By Dan Lashof The Green New Deal means different things to different people. In some ways, that’s part of its appeal. On the other hand, a Green New Deal can’t mean anything anyone wants it to, or it will come to mean nothing at all. More concept than concrete plan so far, the Green New […]
By Mathy Stanislaus If you need motivation to skip the straw at lunch today, consider this: Scientists found that even Arctic sea ice—far removed from most major metropolitan areas—is no longer plastic-free. According to Dr. Jeremy Wilkinson of the British Antarctic Survey, “this suggests that microplastics are now ubiquitous within the surface waters of the […]
By Mikaela Weisse and Katie Fletcher This edition of Places to Watch examines forest clearing detected between Nov. 9, 2017, and Jan. 31, 2018 in Indonesian Papua, Cameroon and Brazil. Due to occasional cloud cover that can obscure satellite recognition, some loss may have occurred earlier. Oil Palm Plantation Encroaching on Primary Forest in Indonesian […]
The people on the front lines of protecting the environment need some protection as well. According to a Feb. 2 report by Global Witness and The Guardian, 197 activists were killed in 2017 for defending their communities and natural resources against agribusiness, mining companies, infrastructure projects and poachers. The majority of these killings took place […]
By Richard Waite, Daniel Vennard and Gerard Pozzi Burgers are possibly the most ubiquitous meal on Americans’ dinner plates, but they’re also among the most resource-intensive: Beef accounts for nearly half of the land use and greenhouse gas emissions associated with the food Americans eat. Although there’s growing interest in plant-based burgers and other alternatives, […]
By Betsy Otto and Leah Schleifer Cape Town is running out of water. After three years of intense drought, South Africa’s second-largest city is just a few months away from “Day Zero,” the day when the city government will shut off water taps for most homes and businesses. The impacts of such a shutdown will […]
By Alex Kirby Water scarcity is now a real threat in two developing countries at the forefront of efforts to reduce climate change, India and South Africa. This is not the tragically familiar story of extreme weather, stunted crops and foreshortened lives. It is a different sort of threat: to urban life, to industrial development […]
By Mike Gaworecki Last Thursday, at the UN climate talks in Bonn, Germany (known as COP23), the World Resources Institute (WRI) announced that $2.1 billion in private investment funds have been committed to efforts to restore degraded lands in the Caribbean and Latin America. The investments will be made through WRI’s Initiative 20×20, which has […]
By Paula Caballero The reality of daily life is that we try to fix the problems that are staring us in the face. In many ways, the desire for short-term results defines the rhythm of both public and private life. So the idea that decisions today will define where we end up in a couple […]