Long-standing disputes over exploitation of public lands bubble over as the Trump administration advances campaign promises to ease restrictions on energy development. A special TipSheet, part of our 2018 Journalists' Guide to Energy & Environment, has resources for covering public lands-related issues as they play out in the coming year.
"A Danish biotechnology company is trying to fight climate change — one laundry load at a time. Its secret weapon: mushrooms like those in a dormant forest outside Copenhagen."
"Some officials in Phillips County say they aren’t concerned about incomplete cleanup of a chemical site in Helena-West Helena that is located in a flood-risk zone."
"Some of the most common avatars of climate change – hulking power stations and billowing smokestacks – may need a slight update. For the first time in more than 40 years, the largest source of greenhouse gas pollution in the US isn’t electricity production but transport – cars, trucks, planes, trains and shipping."
"A ban on all sales of ivory products in China [came] into force on Sunday, a move hailed by conservationists as an important step in the fight to protect endangered species such as African elephants."
"Hundreds of U.S. Geological Survey scientists were missing from the biggest conference in their field this month."
"The city of Flint, which has been reeling for years over lead seepage from its pipes into its tap water, is accused of violating the terms of a major settlement agreement aimed at improving its water quality. Advocacy groups say the city is failing to disclose information about its efforts to replace its lead pipes."
"Almost half of the electricity customers in Puerto Rico lack power, according to officials on the island, 100 days after Hurricane Maria hit the island."
"On the last business day of the year, the Interior Department rescinded a 2015 Obama administration rule that would have set new environmental limitations on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, on public lands."
"The U.S. has abandoned any claim to climate leadership as the only nation to pull out of the Paris Climate Accord. In Trump's Cabinet, climate denial is pretty much cause for a Merit Badge. Congressional leadership doesn't acknowledge climate change to be a problem, or even a thing."
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