July 2020 We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States. Preamble to the U.S. Constitution No State shall make or …
Pope to International Association of Penal Law: Destroying the Earth — the massive contamination of air, land and water resources, large-scale destruction of flora and fauna, and any action capable of producing an ecological disaster or destroying an ecosystem — should be a crime
Addressing the International Association of Penal Law in the Vatican on 15th November 2019, Pope Francis proposed that “sins against ecology” be added to the teachings of the Catholic Church and went a step further, saying “ecocide” should be a fifth category of crimes against peace at the international level. The Pope described acts that “can be considered as ‘ecocide’: …
We all know that air pollution is choking our planet — and our lungs. But noise pollution from automobiles is almost as bad
By Kea Wilson, StreetsBlog, Sep 14, 2020 https://usa.streetsblog.org/2020/09/14/the-other-type-of-car-pollution-that-harms-us-all/ Noise pollution from busy roads is nearly as harmful to our health as air pollution, according to the World Health Organization — but a new study reveals we’re not doing nearly enough research to understand, much less regulate, the sonic impact of cars on our bodies. A team of Italian researchers found a broad consensus …
Methane mapping with satellite imaging spectrometers
Methane Mapping with Future Satellite Imaging Spectrometers, by Alana K. Ayasse et al. alanaayasse@ucsb.edu. Also Dar Robers, dar@geog.ucsb.edu, Philip Dennison, dennison@geog.utah.edu, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA: Andrew.K.Thorpe@jpl.nasa.gov (A.K.T.); robert.o.green@jpl.nasa.gov (R.O.G.); riley.m.duren@jpl.nasa.gov (R.M.D.); David.R.Thompson@jpl.nasa.gov (D.R.T.) and at the Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute, Univ of Utah, SLC markus.foote@utah.edu (M.F.); sjoshi@sci.utah.edu (S.J.) https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/11/24/3054/pdf In the coming …
A near-term to net zero alternative to the social cost of carbon for setting carbon prices
Nature Climate Change (2020), 17 August 2020 by Noah Kaufman, Alexander R. Barron, Wojciech Krawczyk, Peter Marsters & Haewon McJeon Cite this article Abstract: The social cost of carbon (SCC) is commonly described and used as the optimal CO2 price. However, the wide range of SCC estimates provides limited practical assistance to policymakers setting specific CO2 prices. Here we describe an alternate near-term to net zero (NT2NZ) approach, estimating …
Just being outside is healthy! Scientists Discover a Major Lasting Benefit of Growing Up Outside the City: The childhood experience of green space can actually predict mental health in later life
Using data from 3,585 people collected across four cities in Europe, scientists from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (also called IS Global) report a strong relationship between growing up away from the natural world and mental health in adulthood. Overall, they found a strong correlation between low exposure to nature during childhood and higher levels of of nervousness and …
Deliberate decline focuses on the deep shifts in established systems that are necessary to realize decarbonization
Daniel Rosenbloom and Adrian Rinscheid, 26 July 2020 https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.669 Promoting low‐carbon innovation has long been a central preoccupation within both the practice and theory of climate change mitigation. However, deep lock‐ins indicate that existing carbon‐intensive systems will not be displaced or reconfigured by innovation alone. A growing number of studies and practical initiatives suggest that mitigation efforts will need to engage …
Discussion of banning gas-powered vehicles in California and Washington
BY RACHEL BECKER, CalMatters MAY 24, 2019 Mary Nichols, the powerful head of the California Air Resources Board, didn’t even need to explicitly threaten a ban on gas-powered cars last week to get the attention of carmakers. The warning was only in her prepared statements for a workshop with the state Transportation Commission. But the remarks, obtained by Bloomberg, hit headlines and the industry …
Tires & Brakes Are Significant Sources of Microplastics
July 19th, 2020 by Carolyn Fortuna in Clean Technica Those minuscule particles of plastics produced by car tires and brakes can’t do much damage, right? They’re so, well, tiny, and nearly imperceptible — yet devastating. Did you know that road microplastics produce more than 200,000 tons of minute plastic particles that blow into the oceans every year? Image retrieved from CalRecycle Research titled “Atmospheric Transport …
Effectiveness of CO2-based feebate systems in the European passenger vehicle market: CO2-based vehicle taxation contributes to reductions in new-vehicle emissions rates
ICCT Consultant report 2014.03.28 CambridgeEconometrics_ICCT_feebate_rpt_Nov2013.pdf The ICCT commissioned Cambridge Econometrics to carry out this analysis of the effectiveness of CO2-based vehicle taxation in reducing passenger-transport CO2 emissions. The study sought to identify the extent to which the observed reductions in CO2 emissions rates in the Netherlands and the UK can be attributed to CO2-based vehicle taxation. Econometric techniques were applied to model demand …