Sat.Sep 23, 2023 - Fri.Sep 29, 2023

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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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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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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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The Loss of Dark Skies Is So Painful, Astronomers Coined a New Term for It

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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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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Spinning Wind Turbines Kill Nearly a Million Bats a Year. Researchers Aim to Find Out Why.

Yale E360

Land-based wind turbines kill as many as 880,000 bats a year, wiping out so many threatened bats that at least one species could soon become endangered without preventative action, according to a recent study.

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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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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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Old habits

Real Climate

Media awareness about global warming and climate change has grown fairly steadily since 2004. My impression is that journalists today tend to possess a higher climate literacy than before. This increasing awareness and improved knowledge is encouraging, but there are also some common interpretations which could be more nuanced. Here are two examples, polar amplification and extreme rainfall.

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No Time for Delay: Congress Must Keep Disaster Funding Flowing

Union of Concerned Scientists

2023 has already been a year of record-breaking climate change-related impacts: endless days of extreme heat, nightmare wildfires, extensive flooding, and storms like Hurricane Idalia that many communities are struggling to recover from. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recently released its updated summary of extreme weather and climate change-related disasters.

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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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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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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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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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How Post-War Justice Strategies Can Be Applied to the Climate Crisis  

Union of Concerned Scientists

The climate crisis is one of humanity’s most complex conflicts yet. The dangerous impacts of a warming, fossil-fuel dependent world span from wildfires capable of destroying entire towns to cancer-causing air pollution that afflicts the next generation. Countries in the Global South that are barely emitting any heat-trapping emissions have felt the impacts of this struggle acutely, despite countries like the United States and China accounting for nearly 40% of cumulative global carbon pollution.

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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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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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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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EPA Approves Permit for Controversial Fracking Disposal Well in Pennsylvania

Inside Climate News

The well, in Plum Borough near Pittsburgh, is a repurposed conventional well, which locals fear is at higher risk for leaks and material failures that could contaminate local drinking water. By Jake Bolster The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) this week approved a permit for a toxic fracking wastewater disposal well named Sedat 4A, a highly controversial project in Plum Borough, Pennsylvania, rejecting residents’ concerns that leaks from the well could migrate and pollute other wells

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Environmental Health Project: How DEP Issues Permits For Shale Gas Facilities Without Considering Cumulative Impacts - How New Facilities Will Add To Existing Pollution Loads And Impact The Area

PA Environment Daily

The Environmental Health Project based in Southwest PA published a fact sheet on how the Department of Environmental Protection is issuing permits for shale gas infrastructure facilities without considering the impact of how those new sources of pollution will impact local communities when added to the existing pollution in the area. Each permit becomes a stand-alone decision without considering the cumulative impacts of this pollution on communities.

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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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How to see the northern lights this winter

New Scientist

The northern lights, or aurora borealis, are expected to be stronger than they have been for at least a decade over the next few months.

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Taxpayers Still on Hook for Oil and Gas Clean-up, Despite New Rule

NRDC

BOEM's proposed rule falls short in requiring oil and gas companies to demonstrate they are financially able to fully remove and clean up platforms & pipelines.

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Monday PA Environment & Energy NewsClips - 9.25.23

PA Environment Daily

Pursue Your Constitutional Right To A Clean Environment In Pennsylvania! Senate next voting day October 2, 3, 4 [Unless Sooner Recalled] -- Committee Schedule House next voting day September 26, 27; October 2, 3, 4, 16 [Unless Sooner Recalled] -- Committee Schedule TODAY’s Calendar Of Events TUESDAY 10:00: House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee meets to consider House Bill 1474 (Ciresi-D-Montgomery) expanding C-PACE clean energy financing program to include electric vehicle charging

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Our Fragile Earth: How Close Are We to Climate Catastrophe?

Scientific American

Lessons from past eras when Earth was a hothouse or a snowball tell us whether we are doomed by climate change or still have time to prevent that fate

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Covid-19 drug may be creating new variants with distinctive mutations

New Scientist

Covid-19 viruses with distinctive patterns of mutation are appearing in countries that use a drug called molnupiravir, however, none of these is a variant of concern

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A Drop in Emissions, and a Jobs Bonanza? Critics Question Benefits of a Proposed Hydrogen Hub for the Appalachian Region

Inside Climate News

The potential gains for Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio have not been clearly spelled out, and the science is being challenged, as the Department of Energy prepares to announce the builders of six to 10 federally funded hubs across the country. By Jon Hurdle PITTSBURGH—As the federal government nears a decision on which of the nation’s proposed “hydrogen hubs” will share up to $8 billion in startup money, critics of the idea in the Appalachian region are asserting that the program would do

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Tuesday PA Environment & Energy NewsClips - 9.26.23

PA Environment Daily

Pursue Your Constitutional Right To A Clean Environment In Pennsylvania! Senate next voting day October 2, 3, 4 [Unless Sooner Recalled] -- Committee Schedule House next voting day September 26, 27; October 2, 3, 4, 16 [Unless Sooner Recalled] -- Committee Schedule TODAY’s Calendar Of Events TODAY 10:00: House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee meets to consider House Bill 1474 (Ciresi-D-Montgomery) expanding C-PACE clean energy financing program to include electric vehicle charging in

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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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Samples from asteroid Bennu brought back to Earth by NASA's OSIRIS-REx

New Scientist

Precious samples from the asteroid Bennu have returned to Earth, where researchers hope to use them to learn more about the origins of the solar system

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Q&A: How the Wolves’ Return Enhances Biodiversity

Inside Climate News

In Yellowstone National Park, the reintroduction of the gray wolf in the 1990s has helped reduce an exploding elk population, which in turn helped save plants along streams and rivers, which provide habitat for migrating birds, building materials for beavers, and dam ponds for fish and frogs.

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Drought in Scotland? Projections affect specialist habitats and species

The Applied Ecologist

Fairlie Kirkpatrick Baird from NatureScot discusses their latest research that reveals the increasing risk of extreme drought in Scotland and how that may affect key habitats and their species. One of the first things that comes to mind when people think of Scotland, alongside the beautiful mountains and the Loch Ness Monster, is the terrible weather.

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Online Ads Can Infect Your Device with Spyware

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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How geologic hydrogen went from fringe science to potential green fuel

New Scientist

Just a year ago, few people took seriously the idea that we could extract hydrogen from the ground as a clean energy source - but now the US Department of Energy is injecting $20 million into the concept

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Saturday PA Environment & Energy NewsClips - 9.23.23

PA Environment Daily

Pursue Your Constitutional Right To A Clean Environment In Pennsylvania! Senate next voting day October 2, 3, 4 [Unless Sooner Recalled] -- Committee Schedule House next voting day September 26, 27; October 2, 3, 4, 16 [Unless Sooner Recalled] -- Committee Schedule TODAY’s Calendar Of Events -- DEP: York County Moved To Drought Warning; 19 Counties Still In Drought Watch [PaEN] -- MCall: Tropical Storm Ophelia To Impact Lehigh Valley This Weekend: 2-3 Inches Of Rain, Strong Winds -- Inquirer: Tr

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Holidays back to the home country could help bilingual children hold on to their family’s original language

Frontiers

by Angharad Brewer Gillham, Frontiers science writer Image/Shutterstock.com Holding on to a heritage language which isn’t widely spoken in the country of residence is difficult. Scientists find that using the heritage language at home, in daily life, is important to retaining it, but that some of the language skills which are most vulnerable — like vocabulary — are improved by visits to the country of origin.