Environmental Headlines for the Houston Region: March 13, 2019
Senators call for truce on climate change
(James Osborne – Houston Chronicle, 03/12/2019. Photo by Zach Gibson.)
“After years of bitter stagnation in the Senate on climate change, a leading Republican and a leading Democrat are calling for a truce. Senators Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Joe Manchin, D-W.V., speaking at the CERAWeek by IHS Markit energy conference in Houston Monday, said climate politics had become so divisive that constructive debate had become all but impossible in Washington.” houstonchronicle.com
Reporter’s Notebook: If we want to save the world, should we start with Texas?
(Erin Douglas – Houston Chronicle, 03/08/2019. Photo by Marie D. De Jesus.)
“Houston isn’t exactly known for saving the environment. It’s known for the opposite: big, industrial facilities that contribute to rising greenhouse gas emissions. But Houston, the energy capital of the world, and its home state may be the best chance we have at building out the technology needed to move the needle on climate change in a meaningful way, at least some experts believe.” houstonchronicle.com
Congress launches probe on why Texas and EPA stopped NASA from tracking Harvey pollution
(Susanne Rust and Louis Sahagun – Los Angeles Times, 03/06/2019. Photo by Al Seib.)
“Congressional Democrats are launching an investigation into the fate of NASA’s offer to fly a pollution-analyzing jet over the Houston region in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. The investigation was spurred by a Los Angeles Times report Tuesday revealing that officials from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Texas Commission on Environmental Quality declined the NASA offer, arguing data collected by the space agency could cause “confusion†and might “overlap†with their own analysis — which was showing only a few, isolated spots of concern.” latimes.com
EcoNotes
- 13 March
- Planet in focus – Global Environment Outlook (United Nations Environment Programme) unenvironment.org
- Orange-bellied ‘starry dwarf frog’ discovered in Indian mountains (Nicola Davis – The Guardian) theguardian.com
- 12 March
- Air pollution deaths are double earlier estimates: study (Agence France-Presse) afp.com
- South Korea steps up fight against pollution, says problem is ‘social disaster’ (Jane Chung – Reuters) reuters.com
- 11 March
- Radical plan to artificially cool Earth’s climate could be safe, study finds (Emily Holden – The Guardian) theguardian.com
- 6 March
- Why would Texas officials refuse NASA’s help after Harvey? [Editorial] (The Editorial Board – Houston Chronicle) chron.com
- Houston one of the highest fine particulate levels (Rod Link – Houston Today) houston-today.com
- 28 February
- Jeff Speck Takes On Current I-45 Expansion Plan, Inspires More Action (Heather Leighton – Kinder Institute for Urban Research, Rice University) kinder.rice.edu