By John R. Platt Let’s be honest: This has been a truly exhausting year. We started 2020 already worn thin by three years of the Trump administration, with its constant assaults on the environment and human decency on display almost every single day — and it got worse from there. In February the coronavirus pandemic […]
By Kenny Stancil “The state of the planet is broken. Humanity is waging war on nature. This is suicidal.” That’s how United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres began a Wednesday address at Columbia University, in which he reflected on the past 11 months of extreme weather and challenged world leaders to use the recovery from the […]
By Anne-Sophie Brändlin COVID-19 and climate change have been two of the most pressing issues in 2020. So why not spend your lockdown binge-watching environmental documentaries that come with an impactful message about the fate of our planet? 1.My Octopus Teacher (2020) No person has ever gotten as close and intimate with a wild octopus […]
By Jessica Corbett A leading environmental advocacy group marked Native American Heritage Month on Wednesday by urging President-elect Joe Biden, Vice President-elect Kamala Kamala Harris, and the entire incoming administration “to honor Indigenous sovereignty and immediately halt the Keystone XL, Dakota Access, and Line 3 pipelines.” That call from 350.org U.S. communications director Thanu Yakupitiyage […]
Jean-Marc Neveu and Olivier Civil never expected to find themselves battling against disposable mask pollution. When they founded their recycling start-up Plaxtil in 2017, it was textile waste they set their sights on. The project developed a process that turned fabrics into a new recyclable material they describe as “ecological plastic.” But almost as soon […]
By Jason Farley COVID-19 has disrupted our daily lives, and it is poised to completely disrupt the holiday season. As people make holiday plans and think about ways to reduce the risks to their loved ones, a strategy is essential. Face masks are a crucial part of that strategy, and they’re now mandatory in public […]
By Amol Mehra Set against rising calls for action to combat growing inequality and the climate crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic underscores the importance of the key drivers of industry and economic reform: workers, communities and the environment. The crisis has laid bare the perils of relying on purely market-based approaches. This should not be a […]
By Alexander Freund Finally, some good news — soon, frontrunning vaccine developers could submit applications for fast-tracked authorizations of their coronavirus vaccines. Three companies have reported early Phase III successes in the last several days. The latest team to release positive interim results is Swedish-British company AstraZeneca, developers of a viral vector vaccine, who published […]
By Kenny Stancil “The Covid-19 pandemic has shown how vulnerable the world is to a truly global catastrophe. But another, bigger, catastrophe has been building for many decades, and humanity is still lagging far behind in efforts to address it.” So begins Come Heat or High Water, the 2020 World Disasters Report published Tuesday by […]