Sustainability
10 Tips for Your First Time Camping in Winter
What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness?” wrote John Steinbeck. Point taken, but there’s also a certain sweetness to the cold of winter. Cold-weather camping is a great way to savor those tranquil moments and settings only winter can provide—untouched snow-covered landscapes, early nights and early mornings, a warm fire—yet even some experienced campers balk at the prospect.
By lupu alexandra3 years ago in Earth
What I Learned From Wildfire Risk Tools
Wildfire is always on my mind: I live in a wooded rural community in southern Oregon that has been in a drought for several years. Fir trees are dying at an alarming rate, and nearby springs have slowed to a trickle. Since I moved here in 2014, at least two large wildfires have threatened our community; several smaller fires were snuffed out before blowing up.
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
Heeding the Pandemic’s Warnings
When Katey Hedger walked into the Satria Bird Market in Bali in March 2021, the first thing to hit her was the smell. “There were droppings everywhere, all over the floor, and the floor was wet,” Hedger says. “I tried my best not to touch anything.”
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
The Electricity Is Melting
Glaciers sit high and heavy in the mountains, vast seas of ice suspended thousands of feet above cities and villages. The tremendous potential energy that makes avalanches so deadly has, in the past, made glaciers an enviable source of power for communities living downslope.
By lupu alexandra3 years ago in Earth
Massive Milkweed Restoration Could Help Save the Monarch Butterfly
Common milkweed isn’t a particularly finicky plant—it has “weed” in its name for a reason and can be found growing on roadsides, empty lots, and old fields. But over the last two decades, Asclepias syriaca, which is primarily found in the Midwest and eastern United States, has disappeared from most agricultural landscapes. Along with it, the population of the iconic migratory monarch butterfly, Danaus plexippus plexippus, which relies on the plant for reproduction, has also crashed, so much so that it is being considered for endangered status. Assuming the key to saving the monarch is bringing back milkweed, a new study in the journal Environmental Research Letters looks at exactly where conservationists need to plant Asclepias to revive the dwindling butterfly population.
By lupu alexandra3 years ago in Earth
New Independent Study Confirms PFAS in Thinx, Other Products
You might know me as the person who reported in January 2020 that I mailed my Thinx leakproof, organic menstrual underwear to Professor Graham Peaslee, a nuclear physicist at Notre Dame University. He found toxic chemicals, including PFAS, in it. At the time, I was working on a response to a reader who wanted to know what the best ways were to minimize the environmental impact of their period, and I had been contacting companies like Thinx to find out which products were the least toxic for the environment and for human health. Peaslee and his team found that the inside of the crotch in my organic Thinx organic brief had 3,264 parts per million (ppm) of flourine, and their organic Shorty for teens had 2,053 ppm. That’s high enough to suggest they were intentionally manufactured with PFAS. All PFAS have fluorine. Since the world hasn’t found a way to test which of 9,000 PFAS are in products, the best current test methods look for fluorine.
By lupu alexandra3 years ago in Earth
Low-Carbon Diets Are Good for the Planet, and Your Health
For most of human history, sticking to a diet was pretty simple—you ate whatever you could get your hands on. But in this era of dietary excess, things have gotten extremely complicated. Conscious consumers need to consider the health implications of the foods they eat as well as the types of chemicals used in their production, the exploitation of farm labor, whether food animals are treated humanely, and just how much damage their afternoon snack is doing to the climate. Untangling the web of food choices is daunting, but a new study makes things a little bit easier. A paper in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition shows that low-carbon diets that are good for the climate are, as a general rule, much better for human health as well.
By lupu alexandra3 years ago in Earth
