Happy Friday everyone! This month we are excited to start off our newsletter by introducing our featured writer and newest team member, Colby! Next up we have our monthly headlines, including underground fires, a damning IPCC report, and an interesting decision from the USPS . We'll round up this issue with our education piece, where we'll take you through Environmental Policy in the early 70s!

Colby is joining our ClimateRoots Team / Image courtesy of Colby Lawless

Welcoming our Newest Member!

We are beyond excited to announce that, once again, our team here at ClimateRoots is growing! Colby comes to us having studied Environmental Conservation and Sustainability with a focus in Renewable Energy at the University of New Hampshire. She grew up in Newburyport, MA and has since stayed in the area and moved to Boston. Colby has had an interest in content creation and education since high school, where she was in a writing club and attended the Champlain College Young Writers conference for several years. She would go on to volunteer as a mentor there to help young writers find their voice. At UNH, Colby found her passion for renewable energy and attended EnergyPath 2018, a conference where she learned about solar energy and helped assemble a solar array with people from across the country.  

Currently, Colby is working as the marketing associate at ACE Solar in North Andover, MA. She manages their social media and creates content for them such as educational blogs, digital ads, and more. She also helps run Massachusetts Solarize programs throughout the state that make solar energy more affordable for participating communities. The solarize programs are very education-centric, so Colby has taught several virtual webinars on the basics of solar to children and residents across Massachusetts. Her career goal is to make renewable energy more accessible, address climate change, and promote environmental justice in the work that she pursues. Click the link below to read one of Colby’s blog posts on what we mean when we talk about the ‘Climate Debate.’ We are super lucky to have Colby join our team, as she brings the expertise to help ClimateRoots grow while taking our content and impact to the next level!

Interested in being a Featured Writer? Fill out this survey and let us know!

Monthly Headlines

In Dire New Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report, Climate Impacts Arrival Even Sooner than Expected (The Boston Globe, AP, NPR, The Guardian, Reuters, Washington Post, AP Explainer)

• If you read one thing from this month’s newsletter it should be this: climate change impacts are arriving much sooner than expected and we are incredibly unprepared.

• The report outlines the dramatic action that must be taken in the next decade to adapt to a rapidly warming climate.

• This adaptation must take place at the same time as drastic cuts in climate pollution in order to avoid passing the 1.5 degree celsius threshold. This threshold is quickly becoming harder and harder to reach.

• If we do not keep warming under 1.5 degrees, it will be near impossible to successfully adapt to the escalating impacts of climate change.

• UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres writes “I have seen many scientific reports in my time, but nothing like this.”

• The four key takeaways are that the climate crisis is indeed much worse than we thought, more warming will make things worse, poor communities will bear the biggest burden and solutions to the crisis are urgently needed.

• In New England, one of the hardest hit regions of the country so far, the report means drastic impacts are coming to the economy, weather, sea level and countless other areas of life.

Could Underground Coal Fires be Leading to Recent Forest Fires? (AP, ClimateSignals)

• There are at least 259 documented underground coal mine fires in the US, with the possibility of many more undocumented fires.

• Coal fires can be ignited by numerous sources and are nearly impossible to put out since the fire feeds on the oxygen in the coal itself, allowing them to burn underground for decades.

• There is some evidence suggesting that the Marshall Fire - the most destructive wildfire in Colorado state history - was ignited by just such a coal fire that has been burning since 1883.

The United States Postal Service Confirms Plans to Order New Gas-Powered Delivery Trucks (Washington Post, The Hill, CNBC)

• The USPS will purchase roughly 150 thousand gas-powered delivery trucks to power its new fleet.

• This defies objects from the Biden Administration since the fleet includes nearly one third of all vehicles in the federal fleet.

• Even with improved miles per gallon, the new fleet would only increase fuel efficiency by 0.4 mpg.

To read more headlines from this week, click below.

USPS delivery truck / Image Courtesy of Joel Moysuh

Environmental Policy - 1970-74

Hello all,

Happy March!

In this month's issue, we are continuing our coverage of environmental policy by diving into some of the biggest policies at the beginning of the modern environmental movement. In these issues we are focusing on milestone policies– those that mark a significant change or development in the field. Today we are covering 1970-1974, a short period of time with a lot of heavy hitters. With public attention newly fixed on environmental advocacy thanks to Rachel Carson’s ‘Silent Spring’, the 1970s opened with 20 million Americans turning out in protest at the first ever Earth Day, signaling that environmental protection was now a mainstay in American politics. From that point on, we see the formation of some of the most important policies to date.

1970- Richard Nixon forms the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

As we discussed last week, the American environmental consciousness rose to prominence in the 1960s, coming fully into the political realm in 1970. According the the EPA, “as a result of heightened public concerns about deteriorating city air, natural areas littered with debris, and urban water supplies contaminated with dangerous impurities,” President Richard Nixon wrote a 37 point message to the House of Representatives and the Senate where he requested, “...four billion dollars for the improvement of water treatment facilities; asking for national air quality standards and stringent guidelines to lower motor vehicle emissions; and launching federally-funded research to reduce automobile pollution.” (OA US EPA, The Guardian). Nixon also created a council to consider how to organize federal government programs and put his points into action (OA US EPA, The Origins of EPA). Following council recommendations, Nixon put forth a plan to Congress to consolidate the environmental responsibilities of the federal government into one agency, the EPA. This proposal was accepted and the EPA opened its doors on December 2nd, 1970. 

1970- Clean Air Act (CAA)

The Clean Air Act of 1970 was one of the first federal policies to be passed following the formation of the EPA, speaking to the concern many Americans felt about the “​​dense, visible smog in many of the nation's cities and industrial centers” and the connection between air pollution and public health (OAR US EPA, Clean Air Act Requirements and History). Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA has to establish air quality standards for six common pollutants– ozone, particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, and lead. States are then required to adopt plans or policies to reach these quality standards, which includes managing emissions that might move across state lines (OAR US EPA, Clean Air Act Requirements and History). Additionally, the CAA regulates vehicle exhaust and pollution from industrial plants. 

1972- Clean Water Act (CWA)

The basis of the Clean Water Act comes from the 1948 Federal Water Pollution Control Act, which was responding to the economic and cultural boom following the end of World War II (“History of the Clean Water Act”) The CWA allows the EPA to protect the lakes, streams, rivers, and bays throughout the country by standardizing water quality, managing single point pollution and regulating the discharge of industry pollutants into these bodies of water (OP US EPA, Summary of the Clean Water Act) Many believe that the CWA does not do enough to protect American waterways, saying that, “...it still doesn’t address some critical polluters, including nonpoint source pollution, which includes runoff, drainage and other pollution that’s not directly held responsible by one source.” (“History of the Clean Water Act”)

1972- Ocean Dumping Act (ODA)

The Ocean Dumping Act, also known as The Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act (MPRSA), “prohibits dumping into the ocean material that would unreasonably degrade or endanger human health or the marine environment.”(OA US EPA, EPA History) The act also allows the U.S.Army Corps of Engineers to regulate any ocean dredging permits, as according to EPA standards. The ODA is part of one of the first international agreements to protect marine life from the effects of human activity (OW US EPA, Learn about Ocean Dumping).

1974- Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA)

The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) allows the EPA to protect the quality of drinking water throughout the country (OP US EPA, Summary of the Safe Drinking Water Act). The EPA regulates quality by holding all public drinking water to the legally enforceable standards known as the National Primary Drinking Water Regulations (NPDWR). The NPDWR limits the acceptable level of contaminants which include microorganisms, disinfectants, disinfection byproducts, inorganic chemicals, organic chemicals and radionuclides (OW US EPA, National Primary Drinking Water Regulations). The NPDWRs are regulated due to public health concerns should they be ingested. The EPA also has Secondary Drinking Water Regulations and list of unregulated contaminants that many states adopt as part of their water regulation, however these are technically non-enforceable guidelines (OW US EPA, Drinking Water Regulations and Contaminants).

Many of these regulations are household names today; in fact it seems like a no-brainer that this sort of thing would be regulated and protected. However, during this time the creation of the EPA and the resulting actions were a BIG deal. This will continue to be a theme as we make our way through environmental policy in the US. Tune in at the end of this month for our review of 1975-1979!

To read this full piece with works cited, check it out on our blog!

Meredith, Ryan, and Evan skinning in the B.C. backcountry  / Image Courtesy of  Nora Hughes

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