There is no good reason to get rid of the Federal Flood risk Management Standards, and a host of good reasons to keep it. Repealing the standard doesn't just harm the vulnerable; it raises costs for all of us.

Very good news that should never have been in question: Judge upholds that DEQ can set wastewater permit limits coastalreview.org/2026/02/judg...

N.C. Judge Upholds the State’s Limits on 1,4-Dioxane Pollution in Utilities’ Wastewater #pollution #environment insideclimatenews.org/news/1102202...

Great discussion of data centers across NC. “This is a statewide climate and infrastructure question… And it’s arriving faster than the regulatory framework designed to manage it” www.wral.com/news/investi...

We need Congress to enact FEMA reform that strengthens the agency and rescues it from current leadership. www.nrdc.org/bio/joel-sca...

And this is despite La Nina: 2025 was Earth's 3rd-warmest year on record yaleclimateconnections.org/2026/01/2025...

This is a necessary project, but it is expensive. It's a good reason to stop prioritizing massive amounts of funding to unnecessary projects elsewhere in the state. www.newsobserver.com/news/busines...

🏆 WA just became the 1st state to ban all bisphenols in receipt paper & other thermal paper—protecting workers & shoppers from a hidden source of chemical exposure. This is what health-protective policy looks like: proving we don’t have to accept toxic chemicals as the cost of doing business.

This projects promises significant harm in exchange for minimal benefits for North Carolina. It's a bad idea.

The bright spot is the continuing rapid increase in solar generation. But the increase in coal and carbon emissions is so self-destructive, and so unnecessary.

Earthjustice blog briefly documents a collapse in federal environmental enforcement over the last year. earthjustice.org/experts/laur...

After the US admin cancelled the $B Climate + Weather Disaster dataset, @climatecentral.org hired the scientists who ran it and set it back up. Now the 2025 numbers are in: it's 3rd highest year on record and highest year w/o land-falling hurricanes. More: www.climatecentral.org/climate-serv...

Strong blog post from Toxic-Free Future: "If EPA were truly relying on “gold standard science,” it would follow the lead of states and companies that have already banned phthalates in consumer products and switched to safer alternatives." toxicfreefuture.org/blog/epa-sid...

The headline undersells this story. It's worth looking closely at the graphic showing projected increases in rain intensity across the state. We need both better sizing for stormwater infrastructure, and better maintenance of it. coastalreview.org/2026/01/noaa...

“Dutch people cycle an average of 2.6km each per day. If this pattern was replicated worldwide, annual carbon emissions would drop by 686 million tonnes. This mammoth figure exceeds the entire carbon footprint of most countries, including the UK, Canada, Saudi Arabia and Australia.” @euronews.com

New- from the state's best environmental reporter: Scientists Say the Forever Chemical TFA Could Cause Irreversible Harm. In Eastern North Carolina, It’s Everywhere. #pollution insideclimatenews.org/news/1012202...

Still more reason to cut off the release of this class of chemicals to air and water now. If companies want to use PFAS, they need to find other ways of disposing of them. www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

Strongly agree with this takeaway: "We need probabilistic, future-conditions, multi-peril mapping data that is public and subject to norms of oversight and transparency." open.substack.com/pub/susanpcr...

The agonizing long tail of disaster recovery is underexplored. I think a lot about this 2024 study finding that when a hurricane hits somewhere in the U.S., the people there are more likely to die *for the next 15 years*. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

From the Rockies to the Himalayas, mountains are warming faster than surrounding lowlands, new research shows. More intense heat is melting ice, threatening a vital source of fresh water for more than a billion people worldwide.

This is sea level rise: "I’ve lived in Atlantic for six decades. I’ve never seen the roads hold water like this. The fields don’t dry out anymore. The ditches stay full — they just don’t drain." Guest commentary: When the water doesn’t go away coastalreview.org/2025/11/gues...

I'm looking forward to reading the books. But this is such a thoughtful article, it is worth reading in its own right. And it's lovely for the hope it expresses in the power of clearly communicated ideas. coastalreview.org/2025/11/coas...

"Three-quarters of refugees and other displaced people now live in countries facing high or extreme exposure to climate-related hazards, with repeated displacement becoming increasingly common." www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Not every month will set a new record, but the warming trend is obvious. This graphic shows #Arctic air temperature rank by month over the satellite era - now updated through October 2025... 🧪 + Ranks: 1=warmest (red), 46/47=coldest (blue) + Download higher resolution: zacklabe.com/arctic-tempe...

Our analysis of EPA air monitoring data shows that companies have far underestimated the pollution caused by their facilities. At a U.S. Steel plant outside Pittsburgh, monitors found benzene levels 37 times higher than estimated emissions. @lisalsong.bsky.social, 📸: @annie-flanagan.bsky.social

"[W]e need to regulate these compounds at the source....People downstream should not be the filtration system.” www.wral.com/news/local/s...

This is a complex argument, but the core point is simple: disturbing PFAS contaminated sediments in the Cape Fear could set up North Carolina for recurring costs that far outweigh any speculative benefits of the project. coastalreview.org/2025/11/port...

Great news!

Dam safety - and especially removal of old dams - is a crucial part of inland flood resilience. www.wral.com/news/local/h...

Chemours is doubling down on its toxic history: NRDC coastalreview.org/2025/10/chem...

Most of the discussion about SNAP cuts focuses, rightly, on hungry people. But for North Carolinians concerned about food systems broadly, map 4 in this series - potential loss of grocery stores - is also chilling, implying much larger food deserts for everyone. ncbudget.org/mapping-what...

The bottom line is, Asheboro needs to tell its local industrial dischargers to stop putting 1,4-dioxane into the municipal sewer system. It really is that simple. coastalreview.org/2025/10/oppo...

"These actions by Asheboro are despicable." Folks at @usepa.bsky.social public hearing are beyond p*ssed about the city's discharge of 1,4-Dioxane, a likely carcinogen, into the drinking water supply.

Dredging for channel deepening, more than sea level rise, has killed cypress trees along the lower Cape Fear: coastalreview.org/2025/10/cape...

The company “improperly withheld vital emission data from the public” in its Aug. 14 application to the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Air Quality, according to a letter to regulators from Southern Environmental Law Center attorneys. coastalreview.org/2025/10/atto...

Bad news for coastlines everywhere, including North Carolina. Curbing carbon emissions is an important as ever.

Missed this when it was first published three weeks ago, but it makes a crucial point: state policies and investments can save this and other species from extinction: www.charlotteobserver.com/opinion/arti...

NEW An EPA report found that PFNA, a chemical in the drinking water of some 26M people, interferes with development and likely causes liver problems & male reproductive harms. The report was done in April, scientists told me. But the agency hasn't released it www.propublica.org/article/epa-...

"This is a big opportunity to correct [the myth] that people who don't drive are [living] some sort of fringe lifestyle — that not having access to a car is something that only hippies do, or pp who are obsessed w/ biking.. there's a lot of nuance [here]" www.nrdc.org/resources/wh...

The key quote: "There is something else going on here, rather than this normal erosion. You know, clearly the ocean’s higher, but … where is the equilibrium?” A: until we lower CO2 concentrations, there won't be one. Read more at Coastal Review, coastalreview.org. coastalreview.org/2025/10/mess...

Oy.

Homes that are rented as beach houses ought collect a fee and put it into a pool to be used to pay the cost of removing condemned houses before they fall into the ocean. This problem is a direct result of a highly commercialized coast, and there’s an efficient solution to it.

Why are so many young people getting cancer? Scientists are now shifting their research from genetics to environmental exposures to explain rising early-onset cancer rates among millennials.

This is a thoughtful and important point: "The best and most efficient use of funds would be to invest in treatment that tackles multiple pollutants", an improvement on the current practice of regulating contaminants one by one.

Sharing this happy and hopeful reminder.

Given what we know about climate change and its costs, this is really, really dumb spending.

🔥 The world’s top climate scientists have found that global warming is accelerating. Oceans are rising faster than ever, and the 1.5°C target is slipping away, but there’s still a narrow path forward. #ClimateAction

Climate change is driving an increase in heatwaves, and the U.S. is one of the places where that is most true.

This is an important, nuanced study, looking at what happens over 30 years. It finds harmful impacts that are real but so incremental a short term resident might not notice them. Bulkheads lead to salt marsh erosion, total loss: Study coastalreview.org/2025/09/bulk...

On one hand, reducing car use reduces urban pollution. But on the other, everyone likes it and cities become more livable