Sat.May 14, 2022 - Fri.May 20, 2022

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Beyond Magical Thinking: Time to Get Real on Climate Change

Yale E360

Despite decades of studies and climate summits, greenhouse gas emissions continue to soar. Energy scientist Vaclav Smil says it’s time to stop ricocheting between apocalyptic forecasts and rosy models of rapid CO2 cuts and focus on the difficult task of remaking our energy system. Read more on E360 ?.

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Five Fixes for Michigan’s Drinking Water Woes

Circle of Blue

Five Fixes for Michigan’s Drinking Water Woes The Great Lakes News Collaborative asked state and national experts how Michigan could break the cycle of underfunding and poor decision-making that has left water systems across Michigan in sorry shape. Throughout the Great Lakes region and across the U.S., water systems are aging. In some communities, this means water bills that residents can’t afford or water that’s unsafe to drink.

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Why We Can Send A Rover To Mars, But We Can’t Send An Electron From New York to California

Union of Concerned Scientists

Space missions are a federal matter, but states determine energy policy and infrastructure decisions. Right now, states and the federal government have a choice that will define our country’s options for clean energy and planning the power grid for the challenges ahead. This choice reveals how the electric grid, and the work to cut global warming emissions, are shaped by our political structures.

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Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability Available to Orgs June 1

Environment + Energy Leader

Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability solutions will be available June 1 and will provide the intelligence and data management capabilities for organizations to make progress with their sustainability goals and requirements. . The post Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability Available to Orgs June 1 appeared first on Environment + Energy Leader.

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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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More Heat, More Drought: New Analyses Offer Grim Outlook for the U.S. West.

Yale E360

The ongoing drought in the U.S. West is expected to persist through this summer, raising the risk of water shortages and wildfires. While California, Arizona, and New Mexico are now facing the brunt of the drought, new research suggests that Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming will increasingly come to look like the Southwest as temperatures continue to rise.

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What’s Up With Water — May 17, 2022

Circle of Blue

This week’ s episode of What’s Up With Water covers water-related financial risks and a mandate to conserve water in California. Plus, Circle of Blue reports on Michigan’s opportunity for renewal. Transcript. Welcome to “What’s Up With Water” – your need-to-know news of the world’s water from Circle of Blue. I’m Eileen Wray-McCann.

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Texas Instruments to Build LEED Certified Fabrication Plants

Environment + Energy Leader

Texas Instruments is building new 300-mm semiconductor wafer fabrication plants (or "fabs") in Sherman, Texas. The post Texas Instruments to Build LEED Certified Fabrication Plants appeared first on Environment + Energy Leader.

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How Ailing Strip Malls Could Be a Green Fix for U.S. Housing Crisis

Yale E360

Urban designer Peter Calthorpe has a plan for the shuttered and financially troubled strip malls that dot the suburban landscape: Convert the malls into housing that would be part of green communities where people could be closer to their jobs and get out of their cars. Read more on E360 ?.

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The Stream, May 18, 2022: How Some Cities in the American West Have Ample Water Supplies Amid Drought

Circle of Blue

The San Vicente Dam in San Diego, California. Photo © J. Carl Ganter/Circle of Blue. YOUR GLOBAL RUNDOWN. A commission in California voted against granting a permit for a proposed desalination plant along the state’s coastline. A report suggests London could be waterless by 2050. The most recent deluge in Queensland, Australia has left hundreds of people displaced and cut off access to more than 700 roads.

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Minnesota Lawmakers Could Go Big on Clean Energy, or Go Small

Union of Concerned Scientists

Minnesota needs substantial investments now to build toward an equitable clean energy future. The good news is, Minnesota legislators have a chance to pass the level of investment needed to set the state on a path to a carbon-free economy. The bad news is, they have to find a compromise between two vastly different clean energy bills—by Monday. The science is clear: Limiting the adverse effects of climate change requires rapid reductions in emissions now.

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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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UK Study Shows a Fifth of Food Packaging Could Be in Landfills by 2040

Environment + Energy Leader

A UK study shows that while recycling, reuse and composting of packaging will all increase significantly, a fifth of all food packaging could still find its way to landfill and incineration even in two decades time. The post UK Study Shows a Fifth of Food Packaging Could Be in Landfills by 2040 appeared first on Environment + Energy Leader.

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A “Hunger Catastrophe” in the Making

Legal Planet

Grain shipments at Port of Novorossiysk. Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons. The global food system is in crisis for the third time in fifteen years. Food prices are hitting all-time highs, pushing hundreds of millions of people deeper into poverty and food insecurity and threatening political stability in regions around the world. The World Food Programme has called the current situation a “ hunger catastrophe ,” noting that since 2019, the number of people facing acute food insecurity has more t

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Recent European Drought Was the Most Intense in At Least 250 Years

Yale E360

The 2018 to 2020 European drought was the worst in more than two centuries, driven in part by uncommonly high temperatures that exacerbated dry conditions across large parts of the continent, new research finds. Read more on E360 ?.

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Control of mechanical quantum resonators reaches new levels of precision

Physics World

New levels of precision control over the quantized energy levels of mechanical resonators have been achieved by teams in the US and Switzerland, who independently measured the number of phonons in a cavity without disturbing it. In addition, the US group produced an entangling gate comprising two nanomechanical oscillators. The work could potentially have implications for quantum networking and quantum error correction.

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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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‘Do Good Foods’ Begins Sale of Carbon-Reduced Chicken

Environment + Energy Leader

Food company Do Good Foods has officially launched Do Good Chicken in grocers throughout Philadelphia. The post ‘Do Good Foods’ Begins Sale of Carbon-Reduced Chicken appeared first on Environment + Energy Leader.

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My Kind of Town

Legal Planet

“My kind of town, Chicago is my kind of town.” Or so Frank Sinatra sang. I’m not sure he really felt that way himself, but the song rings a chord with me. I didn’t grow up in Chicago but we visited frequently to see my parents’ families. Chicago is also, as it turns out, ground zero for climate change. The Chicago lakefront has been a site of contestation, development, and preservation since its early days.

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10 endangered species that will suffer if Highway 413 is built

Enviromental Defense

It’s not an exaggeration to say that Highway 413 would be a disaster for Southern Ontario’s endangered species. . Without even accounting for future highway widening and all the sprawl development that will come with it, the project would destroy around 1000 hectares (nearly 2,500 acres) of significant natural areas, including Greenbelt land and the Nashville Conservation Reserve.

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Netherlands invests €1.1bn in the photonic-chip industry

Physics World

The Dutch photonic chip industry has been boosted with €1.1bn of public and private investment. The cash, which includes €470m from the Dutch government’s National Growth Fund, will be used by PhotonDelta over six years to create hundreds of photonic start-up companies and scale up photonic-chip production to encourage development of new photonic applications. .

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New Legislation on PFAS May Affect Your Fire Suppression System

Environment + Energy Leader

Over the past few decades, the fire protection industry has been affected by national/international restrictions and bans on production of the chemicals used in fire suppression systems. With the ongoing concern over climate change substances and materials with high global warming potential have increasingly come under scrutiny from Congress and other international governing bodies.

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World-Changing Opportunity for California

Legal Planet

Governor Newsom’s May Revise budget proposal includes this item: Methane Satellites—$100 million Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund on a one-time basis to expand the number of satellites launched for methane observations, which would provide weekly measurement of large methane emissions in the state and enhance enforcement capabilities. This data will allow California to identify the source of these emissions, work with programs to hold emitters accountable for violations, and further reduce the amou

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Method used to track ants underground could revolutionize how we measure snow depth from space

Frontiers

By Simona Pesce, Frontiers writer. Photo of snow taken by crew of the International Space Station. Image: NASA. With the help of some ants, NASA scientists have developed an innovative concept to measure exactly how deep the snow layer is covering sea ice and mountains using a lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) instrument in space. The findings, published in Frontiers in Remote Sensing , reveal this new method will have several applications and provide more accurate measurements on the evolutio

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CERN’s Large Hadron Collider gears up for Run 3

Physics World

Officials at the CERN particle-physics lab have announced that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has successfully restarted following a three-year programme of maintenance and upgrades. Days after the switch-on on 22 April , engineers accelerated the two proton beams to a record energy of 6.8?TeV per beam and will now begin increasing the luminosity before first collisions later in June. .

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Procedures: Federal Preemption

National Law Center

The Constitution of the United States is made up of hundreds of clauses. Article VI is known as the Supremacy Clause. The post Procedures: Federal Preemption appeared first on National Agricultural Law Center.

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12 best ways to get cars out of cities – ranked by new research

Environmental News Bits

This story is part of Conversation InsightsThe Insights team generates long-form journalism and is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects to tackle societal and scientific challenges. by Kimberly Nicholas, Lund University Question: what do the following statistics have in common? The second-largest (and growing) source of climate pollution in … Continue reading 12 best ways to get cars out of cities – ranked by new research.

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Frontiers appoints Dr Julia Kostova to lead its US strategy 

Frontiers

Frontiers, the 3rd most-cited research publisher, appoints Dr Julia Kostova as director of publishing development to lead the editorial strategy for the U.S. market with the mission to accelerate the transition to open access. Photo credit: Frontiers. With more than 15 years’ experience, Dr Kostova is a seasoned professional of the scholarly publishing industry.

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Black-hole physics and that iconic ‘shadow’ image, balloons and rockets probe the atmosphere’s acoustic duct

Physics World

In this episode of the Physics World Weekly podcast, we meet Shep Doeleman , who is the founding director of the Event Horizon Telescope. He explains how he and his colleagues obtained that iconic image of the “shadow” of the supermassive at the centre of the Milky Way. Based in the US at the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Doeleman explains what the image tells us about the physics of black holes, and he looks forward to the day when we can watch “movies” of dancing black-hol

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Ag and Food Law Daily Update: May 16, 2022

National Law Center

A comprehensive summary of today’s judicial, legislative, and regulatory developments in agriculture and food. Email important additions HERE. . The post Ag and Food Law Daily Update: May 16, 2022 appeared first on National Agricultural Law Center.

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‘Too many people, not enough food’ isn’t the cause of hunger and food insecurity

Environmental News Bits

by Gisèle Yasmeen, University of British Columbia Nearly one in three people in the world did not have access to enough food in 2020. That’s an increase of almost 320 million people in one year and it’s expected to get worse with rising food prices and the war trapping wheat, barley and corn in Ukraine … Continue reading ‘Too many people, not enough food’ isn’t the cause of hunger and food insecurity.

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A New Database to Drive Seabird Conservation

Cool Green Science

A new database will help protect the world's most imperiled group of birds. The post A New Database to Drive Seabird Conservation appeared first on Cool Green Science.

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Concerning primordial black holes

Physics World

It’s just gone 12:45 p.m. on 30 November 1954 when a lazy Alabama afternoon is suddenly arrested by a fireball noisily rending the air, burning so bright it’s visible from two neighbouring states as it streaks through the sky above Sylacauga. Breaking into fragments, one grapefruit-sized part of the rock slams messily through the roof of a farmhouse, ricochets off a large console radio and slams into the side of a young woman as she takes a nap on her couch.

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Emergency in Ontario – First We March, Then We Vote

Enviromental Defense

This past Saturday, I attended the Emergency in Ontario rally with my daughter. Although the weather was lovely in the shade of Queen’s Park’s trees, the unseasonable heat during the march was a reminder that climate change keeps creeping up on us whether or not it’s a front page story in the newspaper. The event began with inspiring opening remarks by Danny Beaton, a Turtle Clan Mohawk from Grand River Six Nations Territory, and the energy grew and grew as a variety of speakers and musicians to

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The Great Lakes before the 1972 Water Quality Agreement

Environmental News Bits

Read the full story at Great Lakes Connection. Over the past two centuries, western settlement and the Industrial Revolution dramatically changed the water quality of the Great Lakes. New economic activities and cultural centers were spawned, while the lakes saw new (and often unwanted) species and pollution from industry, agriculture and cities. The 1972 Great Lakes … Continue reading The Great Lakes before the 1972 Water Quality Agreement.

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Ag and Food Law Daily Update: May 19, 2022

National Law Center

A comprehensive summary of today’s judicial, legislative, and regulatory developments in agriculture and food. Email important additions HERE. . The post Ag and Food Law Daily Update: May 19, 2022 appeared first on National Agricultural Law Center.

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‘Micronovae’ explosions on white dwarfs caused by localized accretion

Physics World

The mystery why of small explosive bursts occur on some accreting white dwarf stars appears to have been solved by a team of astronomers led by Simone Scaringi at the UK’s Durham University. The team examined bursts of light from three white dwarf systems and noticed that their evolution was similar to X-ray bursts that occur on the surfaces of some neutron stars.

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