“Brent Walls, Upper Potomac Riverkeeper, has become an expert on the growing issue of PFAS – toxic “legacy” chemicals – which we are finding in more and more places. He has created a map which identifies monitoring locations where Maryland’s Department of the Environment (MDE) collected fish tissue samples from various species, oyster sampling and… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Energy
Buried But Not Forgotten: Coal Ash in the Chesapeake
Waterkeepers Chesapeake – “The Chesapeake Bay region has a problem it thought it could bury and forget. But the solution for coal ash is not so simple. Coal ash, also referred to as coal combustion residuals or CCRs, is produced primarily from the burning of coal in coal-fired power plants. Coal ash contains hazardous pollutants… Continue Reading
Cracking the Gasoline Code
COLTURA – Using new gasoline consumption data to lift the most gasoline-burdened Americans and cut gasoline use faster and more efficiently. “The top 10% of drivers in the U.S. account for more than one-third of the nation’s gasoline use for private light-duty vehicles, according to the report. Extreme levels of gasoline use are deeply woven… Continue Reading
Plastic is everywhere, including in our food and bottled water
Ars Technica: “If we are what we eat, there’s growing evidence to help explain how nanoplastics and microplastics are in our blood, in our intestines and in some of our organs. Two new studies published this week shed further, and alarming, light on all the tiny plastic particles that people are consuming every day. A… Continue Reading
An environmental and socially just climate mitigation pathway for a planet in peril
PHSY.org: An environmental and socially just climate mitigation pathway for a planet in peril, Environmental Research Letters (2024). DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ad059e “Oregon State’s William Ripple, former OSU postdoctoral researcher Christopher Wolf and collaborators argue their scenario should be included in climate models along with the five “shared socioeconomic pathways,” or SSPs, that are used by the… Continue Reading
Dyson Report on Indoor Air Pollution
The U.S. experienced indoor air quality worse than outdoor for three quarters of 2022, January 11, 2024: “Today, Dyson unveils the results of its first Global Connected Air Quality Data project. The project analyzes indoor air quality information collected by more than 2.5 million Dyson purifiers from 2022 to 2023 to landscape air quality in… Continue Reading
Here’s what you’re really swallowing when you drink bottled water
Washington Post [read free]: “People are swallowing hundreds of thousands of microscopic pieces of plastic each time they drink a liter of bottled water, scientists have shown — a revelation that could have profound implications for human health A new paper released Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found about 240,000… Continue Reading
How to Get a Job in the Age of AI, According to a Top LinkedIn Executive
Bloomberg [read free]: “Daniel Shapero has been at LinkedIn since 2008, when the Great Recession rocked the labor market. He’s since risen through the ranks to become the company’s chief operating officer, guiding the platform through significant strategic shifts. Now owned by Microsoft Corp., the professional networking site is taking on its next big transformation:… Continue Reading
Here’s how the EPA calculates how far an EV can go on a full charge
Ars Technica: “How does the US Environmental Protection Agency decide how far an electric vehicle can go on a single charge? The simple explanation is that an EV is driven until the battery runs flat, providing the number that goes on the window sticker. In practice, it’s a lot more complicated than that, with varying… Continue Reading
Tesla blamed drivers for failures of parts it long knew were defective
Reuters Investigates: “Wheels falling off cars at speed. Suspensions collapsing on brand-new vehicles. Axles breaking under acceleration. Tens of thousands of customers told Tesla about a host of part failures on low-mileage cars. The automaker sought to blame drivers for vehicle ‘abuse,’ but Tesla documents show it had tracked the chronic ‘flaws’ and ‘failures’ for… Continue Reading
Want to go plastic-free in 2024?
Fast Company: Want to go plastic-free in 2024? Here’s the realistic way I’m cutting out single-use plastic – “Heading into 2024, living without plastic feels as impossible as living without water, medicine, or clothing. Plastic is everywhere—from the depths of the oceans to our blood-brain layers. Despite needing ~1,000 years to decompose, we rely on… Continue Reading
The world’s most liveable cities in 2023
The Economist: “Once again the liveability index from EIU, our sister company, is one of our most popular pieces of data journalism this year. Readers in their millions come to find where their city sits in the ranking, but they leave with a broader understanding of the world. This year marked a full recovery from… Continue Reading
