Sustainable Business Spotlight

Ocean plastics that don’t end up asphyxiating an albatross or entangling an elephant seal eventually break down into microplastics, which penetrate every branch of the food web and are nearly impossible to remove from the environment.One thing everyone agrees on is that we need to stop the flow of plastic into the ocean.

“Proven solutions that will reduce US plastic waste and pollution already exist and can be swiftly enacted. The success of single-use plastic bans, water refilling stations, and reusable food and dish ware can be extended nationwide.”

The world’s birds, described as the planet’s “canaries in the coalmine”, are disappearing in large numbers as the colossal impact of humanity on the Earth grows, a global review has found.

Rather than addressing the root cause of America's litter problem – the fact that there was much more disposable packaging after World War Two – their advertising campaigns focused on the bad behaviour of some consumers, he says. "Images and feelings were being manipulated by corporations to put the onus on the individual."

The research focused on microbial meat as it had been produced at industrial scale for 20 years and was already available, said Dr Isabelle Weindl, also at PIK. “Even accounting for the sugar as feedstock, microbial protein requires much less agricultural land compared [with] ruminant meat.” Previous studies have shown the protein quality of microbial meat is equivalent to beef but it requires 90% less land and water and produces 80% less greenhouse gas emissions.

We stopped commercially hunting whales, and the mass slaughter of bison. We no longer clearcut old-growth redwoods, or use explosives on prairie dog towns, or build massive dams on wild salmon rivers. We no longer kill egrets and herons to adorn women’s hats with their feathers. So why shoot and trap wolves, God’s dog, the forebear of all our beloved domestic dogs?

Outlawing grass is perhaps the most dramatic effort yet to conserve water in the Southwest, where decades of growth and 20 years of drought made worse by a warming climate have led to dwindling supplies from the Colorado River, which serves Nevada and six other states, Native American tribes and Mexico.

This is a worldwide public health threat. It’s very frustrating when you step back and you look at the science that has gotten even clearer over the years about how dangerous these chemicals are and how widespread their use is. The companies knew that if they put these chemicals out into the world they were going to get into our water, into our soil, into the wildlife, into us, yet they did it anyway. And now, after making billions of dollars for decades, those same companies are fighting any responsibility and trying to shift the cost of cleaning this mess up on to all of us.

“Unfortunately, our results show clearly that even the lowest reported annual dolphin capture rates are not sustainable.”

“This destructive new industry wants to rip up an ecosystem we are only just starting to understand,” she said. “[They are] aiming to make a quick profit while our oceans and the billions of people relying on them bear the costs.”

The average maximum temperature for March across India was the highest since records began 122 years ago. Although one particular weather event cannot be directly attributed to climate change, climate scientists are clear that the severity and duration of heatwaves are expected to increase in the future.

The ongoing failure to protect the world’s largest rainforest from rapacious cattle ranching is no longer Brazil’s alone, a Washington Post investigation shows. It is now shared by the United States — and the American consumer.

California’s attorney general has announced a first-of-its kind investigation into the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries for their alleged role in causing and exacerbating a global crisis in plastic waste pollution.

A vast blanket of foul-smelling toxic foam has overflowed a polluted river near the Colombian capital Bogotá, covering homes and businesses, and sending residents fleeing from cloud-like fragments as they drift through the streets.

Plaintiffs contend that buying fossil fuel-powered delivery vehicles will cause environmental harm for decades to come.

Plants considered weeds should be welcomed in lawns in summer, the charity added, especially those such as dandelions, which provide important nectar for pollinators.

California’s attorney general has announced a first-of-its kind investigation into the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries for their alleged role in causing and exacerbating a global crisis in plastic waste pollution. Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said Thursday that his office has subpoenaed Exxon Mobil Corp. seeking information related to the company’s “historic and ongoing efforts” to minimize the public’s understanding of the harmful consequences of plastic.

WASHINGTON — Attorneys general from 16 states and the District of Columbia, along with five environmental groups and the United Auto Workers, launched a legal challenge against the United States Postal Service on Thursday, claiming that it violated the law when it ordered thousands of new mail trucks powered by gasoline instead of electricity. Together, the three lawsuits filed in two different federal courts raise the stakes of a conflict over the climate impacts of the Postal Service’s iconic delivery trucks that has roiled the administration for months.

In democratic systems, elected leaders are expected to protect the public’s interests, including from exploitation by corporations. They do this primarily through policies designed to secure public goods, such as clean air and unpolluted water, or to protect human welfare, such as good working conditions and minimum wages. But in recent decades, this core democratic principle that prioritizes citizens over corporate profits has been aggressively undermined.

Southern California officials on Tuesday took the unprecedented step of declaring a water shortage emergency and ordering outdoor usage be restricted to just one day a week for about 6 million people in parts of Los Angeles, Ventura and San Bernardino counties. The outdoor watering restrictions will take effect June 1 under the decision by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and will apply to areas that depend on water from the drought-ravaged State Water Project.

Depending on the local climate, they can require abundant chemical fertilisers and pesticides, as well as considerable watering – to the tune of 1.5 billion cubic metres (329 billion gallons) of municipal water each summer day – in order to maintain that verdant shade and weed-free surface. Then there's the pollution caused by mowing.

The bottles, which came from vineyards in the Napa Valley, contained Cabernet Sauvignon from the 2020 vintage. They had all been made from grapes harvested after the Glass Fire, a blaze that tore through Napa, burning almost 68,000 acres and turning the skies orange. Nearly 30 wineries were ravaged by fire, but far more difficult to gauge was the damage wrought by smoke — which can travel, unstoppable, over a larger swath of land and seep into any vineyard’s fruit. Oberholster, an exacting South African–born chemist at UC Davis’s Department of Viticulture and Enology, is the closest thing California has to an expert on smoke and wine, and after the fire died down, wineries began sending her clusters of grapes and samples of wine in the desperate hope that she could help them prepare for the next disaster.

Nine people were arrested by state wildlife police on suspicion of poaching, selling animals on the black market and other offenses after a sprawling investigation by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the agency said. “I am proud of the dedicated wildlife officers who spent countless hours investigating this wildlife trafficking case to protect our native sturgeon population, which is already severely affected by historic drought conditions,” David Bess, deputy director and chief of the law enforcement division, said in a release.

This concept, called “managed retreat,” represents a radical departure from decades of coastal development philosophy, and runs counter to our proclivity to build houses and cities up against the ocean. It points toward a future in which entire communities or neighborhoods would have to be uprooted to stave off the harsh effects of climate change.

The American Lung Association released its 2022 State of the Air report Wednesday, a look at which areas and people are suffering from the worst air quality, and researchers say the findings are clear — climate change and wildfires are making air quality, particularly in Western states, much worse.

More than half of the energy used by American households — only 7 percent of which came from renewable sources as of 2020 — goes toward heating and cooling. Using the millions of abandoned wells scattered around the country to switch the source of that heating and cooling to geothermal energy, then, could lead to a decrease in greenhouse gas emissions.

Entering a third year of drought, the once-vast Tule Lake, a vestige of the area’s volcanic past and today a federally protected wetland, is shriveling up. Its floor is mostly cracked mud and tumbleweed. By summer, the lake is expected to run completely dry, a historic first for the region’s signature landmark and the latest chapter in a broader, escalating water war. The lack of water could hamper irrigation of potatoes, onions and other agricultural staples. It will likely deny countless migratory birds a popular rest stop on the Pacific Flyway. But most immediately, it will strand an untold number of fish on barren land, a reality that has triggered a novel — and hurried — effort to save two endangered species of suckers on the verge of extinction.

Passenger vehicles contribute about a quarter of the state’s total greenhouse gas emissions — more than any other single source, according to the air board. The program is one part of California’s efforts to drastically reduce carbon emissions. Between 2026 and 2040, state experts estimate the program would lower emissions by nearly 384 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent annually. That’s a little less than all emissions across California’s economy in a single year.

From the Pacific Northwest to the Colorado River Basin, irrigation districts already are warning farmers to expect less this year despite growing demands fueled by ever-drying conditions. Climate experts say March marked the third straight month of below-average precipitation across the U.S. and areas of record dryness are expanding in the West.

No matter what the approach, valuing diversity and saving endangered foods like wild arabica coffee in Ethiopian forests, vanilla orchids in Guatemala, and the apple trees in Kazakhstan is key to improving the nutritional quality of our diets, more sustainable farming, and climate adaptation, according to Dan Saladino. “It’s not about going back, it’s about looking back with a bit of humility at the diversity and food systems that kept humans alive for thousands of years in greater harmony with nature - and looking at what can be applied in the 21st century food system.”

Engineers at MIT and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have designed a heat engine with no moving parts. Their new demonstrations show that it converts heat to electricity with over 40 percent efficiency — a performance better than that of traditional steam turbines.

The tests found chemicals like lead and phthalates, which is associated with higher rates of childhood cancer. They also found products like fake teeth that were made of polyvinyl chloride (PVC), which can contain endocrine-disrupting chemicals and can harm reproductive and cognitive development. Children are especially vulnerable to low-level exposure found in bottles, toys, appliances and personal care products.

Long-term exposure to PFAS has been linked to an increased risk of some cancers, immune system suppression and problems with fetal development. Some PFAS contain compounds that could accumulate in the lungs and have been linked to more severe cases of Covid-19.

According to the nonprofit Environmental Working Group, more than 2,800 sites nationwide are contaminated by PFAS — and that’s only what’s documented. The real total is unknown, and possibly much higher. In Maine alone, the state Department of Environmental Protection is investigating 700 sites once fertilized with the same sort of sludge that likely contaminated Songbird Farm. Many cases are lurking beneath the surface, undetected and often unregulated by an official watchdog.

Lake Mary Jane is shallow—twelve feet deep at most—but she’s well connected. She makes her home in central Florida, in an area that was once given over to wetlands. To the north, she is linked to a marsh, and to the west a canal ties her to Lake Hart. To the south, through more canals, Mary Jane feeds into a chain of lakes that run into Lake Kissimmee, which feeds into Lake Okeechobee. Were Lake Okeechobee not encircled by dikes, the water that flows through Mary Jane would keep pouring south until it glided across the Everglades and out to sea.

On Monday, the day after I returned home to Los Angeles, the United Nations released its latest climate report, focused on what can still be done to keep global warming from reaching catastrophic levels. Reading about the report in the Washington Post, I was struck by this sentence from reporters Sarah Kaplan and Brady Dennis, summarizing a conclusion reached by scientists: “In waiting so long to take action, humanity has denied itself any chance of making the energy transition gradual or smooth.”

Renewable energy is rapidly getting cheaper and more competitive. From 2010 to 2019, the price of solar energy and lithium-ion batteries fell 85%, while wind dropped 55%, according to the report.But politicians and conservative think tanks repeatedly attack green energy as not yet ready for prime time.

Another step forward was taken in the long process before offshore wind turbines may be seen floating in the Pacific Ocean off the Central Coast. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), the federal agency overseeing the offshore wind activities in the Morro Bay wind energy area, released on Wednesday a draft environmental assessment analyzing the potential impacts site surveys may have. These site surveys include site assessments and site characterization. Site assessments would most likely include the temporary placement of meteorological buoys and scientific sampling equipment, while site characterization activities would most likely include geophysical, geotechnical, biological, archaeological and ocean-use surveys, according to BOEM.

Occidental Petroleum is seeking to sell credits in California’s transportation carbon market to help finance the construction of what would be the world’s largest industrial carbon dioxide removal plant.

“Coal is not renewable,” said Wallace. “It’s come to the end of its way. We’ve come to a new generation, and we need to start thinking. We have to be OK with a building becoming something else, with change and renewal.”

The report made one thing abundantly clear: the technologies and policies necessary to adequately address climate change exist, and the only real obstacles are politics and fossil fuel interests.

The world can still hope to stave off the worst ravages of climate breakdown but only through a “now or never” dash to a low-carbon economy and society, scientists have said in what is in effect a final warning for governments on the climate.

After the birds had settled into the large reed beds, she turned to me with tears in her eyes. “That was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my entire life,” she said. I had to agree with her.

GENEVA -- The U.N. health agency says nearly everybody in the world breathes air that doesn’t meet its standards for air quality, calling for more action to reduce fossil-fuel use, which generates pollutants that cause respiratory and blood-flow problems and lead to millions of preventable deaths each year.

Excessive outdoor lighting is deadly to animals and takes a toll on human health and wellbeing, too. But when it comes to large-scale environmental problems, this one may be a relatively easy fix. It’s not easy to make street lights exciting, but Kelly Beatty is trying. Holding court over Zoom on a spring evening in 2021, he warns citizens of Nantucket island in Massachusetts that the decisions they’ll soon make about their lights are choices they’re “going to have to live with for a long time.”

Russian soldiers who seized the site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster drove their armored vehicles without radiation protection through a highly toxic zone called the ‘Red Forest,’ kicking up clouds of radioactive dust, workers at the site said.

“We need the cultural sector and the creatives to help us imagine our way out of the crisis,” she said. She also wants to educate philanthropic organizations on climate justice to help get more money to frontline communities. Her goal is to make sure every pocket of society is fighting the climate crisis. “Everyone should have ‘activist’ on their C.V.,” she said.

Bees are facing catastrophic declines. In North America, nearly one in four native bee species is imperiled, according to the Center for Biological Diversity, partly because of habitat loss, pesticide use, climate change and urbanization. Lawns typically provide poor habitat for bees. But if allowed to flower, lawn weeds — perhaps better characterized as plants other than grass — can provide rare spring food for bees emerging from hibernation.

I learned his different calls; he purred when he was content, sounded a high-pitched alarm when he was afraid. I’d forage for his food and clean up his litter, which was exhausting. I never named him because he didn’t belong to me – I had to remind myself that he needed to return to the wild.

These species, including bluejays, yellow warblers and field sparrows, are now laying their first eggs 25 days earlier, on average, than they were 100 years ago, the research found. The heating of the atmosphere, due to the burning of fossil fuels, is seemingly upending a process that long appeared unshakeable.