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
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Category Archives: Environmental Law
America Lost Its One Perfect Tree
The Atlantic: Lumber, shelter, delicious nuts—there was nothing the American chestnut couldn’t provide. [read free] “Across the Northeast, forests are haunted by the ghosts of American giants. A little more than a century ago, these woods brimmed with American chestnuts—stately Goliaths that could grow as high as 130 feet tall and more than 10 feet… Continue Reading
For 50 Years Endangered Species Act Has an Almost Perfect Record
The Messenger – How the groundbreaking law became a critical bulwark against a growing extinction crisis: “In the half-century since, more than 2,300 species from bald eagles to tiny river snails have been listed, and the ESA has helped keep 99% of those from extinction — including the Kirtland’s warbler. Though it has its flaws… Continue Reading
Why AI is a disaster for the climate
The Guardian: “What to do when surrounded by people who are losing their minds about the Newest New Thing? Answer: reach for the Gartner Hype Cycle, an ingenious diagram that maps the progress of an emerging technology through five phases: the “technology trigger”, which is followed by a rapid rise to the “peak of inflated… Continue Reading
Why people still fall for fake news about climate change
Grist: “In 1995, a leading group of scientists convened by the United Nations declared that they had detected a “human influence” on global temperatures with “effectively irreversible” consequences. In the coming decades, 99.9 percent of scientists would come to agree that burning fossil fuels had disrupted the Earth’s climate. Yet almost 30 years after that… Continue Reading
Mapping the Unequal Distribution of Global Precipitation
Mapping the Unequal Distribution of Global Precipitation – On average, nearly one meter (39 inches) of rain or snow falls on the Earth in a year. However, differences in latitude, winds, changes in the Earth’s surface, and the planet’s tilt, make for an unequal distribution of global precipitation. Cartographer Perrin Remonté uses data from Chelsea… Continue Reading
BirdWeather
“What is BirdWeather? BirdWeather is a visualization platform that, using the BirdNET artificial neural network (a type of machine learning algorithm), is continuously listening to over 200 active audio stations around the world and is actively plotting their results in a user-friendly map interface. We built BirdWeather to be a living library of bird vocalizations accessible to users via online… Continue Reading
On the evidence for non-human intelligence, awareness, and emotion
The New Atlantis: Do Elephants Have Souls?: “One of the major clues that elephants have something we would recognize as inner lives is their extraordinary memories. This is attested to by outward indicators ranging from the practical — a matriarch’s recollection of a locale, critical to leading her family to food and water — to… Continue Reading
The one thing I wish more people understood about flower pollination
Prof. Jeff Ollerton – ecological scientist and author : “…In both cases it seems to have been forgotten that bees are collecting pollen to feed their larvae and pollen that ends up in scopae is generally not available for pollination. That’s the purpose of the Venn diagram at the top of this short post, to… Continue Reading
This Is What Happens to All the Stuff You Don’t Want
The Atlantic [free to read] “…When you order a pair of sweatpants online and don’t want to keep them, a colossal, mostly opaque system of labor and machinery creaks into motion to find them a new place in the world. From the outside, you see fairly little of it—the software interface that lets you tick… Continue Reading
‘Forever Chemicals’ Found in Freshwater Fish, Yet Most States Don’t Warn Residents
KFF Health News: “…But in recent years, he has been wary about a group of chemicals known as PFAS, also referred to as “forever chemicals,” which don’t break down quickly in the environment and accumulate in soil, water, fish, and our bodies. The chemicals have spewed from manufacturing plants and landfills into local ecosystems, polluting… Continue Reading
How Central Park Was Created Entirely By Design & Not By Nature
Oepn Culture: An Architect Breaks Down America’s Greatest Urban Park – “New Yorkers have a variety of sayings about how they want nothing to do with nature, just as nature wants nothing to do with them. As a counterpoint, one might adduce Central Park, whose 843 acres of trees, grass, and water have occupied the… Continue Reading
