"For the government's top consumer safety watchdog, protecting Americans from household hazards typically means prodding companies to recall defective products that strangle children, cause life-threatening burns or trigger bone-breaking falls. The chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission thinks it is time to start forcing toxic chemicals off the market too."
"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plans sweeping changes to the way it tests for diesel emissions after getting duped by clandestine software in Volkswagen cars for seven years."
"In a landmark speech to a Joint Session of Congress Thursday morning, Pope Francis urged U.S. lawmakers to take "courageous actions and strategies" to fight climate change."
"President Xi Jinping of China will make a landmark commitment on Friday to start a national program in 2017 that will limit and put a price on greenhouse gas emissions, Obama administration officials said on Thursday."
In the Summer 2015 cycle of the Fund for Environmental Journalism, SEJ awarded $43,683 in grants to 11 journalism projects in three reporting categories. Pictured: Gabriel Popkin, a freelance science and environmental writer based in Maryland.
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"The world’s tallest building stands in Dubai. The largest city is in Japan. Brazil’s Amazon is the largest rain forest. ... But the world’s largest man-made oyster reef is in Maryland. It was finished just days ago, and rests at the watery bottom of Harris Creek on the Eastern Shore, spread across more acres than the national Mall."
"A looming federal budget confrontation and Republican hostility to UN global-warming talks threaten a U.S. down payment into a key climate-aid fund, money considered vital to a climate deal in Paris this December."
"Russia has rebuffed calls for a more ambitious plan to cut its carbon dioxide emissions after environmentalists branded its current pledge inadequate and backward-looking."
"Giant Sequoias growing in California's Sierra Nevada are among the largest and oldest living things on earth, but scientists climbing high up into their green canopies say they are seeing symptoms of stress caused by the state's historic drought."
