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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

EPA Chief: "Humans Not Primary Contributors" to Climate Change

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Friday, March 10, 2017   

CARSON CITY, Nev. - Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt shocked many in the scientific and environmental community on Thursday when he said human activity is not a primary contributor to global warming.

It's a flat rejection of established science, which relies on hundreds of studies that say carbon emissions - from vehicles, industry, energy production and farming practices - have caused the planet to warm dramatically in recent decades.

Andy Maggi, executive director of the Nevada Conservation League, said it's outrageous that the man at the helm of the agency charged with protecting the environment hasn't made that connection.

"If we don't reduce those CO2 emissions, the problem will not get better and it will only get worse," Maggi said. "Here in the West, we'll see increased wildfires, increased drought; across the globe, rising sea levels. It will only exacerbate the problems we know are already coming."

Pruitt is, however, calling for more scientific review. In the past, President Trump has called global warming a hoax, and Secretary of Energy Rick Perry also has questioned the scientific consensus on climate change.

Noah Diffenbaugh, professor of earth systems science and senior fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University, said the evidence is clear: Global warming is real, humans are contributing to it and so, have a responsibility to address it.

"We have a lot of opportunities to manage our water and agriculture, and other resources, in ways that protect ourselves from climate change now and make us more prepared for the future," he said, "but it begins with an acknowledgement that climate change is real."

The EPA already has started to undo Obama-era climate policies. Last week, the agency announced it would stop collecting data from the oil and gas industry on the amount of methane it releases into the atmosphere.


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