Trending Articles

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Thinking Long-Term: Why We Should Bring Back Redwood Forests

Yale E360

Only 5 percent of the redwood forests that once stretched across coastal Northern California have never been logged. An initiative to restore these forests is gaining momentum, aided by research showing that redwoods store more aboveground carbon than any forest on Earth.

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Will California Take This Small, but Important Step Toward a More Equitable Water Rights System?

Union of Concerned Scientists

Earlier this summer, I wrote about three bills that were poised to make long overdue changes to California’s outdated and inequitable water rights system. Whether you call it updating, modernizing, or reforming, changes to the water rights system have long been considered a political third rail —the electric kind you don’t touch. This year, one of those water rights bills, Senate Bill 389 (SB 389) made it through the gauntlet of the legislature and will become law if Governor Newsom signs it.

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Electric Vehicle Sales in US Hit the Accelerator Pedal

Union of Concerned Scientists

With more electric vehicle choices than ever, EV sales in the US are hitting new heights. In just the first half of 2023, over 670,000 EVs were sold with over 80 percent of those fully-electric battery electric vehicles (BEVs ). It took 8 years for the first million EV sales – but now more than a million have been sold in just the past 12 months. EV sales in the US are accelerating and are on pace to exceed one million vehicles per year.

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What’s a Major Question? Opinions differ.

Legal Planet

In West Virginia v. EPA , the Supreme Court used the “major question doctrine” to overturn Obama’s signature climate change regulation. Once an issue reaches a certain level of significance, the Court says, Congress generally would want to make its own decision rather than allowing an agency like EPA to decide. Scholars have criticized the opinion for its lack of clarity about what makes an issue “major.

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Implementing D.E.J.I. Strategies in Energy, Environment, and Transportation

Speaker: Antoine M. Thompson, Executive Director of the Greater Washington Region Clean Cities Coalition

Diversity, Equity, Justice, and Inclusion (DEJI) policies, programs, and initiatives are critically important as we move forward with public and private sector climate and sustainability goals and plans. Underserved and socially, economically, and racially disadvantaged communities bear the burden of pollution, higher energy costs, limited resources, and limited investments in the clean energy and transportation sectors.

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The Scafetta Saga

Real Climate

It has taken 17 months to get a comment published pointing out the obvious errors in the Scafetta (2022) paper in GRL. Back in March 2022, Nicola Scafetta published a short paper in Geophysical Research Letters (GRL) purporting to show through ‘advanced’ means that ‘all models with ECS > 3.0°C overestimate the observed global surface warming’ (as defined by ERA5).

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Is Consciousness Part of the Fabric of the Universe?

Scientific American

Scientific American is the essential guide to the most awe-inspiring advances in science and technology, explaining how they change our understanding of the world and shape our lives.

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The Human Right to a Stable Climate

Union of Concerned Scientists

Scientists have unequivocally confirmed that human activities, primarily the burning of fossil fuels, are driving unprecedented changes to the Earth’s climate, raising fundamental questions about our responsibility to safeguard the environment for future generations. Now, an ethical, moral and legal debate is emerging: do we have the right to a stable climate?

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Predictions of IRA’s Success Solidify

Legal Planet

My last blog post looked at some of the steps taken to implement the Inflation Reduction Act. Confirming initial projections when the law was passed, models now predict that IRA will significantly cut emissions by 2030. The impact by 2035 is likely to be even greater. Despite the IRA’s substantial assist to emission cuts, we will need additional policies to push emissions 50% below 2005 levels.

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Hopes fade for renewed contact with India's Chandrayaan-3 moon lander

New Scientist

Mission engineers had hoped that the Vikram lander and Pragyan rover could survive the freezing lunar night, but the sun rose on their landing site on 22 September and there have been no signals from the craft

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Autism, Human Connection and the 'Double Empathy' Problem

Scientific American

Scientific American is the essential guide to the most awe-inspiring advances in science and technology, explaining how they change our understanding of the world and shape our lives.

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Shaping a Resilient Future: Climate Impact on Vulnerable Populations

Speaker: Laurie Schoeman Director, Climate & Sustainability, Capital

As households and communities across the nation face challenges such as hurricanes, wildfires, drought, extreme heat and cold, and thawing permafrost and flooding, we are increasingly searching for ways to mitigate and prevent climate impacts. During this event, national climate and housing expert Laurie Schoeman will discuss topics including: The two paths for climate action: decarbonization and adaptation.

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How Ancient Amazonians Locked Away Thousands of Tons of Carbon in "Dark Earth"

Yale E360

A new study reveals how, by cultivating fertile soil for farming, ancient Amazonians locked away thousands of tons of carbon that have stayed in the ground for centuries.

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Can the Inflation Reduction Act Advance Climate Justice?

Union of Concerned Scientists

One year ago, UCS worked in coalition with many other organizations to help pass the landmark Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a law with historic climate provisions that includes numerous programs, policies, and a $369 billion investment that will drive significant cuts in heat-trapping emissions across our economy. The number of provisions in the IRA aimed at accelerating the transition towards clean energy are plentiful and evident, but most programs were not written into law with the intent to

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No, There’s No Scientific Conspiracy About Climate Change

Legal Planet

Among the host of conspiracy theories out there, a perennial one depicts climate science as a global hoax perpetuated by scientists. There are thousands of climate scientists around the world, which is an awful lot of people for a secret conspiracy. But even if there were only forty or fifty, a successful conspiracy of any kind would probably be well outside their capabilities.

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Twisted lasers could let us send messages with gravitational waves

New Scientist

Ripples in space-time called gravitational waves are normally associated with massive objects like black holes, but we could make our own using lasers – and perhaps even use them to communicate

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Sustainability at Retail

Sustainability impacts every nation, company, and person around the world. So much so that, in 2015, the United Nations (UN) issued a call for action by all countries to work toward sustainable development. In response to this and as part of a global Sustainability at Retail initiative, Shop! worked collaboratively with its global affiliates to address these critical issues in this white paper.

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Rosalind Franklin Deserves a Posthumous Nobel Prize for Co-discovering DNA Structure

Scientific American

Scientific American is the essential guide to the most awe-inspiring advances in science and technology, explaining how they change our understanding of the world and shape our lives.

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After Nearly a Decade of Declines, Africa's White Rhino Population Is Growing

Yale E360

White rhinos saw their numbers grow for the first time since 2012 last year, boosted by efforts to restore the creatures to the African landscape.

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Nuclear Frontline Communities Understand Cumulative Burdens—Let’s Get Policymakers On The Same Page

Union of Concerned Scientists

An interview blog with Christen Commuso, Community Outreach Specialist for St. Louis at the Missouri Coalition for the Environment. Nuclear frontline communities are people and communities directly harmed by the development, production, testing, clean-up, and waste storage of nuclear weapons and nuclear materials. Many people don’t know they are exposed.

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California is Suing Big Oil Thanks to Journalism

Legal Planet

The state of California has joined the party. By “party” I mean the increasingly ambitious climate liability litigation against Big Oil. And when California shows up at the party, the volume goes way up. There’s already been a lot of smart analysis on the legal arguments (including by UCLA’s Cara Horowitz here ). I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge that this case was made possible, in large part, by journalists.

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Statement on Premier Ford canceling $8.28-billion Greenbelt land removals

Enviromental Defense

Statement from Phil Pothen, Ontario Environment Program Manager on Premier Ford canceling $8.28-billion Greenbelt land removals Toronto | Traditional territories of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishinaabeg, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat – “While we welcome Premier Ford’s full reversal of the inappropriate removals of Greenbelt lands, the Ontario government’s $8.3 billion gift to developers represented just the most visible part of a dishonest and counterproductive push for sprawl tha

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Two Thirds of American Kids Can't Read Fluently

Scientific American

Scientific American is the essential guide to the most awe-inspiring advances in science and technology, explaining how they change our understanding of the world and shape our lives.

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Declassified Logbooks from World War II-Era Warships to Fill Critical Gap in Climate Record

Yale E360

A massive volunteer effort to digitize World War II-era U.S. naval logbooks is helping fill an important gap in the climate record.

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California Advances Corporate Climate Accountability Amid New Evidence of ExxonMobil’s Deception

Union of Concerned Scientists

There have been several dramatic advances in climate corporate accountability this month. Tens of thousands of people marched in New York City and around the world, California filed a groundbreaking lawsuit and passed new corporate climate disclosure rules , and the Wall Street Journal published new revelations about ExxonMobil’s climate disinformation efforts.

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A Summer Job, Record Heat, Climate Hope

Legal Planet

Image by Danielle Anz It’s been three months now since 16 young plaintiffs suing the state of Montana for climate harms piled into a Helena courtroom so small that the attorneys worried whether everyone would fit. (They did.) And it’s been one month since the Montana First District Court determined that the state of Montana had indeed violated Montana youth’s right to a “clean and healthful environment” by collaborating with the fossil fuel industry.

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Exquisite spider fossils from Australia offer clues to their evolution

New Scientist

A large brush-footed trapdoor spider and a small jumping spider from the Miocene Epoch between 11 and 16 million years ago show how different arachnids responded to rapidly changing climate

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'Fossilized' Bubble 10,000 Times the Size of the Milky Way Could Be a Relic from the Big Bang

Scientific American

Astronomers have spotted a gigantic void they believe to be a baryon acoustic oscillation — a relic from when the universe was a fiery plasma soup

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Why Flamingos are Showing Up in the U.S. this Fall

Cool Green Science

Hurricane Idalia brought unprecedented numbers of flamingos north. In some cases, way, way north. Like Pennsylvania north. The post Why Flamingos are Showing Up in the U.S. this Fall appeared first on Cool Green Science.

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The Overshoot Commission Addresses Geoengineering

Legal Planet

In this, my third post on the recently released report of the Climate Overshoot Commission , I’ll discuss their treatment of the most challenging and controversial part of their mandate, Solar Geoengineering or Solar Radiation Modification (SRM). As I noted in my introductory post on the Commission, I served as an advisor to the Secretariat and my students in the UCLA International Climate Law and Policy Clinic provided research and analytic support to the Secretariat.

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Earliest evidence of buildings made from wood is 476,000 years old

New Scientist

We tend to think that ancient humans were constantly on the move, but at a site in Zambia there are the first tentative hints that people stayed put and built large wooden dwellings

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The Equinox Is Not What You Think It Is

Scientific American

Scientific American is the essential guide to the most awe-inspiring advances in science and technology, explaining how they change our understanding of the world and shape our lives.

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Meet the Giant Isopod of the Deep Sea

Ocean Conservancy

One of the creatures I’m most curious of when I consider the murky shadows of the deep sea is the giant isopod. I was pleased to discover that I’m not the only one who thinks these ancient creatures look just like giant versions of those roly-poly bugs my sister, as a child, would dig for under garden tiles. And I was surprised to find out that these critters are, in fact, relatives.

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Summer 2023 Is a Wrap: It Showed Us the Inequities of Keeping Cool in Killer Heat

Union of Concerned Scientists

This week, summer 2023 comes to a close on our calendars but will be remembered for its record-shattering extremes, notably, heat—until, that is, the next record-shattering summer supplants it, quite possibly in 2024. Climate change smothered us in heat this season, here in the US and across much of the world , but it has not affected us as equals: some of us can stay relatively safe and cool while many of us cannot and suffer instead.

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A Radical Proposal Hidden in Plain Sight in the Overshoot Commission Report

Legal Planet

Continuing my discussion of the report of the Climate Overshoot Commission released last week, today I dig into their recommendations on mitigation. As you may recall, the Commission’s informal (but serious) job description was to speak of elephants in the room and unclothed emperors: to say things that are true and important about climate risks and responses that other, more political constrained bodies cannot.

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The entire brain may be involved in language, not just a few regions

New Scientist

Brain regions identified as “language centres” are actually hubs that coordinate the processing of language throughout the brain, argues a controversial new study

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These Adorable Jellyfish Show Learning Doesn't Even Require a Brain

Scientific American

Scientific American is the essential guide to the most awe-inspiring advances in science and technology, explaining how they change our understanding of the world and shape our lives.