Most of Barack Obama's actions to forestall climate change were wiped out as Trump revoked limits on emissions from power plants and opened federal lands to coal mining.
Trump's approval of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines comes just as he has withdrawn the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a seeming contradiction in his agenda.
US authorities are using excessive force against protesters in North Dakota who are trying to halt a proposed oil pipeline project, according to a UN human rights expert.
The take-over of federal lands in eastern Oregon by a right-wing militia builds on a rancher land-grab that began when the Paiute Indians were usurped in the 1878 Bannock War.
UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment David Boyd issued an urgent call for accelerated action to combat climate change. The statement comes after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report on the impacts of global warming of 2°C—the increase permitted under the Paris Accord. Boyd said that climate change is "one of the greatest threats to human rights" and will have devastating effects on the "rights to life, health, food, housing, and water, as well as the right to a healthy environment." In order to meet human rights obligations, Boyd called on counties to exceed their Paris Agreement obligations. If the temperature increase is allowed to increase to 2.0°C, it would result in "human rights violations upon millions of people." (Photo via Jurist)
