The MIT Press Reader: “…During the past 15 years, a growing body of research has linked our connection to nature to reductions in vitamin D deficiency, myopia, obesity, diastolic blood pressure, stress-related salivary cortisol, heart rate, diabetes, and mood disorders. Studies have found that for young adults, the more nature they experience, the more life… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Environmental Law
Bird populations are declining
The Washington Post – Some are in your neighborhood…”We know this because of eBird, the crowdsourced database of bird observations managed by the Cornell Lab. eBird is to older bird databases roughly what Wikipedia is to Encyclopaedia Britannica — instead of depending on the observations of a relatively small group of trusted experts, eBird uses… Continue Reading
Gorsuch urged to recuse himself from supreme court case over ties to oil baron
The Guardian: “Philip Anschutz has hosted rightwing justice at resort and stands to benefit if court strips power from federal regulatory agencies. Two days before oral arguments in a US supreme court case set to have a major impact on federal health and environmental regulation, a leading government watchdog called on Neil Gorsuch to recuse… Continue Reading
Macaulay Library’s Best Bird Photos 2024
The Cornell Lab – All About Birds: “There are more than 50 million photos in the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Macaulay Library archive. Here are some of the best from the past year. From the Winter 2024 issue of Living Bird magazine. If you like this photo essay, you’ll also enjoy last year’s Best of… Continue Reading
The Plastic Chemicals Hiding in Your Food
Consumer Reports “tested popular fast foods and supermarket staples for bisphenols and phthalates, which can be harmful to your health. Here’s what we found—and how to stay safer. By the time you open a container of yogurt, the food has taken a long journey to reach your spoon. You may have some idea of that… Continue Reading
Close-up Photographer of the Year
“Welcome to The Top 100 winners gallery of Close-up Photographer of the Year 5 (2023), supported by Affinity Photo 2. These pictures were selected by our jury from almost 12,000 pictures sent in from 67 countries.” Continue Reading
Legal Petition to Treasury Department Aims to Limit Imports from Key Seafood Companies Tied to Forced Labor
Ian Urbina – The Outlaw Ocean Project: “Shortly after we published our investigation globally, officials from several federal agencies asked if we might consider molding our findings into a formal legal petition under the Global Magnitsky Act. We agreed and recruited help from lawyers with an NGO called the Human Rights Foundation (HRF), which has… Continue Reading
The New Digital Dark Age
Wired: Online trust will reach an all-time low thanks to unchecked disinformation, AI-generated content, and social platforms pulling up their data drawbridges. “For researchers, social media has always represented greater access to data, more democratic involvement in knowledge production, and great transparency about social behavior. Getting a sense of what was happening—especially during political crises,… 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
AI-powered misinformation is the world’s biggest short-term threat, Davos report says
World Economic Forum – “The Global Risks Report explores some of the most severe risks we may face over the next decade, against a backdrop of rapid technological change, economic uncertainty, a warming planet and conflict. As cooperation comes under pressure, weakened economies and societies may only require the smallest shock to edge past the… 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
