Obama is about to take on climate change like never before

GlobalPost

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NEED TO KNOW:

US President Barack Obama's time in office is winding down. But he's not going quietly. On the contrary, today he is expected to unveil a series of environmental reforms that he described over the weekend as the “most important step we've ever taken” in the fight against climate change.

It's being called America's Clean Power Plan and, among other things, it will require power plants to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030. Power plants account for 40 percent of the country's carbon dioxide emissions, which — perhaps you heard — are causing average temperatures to rise all over the planet. And that, scientists keep telling everyone over and over again, is causing all manner of very scary problems.

It's a super-ambitious plan and will likely lead to the closing of coal plants around the country. That's assuming the plan survives all the legal challenges that are sure to follow. The opposition will probably rival opposition to the Affordable Care Act.

The thing is, there are a good many US lawmakers who still don't believe that climate change is caused by human activity (and even some who don't believe climate change is a thing at all). There's also the coal industry, which has a fair bit of cash to pay lobbyists. Opponents in the energy industry are already using the phrase “War on Coal” to describe Obama's plan.

So the next few months should be interesting. They will also, at the very least, shape debates in the 2016 presidential campaign season, which is already well on its way. That will be a big change from 2012, when the climate change issue disappeared entirely from the campaign trail. 

“Climate change is not a problem for another generation. Not anymore,” Obama said in a recorded video over the weekend.

WANT TO KNOW:

The Russian economy is not healthy. That has a lot to do with the suite of economic sanctions levied against it by Western nations in response to Russia's insistence on annexing large parts of Ukraine. Russia's troubles are only compounded by historically low oil prices around the world.

As a result, writes GlobalPost Senior Correspondent Dan Peleschuk, Russia's economy is in tatters and its currency has lost almost half its value over the past year. Russia's poverty levels are the highest they've been in a decade. Every sixth person in Russia is now earning less than the minimum subsistence level. A Nielsen study found that almost 20 percent of Russians lacked enough money to buy food and other basic things.

And now, adding insult to injury for the average Russian, the collapsing currency is also driving up the cost of bribes. Like in other systemically corrupt places, paying a bribe for small things — avoiding a traffic ticket, expediting some small bureaucracy like obtaining an ID — is a totally normal and everyday occurrence.

For anyone making a little bit of money, such corruption can seem harmless. The underpaid traffic cop who pulled you over gets a little extra pocket money and you avoid having to deal with the headaches that might come with an actual ticket. But what happens when the economy tanks? Well, in Russia, the cost of a bribe goes up, and it suddenly feels a little less harmless.

“It's bad enough that just getting things done in Russia often means paying a kickback,” writes Peleschuk. "But now it's worse: You've got to pay twice as much.”

STRANGE BUT TRUE:

Officials in Zimbabwe have accused another American doctor of illegally hunting and killing a lion, paying guides to help him lure it off protected lands so it could be shot with a bow. This one happened in April, a few months before the now-infamous dentist Walter Palmer killed his lion in early July.

It might seem an odd thing to those not into big game hunting. But for those who are into it, taking down a lion is a major thrill, an accomplishment. Unfortunately for them, and fortunately for the health of the animal kingdom, after Palmer killed the beloved lion named Cecil and the news spread like an end-of-the-world plague on social media, the hobby of killing lions and other threatened big game in Africa will probably get a lot harder. Zimbabwe is considering all kinds of new regulations. It's even calling for Palmer's extradition.

Meanwhile, here are six endangered animals that illegal poaching is dangerously close to wiping out forever.

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