Legal Planet

AUGUST 23, 2023

After reading the recent (and very dumb) New York Times expose by Matt Richtel on e-bikes , you’d be forgiven for mistaking electric-assist bicycles for the next big threat to human health. But 3 other news stories about the benefits, and growing pains, of e-bikes show there’s real interest in them as a climate solution. Rather than just critique the NYT’s editorial choices , I want to highlight some of what we’re learning from more thoughtful reporting on e-bikes.

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Real Climate

AUGUST 25, 2023

A few weeks ago, a study by Copenhagen University researchers Peter and Susanne Ditlevsen concluded that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is likely to pass a tipping point already this century, most probably around mid-century. Given the catastrophic consequences of an AMOC breakdown, the study made quite a few headlines but also met some skepticism.

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Fossil Fuels Ocean Cooling Carbon Dioxide 245

Yale E360

AUGUST 24, 2023

In 2021, the South African government committed to shutting down the country’s captive-lion breeding industry, which provided animals for canned hunts. Among the sticking points slowing progress is what should happen to the thousands of lions that remain on private ranches.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

AUGUST 22, 2023

Extreme heat has hit hard lately from coast to coast and beyond, and it’s a major way Danger Season has shown up this year. Even as I write this, communities from the Northwest to the Southwest to the Southeast and Puerto Rico are under heat alerts. The direct health impact of heat stress is bad enough, and dangerous. But extreme heat also hits our electricity system in ways that make it more expensive, more polluting, and less reliable.

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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.

Clean Energy

Legal Planet

AUGUST 24, 2023

This is part of an occasional series of posts about the evolution of pollution standards. Today’s subject is pollution control for new vehicles, which have been known to cause smog since the 1960s. The history of these pollution standards is quite distinctive. At the high temperatures in internal combustion engines, some of the nitrogen in the air actually burns, resulting in the formation NO or NO 2 , which are collectively called NOx.

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Pollution Control Clean Air Act Ground-Level Ozone Ozone 240

New Scientist

AUGUST 25, 2023

After the Chandrayaan-3 mission’s historic landing on the moon, the Indian Space Research Organisation’s rover has begun researching the composition of the surface and investigating water ice near the lunar south pole

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Union of Concerned Scientists

AUGUST 23, 2023

This summer is melting extreme heat records nationwide and globally. The fourth of July hit the news for the hottest day on record , as did the day after and the following day. According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Goddard Institute for Space Studies, July 2023 stands as the hottest month on record globally since 1880 when record-keeping began.

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Scientific American

AUGUST 25, 2023

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.

Technology 98

Technology Technology 98

Enviromental Defense

AUGUST 25, 2023

Supervillains in movies are core to the plot and love to be the centre of attention. In real life, Canada’s biggest climate villains like to stay out of the public’s eye to avoid scrutiny. But transparency helps us hold power accountable. That’s why we’re revealing the people behind Canada’s oil and gas industry, who are fueling the climate crisis with their dedication to fossil fuels.

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Fossil Fuels Climate Change Government Politics 98

Yale E360

AUGUST 20, 2023

"Vanishing Oasis" — First-Place Winner of the Yale Environment 360 Film Contest — documents how massive withdrawals from rivers that feed the Great Salt Lake are threatening the survival of millions of migratory birds and creating bare lake beds that generate plumes of toxic dust.

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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.

2022

Union of Concerned Scientists

AUGUST 22, 2023

The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics has made an unusual change that will make the regulation of PFAS chemicals even harder , potentially letting thousands of these dangerous “forever chemicals” escape EPA regulation, thereby endangering the health of millions of people. Specifically, the EPA office says it is planning to define PFAS on a “case-by-case” basis during rulemaking and agency actions, scrapping the idea of a standardized definition of

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Toxic Substances Control Act Environmental Protection Regulations Law 221

Frontiers

AUGUST 24, 2023

By Mischa Dijkstra, Frontiers science writer One of the ‘tree-reefs’ being examined after five months in the Wadden Sea. Image credit: Jon Dickson Researchers have shown that structures made from culled pear trees sunk into soft-bottomed seas like the Dutch Wadden Sea provide excellent replacements for naturally occurring hard substrates, of which many have been lost due to human activities.

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NRDC

AUGUST 23, 2023

The designation of the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni—Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument is not only extremely popular but its protections are long overdue.

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Scientific American

AUGUST 25, 2023

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.

Technology 98

Technology Technology 98

Advertisement

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.

Sustainable Development

Union of Concerned Scientists

AUGUST 21, 2023

In 2020, Michigan smashed its record for voter turnout. With 5.5 million voters casting ballots across the state, 71% of residents 18 or older participated in the general election. Two years later, the state broke records again, with the highest midterm election turnout in the state’s history. Compared to the rest of the country, Michigan saw the highest youth voter turnout and largest increase in the number of youths registered to vote.

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Environmental News Bits

AUGUST 25, 2023

The Seedlot Selection Tool (SST) is a web-based mapping application designed to help natural resource managers match seedlots with planting sites based on climatic information. Because of natural selection to different climatic conditions at a location, plant populations are genetically differentiated from one another and are generally locally adapted.

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Frontiers

AUGUST 23, 2023

by Angharad Brewer Gillham, Frontiers science writer Image/Shutterstock.com Scientists have developed a device that works with a smartphone or tablet to capture medical images which can identify infected wounds. By capturing the heat produced by a wound and the fluorescence of bacteria, it helps clinicians tell the difference between inflammation and a potentially dangerous infection.

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Cooling 98

Scientific American

AUGUST 24, 2023

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.

Technology 98

Technology Technology 98

Union of Concerned Scientists

AUGUST 23, 2023

In my previous life as a graduate student, I worked with hydroeconomic modeling. I recently had the opportunity to jump back into that type of research with colleagues from the University of California Davis and Merced. If hydroeconomic modeling sounds like jargon, that’s because it is. In a nutshell, hydroeconomic modeling is a tool for water management.

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Climate Change Government Politics Technology 202

New Scientist

AUGUST 23, 2023

Non-vaccine measures such as social distancing and wearing face masks have been "unequivocally effective" at preventing the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, according to a major report by the UK's Royal Society

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Enviromental Defense

AUGUST 23, 2023

Are you outraged about Premier Ford’s $8 billion Greenbelt giveaway? I am too. How would you feel if I told you that the Ontario government is going to blow another $4 billion on another environmentally destructive and indefensible act? A scandal in the making Actually, how do you feel is a better question – because I’m not speaking hypothetically.

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Fossil Fuels Renewable Energy Solar Power Electricity 98

Scientific American

AUGUST 24, 2023

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.

Technology 98

Technology Technology 98

Union of Concerned Scientists

AUGUST 24, 2023

This “ Danger Season ” (the months of May through October, when the risk posed by extreme weather is highest) has been characterized by record-breaking stretches of extreme heat overlapping with torrential rain and floods. Laboring outdoors on the front lines of the climate crisis, farmworkers face disproportionate impacts from extreme weather: recent research from the National Institutes of Health found agricultural workers are 35 times more likely to die from heat than other worker

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New Scientist

AUGUST 22, 2023

From Walking with Dinosaurs to King Kong, palaeontologist David Hone chooses his favourite science fiction films about dinosaurs – and reveals which Jurassic Park made the cut

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Frontiers

AUGUST 22, 2023

By Mischa Dijkstra, Frontiers science writer Researchers analyzed health information on middle-aged and senior participants in the UK Biobank. They showed that those who took part in adult education classes had a 19% lower risk of developing dementia within five years of follow-up. Adult education also appeared to help preserve nonverbal reasoning performance and fluid intelligence.

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Scientific American

AUGUST 24, 2023

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.

Technology 98

Technology Technology 98

Union of Concerned Scientists

AUGUST 24, 2023

A reporter recently asked me what the next big piece of climate legislation would ideally include. Great question, right? With the help of my colleagues across the Climate & Energy and Clean Transportation programs at UCS, I’ve started a wish list! Didn’t Congress just pass some climate legislation? Yes, over the past year, Congress has made unprecedented investments in our climate future.

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Climate Change Clean Energy Fossil Fuels Electricity 194

New Scientist

AUGUST 23, 2023

The Y chromosome, which normally confers male characteristics, features large amounts of repetitive DNA, which meant it was difficult to compile a complete sequence until now

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Environmental News Bits

AUGUST 23, 2023

Demastus, J., & Landrum, N. E. (2023). “Organizational sustainability schemes align with weak sustainability.” Business Strategy and the Environment, 1–19. [link] [open access] Abstract: While sustainability research is expansive, studies of business-internal practices and resulting sustainability outcomes are largely unexplored.

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Scientific American

AUGUST 24, 2023

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.

Technology 98

Technology Technology Climate Change 98

Union of Concerned Scientists

AUGUST 23, 2023

One of the biggest challenges with the transition to clean electricity is figuring out how to keep the grid reliable. Extreme heat , winter storms , and flooding regularly remind us that the grid is struggling to keep up in the face of more climate change-fueled extreme weather. Now, if you thought I was going to say that clean energy technologies aren’t capable of providing a reliable electricity supply, you’re way off track.

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New Scientist

AUGUST 24, 2023

Men typically throw objects with a greater velocity than women can – but with a spear-launching tool called an atlatl, men and women’s throwing velocity is indistinguishable

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NRDC

AUGUST 21, 2023

The designation of the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni—Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument is not only extremely popular but its protections are long overdue.

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Scientific American

AUGUST 23, 2023

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.

Technology 98

Technology Technology 98