America's climate leaders and a pair of wandering whales
Welcome to Climate Point, your weekly guide to climate, energy and the environment, where you'll hear a little about wildfires, a lot about the latest from Washington D.C. and some quirky stories too.
I'm Dinah Voyles Pulver, a national correspondent with Paste BN.
First the Good News
Fifty-five years after the first Earth Day, a special collaboration between Paste BN and Statista delivered some good news for the planet.
As more companies disclose their carbon emissions, a significant number of U.S. companies are listed in the 2025 America's Climate Leaders ranking. The report uses public data to rank companies doing the most to reduce their carbon footprint. “It’s well-documented that there’s a huge growth in investor preference for green companies,” said Shawn Kim, a professor at Hass School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, who studies green investing.
In another bit of positive news, two endangered North American right whales that had been on a girls only trip in the Gulf of Mexico, recently renamed the Gulf of America by President Donald Trump, surfaced near Bimini in the Bahamas. Although the whales haven't been seen in more than a week, scientists say it's likely they're returning to the summer feeding grounds off New England.
Trump administration rolls into fourth month
The first 100 days of President Donald Trump's second term in office delivered dozens of actions that could revamp the role the U.S. government plays in protecting the climate and the environment. Paste BN looked at the array of executive orders and actions taken since Jan. 21 as part of a larger project on the administration's first 100 days. Among the many actions taken was a major deregulation effort, spending cuts on environmental programs, a plan to open up logging on national forests and massive cuts across environmental and weather agencies. Plans were announced to "pause dangerous wind projects."
"Environmental law as we knew it has been turned on its ear and all the guardrails are going down," said Clay Henderson, an author and environmental attorney.
But President Trump's recently appointed Secretary of the Interior, Doug Burgum, took a different view: “The Golden Age is here, and we are starting to ‘Mine, Baby, Mine’ for clean American coal."
Even as scientists continue to emphasize the changes occurring as a result of the changing climate, the administration continues to downplay climate concerns in favor of what it calls the nation's "energy emergency."
Tim Lenton, from the University of Exeter's Global Systems Institute in the United Kingdom, co-authored a new study that looks at how the Earth is nearing some catastrophic climate tipping points. "It is clear that we are currently on a dangerous trajectory – with tipping points likely to be triggered unless we change course rapidly," said the co-author of a new study.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration paused the planned Sixth National Climate Assessment for a review, dismissing the 400 volunteer scholars and scientists who had been appointed to complete the assessment. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency continues its efforts to reduce staff, as does the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The impacts of the budget cuts being pushed by the Department for Government Efficiency are having far reaching impacts at the local level around the country. A church's tree planting project was halted in Milwaukee, and concerns were raised about monitoring buoys off the North Carolina coast.
A closer look at wildfires in Arizona
The staff of the Arizona Republic published an in-depth look at wildfires in the state. The package includes a look at how cities aim to avert disaster and how climate change is disrupting the state's wildfires seasons. The series followed a wildfire fighting effort to clear out dense brush and shrub in a park and efforts to reduce grass fire threats. The state's wildfire forecast is complicated.
Read on for more, including the spreading seaweed invasion and what happens after a contract lapses for some climate centers.
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