"Officials investigating one of California’s largest recent oil spills are looking into whether a ship’s anchor may have struck an oil pipeline on the ocean floor, causing heavy crude to leak into coastal waters and foul beaches, authorities said Monday."
It sometimes feels like journalists lurch from one catastrophe (or hurricane, flood, wildfire, heat wave) to the next. But that can mean missing the bigger story: Disasters, increasingly linked to climate extremes, are often interlocking events, in which one system failure causes the next and the next. The latest Backgrounder explores three case studies, and how news media can focus attention on steps toward resilience.
"Much of the world is suddenly worried about running short of natural gas, and the impact is being felt in surging utility bills, shuttered factories and a rising desperation as winter approaches."
"Urban transportation is central to the effort to slow climate change. It can’t be done by just switching to electric cars. Several cities are starting to electrify mass transit."
"The natural gas industry was losing in cities across the US. Then came an obscure partisan tactic called preemption."
"Centrist Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is insisting that natural gas be allowed to have a central role in President Biden’s clean energy agenda, which puts him on a collision course with Democratic lawmakers who worry he will have the power to water down what they see as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to address climate change."
"Crews on the water and on shore worked feverishly Sunday to limit environmental damage from one of the largest oil spills in recent California history, caused by a suspected leak in an underwater pipeline that fouled the sands of famed Huntington Beach and could keep the beaches there closed for weeks or longer."
"The Biden administration on Thursday announced a November oil and gas lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico, months after a federal court blocked its moratorium on new federal lease sales."
"The United Nations human rights body said Thursday that a former environmental lawyer’s house arrest on contempt charges was illegal and called on the U.S. to release him."
"One of the sticking points in the $3.5 trillion spending bill in Congress is a clean energy policy that would use financial incentives and penalties to get utilities to accelerate their shift to carbon-free electricity."
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