lupu alexandra
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9 Myths About Animals
From the labradors we share our homes with to the legendary sea monsters of Western folklore, we’ve sought to understand our fellow earthlings since the beginning of humankind. Whether it’s superstition, exaggeration, or just plain misunderstanding, sometimes our quest for knowledge can lead to some misguided conclusions. Here are nine widely believed animal misconceptions that don’t hold up to scientific scrutiny.
By lupu alexandra2 years ago in Earth
What Does Cloture Have to Do With Climate Change?
The FY2022 federal budget contains some of the most important climate policy of our lives. Some of it isn’t specifically about climate but will nonetheless have huge impacts on emissions. The construction of affordable housing in the nation’s increasingly unaffordable cities, for example, will help low-income people who are most likely to have old cars with terrible emissions drive less—or not at all. Making existing affordable housing more energy efficient is sound climate policy as well as an anti-poverty measure. Other aspects of the budget, like the maybe-it’s-dead-and-maybe-it-isn’t Clean Energy Performance Program (CEPP), are clearly aimed at cutting fossil fuel emissions (more on that below). All of these proposals have been designed to fit into a reconciliation bill—an arcane, complicated form of budgeting that Congress resorts to when all is not harmonious in the halls of government.
By lupu alexandra2 years ago in Earth
Heeding the Pandemic’s Warnings
When Katey Hedger walked into the Satria Bird Market in Bali in March 2021, the first thing to hit her was the smell. “There were droppings everywhere, all over the floor, and the floor was wet,” Hedger says. “I tried my best not to touch anything.”
By lupu alexandra2 years ago in Earth
We Don't Deserve Beavers
Tar Creek doesn’t seem like an inviting home for wildlife. For more than 70 years, miners blasted open the earth underneath the Oklahoma waterway in search of lead and zinc. Today, mountains of waste material from the mines tower above what is now classified by the EPA as a Superfund site. Groundwater that flows through the abandoned mines flushes toxic heavy metals, including cadmium and lead—both potent neurotoxins even at low concentrations—into the creek. The water runs bright orange.
By lupu alexandra2 years ago in Earth
People of Color Are More Likely to Die of Lung Cancer Than White Americans
Some of the best hospitals in the United States are in Washington, DC, the seat of American democracy. But that doesn’t mean the health care they offer is available to everyone. In the District of Columbia, Black residents are 126 percent more likely to be diagnosed with lung cancer than white residents.
By lupu alexandra2 years ago in Earth
Millions Breathe Dirty Air as Climate Change Makes Air Quality Worse
During a congressional hearing last week with Dr. Anthony Fauci, Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH), one of the most zealous supporters of former president Donald Trump, sought to frame COVID-19 health measures as a matter of big government versus individual freedom. As new strains of the deadly respiratory disease continue to circulate the globe, Jordan blasted Fauci for taking away our freedom to breathe without a mask on.
By lupu alexandra2 years ago in Earth
Air, Lies, and Instagram
At the start of the COVID-19 lockdowns, Kelley Barsanti, an assistant professor of chemical and environmental engineering at the University of California, Riverside, started getting texts and emails from friends. Despite their worries about the pandemic, they couldn’t help but comment on the unusually haze-free skies.
By lupu alexandra2 years ago in Styled
Menace II Anxiety
promises to teach readers how to turn their eco-anxiety into a superpower. In her introduction, she argues that many of us, herself included, are experiencing “tidal waves of grief, anxiety, pessimism, and existential dread” in response to the climate crisis. We need to learn to reckon with these difficult, often immobilizing emotions to become the eco-activists the world needs at 419 ppm and rising.
By lupu alexandra2 years ago in Earth
What It Will Take to Build a Broad-Based Movement for a Just Transition
In 2020, Washington State passed the Climate Commitment Act, and when it went into effect on January 1, 2022, Rosalinda Guillen was appointed to its Environmental Justice Council. The appointment recognized her role as one of Washington's leading advocates for farmworkers and rural communities.
By lupu alexandra2 years ago in Earth
The Electricity Is Melting
Glaciers sit high and heavy in the mountains, vast seas of ice suspended thousands of feet above cities and villages. The tremendous potential energy that makes avalanches so deadly has, in the past, made glaciers an enviable source of power for communities living downslope.
By lupu alexandra2 years ago in Earth
Can the Defense Production Act Jump-Start a Transition to Renewable Energy?
Clean energy advocates and climate activists are pumped. On June 6, President Biden invoked the Domestic Production Act (DPA) to accelerate the domestic production of five key energy technologies: solar panel parts; transformers and other grid components; heat pumps; building insulation; and the equipment needed to produce clean hydrogen fuel. In tandem, the administration is suspending the tariffs on solar panels that have stalled solar installations here in the United States.
By lupu alexandra2 years ago in Earth
Bird + Whale + Turbine
In March last year, the Biden administration announced a plan to generate 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2030, enough to provide electricity for more than 10 million homes. To meet that goal, the Departments of Interior (DOI), Energy (DOE), and Commerce (DOC) announced a plan to collaborate on expediting the leasing and permitting processes for offshore wind facilities. The first large-scale offshore wind facility in the US, the 800-megawatt Vineyard Wind farm, was approved a few months later and broke ground off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in November.
By lupu alexandra2 years ago in Earth