Douglas Fischer

One lawyer's groundbreaking work in shaping climate law

As governments stall and emissions climb, human rights lawyers like Monica Feria-Tinta are turning to the courts to force climate action — one tree, island, or river at a time.

Samira Shackle reports for The Guardian.

In short:

  • Feria-Tinta is pioneering legal strategies that argue climate inaction violates human rights, helping Indigenous and vulnerable communities take their cases to global courts.
  • Her work includes landmark victories like the Torres Strait case, where the United Nations ruled Australia failed to protect islanders from climate harm, and Ecuador’s Los Cedros forest, which won legal rights as a living entity.
  • While legal wins are often slow and hard-fought, they’re shifting the global legal landscape, transforming courts into battlegrounds where climate justice and biodiversity now have a voice.

Key quote:

“Whether it’s a single tree, or a whole community depending on a river, what is at stake is the future of humanity.”

— Monica Feria-Tinta

Why this matters:

As heat, floods, and displacement intensify, the courtroom has become a potent line of defense. Climate litigation can hold powerful players accountable, push policy change, and help protect the ecosystems our health depends on — even when other systems fail. These legal wins are slow, complex, and anything but guaranteed. But they’re a signal that the courtroom is becoming one of the last places where the planet still stands a fighting chance.

Read more: Youth v. Montana — Young adults speak up

Senator Whitehouse & climate change

Senator Whitehouse puts climate change on budget committee’s agenda

For more than a decade, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse gave daily warnings about the mounting threat of climate change. Now he has a powerful new perch.
A monkey sits atop a hillside roof with an expansive view of a city and mountains behind him.
Credit: Cyril Gros/Flickr

Electric vehicles are helping Nepal clean up its deadly air

As Kathmandu fights to breathe through some of the world’s worst air pollution, Nepal’s rapid embrace of electric vehicles is bringing cleaner skies and contributing to greater longevity.

Pete Pattisson reports for The Guardian.

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A firefighter carries a gear to initiate a controlled prescribed burning in a forest with flames burning close to ground behind him.
Credit: Photo by Emma Renly/Unsplash

California tribes rekindle ancient fire traditions to heal the land and themselves

After a century of U.S. fire suppression, California tribes are reviving cultural burns, low-intensity fires that nourish the land and reconnect communities to their roots.

Michaela Haas reports for Reasons to Be Cheerful.

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The Stone of Hope at the Martin Luther King Jr. civil rights Memorial

EPA stalls civil rights enforcement as pollution complaints pile up

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ability to investigate environmental discrimination has ground to a halt under Trump, leaving dozens of communities of color without recourse as pollution complaints sit unresolved.

Grey Moran reports for Sentient.

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Smoke rising from factory smokestacks.

Trump moves to block state climate rules and lawsuits tied to fossil fuel emissions

President Trump signed an executive order directing the U.S. Justice Department to challenge state climate laws and lawsuits, escalating federal efforts to dismantle local environmental regulations.

Adam Aton and Lesley Clark report for E&E News.

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A petrochemical complex with smokestacks spewing pollutants into the air.

EPA move to end climate emissions tracking leaves public in the dark

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is planning to gut a key greenhouse gas reporting program, making it harder to track the country’s biggest climate polluters.

Sharon Lerner reports for ProPublica.

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A statue of lady justice on a desk with law books and a globe.

Trump’s pick for EPA general counsel lacks regulatory and courtroom experience but moves ahead in Senate vote

President Trump’s nominee to serve as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s top lawyer advanced in the Senate despite limited courtroom and regulatory legal experience.

Katie Surma reports for Inside Climate News.

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From our Newsroom
Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro speaks with the state flag and American flag behind him.

Two years into his term, has Gov. Shapiro kept his promises to regulate Pennsylvania’s fracking industry?

A new report assesses the administration’s progress and makes new recommendations

silhouette of people holding hands by a lake at sunset

An open letter from EPA staff to the American public

“We cannot stand by and allow this to happen. We need to hold this administration accountable.”

wildfire retardants being sprayed by plane

New evidence links heavy metal pollution with wildfire retardants

“The chemical black box” that blankets wildfire-impacted areas is increasingly under scrutiny.

People  sitting in an outdoors table working on a big sign.

Op-ed: Why funding for the environmental justice movement must be anti-racist

We must prioritize minority-serving institutions, BIPOC-led organizations and researchers to lead environmental justice efforts.

joe biden

Biden finalizes long-awaited hydrogen tax credits ahead of Trump presidency

Responses to the new rules have been mixed, and environmental advocates worry that Trump could undermine them.

Op-ed: Toxic prisons teach us that environmental justice needs abolition

Op-ed: Toxic prisons teach us that environmental justice needs abolition

Prisons, jails and detention centers are placed in locations where environmental hazards such as toxic landfills, floods and extreme heat are the norm.

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