Trees cool air, slow runoff, and boost students and public health. Should trees be seen as a public utility which all must be able to access?

Benefits of trees include slowing stormwater runoff, cooling air temperatures, and even boosting student achievement and public health. Trees capture more than a third of rainfall, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), easing the strain on flooding and stormwater infrastructure. Their shade helps lower energy use by nearly half, according to the EPA, while reducing carbon emissions by …

21st Century Bill of Rights

From Brand New Congress: The founders of the United States of America and those that followed established a Bill of Rights to constitute the values reflected by this great nation and those who reside within. Now more than 225 years into our nation’s founding, we recognize the current Bill of Rights falls short of securing the full scope of unalienable …

History’s Largest Mining Operation Is About to Begin. It’s underwater—and the consequences are unimaginable.

Story by Wil S. Hylton, JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020 ISSUE, The Atlantic, SCIENCE Like ​The Atlantic? Subscribe to ​The Atlantic Daily​, our free weekday email newsletter. Unless you are given to chronic anxiety or suffer from nihilistic despair, you probably haven’t spent much time contemplating the bottom of the ocean. Many people imagine the seabed to be a vast expanse of sand, but it’s a jagged …

Is the Amazon vulnerable to a ‘dieback’?

Indigenous people say the rainfall has changed. And “the models, and they’re pretty consistent. They suggest that the combination of fire and climate change and deforestation will weaken the hydrological cycle of the Amazon to the point where you just get insufficient rainfall in the south and the east, and then part of the central Amazon, to actually support a …

In this country, all rivers now have a right to life. People who damage a river can be tried and people can sue on a river’s behalf

Bangladesh has a lot of rivers. As of early July, every single one of them has a remarkable new level of protection: The Bangladeshi Supreme Court has given all rivers in the country legal rights. Now, people who damage a river can get taken to court by the government-appointed National River Conservation Commission. They’ll be tried as if they’d harmed …

Toledo Passed a “Lake Erie Bill of Rights” To Protect Its Water. The State Is Trying to Stop It. A local effort to protect environmental rights—of both people and nature—faces pushback from the state and industry

Algae blooms are increasingly common in Lake Erie, caused in large part by runoff from industrial factory farms and warming waters. Things have become so bad that there are now algae “forecasts” predicting how large the algae bloom will be each year. Large-scale toxic blooms are once again afflicting the lake, in summer 2019. A sign warns bathers about algae …

Environmental Damage Is a War Crime, Scientists Say

Jordan Davidson Jul. 25, 2019 Two dozen prominent scientists from around the world have asked the UN to make environmental damage in conflict zones a war crime. The scientists published their open letter in the journal Nature. The letter, titled “Stop Military Conflicts from Trashing the Environment,” asks the United Nations’ International Law Commission to adopt a Fifth Geneva Convention when it meets …