December 2024 – LLRX.com® – the free web journal on law, technology, knowledge discovery and research for Librarians, Lawyers, Researchers, Academics, and Journalists. Founded in 1996. January 1, 2025 is Public Domain Day: Works from 1929 are open to all, as are sound recordings from 1924 – by Jennifer Jenkins. AI in Finance and Banking,… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Environmental Law
62 Fascinating Facts of 2024
The New York Times: Each day, Times Insider editors scour the newspaper for the most interesting facts to appear in articles. This year, tidbits about grudge-holding crows, the first-ever first kiss and George Washington’s dentures enlightened, informed and entertained us… 21. In the United States, more than 60 percent of the work force lives paycheck… Continue Reading
24 Things That Made the World a Better Place in 2024
Wired [unpaywalled] : “Let’s face it—2024 has felt at times like a relentless conveyor belt of doom. The climate crisis is still gaining momentum, COP underlined the lack of consensus on what to do about it, and attempts to create a plastics treaty failed. Political violence rose to the surface in the US, and there… Continue Reading
The Most Detailed Map of Cancer-Causing Industrial Air Pollution in the US
ProPublica: “It’s not a secret that industrial facilities emit hazardous air pollution. A recent ProPublica analysis shows for the first time just how much toxic air pollution they emit — and how much the chemicals they unleash could be elevating cancer risk in their communities. ProPublica’s analysis of five years of modeled EPA data identified… Continue Reading
Insurers Are Deserting Homeowners as Climate Shocks Worsen
The New York Times – Without insurance, it’s impossible to get a mortgage; without a mortgage, most Americans can’t buy a home…Without insurance, you can’t get a mortgage; without a mortgage, most Americans can’t buy a home. Communities that are deemed too dangerous to insure face the risk of falling property values, which means less… Continue Reading
BirdVoxDetect: Large-Scale Detection and Classification of Flight Calls for Bird Migration Monitoring
V. Lostanlen et al., “BirdVoxDetect: Large-Scale Detection and Classification of Flight Calls for Bird Migration Monitoring,” in IEEE/ACM Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing, vol. 32, pp. 4134-4145, 2024, doi: 10.1109/TASLP.2024.3444486. “Sound event classification has the potential to advance our understanding of bird migration. Although it is long known that migratory species have a… Continue Reading
AirNow.gov – Home of the U.S. Air Quality Index
Get air quality data where you live. Search by zip code, city, or state. “The Air Quality System (AQS), formerly the Aerometric Information Retrieval System (AIRS), is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) repository of ambient air quality data. AQS stores data from over 10,000 monitors, 5,000 of which are currently active. The system contains… Continue Reading
25 enchanting images from the Wildlife Photographer of the Year People’s Choice awards
PopSci – A lounging seal, a bloodied-but-undeterred honey badger, and a cheetah cub given a second chance at life: the finalists for the 2024 Wildlife Photographer of the Year People’s Choice awards absolutely captivate. After selecting 100 Wildlife Photographer of the Year finalists from 60,000 entries, the judges picked out an additional 25 images to… Continue Reading
Nikon Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards
2024 Winners Portfolio – “The free competition is open to all wildlife photography novices, amateurs and professionals and celebrates the hilarity of our natural world. From a surprised otter to a swearing turtle, Comedy Wildlife’s photographs transcend cultures and ages to bring a smile to everyone’s face. You can find out more about our competition,… Continue Reading
How to responsibly get rid of the stuff you’ve decluttered
The Verge: “While we’re always being told how to simplify our cramped living spaces and get rid of all the stuff we’re no longer using or wearing, it’s often hard to figure out just how to do it responsibly without adding to the world’s excess trash. Because just dumping them isn’t an option, reusing and… Continue Reading
Oceanic Impunity
Cody, Stephen, Oceanic Impunity (July 31, 2024). Southern California Law Review, Vol.97, No.3, p.637, 2024, Suffolk University Law School Research Paper No. 24-10, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4912229 – “Ocean protection is essential to avoid climate disaster. Phytoplankton,seaweeds, and sea grasses produce more than half of Earth’s oxygen—exceeding all terrestrial forests and plants combined—and absorb about… Continue Reading
Arctic tundra becoming source of carbon dioxide emissions
NOAA: “After storing carbon dioxide in frozen soil for millennia, the Arctic tundra is being transformed by frequent wildfires into an overall source of carbon to the atmosphere, which is already absorbing record levels of heat-trapping fossil fuel pollution. The transition of the Arctic from a carbon sink to a carbon source is one of… Continue Reading
