Accurate, Focused Research on Law, Technology and Knowledge Discovery Since 2002

Category Archives: Environmental Law

New ocean acidification maps of U.S. waters

NOAA Research – “Online dashboard makes it easy to see how chemical changes differ in various location. Researchers from NOAA have produced a new online dashboard on the National Marine Ecosystem Status website that shows how ocean acidification is impacting eleven different marine ecosystems in the U.S. These graphs, charts and mapped products, which were… Continue Reading

Advanced Recycling: Does Big Plastic’s Idea Work?

CBS Reports – “As America grapples with an escalating plastic crisis, the city of Houston, ExxonMobil, and other partners announced a new program that promised to recycle nearly all of the city’s plastic waste. However, after two years, the program has yet to fully materialize. Critics argue that the evidence suggests it never will. And… Continue Reading

A 27-country test of communicating the scientific consensus on climate change

Većkalov, B., Geiger, S.J., Bartoš, F. et al. A 27-country test of communicating the scientific consensus on climate change. Nat Hum Behav (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-01928-2 “Communicating the scientific consensus that human-caused climate change is real increases climate change beliefs, worry and support for public action in the United States. In this preregistered experiment, we tested two… Continue Reading

Library of Congress Geospatial Applications Hub site

“The Geography and Map Division is excited to support the newly launched “Library of Congress Geospatial Applications” Hub site! Hosted in ArcGIS Online, a web-based platform created by Esri, “the Hub” provides online users with a new way to explore the Library’s wide range of StoryMaps and web map applications in one site. Conveniently located… Continue Reading

An interactive ecological time machine takes you to New York City in 1609

BoingBoing: “Eric W. Sanderson is a landscape ecologist, and Vice President for Urban Conservation Strategy at the New York Botanical Garden, who has embarked on a project to digitally recreate all of New York City as it existed in 1609, the year Henry Hudson sailed into New York harbor. He has already successfully completed the… Continue Reading

Google, Amazon and Meta are proposing changes to climate laws that would allow them to hide their actual emission numbers

FT.com: “By its own account, Amazon is a green business leader. The world’s most visited online marketplace and leading cloud services provider says it hit its 100 per cent renewable energy goal seven years ahead of a self-imposed target. But by another, Amazon is a heavy polluter, emitting much more climate-warming greenhouse gases through its… Continue Reading

Western Water Rights

Data is Plural: Western water rights. Matthew D. Lisk et al. have compiled and standardized a dataset of water rights records — key documents in the allocation of the scarce resource — in the Western United States. Drawing on raw data collected from 11 states, the harmonized dataset “provides consistent unique identifiers for each spatial… Continue Reading

Washing clothes with synthetic materials is the single greatest contributor to ocean microplastics

Washington Post – Sustainability experts say to avoid fabrics that blend natural and synthetic materials. [unpatwalled] “…Compared to 100% natural fibers or other biodegradable materials such as viscose, or rayon, which is made from a wood-like fiber, blended synthetic fabrics can be more durable and withstand more stress. They can also feel softer and smoother,… Continue Reading

How Close Are the Planet’s Climate Tipping Points?

The New York Times – article and visualizations [unpaywalled]: “Earth’s warming could trigger sweeping changes in the natural world that would be hard, if not impossible, to reverse. Right now, every moment of every day, we humans are reconfiguring Earth’s climate bit by bit. Hotter summers and wetter storms. Higher seas and fiercer wildfires. The… Continue Reading