EPA

Why is the sky so weird?

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You can download a pdf version of this graphic with clickable links from my itchio page.

Noticed something a little funky in the world around you and want to figure out what’s up? Especially if there might be something you ought to be doing about it? Not sure what information sources to trust these days? If you’re in the US, federal agencies like NOAA, USGS, EPA and more collect massive amounts of scientific data every day, much of which is publicly available online – if you know where to look.

Since the wildfire smoke has been hitting the east coast this summer, I’ve gotten a lot of comments when posting about the air quality impact that were variations on: “huh. I was wondering why the sky looked so funny.” With the state of the Internet, search engines, and social media today, it really isn’t intuitive where you can go to find reliable information on something so vague as “I noticed something was a little off today,” and so many of the platforms and accounts that emergency managers have spent years building up trust and visibility for have disappeared or become unverifiable because of Twitter’s meltdown. Best to go to straight to the source when you can. 

This flowchart is solely focused on the US federal government and is not meant to be comprehensive, but provides a starting point for anyone looking for more information. 

What has the EPA done for NY23?

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Last week, as Scott Pruitt tried to defend the proposed decapitation of the EPA in front of the House Appropriations Committee, both Democrats and Republicans made it clear that the elimination of 50% of the EPA’s programs and 31% of its budget wasn’t going to fly. Lawmakers on both sides cited the damage to their home districts that would be done by removing federal support for environmental protections and programs. Projects countering chemical contamination, water pollution, and ecological degradation are popular, like the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, a multi-state program which was slated for elimination earlier this spring. A bipartisan group of representatives from districts around the Great Lakes signed a letter calling for the GLRI’s continued funding, but missing from the list of signatures was Tom Reed of my district, NY 23rd. Reed, a well-entrenched and vocal supporter of 45, has a long history of opposing environmental protections in favor of industry (more at the New NY 23), and of opposing his constituents’ best interests in favor of his own.  In light of this, it seems like an appropriate moment to take stock of what the EPA has done in this district.

The map above shows the grants disbursed in the NY 23rd since 2007. In the last ten years, grants from the EPA to cities, towns, school districts, tribal nations, and universities in our district have totaled almost $40 million. Continue reading →