Elizabeth Kolbert

2 weeks ago | newyorker.com | Elizabeth Kolbert

The disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant began on the afternoon of March 11, 2011, when the Tōhoku earthquake, also known as the Great East Japan Earthquake and the Great Sendai Earthquake, struck the island of Honshu. The shock, which registered 9.1 on the Richter scale, was so powerful that it knocked the island eight feet closer to Hawaii and generated a tsunami that sloshed all the way to Antarctica.

3 weeks ago | newyorker.com | Elizabeth Kolbert

When President Lyndon Johnson signed the Wilderness Act, on September 3, 1964, he called it one of the “most far-reaching conservation measures” ever approved. The bill established fifty-four wilderness areas, most in the American West, which, together, encompassed more than nine million acres. As the act famously put it, in these areas “the earth and its community of life” were to remain “untrammeled by man.” Homes, roads, cars, and even bicycles would therefore be prohibited.

1 month ago | newyorker.com | Elizabeth Kolbert

The first person to head the Environmental Protection Agency, which was created by President Richard Nixon, in late 1970, was an up-and-coming Republican politician named William Ruckelshaus. Ruckelshaus, known to his friends as Ruck, came from Indiana, where, during a single term in the state’s House of Representatives, he had managed to get elected majority leader. On being chosen to lead the E.P.A., he moved quickly to establish the new agency’s credibility.

1 month ago | motherjones.com | Elizabeth Kolbert

This story was originally published by Yale e360 and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. In the first six weeks of the new Trump administration, it’s become clear that the president intends to undo not just Joe Biden’s environmental legacy, but an entire generation’s worth of action on climate change. The administration has announced it is withdrawing from the Paris Agreement.

1 month ago | e360.yale.edu | Elizabeth Kolbert

In the first six weeks of the new Trump administration, it’s become clear that the president intends to undo not just Joe Biden’s environmental legacy, but an entire generation’s worth of action on climate change. The administration has announced it is withdrawing from the Paris Agreement. It has frozen Inflation Reduction Act grants, stopped issuing permits for offshore wind development, and declared an “energy emergency” to boost fossil fuel production.