Green Mission News – August 2025
Earth Overshoot Day
In just about seven months, humanity has exhausted Earth’s budget for the year.
https://www.footprintnetwork.org/our-work/earth-overshoot-day/
‘Total infiltration’: How plastics industry swamped vital global treaty talks
UN’s top court delivers landmark decision on tackling climate change
https://apnews.com/article/un-court-opinion-climate-change-1ac84a94a5aaffd63518ef1da3502a9e
Rethinking Media Literacy: A New Ecosystem Model for Information Integrity
Massachusetts test shows big savings from free heat pumps and solar
Low-income residents on Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard who participated in a home electrification pilot saw their utility bills drop by more than half.
https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/electrification/massachusetts-pilot-results-free-solar
The “green” corporations funding anti-climate groups
https://climatevoice.org/green-corporations-funding-anti-climate-groups/
‘Keeping us hooked on fossil fuels’: how can we negotiate with autocracies on the climate crisis?
This Might Be the Climate Wake-Up Call We’ve Been Waiting For
It can be challenging to connect climate change to people’s everyday lives. But there’s nothing abstract about heat waves and vanishing beaches.
https://newrepublic.com/article/198044/heat-waves-us-europe-vacation-climate-change-wake-up-call
LA fires charred homes into piles of metal and concrete. By recycling them, they’re given new life
Yet Another Way Republicans Are Making Life More Expensive
Trump ran on bringing down inflation. Instead, as climate change relentlessly drives up food prices, his administration is hell-bent on ignoring the problem. (eating the costs)
How the climate crisis and aid cuts could devastate global supplies of vanilla
Vanilla farmers in Madagascar, a country that supplies up to 80 per cent of the global crop each year, face a difficult future as the climate crisis and aid cuts bite.
https://www.the-independent.com/climate-change/us-aid-trump-vanilla-madagascar-usaid-b2788831.html
The EPA Canceled These 21 Climate Justice Projects
From solar-powered greenhouses to wild rice initiatives, the Trump administration cut funding for nearly two dozen farm and food resilience projects.
https://civileats.com/2025/07/23/these-farm-and-food-projects-have-lost-their-epa-funding/
How nanoplastics may be impacting our long-term health
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-nanoplastics-may-be-impacting-our-long-term-health/
Websites hosting major US climate reports taken down
Trump bids to scrap almost all pollution regulations – can anything stop this?
EPA tries to rescind ‘endangerment finding’ – part of ‘drill, baby, drill’ agenda that experts say poses grave threat
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jul/31/trump-epa-endangerment-finding
Coastal communities vary widely in climate hazard acknowledgment, study shows
‘Highly Inspiring’ Court Ruling Affirms Nations’ Legal Duty to Combat Climate Emergency
“While the United States and some other major polluters have chosen to ignore climate science, the rest of the international community is advancing protections,” said one observer.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/iacthr-advisory-opinion-climate
Summer without cherry pie? Michigan’s signature crop faces battery of threats
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/05/cherry-pie-michigan-signature-crop
New Mexico sues US air force over Pfas pollution from military base
High levels of Pfas stemming from the base have tainted water, damaged crops and poisoned cows in the area
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/10/new-mexico-us-air-force-pfas
New Analysis Finds PFAS in 98% of Tested U.S. Waterways Across 19 States
https://waterkeeper.org/news/new-analysis-finds-pfas-in-98-of-tested-u-s-waterways-across-19-states/
The Cornish start-up using food waste to make organic clothing
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/cornish-start-using-food-waste-170000282.html
Renewables-Backed Transmission Project Touted as a Trump ‘Win’ Now Facing the Axe
Turning over a new leaf: historic English gardens adapt to the changing climate
Head gardeners try out more diverse and drought-resistant plants from around the world, with fascinating results
Moving Trees North to Save the Forests
As the world warms, trees in forests such as those in Minnesota will no longer be adapted to their local climates. That’s where assisted migration comes in.
Right to repair ‘would reduce inequality’
Will the government’s upcoming circular economy strategy consider a right to repair and overconsumption?
https://theecologist.org/2025/jul/24/right-repair-would-reduce-inequality
How Developing Countries Can Reduce Emissions Without Compromising Growth
https://earth.org/how-developing-countries-can-reduce-emissions-without-compromising-growth/
On Controlling Fire, New Lessons from a Deep Indigenous Past
For centuries, the Native people of North America used controlled burns to manage the continent’s forests. In an e360 interview, ecologist Lori Daniels talks about the long history of Indigenous burning and why the practice must be restored to protect against catastrophic fires.
https://e360.yale.edu/features/lori-daniels-interview
Carrying capacity is not just a ‘mountain’ issue. It is a national and global concern
Uttarakhand may be assessing the carrying capacity of its cities; but unless India manages both rural and urban ecosystems effectively, it cannot truly balance economy and ecology
This is Not a Thing: Land, Sustainability and Legal Education
https://academic.oup.com/jel/article-abstract/26/3/395/408505
How to talk about heatwaves with kids (without scaring them)
Media reaction: The 2025 Texas floods and the role of climate change
https://www.carbonbrief.org/media-reaction-the-2025-texas-floods-and-the-role-of-climate-change/
From deforestation to renewal: Why reforestation isn’t just about trees
A heat wave hit New England’s grid. Clean energy saved the day.
On the hottest day this year, behind-the-meter solar panels and a growing network of batteries helped prevent blackouts and saved consumers millions of dollars.
https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/clean-energy/northeast-heat-wave-solar-battery-benefits
The US food system should be providing healthy, sustainably produced food for all. Instead, it’s damaging our health, our land and water, our communities, and farmers and food workers themselves. We can do better.
Could AI Help Humanity Understand Whales?
This project hopes that decoding sperm whale sounds will boost conservation efforts
https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/could-ai-help-humanity-understand-whales
Berkeley’s Path to Zero Waste
(audio)
https://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/podcast/entry/berkeleys-path-to-zero-waste
Bill Moyers Helped Break the Media’s Climate Silence
Launching the Covering Climate Now media collaboration, he urged fellow journalists to “tell the story so people get it.”
https://coveringclimatenow.org/from-us-story/bill-moyers-helped-break-the-medias-climate-silence/
Climate change is amplifying extreme rain events in the Northeast, research shows
A deluge of rain caused flash flooding in New York City and surrounding regions.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/climate-change-amplifying-extreme-rain-events-northeast-research/story
Trump’s push to keep coal plants running could cost consumers billions
The DOE’s emergency stay-open orders for aging fossil-fuel plants are forcing unexpected costs onto utility customers. Additional orders would deepen the harm
https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/fossil-fuels/cost-trump-keep-coal-open
Plastics Made the LA Fires Worse
But we have an opportunity to build back better.
https://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/articles/entry/plastics-made-the-la-fires-worse
Pyrethroid insecticides implicated in mass mortality of monarch butterflies at an overwintering site in California
https://academic.oup.com/etc/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/etojnl/vgaf163/8177160