Category: Environment
A Year After the Moody Landfill Fire: “We Need Just as Much Help Now”
Around Thanksgiving a year ago, a landfill near Moody caught fire, blanketing the surrounding area with smoke. The fire burned for months before the Environmental Protection Agency covered the landfill with dirt to extinguish the flames, but there have been flare ups since. To understand what things are like now, WBHM talked with one nearby resident. Read more.
US Regions Will Suffer a Stunning Variety of Climate-Caused Disasters, Report Finds
Extreme temperatures; worsening wildfires, hurricanes and floods; infrastructure problems; agricultural impacts: The way you experience climate change will depend on where you live. Read more.
Why Trees Are an Environmental and Health Swiss Army Knife
Cool Green Trees, a project of Cawaco RC&D, plants trees in under-resourced communities in the Birmingham area to help mitigate climate change and advance environmental justice initiatives. Read more.
Place, Erased: How a Drowned Alabama Town Still Holds Lessons 60 Years Later
Some Southern towns have been erased by environmental disasters — whether natural or man-made. One Alabama town offers lessons on the hidden cost of progress. Read more.
An Alabama Coal Plant Once Again Nabs the Dubious Title of the Nation’s Worst Greenhouse Gas Polluter
In West Jefferson, everything happens in the shadow of Alabama Power.
Fewer than 500 people live in the town of less than one square mile, located just a 20-minute drive northwest of Birmingham. There’s little in the way of excess. Modest homes dot the landscape, with residents waving as cars pass by. There’s a Dollar General, a Baptist church and an elementary school — the staples of a small Southern community. But in this town, a plant looms large. Read more.
EV Charging Station — BPA’s First — Opens at Avondale Village
Birmingham Parking Authority celebrated the opening of its first electric vehicle charging station Wednesday at its Avondale Village parking lot.
“This charging station is an important milestone not only for the Birmingham Parking Authority but for the city of Birmingham as well,” said Andre Davis, executive director and CEO of the BPA. “This is the first EV charging station in any BPA parking facility, and it’s the first EV charging station in the city funded in partnership with the Alabama Clean Fuels Coalition.”
The Level 2 EV charging station at 109 41st Street South can charge as many as four vehicles at one time. Read more.
In Alabama’s Paint Rock Valley, Researchers Count Every Tree Thicker Than a Pencil
In an effort to better understand the biodiversity of north Alabama, scientists are conducting a “tree census,” with the goal of studying roughly 100,000 trees for 50 years. Read more.
Protecting Margaritaville: Jimmy Buffett, Bama and the Fight to Save the Manatee
MOBILE — The second line started at four, but it was five o’clock somewhere.
Hundreds of people gathered here on a September Sunday — their Hawaiian shirts and flip-flops brightening the city streets — to participate in a walking parade in remembrance of Jimmy Buffett, who spent much of his childhood in this Gulf Coast city. Buffett, a poet of paradise, died Sept. 1 at age 76.
Though he may be more commonly associated with Florida, the late musician and environmental philanthropist was born in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and was raised in Mobile. In addition to his musical legacy, Buffett was a champion for environmental causes, co-founding the Save the Manatee Club with then Florida Gov. Bob Graham. Read more.
Alabama’s John Christy May Be the Country’s Best Known and Most Criticized Climate Change Skeptic
Alabama State Climatologist John Christy is considered an outsider, if not a pariah, among most climate researchers. His critics say his work has been plagued by errors and many of his conclusions dismissed. Yet he defends his research and continues to have an outsized influence on the climate change debate well beyond Alabama’s borders. Read more.
The Connection Is Growing Between Climate Change and Big Storms
The connection between climate change, hurricanes and tornadoes is not so clear. But data is beginning to show some relationship. Read more.
