Saudi Aramco says profit fell 73 percent as demand for oil shrank

The coronavirus pandemic took a major toll on the oil giant’s earnings, but Aramco will maintain its hefty dividend for shareholders.

www.nytimes.com

How did this Colombian use drones to solve a bee mystery?

Colombia has hundreds of species of bees, but many have been hard hit by pesticide use.

www.forbes.com

It’s time to stop burning volatile propellants at Salt Lake Valley rocket facility, groups say

For decades, potentially explosive waste has been burned in the open in the Salt Lake Valley, starting with dynamite and now unspent rocket propellant.

www.sltrib.com

Coastal GasLink gets green light to start pipeline work near Unist’ot’en Healing Centre

BC approves impact studies and calls for consultation with Wet’suwet’en as work proceeds in contested area.

thetyee.ca

Russian Indigenous groups call on Elon Musk not to buy battery metals from Nornickel

Tesla is a world leader in electric cars, while Nornickel is a global leader in environmental damage. This doesn't match, claims Aborigen Forum.

thebarentsobserver.com

British Columbia’s looming extinction crisis

British Columbia has well over 2,000 species at risk of disappearing yet has no endangered species law.

thenarwhal.ca

Former B.C. premier Christy Clark on board of company proposing LNG terminal in Alaska

New company wants to build floating terminal to export B.C.'s fracked natural gas to Asia.

thenarwhal.ca

How diseases sweep through the sea

For marine mammals, viral and bacterial outbreaks are on the rise.

www.hakaimagazine.com

Farms can’t save the planet

U.S. senators, McDonald's, Microsoft, and the agribusiness lobby are pushing the dangerous myth that carbon storage in American farmland will stave off climate catastrophe.

newrepublic.com

How Mike Pompeo built a blood-for-oil pipeline

The State Department, a conservative-connected shell company, and a key Kurdish crime family team up to siphon Syrian oil for U.S. investors.

newrepublic.com

Lake Erie’s toxic green slime is getting worse with climate change

Algal blooms are a hazard around the country. But Lake Erie is especially vulnerable to the scourge, and researchers are looking for explanations.

insideclimatenews.org

Mauritius oil spill: Island nation declares environmental emergency

The operator of a ship that spilled tonnes of fuel into the ocean off Mauritius, sparking an "environmental emergency", has apologised.

news.sky.com

Mystery as chemical spill kills tens of thousands of fish along stretch of pristine river in Wales

Emily Tilling witnessed a 'complete kill' - a pollution spill so toxic that it wiped out all the fish and almost all the insects and other invertebrates along three miles of the River Llynfi in mid-Wales.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Voluntary phase-out by industry of certain PFAS used in food packaging

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is announcing a voluntary phase-out of certain types of grease-proofing agents on paper and paperboard food

www.foodsafetynews.com

The world is drowning in used face masks. Should we turn them into fuel?

How to deal with the glut of used medical-grade PPE? There aren't any silver bullets, and none of the options are very attractive.

grist.org

Olivia Sullivan: Can cities go zero-waste? One Japanese town tried

Kamikatsu famously declared its goal was to go waste-free by 2020. Their experience shows we can’t move further without systemic changes.

therevelator.org

David F. Coursen: A neglected environmental justice issue: indoor plumbing

Access to clean water and sanitation is also a crucial environmental justice issue, but it is neglected in current policy and funding.

thehill.com

Do we know enough about the safety of quat disinfectants?

In the last 10 years, scientists have linked quats to reproductive and developmental problems in animals, and found they can disrupt key cellular processes. So far there's no data linking the compounds to toxicity in humans, but some scientists say there's more to be done to fully assess quats' safety.

cen.acs.org

Wildfire smoke and environmental justice: One little girl’s story

Extreme wildfires fueled by climate change have been spewing more harmful smoke into California's air in recent years. But not everyone is affected equally. Kids like Ta'Kira Dannette Byrd, who live in unhealthy, high-poverty neighborhoods, suffer more.

www.kalw.org

‘Super-pollutant’ emitted by 11 Chinese chemical plants could equal a climate catastrophe

In December 2007, Charles Perilloux, an American chemical engineer, traveled to China to help install inexpensive and game-changing technology at a Chinese chemical plant that was spewing a climate "super-pollutant" into the atmosphere. The emissions quickly fell to near zero.

insideclimatenews.org

Pennsylvania DEP pushes greenhouse gas pact

Pennsylvania would receive $300 million in 2022 from the sale of emissions credits and reduce its emissions of climate changing carbon dioxide by more than 180 million tons over the next decade if it joins the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

www.post-gazette.com

The deadly history of ammonium nitrate, the explosive linked to the Beirut blast

A deep-dive into the chemistry and legacy of the compound offers clues into what sparked Lebanon’s catastrophe.

www.nationalgeographic.com

Analysis: N.C.’s rural COVID-19 rate stems from meatpacking plants

While nursing homes and prisons made up most rural hot spots in the spring, growing evidence now points to a different major “engine of spread” that has lurked beneath the radar of public awareness and official recognition: meat-processing.

investigatemidwest.org

The Soilios robot floats to oil spills to clean them up

Inside the robot is a nanomaterial made from leaves that repels water and attracts oil.

www.fastcompany.com

Pushpam Kumar: Nature is telling us it’s time to build our economy around inclusive wealth

GDP per capita is an inadequate measure of well-being. Now, more than ever, we need to use the Inclusive Wealth Index to do the task.

ensia.com

Past recession data previews deep transit cuts

Transit agencies are already facing a grim economic outlook amid pandemic. Data from the last recession shows how some cuts were never restored.

www.bloomberg.com

The struggle to make 'mobility as a service' make money

Startups, transit agencies and policymakers are eager for “MaaS” apps that let travelers choose multiple modes — and give up private cars. But revenue has been elusive.

www.bloomberg.com

Michael Gerson: COVID-19 threatens to overwhelm the developing world

The United States must provide aid, for moral and security reasons.

www.washingtonpost.com

Even asymptomatic people carry the coronavirus in high amounts

Researchers in South Korea found that roughly 30 percent of those infected never develop symptoms yet probably spread the virus.

www.nytimes.com

In a nuclear arms race, the world can still be destroyed in a flash

It seems that the United States is plunging into a new arms race without learning the lessons of the last.

www.nytimes.com

After Hiroshima's carnage, Setsuko Thurlow devoted her life to peace

Setsuko Thurlow, a survivor of the atomic bombing in Hiroshima 75 years ago, has used the power of her personal story to try to rid the world of nuclear weapons.

www.nytimes.com

How microbes could help clean up Nova Scotia's abandoned mines

'We want to develop a treatment that you would apply … that would block the arsenic and the mercury.'

www.cbc.ca

Researcher wants answers about toxics in northern Ontario fish

Gretchen Lescord's findings suggest that while mercury in northern fish is still the biggest concern, the levels of chromium and arsenic concentrations are also raising some eyebrows.

www.cbc.ca

Fires in the Pantanal: ‘We are facing a scenario now that is catastrophic’

Devastating wildfires that burned out of control in late 2019 and early 2020 in Brazil's Pantanal wetland are back.

news.mongabay.com

Indonesian fishers who fought off tin miners prepare to battle all over again

Fishers in Sumatra have joined forces in opposition to a government plan to allow coastal mining that they say will destroy their fisheries.

news.mongabay.com

New global standards for mine waste won’t prevent dam failures, critics say

The international standards are facing criticism for failing to include enforcement mechanisms or penalties for companies that fall short of requirements.

thenarwhal.ca