We identify strategies for policymakers and the private sector to overcome obstacles to environmental protection; facilitate the transition to a low-carbon, sustainable future; address the disruptive effects of climate change; and protect public health and welfare from environmental degradation.
Category: Websites
Links to websites.
Smartscale.org – transportation in Virginia
SmartScale.org focuses on transportation issues in Virginia.
Above the Fold – Week’s Best & Covid
Environmental Health News puts out weekend ‘summary’ emails, in addition to their daily emails.
EHN Week’s Best: April 16, 2021: forever chemicals on paper straws; Piney Point pollution; jails and environmental justice; DDT; PFAS; drought’s impact on farming water; rechargeable batteries – real cost; Mexico and coal; heavy metals in children’s food; Japan dumping Fukushima’s radioactive water into the ocean.
EHN Covid: April 16, 2021: facemask garbage; underserved communities & J&J vaccine halt; green spaces & housing justice; loosing women scientists; how to stop a pandemic.
The Daily Climate, March 31,2021
Articles include: Michigan flooding & sea walls; forest destruction accelerated in 2020; rivers as a climate change solution; Kerry to India and UAE; Climate change, Canada, and hurricanes (report in the ScienceBrief Review website); thaw-driven landslides; wind energy; Scottish wind farm success; UAE, automakers and EV’s; keeping the planet habitable; DOJ holding oil companies accountable.
Tool: These maps show how many days a year your coastal city could flood
Fast Company: These maps show how many days a year your coastal city could flood. By 2050, some coastal cities could have flooding every day of the year. High tides, caused by the effects of the sun’s and moon’s gravitational pulls on the Earth, are no new phenomenon. But coastal flooding from such high tides is becoming more and more of a problem. As global warming worsens and sea levels rise, high-tide flooding is affecting coastal communities more than ever before.
A new website shows users, via multiple maps of the U.S., the estimated number of days of high-tide flooding that could occur per year up to 2100. As someone looks at the maps, they can drag a bar to change the year, in one-year increments, and observe the severity of flooding in 99 different coastal cities across the country. Different colors represent greater danger, and users can zoom in and click on a specific city to see the number of flooding days there.
Studies: Masks are adding to coastal trash & harming wildlife – 2 articles
OCRegister.com: Masks aren’t only reason pandemic is adding to coastal trash. A new study documents COVID-19’s role in increasing plastic pollution on beaches and in the ocean. Disposable masks, gloves and wipes are helping suppress the spread of COVID-19, but they’re adding significantly to plastic litter that’s trashing our shores and ocean, according to a study from the Ocean Conservancy released Tuesday, March 30. Coastal pollution has been further worsened by the pandemic-driven increase in take-out food and the subsequent littering of single-use plastic containers. And even as more trash reaches the beach, the pandemic also has meant fewer volunteers for beach cleanups. The report, based on data collected worldwide in the last half of 2020, documented 107,219 items of personal protective equipment gathered by the conservancy’s cleanup partners. On Sept. 19, California’s Coastal Cleanup Day, more than 6,000 masks and gloves were collected by some 13,000 volunteers, according to state organizers. Turnout was down dramatically, from the 75,000 people who volunteered to pick up beach litter in 2019.
The Guardian: Trapped in gloves, tangled in masks: Covid PPE killing animals, report finds. Mask and gloves protect people but harm animals from penguins to dogs when discarded, researchers say. The researchers searched news sites and social media posts from litter collectors, birdwatchers, wildlife rescue centres, and veterinarians and found incidents on land and in water across the world. But they said much more information is needed and have launched a website where anyone can submit a report. The study, published in the journal Animal Biology, is the first overview of cases of entanglement, entrapping and ingestion of Covid-19 litter by animals. The PPE litter was mainly single-use latex gloves and single-use masks, consisting of rubber strings and mostly polypropylene fabric.
Stop the Illegal wildlife trade
The Independent has a webpage on Stop the Illegal wildlife trade.
Environmental Health News: Children’s Health & Coronavirus & Health
EHN discusses Top news on children’s health.
Report: Worsening land inequality widens gender, climate change gaps
Reuters discusses Worsening land inequality widens gender, climate change gaps.
The International Land Coalition (ILC) report is here and their website is here.
Land inequality is growing worldwide, threatening the livelihoods of 2.5 billion people who directly rely on farming and widening disparities in gender, health and climate-change impacts, researchers warned on Tuesday.
The widening gap in ownership and access to land especially hurts small and marginal farmers, women, and indigenous and rural communities, according to a report by the International Land Coalition (ILC) and anti-poverty charity Oxfam.
While rural and indigenous communities are being squeezed into smaller parcels of land or uprooted entirely, land is increasingly concentrated in fewer hands, mainly those of large agriculture businesses and investors, the research showed.
Study: Tenth of pandemic stimulus spend could help world reach climate goals
Reuters discusses a study showing that a Tenth of pandemic stimulus spend could help world reach climate goals. [No link to the study is provided, but the organization that conducted the study, International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), can be found here.]
The world could get on track to avert catastrophic climate change by investing a tenth of a planned $12 trillion in pandemic recovery packages in reducing dependence on fossil fuels, according to a study published on Thursday.
With the stimulus representing about 15% of global gross domestic product, or three times the commitment after the 2008 financial crisis, scientists say the money could prove pivotal in meeting the temperature goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement.
“It makes absolute sense not just to keep your economy alive with palliative care, but to restructure your economy so it’s future-ready,” Joeri Rogelj, a climate scientist at Imperial College London, and a co-author of the paper, told Reuters.
The world could start to bring that target within reach if governments used 10% of the planned stimulus to back climate-friendly projects such as renewable energy or energy efficiency every year for the next five years, according to the paper, published in the journal Science.