At United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) headquarters in Washington on Thursday, Democratic Senator Edward J. Markey, U.S. Representative for Arizona Yassamin Ansari and New York Representative Paul Tonko requested a meeting with EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to discuss why funding for environmental programs was being “unconstitutionally cut off,” a press release from the Office of Ed Markey said.

The Trump administration has disregarded multiple court orders requiring that the funds be restarted.

The three Democratic members of Congress had also planned “to demand that the funding that has already been authorized and appropriated by Congress be rightfully unfrozen,” the press release said.

“Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and their unqualified, unelected, unwanted henchmen want to dismantle the government services that keep our communities thriving, healthy, and safe from polluters,” Markey said in the press release. “I went to the headquarters of the EPA to demand answers from Administrator Zeldin and the DOGE representatives who are illegally withholding funding that would keep air and water clean and help families save money.”

Here’s what happened when Congressman Tonko, Congresswoman Ansari, and I showed up at EPA today to ask to meet with DOGE. First, we were denied entry. Then we were promised a representative was coming to speak with us—twice. No one ever came. We are demanding answers. youtu.be/fvP1xlt46w0

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— Senator Ed Markey (@markey.senate.gov) February 6, 2025 at 7:38 PM

Trump administration officials have not released billions of EPA dollars authorized by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), including those allotted for clean school bus programs. This has left communities without the resources to combat the impacts of hazardous pollution.

In the lobby of the EPA, the legislators faced a cold reception.

Wearing a scarf that said “Climate Can’t Wait,” Senator Markey spoke to security personnel.

“I’m Senator Markey, and we’re here to request a meeting with EPA officials,” the senator from Massachusetts said, as Inside Climate News reported.

The three legislators were escorted outside and stood in the building’s entryway. A security officer told them they were waiting for a representative to come and speak with them.

“We are here to request a meeting with any and all EPA officials inside,” Tonko said, as reported by Inside Climate News. “The American people deserve to know whether their clean air, clean water and clean land are in jeopardy.”

Following the attempted meeting, other members of Congress, as well as advocates and leaders of several unions and environmental groups, including Green New Deal Network, Hip Hop Caucus, WE ACT for Environmental Justice, Climate Action Campaign, Union of Concerned Scientists, National Council of Churches and Natural Resources Defense Council, joined the lawmakers outside EPA headquarters for a press conference.

They accused the newly appointed leaders of the EPA of defying court orders issued by the federal government to enforce legally mandated environmental protections.

“In a place like Phoenix, Arizona, where we have extreme heat, where hundreds of people die each year from heat exposure, and where air pollution is among the worst in the country, gutting the EPA is unacceptable,” Ansari said, as Inside Climate News reported. “People’s lives literally depend on it.”

Multiple judges have issued orders blocking the federal funding freeze, but state leaders have reported that they continue to be locked out of the government’s payment system.

Jillian Blanchard, Lawyers for Good Government’s vice president for climate change and environmental justice, said IRA payouts for grant recipients at the Energy and Agriculture departments had also reported being unable to access funds.

“People cannot get into their accounts. They can’t access funding. They’re waiting on invoices to be paid. No one will call them back,” Blanchard said, as reported by Scientific American.

Markey said the public should know if the EPA was violating court orders and federal statutes.

“Fifty-five years ago, the American people demanded action against polluters — that is the heart and soul of the EPA,” Markey said, as Inside Climate News reported. “We need to make sure their mission remains intact and that they are following the law.”

Outside EPA headquarters, the legislators addressed the group that had gathered, including members of the press, calling Musk an “unelected billionaire” who was intent on orchestrating a hostile restructuring of federal agencies, including the EPA.

“Musk has made it clear — he’s putting the United States in a wood chipper, and now he’s coming for the EPA,” Markey stated. “They’re bragging about taking money from Medicaid, Medicare, the Affordable Care Act and the Green New Deal to fund tax cuts for billionaires and millionaires.”

Markey and fellow legislators referred to reports of EPA employees being warned about possible removal from their jobs. On Thursday, 168 employees who had been working on the agency’s environmental justice initiatives were put on administrative leave.

“After being denied access and a meeting, I left with more questions than answers. I will not stop fighting on behalf of the American people — their clean air, clean water, lower energy bills, and livable future — until I get those answers and funding gets restored. No business as usual. No votes for nominees. No illegal funding freeze. And no workers left behind,” Markey said in the press release.

EPA staff asked what they could do if the agency continued to defy oversight.

“Congress is a stimulus-response institution,” Markey said, as reported by Inside Climate News. “There is nothing more stimulating than millions of Americans waking up to find out their health care and environment are being gutted for tax breaks. Our job is to sound the alarm so the public can push back.”

The legislators promised to keep on with their oversight efforts, which include congressional investigations and possible legal action, while acknowledging the difficulties of holding the EPA accountable under the Trump administration.

“The whole system is fundamentally not working,” Ansari said. “Right now, they are ignoring the courts, ignoring federal oversight, and rewriting the Constitution to serve their billionaire backers.”

Ansari warned the EPA fight was only one part of a bigger effort by Republicans to dismantle government services.

“It is easy to cut what you do not care about,” Ansari said. “Elon Musk and Donald Trump do not care about the American people. They care about their billionaire agenda, which exploits workers and fuels environmental injustice.”

The members of Congress reaffirmed their commitment to blocking the administration’s policies and nominees they felt posed a threat to the country’s environmental protections.

“We have to fight for our future,” Markey said. “From the halls of Congress to the streets of America, from courtrooms to factory floors, we must stand up for clean air, clean water, and a livable planet. That is why we are here.”

The post ‘Gutting the EPA Is Unacceptable’: Democratic Lawmakers Demand Answers Amid ‘Unconstitutional’ Funding Freeze appeared first on EcoWatch.

Pets at Home, a pet supplies retailer in the United Kingdom, has launched what it says are the first-ever dog treats made with lab-grown meat.

Chick Bites, a combination of cultivated chicken and plant-based ingredients, were produced by growing cells without the raising or slaughtering of animals.

“We’re incredibly excited to introduce cultivated meat to the pet world,” said Owen Ensor, Meatly’s founding chief executive, in a press release from Meatly. “Just two years ago this felt like a moon shot. Today we take off. It’s a giant leap forward, toward a significant market for meat which is healthy, sustainable and kind to our planet and other animals.”

The lab-produced meat originated from one sample of cells taken from a single chicken egg. According to Meatly, the process can produce enough cultivated meat “to feed pets forever.”

The meat alternative is said to have all the vitamins, minerals, essential amino and fatty acids necessary for healthy pets.

The company says the meat is “just as tasty and nutritious as traditional chicken breast,” The Guardian reported.

Dog treat made from lab-grown meat on sale in UK as retailer claims a ‘world first’

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— The Guardian (@theguardian.com) February 6, 2025 at 12:23 AM

The United Kingdom became the first European country to approve cultivated meat in pet food last July when the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, along with the Animal and Plant Health Agency, approved chicken produced by Meatly.

Meatly has plans to fundraise for expanded production to make its treats more widely available within the coming three to five years. It also plans to continue its collaborations with Pets at Home and The Pack, the company that provided the plant-based ingredients for the dog treats.

“The launch of our Chick Bites treats is a watershed moment for the pet food industry. Cultivated meat offers a tasty, low-carbon, and healthy protein source, which has the potential to eliminate farmed animals from the pet food industry,” said Chief Executive of The Pack Damien Clarkson in the press release. “Our mission at THE PACK is to develop highly nutritious products that dogs love, and we are delighted to partner with Meatly and Pets at Home on this world’s first. For us this is a continuation of our work in developing high-quality alternative protein products for all dog lovers.”

A limited number of Chick Bites have been offered for sale at the Pets at Home store in Brentford, West London.

“At Pets at Home, we’re guided by our purpose to create a better world for pets and the people who love them, and that includes looking after our planet,” said Pets at Home CEO Anja Madsen in the press release. “This innovation has the potential to significantly reduce the environmental impact of pet food and will be a gamechanger for the industry.”

The post First Pet Treats Made With Lab-Grown Meat Could ‘Feed Pets Forever’ Without Harming Animals appeared first on EcoWatch.

January 2025 was the warmest January on record, according to data from the EU Copernicus Climate Change Service. The data has surprised scientists, who predicted that this January would be at least slightly cooler on average than January 2024 now that the El Niño weather pattern has ended and the cooling La Niña weather pattern is emerging.

But Copernicus Climate Change Service data revealed that last month reached an average air surface temperature of 13.23 degrees Celsius (approximately 55.8 degrees Fahrenheit). This is about 0.09 degrees Celsius warmer than January 2024, the previous hottest January on record, NBC San Diego reported. Further, the data showed that January 2025 was about 1.75 degrees Celsius warmer than average January temperatures from pre-industrial times.

An El Niño event that lasted from summer 2023 well into spring 2024 exacerbated higher temperatures in 2024, leading scientists to believe that January 2025 would bring cooler air and sea surface temperatures. With a cooling La Niña starting up in early 2025, scientists have been left surprised by the record-high air temperature for January.

January 2025 was the warmest January ever recorded. Last month was 1.75°C above the pre-industrial level and 0.79°C above the 1991-2020 average. The persistence of high temperatures underscores significant climate trends. Read the full #C3S Climate Bulletins: bit.ly/3EBUTD1

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— Copernicus ECMWF (@copernicusecmwf.bsky.social) February 6, 2025 at 4:14 AM

“If you’d asked me a few months ago what January 2025 would look like relative to January 2024, my best shot would have been it would be cooler,” said Adam Scaife, head of Monthly to Decadal Prediction at the UK Met Office, as reported by the BBC. “We now know it isn’t, and we don’t really know why that is.”

Sea surface temperatures were also higher than expected, although they just barely missed the record for highest January sea surface temperatures. The average sea surface temperature for 60°S–60°N latitudes was 20.78 degrees Celsius, which was only 0.19 degrees Celsius below the record set in January 2024.

“January 2025 is another surprising month, continuing the record temperatures observed throughout the last two years, despite the development of La Niña conditions in the tropical Pacific and their temporary cooling effect on global temperatures” said Samantha Burgess, strategic lead for climate at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF).

With the rising temperatures, Arctic sea ice also hit a monthly low for January, reaching about 6% below the average sea ice levels, Copernicus Climate Change Service data revealed. In the Antarctic, sea ice was 5% below average but did not reach the record or near-record lows of sea ice found in 2023 and 2024.

According to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, La Niña is still in development. But even if it peaks this year, the phenomenon won’t be enough to lower global average temperatures.

“By far and away the largest contributing factor to our warming climate is the burning of fossil fuels,” Burgess said, as reported by NBC News.

In January, the Copernicus Climate Change Service estimated that 2024 would be the warmest year on record, and last year was the first calendar year to breach an average global temperature that was 1.5 degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial times.

“Copernicus will continue to closely monitor ocean temperatures and their influence on our evolving climate throughout 2025,” Burgess said in a statement.

The post 2025 Kicks Off With Warmest January on Record appeared first on EcoWatch.

In a new analysis, acclaimed climate scientist Professor James Hansen and colleagues said that scientists had greatly underestimated the rate of global heating, and that the international target of two degrees Celsius is “dead.”

The analysis concluded that the combination of recent reductions in shipping pollution — which have the effect of blocking the sun — and increasing emissions from fossil fuels have been greater than previously thought, reported The Guardian.

“A shocking rise of warming has been exposed by, ironically, a reduction of pollutants, but we now have a new baseline and trajectory for where we are,” said Professor Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, as The Guardian reported.

Climate change target of 2C is ‘dead’, says renowned climate scientist – Prof James Hansen says pace of global heating has been significantly underestimated, though other scientists disagree #climatecrisis Story by me www.theguardian.com/environment/…

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— Damian Carrington (@dpcarrington.bsky.social) February 4, 2025 at 12:51 PM

The study, “Global Warming Has Accelerated: Are the United Nations and the Public Well-Informed?” was published in the journal Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development.

“Global warming caused by reduced ship aerosols will not go away as tropical climate moves into its cool La Niña phase. Therefore, we expect that global temperature will not fall much below +1.5°C level, instead oscillating near or above that level for the next few years,” Hansen and colleagues wrote in the study. “The largest practical effect on humans today is increase of the frequency and severity of climate extremes. More powerful tropical storms, tornadoes, and thunderstorms, and thus more extreme floods, are driven by high sea surface temperature and a warmer atmosphere that holds more water vapor. Higher global temperature also increases the intensity of heat waves and – at the times and places of dry weather – high temperature increases drought intensity.”

Independent experts said that, though the results of the study are on the high end of the range of mainstream climate science, they cannot be ruled out, reported The Guardian.

“It’s important to emphasise that both of these issues – [pollution cuts] and climate sensitivity – are areas of deep scientific uncertainty,” said Dr. Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist who did not participate in the study. “While Hansen et al are on the high end of available estimates, we cannot say with any confidence that they are wrong, rather that they just represent something closer to a worst-case outcome.”

If the estimates are correct, more extreme weather will happen sooner, with a bigger risk that the planet will surpass tipping points like the collapse of crucial Atlantic ocean currents.

“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) defined a scenario which gives a 50% chance to keep warming under 2C – that scenario is now impossible,” Hansen said, as The Guardian reported. “The 2C target is dead, because the global energy use is rising, and it will continue to rise.”

Hansen formerly worked as a climate scientist for NASA. His testimony to a United States Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources in 1988 was an early warning to the public of the greenhouse gas effect causing climate change.

According to the new analysis, without changes the planet will likely warm by about two degrees Celsius by 2045.

“The basic problem is that the waste products of fossil fuels are still dumped in the air free of charge,” Hansen said, as reported by The Guardian.

Hansen and the research team estimated that freshwater flowing into the North Atlantic from polar ice melt would cause the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) to shut down within the next two to three decades, AFP reported.

The important ocean current brings warmth to parts of the planet while carrying nutrients needed to sustain marine life.

The authors of the study said the ceasing of AMOC would “lock in major problems including sea level rise of several meters — thus, we describe AMOC shutdown as the ‘point of no return.’”

The 2015 Paris Agreement established a target of keeping global heating from surpassing 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels over a period of decades. The threshold is critical, scientists say, to preventing AMOC and other major ocean circulation systems from breaking down, as well as stopping the thawing of boreal permafrost and the collapse of warm-water coral reefs.

The past two years have brought global heating above the 1.5 degree Celsius threshold, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.

Warming of two degrees Celsius would bring even greater climate impacts, including irreversible loss to the planet’s ice sheets, sea ice, mountain glaciers and permafrost.

“Failure to be realistic in climate assessment and failure to call out the fecklessness of current policies to stem global warming is not helpful to young people,” the authors of the study wrote, as reported by AFP.

“Special interests have assumed far too much power in our political systems. In democratic countries the power should be with the voter, not with the people who have the money. That requires fixing some of our democracies, including the U.S.,” Hansen said, as The Guardian reported.

The post 2°C Climate Warming Target Is ‘Dead,’ Pioneering Climate Scientist Says appeared first on EcoWatch.

In a new study, health sciences researchers at the University of New Mexico (UNM) have found microplastics in human brain tissue in concentrations much higher than in other organs.

In addition, the accumulation of the plastics appeared to grow over time, increasing 50 percent in the last eight years.

The research team, led by Dr. Matthew Campen — a toxicologist and Distinguished and Regents’ Professor in the UNM College of Pharmacy — discovered that plastic concentrations appeared higher in the brain than in the kidney or liver, and higher than earlier reports for testes and placentas.

The accumulation rate of the plastics was found to mirror the growing plastic waste on the planet, Campen said in a press release from UNM.

“This really changes the landscape. It makes it so much more personal,” Campen said in the press release.

The research team found that many of the plastic pieces appeared to be smaller than previous observations — roughly two to three times bigger than viruses.

Microplastics are tiny pieces of degraded polymers, now ubiquitous in our water, air and soil. They have embedded themselves all over the human body over the course of the last 50 years.

Campen said the findings are cause for alarm.

“I never would have imagined it was this high. I certainly don’t feel comfortable with this much plastic in my brain, and I don’t need to wait around 30 more years to find out what happens if the concentrations quadruple,” he said.

To complicate matters, brain tissue from those diagnosed with dementia contained as much as 10 times the amount of plastic as everyone else, Campen said.

However, the study was not able to determine if the high plastic levels in the brain were the reason for the dementia symptoms. Campen said plastic particles might accumulate more because of the disease process itself.

In the study, the researchers compared brain tissue from 2016 and 2024. They detected and quantified a dozen different polymers, with polyethylene — widely used to make containers and packaging, including cups and bottles — being the most common.

The team discovered clusters of plastic shards of 200 nanometers or less — small enough to be able to cross the blood-brain barrier, though Campen said it wasn’t clear how they were transported into the brain.

Campen added that it was also not apparent what effects plastic — considered biologically inert and used for heart stents, artificial joints and other medical applications — could be having. He explained that the particles’ physical characteristics might be the problem, instead of some kind of chemical toxicity.

“We start thinking that maybe these plastics obstruct blood flow in capillaries,” Campen explained. “There’s the potential that these nanomaterials interfere with the connections between axons in the brain. They could also be a seed for aggregation of proteins involved in dementia. We just don’t know.”

Campen said he suspects most microplastics found in the human body get there through ingested food, especially meat.

“The way we irrigate fields with plastic-contaminated water, we postulate that the plastics build up there,” Campen said. “We feed those crops to our livestock. We take the manure and put it back on the field, so there may be a sort of feed-forward biomagnification.”

Campen added that the team had found high plastic concentrations in store-bought meat.

Global plastic production continues unabated, and since it can take existing polymers decades to break down into microscopic particles, the environmental concentrations of micro- and non-plastics will keep rising for years.

“It suggests that if we were to reduce environmental contamination with microplastics, the levels of human exposure would also decrease, offering a strong incentive to focus on innovations that reduce exposure,” said Tamara Galloway, an ecotoxicology professor at University of Exeter, who did not participate in the study, as The Guardian reported.

The study, “Bioaccumulation of microplastics in decedent human brains,” was published in the journal Nature Medicine.

“These results highlight a critical need to better understand the routes of exposure, uptake and clearance pathways and potential health consequences of plastics in human tissues, particularly in the brain,” the authors of the study wrote.

Campen said the findings should serve as a warning of a worldwide threat to human health. He said it can be difficult to motivate consumers, but that these results could finally get their attention.

“I have yet to encounter a single human being who says, ‘There’s a bunch of plastic in my brain and I’m totally cool with that,’” Campen said in the press release.

The post Accumulation of Microplastics in Human Brain Tissue Rising Rapidly: Study appeared first on EcoWatch.