That's good news. Thank Sod for some courts. And a country where the rule of law is resisting pressure to authoritarian autocracy.
"In ‘Huge Victory for Polar Bears’, Court Rejects Arctic Offshore Drilling Project By Andy Corbley - Dec 12, 2020
[...]
Bastions of unusually-rich biodiversity in the waters of the Beaufort Sea will remain undisturbed with the project’s defeat, as it would have required building not only the oil derrick itself, but a gravel mine in the bay to to make the rig’s pylons, as well as many supporting installations.
After the Trump administration gave approval for the project in 2018 to Hillcorp Alaska, its Liberty oil project in Foggy Island Bay was immediately slapped with lawsuits decrying the permits. The decision came on December 7 from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.
“I’m pleased that the court today rejected the administration’s inaccurate and misleading analysis of this project’s impact to the climate,” said Earth Justice attorney Jeremy Lieb in a statement from the Center for Biological Diversity following the decision."
The lack of concern of Trump, and many of his political appointees meant to stop Federal agencies from doing their jobs is no less than a criminal lack of concern for all children of our sorely stressed out planet.
Trump Administration Hardens Its Attack on Climate Science
"Trump withdrew from the Paris climate deal a year ago. Here’s what has changed. "Syria Joins Paris Climate Accord, Leaving Only U.S. Opposed""
[...]
The attack on science is underway throughout the government. In the most recent example, the White House-appointed director of the United States Geological Survey .. https://www.usgs.gov/ , James Reilly, a former astronaut and petroleum geologist, has ordered that scientific assessments produced by that office use only computer-generated climate models that project the impact of climate change through 2040, rather than through the end of the century, as had been done previously.
[...]
However, the goal of political appointees in the Trump administration is not just to change the climate assessment’s methodology, which has broad scientific consensus, but also to question its conclusions by creating a new climate review panel. That effort is led by a 79-year-old physicist who had a respected career at Princeton but has become better known in recent years for attacking the science of man-made climate change and for defending the virtues of carbon dioxide — sometimes to an awkward degree.
The Beaufort Sea in the Arctic, a region that is warming rapidly. The United States recently declined to sign a communiqué on protecting the Arctic unless it omitted references to climate change. Andrew Testa for The New York Times
Mr. Happer’s proposed panel is backed by John R. Bolton, the president’s national security adviser, who brought Mr. Happer into the N.S.C. after an earlier effort to recruit him during the transition.
Mr. Happer and Mr. Bolton are both beneficiaries of Robert and Rebekah Mercer, the far-right billionaire and his daughter who have funded efforts to debunk climate science. The Mercers gave money to a super PAC affiliated with Mr. Bolton before he entered government and to an advocacy group headed by Mr. Happer.
Climate scientists are dismissive of Mr. Happer; his former colleagues at Princeton are chagrined. And several White House officials — including Larry Kudlow, the president’s chief economic adviser — have urged Mr. Trump not to adopt Mr. Happer’s proposal, on the grounds that it would be perceived as a White House attack on science.
Even Stephen K. Bannon, the former White House strategist who views Mr. Happer as “the climate hustler’s worst nightmare — a world-class physicist from the nation’s leading institution of advanced learning, who does not suffer fools gladly,” is apprehensive about what Mr. Happer is trying to do.
“The very idea will start a holy war on cable before 2020,” he said. “Better to win now and introduce the study in the second inaugural address.”
But at a White House meeting on May 1, at which the skeptical advisers made their case, Mr. Trump appeared unpersuaded, people familiar with the meeting said. Mr. Happer, they said, is optimistic that the panel will go forward.
Dramatic Decline in Southern Beaufort Sea Polar Bears
•Nov 21, 2014
Polar Bears International
The polar bear population in the southern Beaufort Sea has declined by about 40% in recent years. Dr. Steven Amstrup, chief scientist at Polar Bears International, talks about what this means.
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