Climate

 The Guardian- As the Trump administration cracks down on both environmental policies and progressive activism, the Sunrise Movement, the youth-led climate justice organization that popularized calls for a Green New Deal, is widening its mission to fight authoritarianism.

“Every day, Donald Trump is seizing power and shredding the Constitution,” Sunrise’s executive director, Aru Shiney-Ajay, wrote in an open letter to Sunrise members, funders and allies. “What ordinary people do in the coming months will determine whether he and his billionaire cronies can cement their grip on power and turn this country into a playground for the rich and powerful.”

Unlike the majority of Sunrise’s past work, its newer efforts will not necessarily center the climate crisis. But Stevie O’Hanlon, a co-founder and spokesperson for Sunrise, said the projects will aim to build a world where climate action is possible.

“In order to win the bold action that we’ll need to prevent climate catastrophe, we’re going to need a country where we have the right to dissent and protest,” she said. “How are we going to win on climate under authoritarianism?”

In These Times -   More than half of Americans say they feel anxious that extreme weather will drive up costs, cause financial losses or harm their health in retirement. And for a country where the share of its over-50 population is approaching 40% — up from around 25% in 2000 — the crisis is reaching an apex. 

For those on the cusp of retirement, even modest setbacks can push the retirement date out of reach, especially if insurance is unaffordable or inadequate and the public safety nets fall short, explains Danielle Arigoni, author of Climate Resilience for an Aging Nation.

Inside Climate Change News -  Just days after announcing sweeping cuts to clean energy programs across the country, the Trump administration appears to be upping the ante—potentially clawing back billions more in federal funding.

Inside Climate Change News - The National Guard logged more than 400,000 member service days per year over the past decade responding to hurricanes, wildfires and other natural disasters, the Pentagon has revealed in a report to Congress.

The numbers mean that on any given day, 1,100 National Guard troops on average have been deployed on disaster response in the United States.

Congressional investigators believe this is the first public accounting by the Pentagon of the cumulative burden of natural disaster response on the National Guard.

The data reflect greater strain on the National Guard and show the potential stakes of the escalating conflict between states and President Donald Trump over use of the troops. Trump’s drive to deploy the National Guard in cities as an auxiliary law enforcement force—an effort curbed by a federal judge over the weekend—is playing out at a time when governors increasingly rely on the Guard for disaster response.

Inside Climate Change News -The ongoing federal shutdown has eclipsed the final stretch of negotiations on an updated agreement to guide restoration of the Chesapeake Bay, leaving partner states to contemplate a less ambitious pact with scaled-back targets and modest cleanup goals. 

Nearly all normally participating federal agencies have been absent from these deliberations since the Oct. 1 shutdown. The Chesapeake Bay Program’s management board met Thursday without that expertise to hammer out a proposal aimed at closing gaps identified by the public after a draft agreement was announced in July.

That draft agreement had drawn the ire of scientists, advocates and citizen groups for weakening legal accountability under the federal Clean Water Act and diluting the enforcement of the bay’s longstanding pollution limits, known as the Total Maximum Daily Load, or TMDL.