2024

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In Mongolia, a Killer Winter Is Ravaging Herds and a Way of Life

Yale E360

Mongolia’s nomadic herders are facing a savage “dzud” winter, with more than 2 million livestock frozen to death so far. Scientists say this lethal phenomenon — extreme cold and heavy snow following summer drought — is occurring more frequently and is linked to climate change.

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New study suggests the Atlantic overturning circulation AMOC “is on tipping course”

Real Climate

A new paper was published in Science Advances today. Its title says what it is about: “Physics-based early warning signal shows that AMOC is on tipping course.” The study follows one by Danish colleagues which made headlines last July, likewise looking for early warning signals for approaching an AMOC tipping point (we discussed it here ), but using rather different data and methods.

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Ancient marine reptile found on UK beach may be the largest ever

New Scientist

The jawbone of an ichthyosaur uncovered in south-west England has been identified as a new species, and researchers estimate that the whole animal was 20 to 25 metres long

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A Random Influx of DNA from a Virus Helped Vertebrates Become So Stunningly Successful

Scientific American

Insertion of genetic material from a virus into the genome of a vertebrate ancestor enabled the lightning-quick electrical impulses that give animals with backbones their smarts

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Manufacturing Sustainability Surge: Your Guide to Data-Driven Energy Optimization & Decarbonization

Speaker: Kevin Kai Wong, President of Emergent Energy Solutions

In today's industrial landscape, the pursuit of sustainable energy optimization and decarbonization has become paramount. Manufacturing corporations across the U.S. are facing the urgent need to align with decarbonization goals while enhancing efficiency and productivity. Unfortunately, the lack of comprehensive energy data poses a significant challenge for manufacturing managers striving to meet their targets.

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Experts at Environmental Defence React to Canada’s Federal Budget

Enviromental Defense

Toronto | Traditional territories of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishinaabeg, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat. Keith Brooks, Programs Director: “This budget is intended to be geared towards younger generations, but it fails to deal with a major source of anxiety for young people by offering little to address climate change. Young people will bear the brunt of the impacts of the climate crisis.

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Petrochemicals Are Killing Us, a New Report Warns in the New England Journal of Medicine

Inside Climate News

It’s well known that fossil fuels are the primary driver of climate change. A dirty secret is that they’re also the source of toxic chemicals linked to rising rates of chronic and deadly diseases. By Liza Gross Use of petroleum-based chemicals skyrocketed during the postwar era, most of them entering the market with little concern for safety. Now, mounting evidence links petrochemicals to the rapidly rising prevalence of a slew of chronic and deadly conditions, a review published in the New Engl

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The Transformation of European Climate Change Litigation: Introduction to the Blog Symposium

Law Columbia

In a transformative moment for European and global climate litigation, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled today that the state has a positive duty to adopt, and effectively implement in practice, regulations and measures capable of mitigating the existing and potentially irreversible future effects of climate change. In Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz and Others v.

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Southeast at a Crossroads: Bad Gas Bet or Clean Energy Boon?

NRDC

The Southeast is facing a spike in electric load growth projections. Utilities are proposing a massive gas buildout to meet it—we can do better.

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EVs Are at a Turning Point, It May Not Be What You Think

Union of Concerned Scientists

There’s been a lot of nay-saying around EVs lately, including, amongst other things, worries that EV sales are stalling out now that all the early adopters have already made the switch and mainstream buyers aren’t ready to dive in. I wouldn’t blame you if you thought nobody was buying EVs or that sales were about to plummet. While there are some near term headwinds, I’ve never had as much confidence in the ability to zero out tailpipe emissions from our cars and trucks.

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RFK Jr. Joins the War on Climate Scientists

Legal Planet

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made headlines when a Super PAC supporting his presidential bid ran a pricey Super Bowl ad, stealing the look of a famous 1960 spot for his uncle John F. Kennedy. But he got far less attention for another move that says a lot about his campaign: He has tapped Del Bigtree to run his communications team. Bigtree, like RFK Jr., is a well-known anti-vaccine activist.

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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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Rain Comes to the Arctic, With a Cascade of Troubling Changes

Yale E360

Rain used to be rare in the Arctic, but as the region warms, so-called “rain-on-snow events” are becoming more common. The rains accelerate ice loss, trigger flooding, landslides, and avalanches, and create problems for wildlife and the Indigenous people who depend on them.

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The WPATH Files

Environmental Progress

Leaked files from WPATH reveal widespread medical malpractice on children and vulnerable adults at global transgender healthcare authority World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH) members demonstrate a lack of consideration for long-term patient outcomes despite being aware of the debilitating and potentially fatal side effects of cross-sex hormones and other treatments READ: THE WPATH FILES AND REPORT All Links Full WPATH Files and Report FAQ Panel Discussion Video Executive

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Sleeping bumblebees can survive underwater for a week

New Scientist

A serendipitous lab accident revealed that hibernating bumblebee queens can make it through days of flooding, revealing that they are less vulnerable to extreme weather than previously thought

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Peter Higgs, a Giant of Particle Physics, Dies at 94

Scientific American

The Nobel Prize-winning theorist’s prediction of the Higgs boson sparked a half-century quest of discovery that reshaped physics—and our understanding of the universe

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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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Highway 413 is Still Going Nowhere

Enviromental Defense

You’ve probably seen Highway 413 in the news quite a bit lately. Last month, instead of standing up for Ontario’s environment, the federal government made a deal with Premier Ford. Together, they filed documents to cancel the federal government’s current environmental assessment. So, what does this mean? Is Ontario getting ready to bulldoze their way through farmland, wetlands and the Greenbelt?

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Sinking Coastal Lands Will Exacerbate the Flooding from Sea Level Rise in 24 US Cities, New Research Shows

Inside Climate News

In the affected cities, as many as 500,000 people and one in every 35 properties could be impacted by the flooding, and communities of color face disproportionate effects. By Moriah McDonald Flooding could affect one out of every 50 residents in 24 coastal cities in the United States by the year 2050, a study led by Virginia Tech researchers suggests.

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Senate Hearing: Penn State Expert: ‘No More Research That Needs To Be Done’ To Justify A Ban On Road Dumping Conventional Oil & Gas Wastewater

PA Environment Daily

On April 17, a Penn State expert told the Senate Democratic Policy Committee -- “There’s no more research that needs to be done” to justify adopting a state ban on the road dumping of conventional oil and gas wastewater. The remarks were made by Dr. William Burgos, a Penn State Professor of Environmental Engineering, who has done extensive research on the environmental and health risks of road dumping, including some funded by the Department of Environmental Protection.

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Plastics Reckoning: PVC Is Ubiquitous, But Maybe Not for Long

Yale E360

Used in everything from water pipes to car seats, PVC has long attracted criticism: a key ingredient is carcinogenic, and its additives include known endocrine disruptors. Now, the EPA is evaluating PVC’s safety, and an emerging global plastics treaty may limit its use.

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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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Climate Action Is a Legal Obligation, European Court Rules

Scientific American

The European Court of Human Rights found that climate change is a human rights issue, providing a blueprint for Europeans to force their governments to tackle rising temperatures

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We finally know why Stephen Hawking's black hole equation works

New Scientist

Stephen Hawking and Jacob Bekenstein calculated the entropy of a black hole in the 1970s, but it took physicists until now to figure out the quantum effects that make the formula work

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One of the biggest mysteries of cosmology may finally be solved

New Scientist

The expansion rate of the universe, measured by the Hubble constant, has been one of the most controversial numbers in cosmology for years, and we seem at last to be close to nailing it down

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Tooth loss linked to early signs of Alzheimer’s disease

New Scientist

A brain region critical for memory is smaller in older adults with fewer than 10 teeth than in those who have most of their teeth, suggesting that tooth loss may precede the development of dementia

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A surprisingly enormous black hole has been found in our galaxy

New Scientist

A black hole 33 times the mass of the sun is the largest stellar black hole ever spotted, and its strange companion star could help explain how it got so huge

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Arctic permafrost is now a net source of major greenhouse gases

New Scientist

An Arctic-wide survey has found that the permafrost region is emitting more carbon into the atmosphere than it absorbs, causing the planet to heat even further

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Largest recorded solar storm was even bigger than we thought

New Scientist

Rediscovered magnetic recordings reveal just how extreme the largest recorded solar storm in history, the Carrington event in 1859, really was, highlighting the danger such storms could present to us nowadays

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Most accurate clock ever can tick for 40 billion years without error

New Scientist

The record for the most accurate clock has been broken in an experiment with strontium atoms almost as cold as absolute zero, and it is twice as accurate as any predecessor

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Potential Cancellation of Highway 413 Impact Assessment is a Gross Abdication of Responsibility

Enviromental Defense

ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENCE AND ECOJUSTICE The federal government must urgently update the Impact Assessment Act and include the 413 project Toronto | Traditional territories of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishinaabeg, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat – Yesterday, a joint application by the federal and provincial governments was submitted to the Federal Court to cancel the current federal environmental assessment for the proposed Highway 413.

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A bacterium has evolved into a new cellular structure inside algae

New Scientist

A once-independent bacterium has evolved into an organelle that provides nitrogen to algal cells – an event so rare that there are only three other known cases

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Amazingly preserved Bronze Age village reveals life in ancient England

New Scientist

A settlement in the east of England burned down in a fire 3000 years ago, falling into a muddy waterway that preserved everything inside the houses including tools, fabric, cooking pots and more

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A new understanding of tinnitus and deafness could help reverse both

New Scientist

Investigations of the paradoxical link between tinnitus and hearing loss have revealed a hidden form of deafness, paving the way to possible new treatments

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COVID Vaccination during Pregnancy Protects Newborn Babies

Scientific American

Studies show that vaccination against COVID during pregnancy provides a powerful safeguard for vulnerable infants too young to receive the vaccine on their own

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Early humans spread as far north as Siberia 400,000 years ago

New Scientist

A site in Siberia has evidence of human presence 417,000 years ago, raising the possibility that hominins could have reached North America much earlier than we thought

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‘Sound laser’ is the most powerful ever made

New Scientist

A new device uses a reflective cavity, a tiny bead and an electrode to create a laser beam of sound particles ten times more powerful and much narrower than other “phonon lasers”

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