Nature
Plastic Is the New Coal, Says New Report
Your plastic water bottle will likely spend its golden years floating around the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, but its life began thousands of feet underground. How it got from there to you—and why it was made in the first place—has big implications for global climate goals.
By lupu alexandra3 years ago in Earth
COP26: Voices From the Global South Talk Money
Aside from reducing greenhouse gas emissions, funding is a key issue at the annual United Nations climate negotiations. Money from developed nations given to developing nations is vital to fund mitigation and adaptation efforts; that is, to lessen the impacts of climate change and to protect against its future effects.
By lupu alexandra3 years ago in Earth
Facing Intransigence From Manchin, Environmentalists Look for Ways to Slash Carbon Pollution
Last week, Senator Joe Manchin, the Democrat from West Virginia who has made a personal fortune from his fossil fuel investments, pulled the rug out from underneath Democrats’ climate agenda. The senator said he would not vote for the Clean Energy Performance Program, or CEPP, the flagship climate policy of the Build Back Better legislation that would require power companies to rapidly replace fossil fuels with renewables such as solar and wind.
By lupu alexandra3 years ago in Earth
9 Myths About Animals
From the labradors we share our homes with to the legendary sea monsters of Western folklore, we’ve sought to understand our fellow earthlings since the beginning of humankind. Whether it’s superstition, exaggeration, or just plain misunderstanding, sometimes our quest for knowledge can lead to some misguided conclusions. Here are nine widely believed animal misconceptions that don’t hold up to scientific scrutiny.
By lupu alexandra3 years ago in Earth
What Does Cloture Have to Do With Climate Change?
The FY2022 federal budget contains some of the most important climate policy of our lives. Some of it isn’t specifically about climate but will nonetheless have huge impacts on emissions. The construction of affordable housing in the nation’s increasingly unaffordable cities, for example, will help low-income people who are most likely to have old cars with terrible emissions drive less—or not at all. Making existing affordable housing more energy efficient is sound climate policy as well as an anti-poverty measure. Other aspects of the budget, like the maybe-it’s-dead-and-maybe-it-isn’t Clean Energy Performance Program (CEPP), are clearly aimed at cutting fossil fuel emissions (more on that below). All of these proposals have been designed to fit into a reconciliation bill—an arcane, complicated form of budgeting that Congress resorts to when all is not harmonious in the halls of government.
By lupu alexandra3 years ago in Earth
We Don't Deserve Beavers
Tar Creek doesn’t seem like an inviting home for wildlife. For more than 70 years, miners blasted open the earth underneath the Oklahoma waterway in search of lead and zinc. Today, mountains of waste material from the mines tower above what is now classified by the EPA as a Superfund site. Groundwater that flows through the abandoned mines flushes toxic heavy metals, including cadmium and lead—both potent neurotoxins even at low concentrations—into the creek. The water runs bright orange.
By lupu alexandra3 years ago in Earth
People of Color Are More Likely to Die of Lung Cancer Than White Americans
Some of the best hospitals in the United States are in Washington, DC, the seat of American democracy. But that doesn’t mean the health care they offer is available to everyone. In the District of Columbia, Black residents are 126 percent more likely to be diagnosed with lung cancer than white residents.
By lupu alexandra3 years ago in Earth
Millions Breathe Dirty Air as Climate Change Makes Air Quality Worse
During a congressional hearing last week with Dr. Anthony Fauci, Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH), one of the most zealous supporters of former president Donald Trump, sought to frame COVID-19 health measures as a matter of big government versus individual freedom. As new strains of the deadly respiratory disease continue to circulate the globe, Jordan blasted Fauci for taking away our freedom to breathe without a mask on.
By lupu alexandra3 years ago in Earth
Can the Defense Production Act Jump-Start a Transition to Renewable Energy?
Clean energy advocates and climate activists are pumped. On June 6, President Biden invoked the Domestic Production Act (DPA) to accelerate the domestic production of five key energy technologies: solar panel parts; transformers and other grid components; heat pumps; building insulation; and the equipment needed to produce clean hydrogen fuel. In tandem, the administration is suspending the tariffs on solar panels that have stalled solar installations here in the United States.
By lupu alexandra3 years ago in Earth
Bird + Whale + Turbine
In March last year, the Biden administration announced a plan to generate 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2030, enough to provide electricity for more than 10 million homes. To meet that goal, the Departments of Interior (DOI), Energy (DOE), and Commerce (DOC) announced a plan to collaborate on expediting the leasing and permitting processes for offshore wind facilities. The first large-scale offshore wind facility in the US, the 800-megawatt Vineyard Wind farm, was approved a few months later and broke ground off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in November.
By lupu alexandra3 years ago in Earth
The "Big Science" Behind Climate Change
Big data”—the massive data sets that have become easier to create and interpret as computing power and storage have increased—has had a huge effect on the way the advertising, insurance, and finance industries do business. But can big data solve larger societal issues? Some scientists believe that it will be a valuable tool in climate change mitigation and adaptation, but the University of Minnesota’s Vipin Kumar, PhD, believes it can also help slow down climate change in the here and now.
By lupu alexandra3 years ago in Earth
