As 2020 comes to a close, we're taking a look back at some of our best reporting on the environment.

The American landscape has become 48 times more toxic to insects since the 1990s, a shift largely fueled by rising use of neonicotinoid insecticides.

Banned in the EU, a sophisticated information war has kept these insecticides on the U.S. market. https://t.co/fQxUoqDJqr
Amid California's severe wildfires, grape growers in Sonoma County got exemptions to send in farmworkers who have few alternatives or options for support into fire evacuation zones. https://t.co/5ag87KQZ2H
With Trump's election, a small and previously marginalized group of toxics apologists suddenly took control over health and environmental regulations, ushering in higher profits for polluters and higher cancer rates for the American people. https://t.co/kGx4P35Cbi
Steven Donziger won a multibillion-dollar judgment against Chevron in Ecuador. The company sued him in New York — as of December, he has been under house arrest for over 500 days. https://t.co/JFctNRmd4f
After Canadian police raided a camp to defend the Coastal GasLink pipeline, protesters shut down ports, roads and railways from Vancouver to Saskatchewan, and a blockade set up by Indigenous-led protesters halted commuter rail between Montreal and Toronto. https://t.co/NWsJpPqZMs
Contractors working for the Trump administration blew apart a mountain on protected lands in southern Arizona to make way for the border wall along a tract of Sonoran Desert wilderness long celebrated as one of America’s great ecological treasures. https://t.co/r9yiebuLR0
Corporations are developing creative means to funnel millions of dollars to local law enforcement groups. This funding has often been paired with increasingly elaborate private security and propaganda operations. https://t.co/uCQnXy4nW6
“It’s money invested in maintaining the license to pollute.”

Since China’s policy change on scrap plastic, the U.S., Australia, and many wealthy European nations have been exporting their waste to other countries that are far less able to deal with it. https://t.co/VgN68IjEeb
A Message From the Future II: The Years of Repair

The pandemic exposed the cruelty of the system that got us into this crisis, but it also provided the inspiration to build a better world.

More from Climate change

It was a dark and stormy night...

(I’ve always wanted to tweet that) But seriously, there was a tropical storm when a group of people gathered in the woods.

If they were white, we’d call them “founding fathers” but they were slaves who were about to change the world

A thread


Voudou priestess Cecile Fatiman danced with a knife. Then she split a pig and everyone drank the pig’s blood from a wooden bowl while enslaved priest Cutty Boukman prayed:

“The god who created the earth; who created the sun that gives us light. The god who holds up the ocean;

who makes the thunder roar. Our god who has ears to hear. You who are hidden in the clouds, who watch us from where you are. You see all that the white has made us suffer. The white man’s god asks him to commit crimes. But the god within us wants to do good...

It’s He who will direct our arms and bring us the victory. It’s He who will assist us. We all should throw away the image of the white men’s god who is so pitiless. Listen to the voice for liberty that speaks in all our hearts.”

Then , the meeting adjourned & everyone went home.

A week later, on Aug. 21 1791, it began.

In one week, 1800 plantations on the Island of St. Domingue would be burned to the ground and 1,000 white enslavers would be dead.

The shit had finally hit the fan.
I don't have time to make this detailed, but here's a little thread about the world's first major politically-charged blackout that was blamed on renewables, in South Australia, in 2016............

On September 28, 2016, an unprecedented tropical storm progressed rapidly across South Australia. Truly - this thing was unusual. The sky folded in on itself. It tore towns to bits.


Australia's @climatecouncil pointed out that the storm was so unusual at least partly due to the influence of climate change, and that this is due to get worse.

https://t.co/76ekkfJpR8


I'm going to use brief snippets from my book to fill this out! The storm's primary impact on the grid was the destruction of several major transmission lines. When I say destruction - I mean they snapped like twigs.


Here's what happened in the following seconds:

- A voltage spike from the line falls
- Wind turbines automatically shut off due to software settings that trigger shutdown during a spike
- The interconnector to Vic tried to compensate, failed and died
- All of SA blacked out

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