Author: Diego Estigarribia

A ranger watches one of the younger silverback gorillas at the Virunga national park

Five rangers and a driver have been killed in an ambush in Virunga national parkin Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

A sixth ranger was injured in the attack on Monday that took place in the central section of the vast reserve, known globally for its population of rare mountain gorillas.

The loss of life was the worst in the history of the national park, where more than 170 rangers have died protecting animals over the last 20 years.

The rising toll has earned the park a reputation as one of the most dangerous conservation projects in the world. Last August, five rangers were killed when local militia attacked their post in the northern part of the park on the shores of Lake Edward.

A statement from Virunga described “deep sadness” following the ambush.

“We are profoundly saddened by the loss of our colleagues. Virunga has lost some extraordinarily brave rangers who were deeply committed to working in service of their communities. It is unacceptable that Virunga’s rangers continue to pay the highest price in defence of our common heritage,” said Emmanuel de Merode, the chief warden.

Virunga national park is located in DRC’s unstable North Kivu province. It covers 7,800 square kilometres (3,011 miles)

Multiple threats face Virunga, home to one of the world’s largest populations of critically endangered mountain gorillas as well as hundreds of other rare species.

There are armed rebel groups, local bandits and self-defence “Mai Mai” militia, and poachers. There is also a hugely lucrative charcoal industry, for which the trees of the park are the principal raw material.

Officials at the park say they believe the attack was by Mai Mai.

In recent months DRC has veered close to a plunge back into the appalling violence of the 1997-2003 civil war, which led to the deaths of 5 million and a significant loss of wildlife in the national park, Africa’s oldest. Observers hope catastrophe will be avoided but aid agencies describe DRC as “on a cliff edge”.

The rangers are recruited from villages surrounding the park. Most are married with many children. All those who died on Monday were aged between 22 and 30.

Virunga, founded in 1925 by Belgian colonial authorities, struggled in the immediate aftermath of the country’s independence in 1960 but flourished under president Mobutu Sese Seko, the flamboyant, wasteful and authoritarian ruler who took power in 1965.

The park suffered during the civil war which followed Mobutu’s chaotic fall in 1997 after ruling the country for 31 years. Virunga’s mountain gorilla population sank to 300.

In 2007 a partnership was established between a charity funded by private donors, the European Union, the Howard G Buffett foundation and the Congolese wildlife service. De Merode, a Belgian aristocrat, took charge and implemented wide-ranging reforms.

The rangers are now paid a monthly salary of $250, a sizeable sum locally.

Initiatives have focused on local communities, with micro loans and hydroelectric power projects to boost the local economy.

The mountain gorilla population now stands at more than 1,000, while the numbers of other animals, such as forest elephants, is also rising, and tourists are returning in significant numbers.

 

source by://theguardian.com

 

 

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has announced a review into the potential risks of plastic in drinking water after a new analysis of some of the world’s most popular bottled water brands found that more than 90 per cent contained tiny pieces of plastic.

 

 

A previous study also found high levels of micro-plastics in tap water.

The Guardian reports in the new study, analysis of 259 bottles from 19 locations in nine countries across 11 different brands found an average of 325 plastic particles for every litre of water being sold.

Concentrations were as high as 10,000 plastic pieces for every litre of water. Of the 259 bottles tested, only 17 were free of plastics, according to the study.

Scientists based at the State University of New York in Fredonia were commissioned by journalism project Orb Media to analyse the bottled water.

The scientists wrote they had “found roughly twice as many plastic particles within bottled water” compared with their previous study of tap water, reported by the Guardian.

According to the new study, the most common type of plastic fragment found was polypropylene, the same type of plastic used to make bottle caps.

The bottles analysed were bought in the United States, China, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Lebanon, Kenya and Thailand.

Scientists used Nile red dye to fluoresce particles in the water, the dye tends to stick to the surface of plastics but not most natural materials.

The study has not been published in a journal and has not been through scientific peer review.

Dr Andrew Mayes, a University of East Anglia scientist who developed the Nile red technique, told Orb Media he was “satisfied that it has been applied carefully and appropriately, in a way that I would have done it in my lab”.

The brands Orb Media said it had tested were: Aqua (Danone), Aquafina (PepsiCo), Bisleri (Bisleri International), Dasani (Coca-Cola), Epura (PepsiCo), Evian (Danone), Gerolsteiner (Gerolsteiner Brunnen), Minalba (Grupo Edson Queiroz), Nestlé Pure Life (Nestlé), San Pellegrino (Nestlé) and Wahaha (Hangzhou Wahaha Group).

A WHO spokesman told the Guardian that although there was not yet any evidence on impacts on human health, it was aware it was an emerging area of concern.

The spokesman said the WHO would “review the very scarce available evidence with the objective of identifying evidence gaps, and establishing a research agenda to inform a more thorough risk assessment.”

A second unrelated analysis, also just released, was commissioned by campaign group Story of Stuff and examined 19 consumer bottled water brands in the US.

It also found plastic microfibres were widespread.

the brand boxer water contained an average of 58.6 plastic fibres per litre. Ozarka and Ice Mountain, both owned by Nestlé, had concentrations at 15 and 11 pieces per litre, respectively, while Fiji Water had 12 plastic fibres per litre.

Abigail Barrows, who carried out the research for Story of Stuff in her laboratory in Maine, said there were several possible routes for the plastics to be entering the bottles.

“Plastic microfibres are easily airborne. Clearly that’s occurring not just outside but inside factories. It could come in from fans or the clothing being worn,” she said.

Stiv Wilson, campaign coordinator at Story of Stuff, said finding plastic contamination in bottled water was problematic “because people are paying a premium for these products”.

Jacqueline Savitz, of campaign group Oceana, said: “We know plastics are building up in marine animals and this means we too are being exposed, some of us every day.

Between the microplastics in water, the toxic chemicals in plastics and the end-of-life exposure to marine animals, it’s a triple whammy.”

Nestlé criticised the methodology of the Orb Media study, claiming in a statement to CBC that the technique using Nile red dye could “generate false positives”.

Coca-Cola told the BBC it had strict filtration methods, but acknowledged the ubiquity of plastics in the environment meant plastic fibres “may be found at minute levels even in highly treated products”.

A Gerolsteiner spokesperson said the company, too, could not rule out plastics getting into bottled water from airborne sources or from packing processes.

Danone claimed the Orb Media study used a methodology that was “unclear”.

The American Beverage Association said it “stood by the safety” of its bottled water, adding that the science around micro-plastics was only just emerging.

 

 

source by//: econew.com.au

 

A new scientific study has warned rapid global warming could almost triple the number of migrants reaching the European Union by 2100, adding to factors such as war and persecution that force people to leave home.

The study, criticised by some other researchers as exaggerated, said asylum applications to the EU from 103 nations tended to rise in the 2000-2014 period when temperatures at home were far hotter or colder than the ideal for growing maize.

Reuters Newsagency reports it projected that applications could surge to 1.01 million a year by 2100 from an average 351,000 from 2000-14 under a scenario of a big rise in temperatures that would hit harvests.

Under a scenario of less warming, applications could rise 28 per cent.

“A lot of things can happen by the end of the century – countries can become democracies, they can become dictatorships,” senior author Professor Wolfram Schlenker, a Columbia University expert in economics, told Reuters, referring to factors that cause migration.

Still, if weather trends from 2000-14 continue, “this is a first best estimate” for 2100, he said of the findings published in the journal Science and requested by the European Commission.

The report examined trends this century, before a migration surge in 2015 caused by Syria’s civil war. Immigration has become a major political concern in the EU, the favoured destination for many asylum seekers from nations such as Afghanistan or Iraq.

Some other scientists were doubtful about the findings.

“The evidence so far on the impacts of climate change on migration is still quite weak,” said Professor Jan Selby, a expert in international relations at the University of Sussex.

He said it was wrong to project that gradual warming would have the same effect on harvests as weather shocks.

“A sudden climatic shock may destroy a crop; a gradual increase in temperature over decades would not (instead farmers would change crops, etc). We simply can’t extrapolate from one to the other,” he wrote in an e-mail.

The study published by Science found a strong link between temperature swings and maize, a widespread staple, but less for rice, wheat and soybeans.

“They note that their model only works for maize rather than other staples. Why? In any case, maize isn’t a major crop in most of the EU’s refugee-origin countries,” said Professor Mike Hulme, a teacher of human geography at Cambridge University.

“I would have thought that civil war, political repression, weak civil institutions, low levels of educational attainment, etc, are more powerful predictors of asylum-seeking.

“But this is a question these authors don’t ask. Yet it matters,” he said.

On Monday, United States President Donald Trump, who doubts global warming is man-made, dropped climate change from a list of national security threats, aides said.

By contrast, President Trump’s predecessor President Barack Obama said climate change posed “immediate risks” to national security as a “threat multiplier” aggravating everything from disease to terrorism.

The new study said “our findings support the assessment that climate change, especially continued warming, will add another ‘threat multiplier’ that induces people to seek refuge abroad.”

 

source by://econews.com.au

A group of 15000 scientists from 184 countries has issued a warning to humanity. They urge the masses to put significant public pressure on political leaders to take corrective actions and address top environmental problems.

In the article, “World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice,” the scientists identified several trends that are causing “substantial and irreversible harm” to planet Earth. They included changing climate, deforestation, loss of access to fresh water, and species extinctions. The article warns that these trends are severely threatening future human well-being and need immediate global attention.

Environmental Problems Worsen Over Last 25 Years

This report is the second of its kind. In 1992, the Union of Concerned Scientists, with over 1700 members, published the first warning. Since then, many environmental problems have significantly worsened.

The new report outlines the top 25-year global trends that are causing extensive environmental harm, as reported by ScienceDaily:

  • A 26 percent reduction in the amount of fresh water available per capita
  • A drop in the harvest of wild-caught fish, despite an increase in fishing effort
  • A 75 percent increase in the number of ocean dead zones
  • A loss of nearly 300 million acres of forestland, much of it converted for agricultural uses
  • Continuing significant increases in global carbon emissions and average temperatures
  • A 35 percent rise in human population
  • A collective 29 percent reduction in the numbers of mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds and fish

To calculate these trends, report authors, led by William Ripple of the College of Forestry at Oregon State University, employed data from multiple sources. These included government agencies, non-profits and independent researchers. The final report was published in the journal BioScience.

Ripple explains the goal of publishing the warning:

Some people might be tempted to dismiss this evidence and think we are just being alarmist. Scientists are in the business of analyzing data and looking at the long-term consequences. Those who signed this second warning aren’t just raising a false alarm. They are acknowledging the obvious signs that we are heading down an unsustainable path. We are hoping that our paper will ignite a wide-spread public debate about the global environment and climate.

Proposed Steps to Reverse Negative Trends

The work needed to reverse the environmental problems currently facing humanity aren’t simple. Yet, the report shows that positive changes are possible. For example, there has been a reduction in emissions of chemicals that deplete the ozone. Additionally, there is a positive trend the development and use of renewable energy. Finally, some regions have seen a slowdown in the rate of deforestation.

Now more than ever, global citizens and their political leaders must support and pursue corrective actions. Some suggestions made by the report authors include:

  • Creating new terrestrial and marine reserves
  • Establishing stronger enforcement of anti-poaching laws
  • Restraining wildlife trade
  • Encouraging a shift towards eating more plant-based foods
  • Massive adoption of renewable energy and green technologies

To read the full report and for more information, visit the Alliance of World Scientists. The organization’s goal is “to be a collective international voice of many scientists regarding global climate and environmental trends and how to turn accumulated knowledge into action.”

 

 

source by: wakingtime.com

 

On visiting supermarkets you see them stacked, row after row, brand name upon brand name we’re spoilt for choices… but it can indeed be quite costly when added up after a while… It’s better to choose the glass option as opposed to plastic which leaches out toxic chemicals such as Bisphenol A which could affect health when taken frequently and long-term…

I’m talking about bottled water supplies, which leads to my question, why should we have to buy bottled drinking water?

I remember as a child in the 60’s the idea of someone charging for water in bottles would have been quite laughable. To this day I still have a somewhat sinister regard for the fact that we’re being charged for water and not without reasoning: There is in fact something covertly sinister and devious going on.

Before explaining, the first thing to realize is that there are indeed a number of people who have educated themselves enough to realize that they don’t want to choose drinking tap water with fluoride and other chemical impregnations. But why should we have to choose the more expensive bottle water option and put up with the chemical treated tap water? Surely, it’s up to us to do something about this?

In a four-month public comment period, 99 percent of the 65,000 Scots who responded expressed opposition to fracking. (Photo: Friends of the Earth Scotland/Flickr/cc)

 

A Question

In recent times why has the dangerous process of fracking technology been allowed to carry on?

Fracking technology is a process whereby hydraulic pressure blasts some 40,000 plus gallons of water containing over 600 toxic chemicals to fracture shale rock allowing the rock’s contents gas and oil to be extracted. A large percentage of this toxic chemical water containing methane, formaldehyde, mercury, uranium, lead and carcinogens is never recovered. It then finds its way into the nearby groundwater and can pollute wells, thus polluting our water supplies.

And that’s not all. As well as environmental damage the reckless insanity of fracking has been linked to earthquakes and ill-health with people and animals living in nearby areas because of the above mentioned pollutants.

Yes, the fracking corporations can have their way by buying off the politicians and people connected to give it the okay to go ahead… but staying on the subject of water as I’ve already said there’s something far more sinister and devious going on. This links tap water to fracking.

Orchestrated by the world’s ruling elite, water, one of the most essential to life commodities is deliberately and secretly becoming more and more precious to obtain.

Take the US state of California. People are aware that the water shortage is far from over…However, whether living in California or elsewhere, most people haven’t yet woken up to the realization that water shortages are being secretly orchestrated because certain people in high places through major corporations want to own the rights to water the supplies.

As the saying goes, when you control the water supplies you can control the people.

So I would say that the reason for fracking with its water polluting deadly toxic chemicals going by unchecked is that it puts the people in a situation whereby their local water supplies in wells and taps… is not longer useable so they have no other choice than to go to the stores and buy the corporation’s water supplies.

Think of the astronomical amounts of money the manipulators of all this could make from the quantities of water needed from folks all over the world in their everyday lives!

We do indeed need to get active here to stop this insanity. Spread the word as to what’s going on here, lobby politicians, get people to come together and take action… Then there’s the cheap technology option of using desalination plants for those living on coastlines where seawater can be treated. The plant can be powered up by the tides acting as generators. The desalination occurs through electrolysis … All this can be done on a shoestring budget.

Then, for self-sufficiency, there are other water obtaining options…

What action could you take?

 

Satellite images captured by the team have confirmed the presence of aerosol and nitrate covering the Asia region.

ISRO-NASA team confirms presence of 'lethal pollutants' over Asia

New Delhi: A study jointly conducted by experts from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) of the US have confirmed the presence aerosol layer over the Asia region.

Satellite images captured by the team have confirmed the presence of aerosol and nitrate covering the Asia region.

As per ISRO, measurements by the team has confirmed the presence of aerosol layer seen in satellite measurements over the Asian region and it also shows a sharp increase of aerosol concentration near 16.5-18.5 km (from Earth’s surface), reports Times of India.

‘This layer contains particles of size less than 0.25 micron and are 90 per cent volatile. It appears the aerosol is formed from precursor pollutant gases which are transported via convection from the ground,” ISRO has said.

 Aerosol is produced from a variety of man-made and natural processes such as vehicle exhaust, waste-burning, wind blown dust, volcanic eruptions.

The new finding has also confirmed the presence of nitrate, which as per experts is concerning as the rise in the presence of pollutants can eventually become lethal.

However, detailed analysis yet to be carried out with all the data collected during the campaign. Aerosols, Radiation and Trace Gases Group (ARTG) of National Atmospheric Research Laboratory, Isro, and a team from Nasa have been studying air quality around India as part of this campaign.

Another additional campaign during the winter months is planned which will be helpful in obtaining background conditions.

 

 

source by://zeenews.india

For decades, California Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia has been trying to clean up the air in polluted neighborhoods — first as an activist, then as a legislator. Recently, she celebrated her most significant victory: Governor Jerry Brown needed her help to extend California’s cap-and-trade program. In return for her support, she got the legislature to pay attention to not just greenhouse gases, but all the accompanying nasty that pours out of smokestacks. The result: California’s most significant air-pollution law in years.

On Wednesday, Brown signed that bill, AB 617, on the blacktop of the Neighborhood Youth Center in Bell Gardens, California — Garcia’s home district in southeast Los Angeles. On the other side of a peach-colored, steel fence, a group of activists chanted protests. They were advocates for exactly the issues Garcia has championed. And they were heckling her.

Environmental justice groups have expressed outrage at the passage of California’s new cap-and-trade law, AB 398, which they say concedes too much to industry. A few even opposed Garcia’s air-pollution bill, claiming it isn’t strong enough to spur change.

Garcia tried to be a good sport. She went around to the activists’ side of the fence — the side she was once on — and got a picture of herself holding one of their signs. “I just have to understand where they are coming from and their frustrations and their skepticism,” she says. “We haven’t gotten anything, so why should they expect this is any different?”

But she was also frustrated. Activists have been fighting to raise fines on polluters since 1975. Five times, politicians have introduced bills to levy higher penalties; five times, they have failed. Now, with AB 617, Garcia has managed what once seemed impossible — and created a set of new legal tools for tackling all manner of air pollution, to boot. Yet, due to their frustration with cap and trade, some activists were treating her legislation like a step backward.

Cap and trade sets a limit on greenhouse gases (the cap) and lets businesses figure out who gets to emit those gases by buying and selling emissions credits (the trade). California has had a cap-and-trade program for the last five years, but business was challenging it in court. The new version is more industry-friendly — and because it passed with a supermajority, it is nearly lawsuit-proof.

Garcia’s companion bill, AB 617, allows for the creation of regulatory plans that focus on pollution hotspots — neighborhoods that suffer the brunt of emissions — the very communities environmental-justice advocates work to protect.

“It’s laudable that lawmakers have recognized that low-income communities and communities of color are disproportionately burdened by pollution,” says Lara Cushing, a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley.

At the same time, Cushing explains, the cap-and-trade bill misses important opportunities: First, it prevents regulators from restricting the carbon emissions from any one plant. And it allows for industries to offset their emissions by, for example, planting trees hundreds of miles away. That doesn’t help people in the communities around industrial polluters, and there are real questions as to how well offsets work at all.

Cushing coauthored a recent assessment of California’s current cap-and-trade scheme, which found that the state’s highest emitters were polluting more after the system was put in place than before. Those facilities — which were overwhelmingly located in low-income communities and areas populated by people of color — sometimes paid for their emissions by buying offsets for projects beyond the state’s borders. (Grist board member Rachel Morello-Frosch was a coauthor on that report.)

According to Strela Cervas, codirector of the California Environmental Justice Alliance, the new pair of laws “lacks teeth.” In fact, she wrote in a statement, the state appears focused “on making it as cheap as possible for industry to comply.”

She’s got a point: Governor Brown brought the Chamber of Commerce and some Republicans on board by structuring the policy so it would drive as little industry out of state as possible.

For Alvaro Sanchez, environmental equity director at the Greenlining Institute, AB 617 offers “a mixed bag” for communities hoping it’ll improve the state’s cap-and-trade system. On the one hand, it mandates air-quality monitoring, increase penalties, and encourage upgrades to facilities. But Sanchez laments the fact that it doesn’t set a timeline for the implementation of changes that could reduce emissions.

“It just says you have to develop a plan,” he says. “A plan without implementation is just nothing, really.”

David Pettit, a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council — which supported the bills — wishes the laws gave him more power to go after polluters. “Deals were made in the legislature, and this is the result,” he says. “It’s not perfect but it’s way better than what we had the day before the governor signed it.”

For Garcia, these laws represent big strides forward.

“When this discussion started we were only talking about curbing carbon,” she explains. “Now we’re talking about curtailing all the the other toxins that are coming out of our smokestacks and our tailpipes: nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, lead, chromium, arsenic.”

Now the real work begins: And it’s likely that Garcia, environmental-justice activists, and mainstream environmental groups like the NRDC will be reunited in the fight to forcefully implement these laws.

Ultimately, the fact that grassroots organizations are haranguing an environmental-justice champion is a sign that the movement is making progress. For years, the environmental concerns of the poor have been utterly ignored. Now, lawmakers like Garcia are starting to address some of those concerns. They are doing it in the usual way, by horse trading and making tough compromises. And now, as usual, the activists are attacking.

That’s politics — if you aren’t being pilloried, it’s a sign you aren’t getting anything done.

“I hope to prove to the public that something good will come out of this,” Garcia said. “I am going to keep fighting, and this is not going to be the only part of my legacy on clean air.”

 

source by://grist.org

Snooty, the longest living manatee in captivity, died Sunday, a day after a huge party to celebrate his 69th birthday, according to the South Florida Museum.

“Snooty was found in an underwater area only used to access plumbing for the exhibit life support system. Early indications are that an access panel door that is normally bolted shut had somehow been knocked loose and that Snooty was able to swim in,” the museum said in a press release. “Snooty’s habitat undergoes a daily visual inspection and there were no indications the previous day that there was anything amiss.”

Bradenton museum says staffers are devastated and that the circumstances are being investigated. The other three manatees undergoing rehabilitation in Snooty’s habitat are all fine.

The Aquarium will remain closed while staff continues its investigation and to give other staff time to grieve.

Snooty had previously been in good health, eating about 80 pounds (35 kilograms) of lettuce and vegetables every day to sustain his 1,000-pound (450-kilogram) body. He loved to greet his visitors and ham it up for the cameras.

On Saturday, he devoured a tiered fruit and vegetable cake as thousands of guests attended his birthday bash.

The museum said Snooty was born in 1948 at the Miami Aquarium and Tackle Company, calling it the first recorded birth of a manatee in human care. He moved to Bradenton in 1949, greeting more than a million visitors in his lifetime. Fans left heartfelt messages Sunday on a Facebook page dedicated to Snooty.

“Snooty was such a unique animal and he had so much personality that people couldn’t help but be drawn to him,” said Brynne Anne Besio, the Museum’s CEO.

Over the years, some have alleged that Snooty had been replaced by younger manatees, but museum officials laugh at such tales. Snooty and many other manatees are identified by unique scars from boat propellers. Snooty has two scars on his side from abscesses that were removed over 30 years ago.

The museum said Snooty helped educate the public about manatees, participating in scientific research programs to help understand things like manatee hearing and vocalization. He also hosted other manatees that were being rehabilitated for return to the wild.

A necropsy will be performed.

 

source by: abcnews.com

 

On April 26th, President Donald Trump issued an executive order calling for a review of over two dozen national monuments designated since 1996. This is the first time ever that a President has made such a move. It represents a brazen and blatant attempt to allow special interests like the coal, oil and gas, mining, and logging industries to have access to our most iconic lands.

The Antiquities Act, which enables the President to declare national monuments, was signed into law in 1906 by President Theodore Roosevelt to protect places of natural, cultural, and historical importance. Since its inception, the Act has enjoyed not only bipartisan support but the overwhelming support of the American people who support protections for these landscapes and places.

Now, protections for monuments like the Grand Staircase-Escalante, the Giant Sequoia, the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, and the most recently designated Bears Ears National Monument are under immediate threat.

In response, LDF grantee Utah Dine Bikeyah (UDB) and its partners are fighting back to ensure that the Administration’s “review” does not undermine this sacred monument. Bears Ears National Monument is a 1.35-million-acre cultural landscape in southeast Utah considered sacred by numerous regional Tribes. Five Tribes—the Ute Mountain Ute, Uintah Ouray Ute, Navajo, Hopi, and Zuni—all share contemporary and ancestral ties to the Bears Ears region. These five sovereign tribal governments have allied to form the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, with which UDB is working closely to protect this historic region. For Native people from the Four Corners region, Bears Ears is a sacred landscape where the spirits of the ancestors still dwell. Certain medicinal plants grow only in this area, and important ceremonies are performed here.

The Trump Administration has ordered Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to conduct a 45-day review of Bears Ears and has established a deadline of May 26th for the public to weigh in.

We have a collective duty to act on Bears Ears. An attack on any of our national monuments is an attack on each of us and our natural and cultural heritage. The unprecedented and egregious attack on our national monuments requires immediate action by us all.

FILE PHOTO: Myron Ebell, who leads U.S. President Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency’s transition team, arrives at the Solvay library in Brussels, Belgium February 1, 2017.

 

The man who led President Donald Trump’s transition team for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Myron Ebell, told a conservative conference last month that the new administration is moving too slowly to unravel climate change regulations.

In closed-door remarks to members of the conservative Jefferson Institute in Virginia on April 18, a recording of which was obtained by Reuters, Ebell said Trump’s administration had made a series of missteps, including delays in appointing key EPA officials, that could hamper efforts to cut red tape for industry.

“This is an impending disaster for the Trump administration,” Ebell, a prominent climate change doubter, said in the recording provided to the Center for Media and Democracy and shared with Reuters.

Ebell was chosen by Trump’s campaign to lead the EPA’s transition until the Jan. 20 inauguration, a choice that had reinforced expectations Trump would follow through on promises to rescind Obama-era green rules and pull the United States out of a global pact to fight climate change.

Ebell had been seen as a candidate for the EPA administrator job, a post that ultimately went to former Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt.

Ebell no longer works at the agency but remains influential within a faction of the U.S. conservative movement with ties to the Trump administration. His criticism reflects a broader disappointment by some conservatives about Pruitt’s focus and commitment to scrapping even more complex Obama-era regulations.

Since taking office, Trump and Pruitt have moved to unwind environmental regulations, including former President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan to reduce carbon emissions from electricity generators.

But his administration has frustrated some conservatives by entertaining the idea of remaining in the Paris Climate Agreement, and hesitating to tackle the Obama-era “endangerment finding” that concludes carbon dioxide is a public health threat and underlies many U.S. regulations governing emissions. Lawyers have said challenging that scientific finding could be time consuming and legally complex.

Pruitt has said he does not want the United States to remain in the Paris agreement but he has not yet decided to tackle the endangerment finding. At least three conservative groups have filed petitions asking the EPA to overturn the finding.

“Paris and the endangerment finding are the two big outstanding issues. It’s the first wave of things that are necessary to turn this country around, particularly in the heartland states,” Ebell said at the conference.

Ebell cited the slow pace of key EPA appointments, including deputy administrator and various assistant administrators, a lack of experienced personnel at the White House, deep ideological divisions between the president’s close advisers, and an “imperfect choice” of EPA administrator, as the main reasons Trump was not acting more aggressively on climate rules.

He said Trump strategists should have allowed his transition team to roll out the full de-regulatory agenda before Trump took office, instead of delaying. “The new president doesn’t have long before inertia sets in,” he said.

He also found fault in Trump’s choice of Pruitt to run the EPA, saying the former state attorney is a “clever lawyer” but his “political ambition” may distract him from taking-on time-consuming efforts like challenging the endangerment finding.

A spokesman for Pruitt responded to Ebell’s assertions, saying Pruitt had been implementing Trump’s executive orders and had spearheaded “about two dozen regulatory reform actions” since taking up his position.

Ebell also faulted Trump for choosing advisers with broadly different political perspectives and backgrounds – something he said was triggering paralyzing debate, instead of action.

“He’s got people on different sides and they are all fighting over who gets these jobs and nobody has the clout except the president to say, ‘Hey fix this, let’s get this done,'” Ebell said.

In a statement given to Reuters on Saturday, Ebell said he is still concerned about the White House log-jam in nominating people for key EPA posts and the delay in making the Paris decision.

But he said he supports Pruitt as an administrator and is encouraged by his recent actions.

“Pruitt was an excellent choice to head the EPA, and minor disagreements aside, his recent actions have made me even more confident that he will be an outstanding administrator,” he said.

A White House official did not respond to a request for comment.

 

source by://reuters