May, 2023

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The Upper Atmosphere Is Cooling, Prompting New Climate Concerns

Yale E360

A new study reaffirming that global climate change is human-made also found the upper atmosphere is cooling dramatically because of rising CO2 levels. Scientists are worried about the effect this cooling could have on orbiting satellites, the ozone layer, and Earth’s weather.

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ABB Partners to Build an Offshore Wind Farm to Create Green Hydrogen

Environment + Energy Leader

The ABB Energy Industries is driving the move toward renewable hydrogen with an offshore wind project: SoutH2Port – a project that has two key hurdles, which include the cost of making hydrogen from wind and solar and building offshore wind farms.

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James Hansen Warns of a Short-Term Climate Shock Bringing 2 Degrees of Warming by 2050

Inside Climate News

The famed researcher publicly released a preliminary version of a paper-in-progress with grim predictions of short- and long-term warming, but not all climate scientists agree with its conclusions. By Bob Berwyn A team of scientists led by former NASA climate researcher James Hansen, who formally raised the alarm about climate change to U.S. government leaders in his 1988 testimony to Congress , is working on a new study that warns of a possible short-term spike of planetary heating 2 degrees Ce

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An A to Z of Fossil Fuel Industry Deception

Union of Concerned Scientists

This year has brought new evidence of what major fossil fuel companies knew and when about the role their products play in climate change, as well as what they did in spite of what they knew. The evidence builds on revelations from the US House Committee on Oversight and Reform’s investigation during the last Congress into Big Oil’s climate disinformation.

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How to Drive Cost Savings, Efficiency Gains, and Sustainability Wins with MES

Speaker: Nikhil Joshi, Founder & President of Snic Solutions

Is your manufacturing operation reaching its efficiency potential? A Manufacturing Execution System (MES) could be the game-changer, helping you reduce waste, cut costs, and lower your carbon footprint. Join Nikhil Joshi, Founder & President of Snic Solutions, in this value-packed webinar as he breaks down how MES can drive operational excellence and sustainability.

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Louisiana Becomes First State to Issue Drinking Water Report Cards

Circle of Blue

Move aims for transparency and to identify struggling water systems. The water tower in Sunset, Louisiana. The town’s water system received a D grade in the state’s first report card. Photo courtesy of Patrick under Creative Commons license BY-NC-SA 2.0 By Brett Walton, Circle of Blue – May 11, 2023 In an effort to improve public communication, the Louisiana Department of Health published its inaugural water system report cards last week, becoming the first state in the country to us

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The role of regulatory relationships in wastewater innovation

Legal Planet

Read our recent article. Public water and wastewater utilities are increasingly struggling to meet society’s expectations. Their basic infrastructure is aging, budgets are tight, and they face a barrage of stressors, from population growth to climate change and shifting regulatory expectations. What’s more, in addition to performing their traditional function of protecting human health and water quality, many wastewater utilities are being asked to contribute to meeting other goals.

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Expect $264B of Investment in Electric Vehicle Charging by 2030

Environment + Energy Leader

Global technology company Siemens predicts that the market for wireless EV charging in Europe and North America will reach $2 billion by 2028. The post Expect $264B of Investment in Electric Vehicle Charging by 2030 appeared first on Environment+Energy Leader.

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CMIP6: Not-so-sudden stratospheric cooling

Real Climate

As predicted in 1967 by Manabe and Wetherald , the stratosphere has been cooling. A new paper by Ben Santer and colleagues has appeared in PNAS where they extend their previous work on the detection and attribution of anthropogenic climate change to include the upper stratosphere, using observations from the Stratospheric Sounding Units (SSUs) (and their successors, the AMSU instruments) that have flown since 1979.

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California Legislature Could Make Overdue Changes to Water Rights if These Three Bills Pass

Union of Concerned Scientists

For the first time in several decades , policy makers in Sacramento seem poised to actually do something about California’s dysfunctional water rights systems. There are three promising policies winding their way through the Legislature this session. All three bills just made it out of the committee review process, and are slated to be voted on by June 2.

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HOTSPOTS H2O: Failing Rains in Darfur Foster Conflict and Displacement

Circle of Blue

Mahmoud, a Darfurian farmer displaced by violence over scarce arable land, sits on a beach in Ventimiglia, Italy. HOTSPOTS H2O: Failing Rains in Darfur Foster Conflict and Displacement By Zara Gounden & Fraser Byers, Circle of Blue – May 31, 2023 Two decades after the onset of the war in Darfur, an enduring water crisis continues to inflict tension between crop farmers and herders in the embattled territory.

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The Key to Sustainable Energy Optimization: A Data-Driven Approach for Manufacturing

Speaker: Kevin Kai Wong, President of Emergent Energy Solutions

In today's industrial landscape, the pursuit of sustainable energy optimization and decarbonization has become paramount. ♻️ Manufacturing corporations across the U.S. are facing the urgent need to align with decarbonization goals while enhancing efficiency and productivity. Unfortunately, the lack of comprehensive energy data poses a significant challenge for manufacturing managers striving to meet their targets. 📊 Join us for a practical webinar hosted by Kevin Kai Wong of Emergent Ene

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The Winding Path of Australian Climate Policy

Legal Planet

On a per capita basis, Australia’s carbon emissions are even higher than the United States. A decade ago, Australia had a climate tax. That was repealed in 2014, and the ensuing period saw little progress. In the past two years, however, the things have started trending upward after years of inaction by conservative governments. More is needed, but hopefully the tide has turned.

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As Ocean Oxygen Levels Dip, Fish Face an Uncertain Future

Yale E360

Global warming not only increases ocean temperatures, it triggers a cascade of effects that are stripping the seas of oxygen. Fish are already moving to new waters in search of oxygen, and scientists are warning of the long-term threat to fish species and marine ecosystems.

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WWF Proposes Global Ban on ‘High-Risk, Unnecessary’ Single-Use Plastics

Environment + Energy Leader

Research on plastic pollution done by WWF and Eunomia will present the feasibility of banning certain plastics from circulation at the UN plastic pollution treaty talks later this month.

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Evaluation of GCM simulations with a regional focus.

Real Climate

Do the global climate models (GCMs) we use for describing future climate change really capture the change and variations in the region that we want to study? There are widely used tools for evaluating global climate models, such as the ESMValTool , but they don’t provide the answers that I seek. I use GCMs to provide information about large-scale conditions, processes and phenomena in the atmosphere that I can use as predictors in downscaling future climate projections.

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Implementing D.E.J.I. Strategies in Energy, Environment, and Transportation

Speaker: Antoine M. Thompson, Executive Director of the Greater Washington Region Clean Cities Coalition

Diversity, Equity, Justice, and Inclusion (DEJI) policies, programs, and initiatives are critically important as we move forward with public and private sector climate and sustainability goals and plans. Underserved and socially, economically, and racially disadvantaged communities bear the burden of pollution, higher energy costs, limited resources, and limited investments in the clean energy and transportation sectors.

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Why Congress Should Pass the A. Donald McEachin Environmental Justice for All Act

Union of Concerned Scientists

In March, one of the most comprehensive bills for advancing environmental justice was reintroduced in the US House and Senate: the A. Donald McEachin Environmental Justice for All Act (EJ for All Act). The bill, introduced in the House by Reps. Raúl Grijalva and Barbara Lee, and Sens. Cory Booker and Tammy Duckworth on the Senate side, is named in honor of the late Rep.

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Lab-grown meat could be 25 times worse for the climate than beef

New Scientist

Analysis finds the carbon footprint of cultivated meat is likely to be higher than beef if current production methods are scaled up because they are still highly energy-intensive

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Who Said Recycling Was Green? It Makes Microplastics By the Ton

Inside Climate News

A study finds one plastics recycling plant in the U.K. produces as much as 3 million pounds of microplastics a year—and that’s with filtering. By James Bruggers Research out of Scotland suggests that the chopping, shredding and washing of plastic in recycling facilities may turn as much as six to 13 percent of incoming waste into microplastics—tiny, toxic particles that are an emerging and ubiquitous environmental health concern for the planet and people.

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Finland Drained Its Peatlands. He’s Helping Bring Them Back

Yale E360

Tero Mustonen has led a successful effort to restore roughly 80 areas of ecologically critical peatlands across his native Finland. In an interview, he talks about the importance of bringing Indigenous knowledge to rewilding initiatives in far northern regions and beyond.

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Shaping a Resilient Future: Climate Impact on Vulnerable Populations

Speaker: Laurie Schoeman Director, Climate & Sustainability, Capital

As households and communities across the nation face challenges such as hurricanes, wildfires, drought, extreme heat and cold, and thawing permafrost and flooding, we are increasingly searching for ways to mitigate and prevent climate impacts. During this event, national climate and housing expert Laurie Schoeman will discuss topics including: The two paths for climate action: decarbonization and adaptation.

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DOW on Route to Making Chemicals Using Small Modular Reactors

Environment + Energy Leader

When Dow and X-energy inked an agreement to develop an advanced nuclear reactor at one of Dow’s sites along the Gulf Coast, it was a big deal – a technology the two will license to other industrial customers.

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Canada’s Top Seven Climate Villains Fueling Climate Catastrophe

Enviromental Defense

What do the CEO of Imperial Oil, the head of RBC bank and the head of Big Oil’s biggest lobby association, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, all have in common? They’re all committed to using their power to block climate action in order to profit personally from more oil and gas production. And they’re preventing efforts to build a healthy, equitable world beyond fossil fuels.

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California’s Water Rights System is Inequitable, Inadequate, and Possibly, About to Change

Union of Concerned Scientists

During a California State Assembly informational hearing earlier this year, there seemed to be consensus that California’s 19 th century water rights system is not well suited to the social context and climate of the 21st century. Change is necessary and may be coming.  This outdated water rights system is based on historic and continued disenfranchisement and dispossession.

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The Tragedy on the Financial Horizon is Closer Than You Think

Law Columbia

Credit: Ilmi Granoff In September 2015, then Bank of England Governor Mark Carney gave a landmark speech on the “ Tragedy of the Horizon.” The concept was simple: climate change creates tremendous risk for financial markets, but these mounting risks are ignored by investors due to the market’s tendency towards myopia. The speech marked a significant turning point in finance: the starting gun in the race to internalize climate-related financial risks.

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Sustainability at Retail

Sustainability impacts every nation, company, and person around the world. So much so that, in 2015, the United Nations (UN) issued a call for action by all countries to work toward sustainable development. In response to this and as part of a global Sustainability at Retail initiative, Shop! worked collaboratively with its global affiliates to address these critical issues in this white paper.

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Eleven Chemical Plants in China and One in the U.S. Emit a Climate Super-Pollutant Called Nitrous Oxide That’s 273 Times More Potent Than Carbon Dioxide

Inside Climate News

Proven, low-cost pollution controls could quickly curb those emissions, but neither China nor the U.S. require abatement measures used by other plants around the world. By Phil McKenna Twelve chemical plants in China and the United States emit a potent climate pollutant with collective emissions equal to the annual greenhouse gas emissions of 31 million automobiles, according to a report published on Thursday by Global Efficiency Intelligence , an industrial decarbonization research and consulti

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El Niño to Return This Year, Boosting Warming Trend

Yale E360

El Niño, a phase marked by warm waters in the eastern Pacific, will likely return this year, driving up global temperatures, according to the World Meteorological Organization.

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Rubicon Partners with Atlanta for Sustainable, Efficient Public Works Operations

Environment + Energy Leader

The company's cloud-based smarty city technology will help Atlanta's Department of Public Works implement sustainable operations for its existing fleet.

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Can Fish Breathe Air?

Ocean Conservancy

All animals—whether fish, dog, snail or human—need to breathe. We take in oxygen and process it through tiny mitochondria (also known as the power houses of the cell) and expel carbon dioxide—a method that powers the rest of our bodies and gets rid of waste. How exactly animals take in that oxygen can vary, though. (Side note—scientists recently discovered the first animal that doesn’t breathe oxygen at all, a parasitic “blob” called Henneguya salmincola.

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Investors Need to Know the Full Scope of Corporate Carbon Emissions

Union of Concerned Scientists

The devil is in the details, as the saying goes, and the climate-related details bedeviling many oil and gas company boardrooms this spring sound like a Star Trek galaxy. They’re called Scope 3 emissions, and they are key to understanding the big picture of a company’s impact on the environment. It’s a picture investors are currently missing. First, let me explain the three “scopes” of carbon emissions.

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New Associate Editors 2023: Ecological Solutions and Evidence

The Applied Ecologist

Ecological Solutions and Evidence is delighted to announce 27 new Associate Editors who have joined the Editorial Board following our latest open call across all seven BES journals. At the end of 2022, the British Ecological Society journals conducted an open recruitment process for Associate Editors across all seven BES journals.

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Triangle T Water District and the Absurdities of CA Water

NRDC

While it may not be an outlier, the absurdity of the Triangle T Water District is a great example of why people say that in California, water flows uphill towards money.

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Beyond Factory Farms: A New Look at the Rights of Animals

Yale E360

Philosopher Peter Singer’s book, Animal Liberation , helped launch the animal rights movement nearly 50 years ago. He talks with Yale E360 about the evolution of our understanding of how animals feel pain and how humans are not so different from other species as we once thought.

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Can European Industry Wean Itself From Russian Natural Gas?

Environment + Energy Leader

McKinsey & Company says European industrials reduced their demand by 25 billion cubic meters of natural gas in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But it adds that China and India could replace that by consuming 35 billion cubic meters, which they get at a discount.

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Climate Change Forces a Rethinking of Mammoth Everglades Restoration Plan

Inside Climate News

Even as the $21 billion effort unfolds, officials realize that its water infrastructure cannot contend with rising seas, violent storms and Florida’s non-stop influx of residents. By Amy Green ORLANDO, Fla.—In 1948, work got underway in the Florida Everglades on a public works project hailed as the nation’s largest, aimed at reigning in once and for all the mighty river of grass that once spanned much of the peninsula.