"The mysterious origin story of the wild ponies on Assateague Island might finally be closer to being resolved, thanks to a recent scientific discovery that all happened by chance."
As a young man, Rodney Stotts knew plenty about drugs, guns and poverty and little about the other kinds of wildlife in his hometown. A chance offer of a job cleaning up Washington, D.C.’s Anacostia River set him on the path to becoming a master falconer — despite racist resistance — and a mentor to others who share his inner-city roots. BookShelf’s Jennifer Weeks reviews Stotts’ memoir, “Bird Brother.”
"Nonprofit Appalachian Voices is suing Virginia to force the release of a document that allegedly contains an opinion from the attorney general’s office that Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin cannot pull the state out of a regional carbon market."
""It’s a green light for the conventional oil and gas industry to continue to do what they’ve done, which is abandon these wells whenever they feel like it.""
"Washington, D.C., is expected to become the second East Coast city to ban fossil fuel boilers and water heaters in most new buildings, following the unanimous approval of two bills by the City Council this week that are supported by the mayor."
"Citing the need to fight climate change, Pennsylvania’s Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf on Monday vetoed Republican-penned legislation to stop municipalities from adopting building codes that prohibit natural gas hookups."
"Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) on Friday appointed former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head Andrew Wheeler to a newly created Office of Regulatory Management, months after state lawmakers voted Wheeler down for another position."
"The Chesapeake Bay Program reported on Wednesday that Maryland’s wastewater treatment facilities, operating in violation of discharge permits, contributed significant increases in nitrogen and phosphorus pollution last year in the bay."
In 2006, a local government council in Pennsylvania concerned about sewage sludge dumping enacted the Western legal system’s first formal “rights of nature” instrument. Today, numerous countries have laws recognizing specific rights or even legal personhood for nature. As legal expert Alice Bleby explains, this new perspective arises from a wide range of contexts and plays out in many different ways.
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