Melba Newsome

Can New EJ Director Satisfy Administration Critics? Some environmental justice advocates are frustrated by the lack of progress on the administration’s goals. One of President Biden’s earliest stated polices was making environmental justice a priority across every level of government. Shortly after being sworn in, Biden promised that his administration would also take a “whole-of-government approach” in addressing the climate change crisis. The president backed up that decision by declaring climate change a social determinant of health and naming Cecilia Martinez the first environmental justice director. Martinez resigned one year in, citing burnout amid heated criticism from environmentalists that the administration wasn’t making progress on its agenda. Three months later, the administration’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) announced that Jalonne L. White-Newsome would replace Martinez as only the second person ever in that role. Read full article: /is-the-administration-being-critized-unfairly-over-environmental-policies Want to receive the Coastal Plains Environmental Advocate by email? Subscribe at coastalplainsadvocate.bulletin.com #bidenadministration #environmental #environmentaljustice #presidentbiden #climatechange

The largest amount of carbon emissions come from the transporttion sector but nationally and in North Carolina, feuling the climate crisis and contributing to premature deaths, respiratory illness, and more. It often seems futile to try to make a difference in addressing climate change but changing to Making a difference Have you seen gas prices lately? Gas prices have skyrocketed over the past year. In early June, a gallon of regular reached in North Carolina. Thank goodness they’re coming down but haven’t you had enough of being at the mercy of the fossil fuel industry? Read full article at link in bio Want to receive the Coastal Plains Environmental Advocate by email? Subscribe at coastalplainsadvocate.bulletin.com #sustainable #hybrid #climatechange #gasprices #northcarolina

Scientists are calculating the toll of PFAS exposure on our health in dollars and cents. Since forever chemicals were found in the Cape Fear River five years ago, North Carolina has been at the center of the growing national concern about per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Given what we’re learning about the group of synthetic chemicals nearly every day, that’s not expected to change. This group of nearly 5000 manmade chemicals can be found in everything from furniture to cosmetics to clothing and children's toys. And they’re growing in numbers. There has been a fiftyfold increase in the production of chemicals since 1950 and this is projected to triple again by 2050. The number and pace at which these chemicals are being produced and released threatens the stability of global ecosystems. Read full article at link in bio 🌎 Want to receive the Coastal Plains Environmental Advocate by email? Subscribe at coastalplainsadvocate.bulletin.com #capefear #capefearriver #northcarolina #ecosystem #chemicalfreeliving

On Wednesday, Gov. Roy Cooper announced that he was appointing Peter Holderness Ledford, general counsel and director of policy at the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association, North Carolina’s next clean energy director. “Peter Ledford has the years of experience, knowledge and dedication needed to help North Carolina as we move toward a clean energy economy,” Cooper said in a statement. “I’m grateful he’s willing to continue serving our state in this important position.” Getting from Point A to B will be more than a notion. Read full article at link in bio 🌍 Want to receive the Coastal Plains Environmental Advocate by email? Subscribe at coastalplainsadvocate.bulletin.com #nc #northcarolina #northcarolinaliving #cleanenergy #roycoopernc

Can This Deal Help Save the Wetlands? An innovative nonprofit is under contract to Wilmington area developers to purchase and save environmentally sensitive property. The skyrocketing price of real estate means there are few good buyer deals to be had but the Chapel Hill-based nonprofit conservation group Unique Spaces to Save managed to find a great one. Unique Spaces to Save is in contract with Diamond Development LLC to purchase 83 acres of property located between Battleship North Carolina and U.S. 17 on Eagles Island valued at more than $25 million for just $16 million. Now all they have to do is raise the funds. Read full article at /can-this-deal-help-save-the-wetlands (link in bio) Want to receive the Coastal Plains Environmental Advocate by email? Subscribe at coastalplainsadvocate.bulletin.com #wilmingtonnc #wilmington #savethewetlands #northcarolina #thecarolinas

Angered by new guidelines it calls extreme and excessive, the chemical company is suing to overturn the environmental regulatory agency’s new rules. In an indication of how consequential the Cape Fear River is in the battle to regulate PFAS or “forever chemicals, the third annual National PFAS Conference was held in Wilmington and US EPA assistant administrator for water Radhika Fox traveled to the Port City to announce the final health advisory for hexafluoropropylene oxide dime acid (HFPO-DA) commonly known as GenX and perfluorobutane sulfonic acid (PFBS). Years of animal and human testing reveal four PFAS chemicals are far more toxic than originally thought. The health advisory, the amount of a particular chemical to which people can be exposed to over the course of a lifetime without suffering adverse health effects, is 10 parts per trillion (ppt) for GenX and 2,000 ppt for PFBS. The federal agency also issued updated interim health advisories for perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid, or PFOS. Read full article at link in bio 🗞 Want to receive the Coastal Plains Environmental Advocate by email? Subscribe at coastalplainsadvocate.bulletin.com #pollution #capefear #northcarolina #nc #fayettevillenc

Filmmaker Resita Cox says the town's repeated flooding shouldn't be called a natural disaster. Freedom Hill is billed as a documentary about environmental racism, climate change and history erosion. Director Resita Cox talks about how she came to make the film and what she hopes viewers take away from it. You went from being a local news reporter to documentary film maker. Tell us how that happened? Despite growing up just one hour away in Kinston, I didn’t learn about the historical significance of Princeville until 2016 when I covered the flood damage from Hurricane Matthew as a reporter with WCTI-TV, the ABC Affiliate in Greenville’/New Bern. When I get there, I see all of these signs saying things like “First Town Established by Black people” and “Home of Freedom Hill.” I'm like, 'what the heck is going on?' Read full article at link in bio 🖤 Want to receive the Coastal Plains Environmental Advocate by email? Subscribe at coastalplainsadvocate.bulletin.com #princeville #northcarolina #environmental #environmentalracism #blacklivesmatter #flooding

What’s Next for the “Cut Carbon, Not Forests” Campaign? Environmentalists on both sides of the Atlantic argue that wood pellets are not carbon neutral and should not be subsidized. The science is there but the votes are not. The Drax power station near Selby, Yorkshire is central to realizing the European Union’s 2009 commitment to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels and increase renewable energy to 20 percent by 2020. This converted coal plant, the largest renewable power station in the UK, burns wood pellets imported from its nine factories in Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi where they are pulverized into a powder, blown into boilers and then burnt. The steam from this process powers electricity producing turbines. Read full article at link in bio 🌳 Want to receive the Coastal Plains Environmental Advocate by email? Subscribe at coastalplainsadvocate.bulletin.com #saveourforests #savetheforest #northcarolina #cltnc #atlanticocean

Researchers document the correlation between race and residential elevation. And it didn’t just happen. In 2006 geography professors Jeff Ueland currently at Bemidji State University and Barney Warf at the University of Kansas set out to test the hypothesis that Black people are disproportionately concentrated in lower-altitude areas. Using GIS, Ueland and Warf compared racial segregation to residential altitude in 146 cities in southern states. They began by embedding the topic in recent theorizations of the social construction of nature, the geography of race, and environmental justice. Next, they focused on how housing markets, particularly in the South, tend to segregate people of color into low-lying, flood-prone, and amenity-poor segments of urban areas. Read full article at link in bio 🖤 Want to receive the Coastal Plains Environmental Advocate by email? Subscribe at coastalplainsadvocate.bulletin.com #northcarolina #blacklivesmatter #carolinacoast #redlining #stopracism

Industrial poultry operations are exempt from the laws that govern other industrial farms because, under NC law, chickens and turkeys are not animals. The explosion of poultry farms in the state shows no signs of abating. Each year, North Carolina farmers raise more than 500 million chickens and turkeys in more than 6,500 poultry CAFOs, more than triple the number of industrial hog farms. This boom and continued growth are encouraged by a quirk in state law that exempts the poultry industry from regulations, particularly in terms of the waste its farms generate. Back in the 90’s when industrial animal farming first took off in North Carolina, all animal farming operations functioned without a permit. Read full article at link in bio 🐓 Want to receive the Coastal Plains Environmental Advocate by email? Subscribe at coastalplainsadvocate.bulletin.com #northcarolina #ncfarm #zaxbys #chickfila #bojangles #chickencoop #wildwings #churchschicken

The properties that make plastic so useful and durable also make it nearly impossible to recycle. In the iconic holiday movie, It’s a Wonderful Life, hot shot womanizer Sam Wainwright offers George Bailey the chance to get out of Bedford Falls and in on the ground floor of a new wonder material – plastics. George turned down the proposal and Wainwright went on to get stinking rich. Belgian chemist Leo Baekeland pioneered and patented the first fully synthetic plastic in 1907, sparking a 20th century revolution that saw plastic in products ranging from plastic shopping bags to Tupperware to artificial hip and knee joints. DuPont introduced the world to Nylon stockings and Teflon. Both were immediate marvels. After WWII, plastic started to replace expensive paper, glass and metal materials used in throwaway items, such as consumer packaging. Read full article at link in bio ♻️ 📧 Want to receive the Coastal Plains Environmental Advocate by email? Subscribe at coastalplainsadvocate.bulletin.com #recycling #plastic #savetheplanet #northcarolina #recycle

The US Supreme Court decision that the EPA has no authority to regulate emissions and pollution puts its thumb on the scale to accelerate climate change. Listen to the full June update on my Facebook page: https://fb.audio/live/snkabdgwqtnl Want to receive the Coastal Plains Environmental Advocate by email? 📧 Subscribe at coastalplainsadvocate.bulletin.com #pfas #pollution #cleanair #savetheearth #climatechange