The Verge: “An ominous, 62-foot-long clock looms over New York City’s iconic Union Square, and it’s about to tick past a worrying milestone. It’s called the Climate Clock, and it counts down how much time the world has left to stop climate change from becoming exponentially worse. As anyone who’s experienced the weather lately knows,… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Environmental Law
EPA Releases New Framework Addressing New Pfas and New Uses of Pfas in The Market
National Law Review: “On Thursday, 29 June 2023, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a new framework (Framework) that will impact manufacturers across the country. The Framework lays out a new process for reviewing and assessing the potential environmental risks posed by new and new uses of per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). This PFAS… Continue Reading
The 2023 SCOTUS Awards
The New York Times Opinion – “The headlines that emerged from the 2022-23 term of the Supreme Court conveyed the brutal impact of several big decisions, but they sometimes missed the human elements that made these opinions so startling — how the conservative majority favored one oppressed group but not another or imposed conflicting rules… Continue Reading
Getting ‘forever chemicals’ out of drinking water
EWG’s guide to PFAS water filters: “What’s in your water? The “forever chemicals” known as PFAS contaminate the drinking water and groundwater of more than 2,800 communities, affecting an estimated 200 million Americans. Simply drinking a glass of water from your kitchen tap may expose you to these toxic substances – but there are steps… Continue Reading
Third of North America’s Birds Have Vanished
At first Adam Smith couldn’t believe his calculations. Then it sank in. “…The hardest hit were grassland birds, down by more than 50 percent, mostly due to the expansion of farms that turn a varied landscape into acres of neat, plowed rows. That equates to 750 million birds, from bright yellow Eastern and Western Meadowlarks… Continue Reading
Climate and the Economy
“What the numbers say: Between 1970 and 2021, climate-related disasters resulted in economic losses of around $4.3T, with tropical cyclones responsible for the highest portion of losses at 38%, closely followed by floods which accounted for 32%. Relevance: According to professional services firm Aon’s 2023 Weather, Climate, and Catastrophe Insight, economic losses from hurricanes increased… Continue Reading
Biggest Fossil Fuel Firms Responsible for a Third of Western Forests Burned
Yale Environment 360: “Emissions from the world’s 88 largest fossil fuel firms and cement makers are responsible for 37 percent of the forest burned in the western U.S. and Canada since 1986, according to a new study. “Over the last several decades, human-caused climate change has turned routine Western wildfires into exceptionally destructive events,” Kristina… Continue Reading
How fast are the seas rising?
Yale Climate Connections: “The modern era of human-caused climate change — the Anthropocene — has also been called the Pyrocene because we’ve entered an age of fire, characterized by large wildfires of increasing size, intensity, and duration. But we propose another term for the modern era: the Aquacene, a time of rapidly increasing flooding from… Continue Reading
How printers keep us hooked on expensive ink
Public Interest Research Group – Lucas Gutterman: “Manufacturers lock us into buying ink cartridges at exorbitant prices. There are simple steps to end the ink trap… You might question if home printers are relevant, but 47% of American households still have one and our country spends more than $21 billion on ink cartridges per year.*… Continue Reading
Why is climate denial still thriving online?
DW: “Record global temperatures on July 3 kicked off the hottest week ever recorded as intense heat waves gripped the planet. Climate scientist Friederike Otto, of London’s Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment, called the heat “a death sentence for people and ecosystems.” Yet, the next day, a political journalist in the United… Continue Reading
Air Pollution in World: Real-time Air Quality Index Visual Map
“In July 2023, real-time Air Quality information is available for than 50,000 stations in 2000 major cities from 132 countries, thanks to the huge effort from the world EPAs (Environmental Protection Agencies). There are currently more than 50,000 known air quality monitoring stations in the world. In order to keep a high level on consistency,… Continue Reading
Tap Water Study Detects PFSA ‘Forever Chemicals’ Across the US
“At least 45% of the nation’s tap water is estimated to have one or more types of the chemicals known as per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances, or PFAS, according to a new study by the U.S. Geological Survey. There are more than 12,000 types of PFAS, not all of which can be detected with current… Continue Reading
