A study of the “Greta Thunberg Effect” finds that those familiar with the young Swedish climate activist “have higher intentions of taking collective actions to reduce global warming.”

On January 27, a day the White House declared to be Climate Day, President Joe Biden signs a raft of executive orders to address climate change, focusing on jobs and environmental justice and centering climate change in every aspect of the federal government. One of them halts all new oil and gas leases on federal land and offshore waters. 

Another executive order signed by Biden commits the United States to protecting 30 percent of US land and coastal waters by 2030.

Earth is losing 1.2 trillion tons of ice a year.

New evidence shows that there have been multiple ice ages—on Mars.

Lawrence Fink, head of the $9 trillion investment firm BlackRock, calls on the world’s businesses to “to disclose a plan for how their business model will be compatible with a net-zero economy,” i.e., one that will limit global temperature increase to 2°C and eliminate greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. 

Biden scraps Trump’s “Global Gag Rule,” which prohibited US funding for foreign organizations that make referrals to or provide abortion services.

GM says it will stop selling gasoline- and diesel-powered cars and SUVs by 2035.

Elon Musk says he is donating $100 million “towards a prize for best carbon capture technology.”

Twitter bots have become a major source of climate disinformation.

Responding to a complaint by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, a US appeals court orders expanded environmental review for the Dakota Access oil pipeline. The court strongly suggests that the Army Corps of Engineers shut down the pipeline.

The Justice Department is investigating whether Jeffrey Clark, head of the department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division under Trump, conspired to help his effort to overturn the results of the November election.  

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) deletes a post on Facebook blaming California’s 2018 Camp Fire on a space laser controlled by Jerry Brown and the Rothschilds.

Yosemite National Park closes after high winds topple many trees, including two giant sequoias in the Mariposa Grove, causing millions of dollars in damage.

Numbers of sharks and rays have declined by 70 percent in the past half century.

In order to “more aggressively promote” transportation alternatives, Berkeley, California, no longer requires new housing developments to include parking. 

The number of US COVID-19 cases passes 25 million. More than 430,000 Americans have died from the disease.

During the coronavirus lockdown, the population of rats in the UK grew by 25 percent. 

The gorillas at the San Diego Zoo infected with COVID are cured after receiving antibody treatments.

A Republican state representative in Oklahoma proposes a hunting season for Bigfoot in the Ouachita Mountains.