Category «Environmental Law»

‘Seriously Underwater’ Home Mortgages Tick Up Across the US

Bloomberg via Yahoo Finance: “Roughly one in 37 homes are now considered seriously underwater in the US, and that share is much higher across a swath of southern states. Nationally, 2.7% of homes carried loan balances at least 25% more than their market value in the first few months of the year. That’s up from …

Subjects: Climate Change, Economy, Environmental Law, Financial System, Housing

Environmental Changes Are Fueling Human, Animal and Plant Diseases

The New York Times – “Several large-scale, human-driven changes to the planet — including climate change, the loss of biodiversity and the spread of invasive species — are making infectious diseases more dangerous to people, animals and plants, according to a new study.” Nature, Published 8 May 2024 – A meta-analysis on global change drivers …

Subjects: Climate Change, Environmental Law, Health Care

Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks

“EPA develops an annual report called the Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks (Inventory), that tracks U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and sinks by source, economic sector, and greenhouse gas going back to 1990. EPA has prepared the Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks since the early 1990s. This annual report, provides a …

Subjects: Climate Change, Energy, Environmental Law, Government Documents, Health Care

State of the Air 2024 report

“The State of the Air 2024 report finds that despite decades of progress cleaning up air pollution, 39% of people living in America—131.2 million people—still live in places with failing grades for unhealthy levels of ozone or particle pollution. This is 11.7 million more people breathing unhealthy air compared to last year’s report. Nearly 4 …

Subjects: Climate Change, Economy, Energy, Environmental Law, Health Care, Transportation

Remarkable graphic from study on deep history of flowering plants

Zuntini, A.R., Carruthers, T., Maurin, O. et al. Phylogenomics and the rise of the angiosperms. Nature (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07324-0 – “Flowering plants (angiosperms) represent about 90% of all terrestrial plant species but, despite their remarkable diversity and ecological importance underpinning almost all main terrestrial ecosystems, their evolutionary history remains incompletely known. Since their Mesozoic origins, angiosperms …

Subjects: Climate Change, Environmental Law

We Are in the Golden Age of Bird-Watching

Scientific American [unpaywalled]: “It’s springtime in the Northern Hemisphere, and one of nature’s greatest spectacles is unfolding: the migration of billions of birds to their breeding grounds. They’ve spent the winter in balmier locales to the south, getting fat on insects, seeds, fruits and aquatic plants and prey. Now they’re winging their way north to …

Subjects: Climate Change, Education, Environmental Law

The reckless policies that helped fill our streets with ridiculously large cars

Vox – Dangerous, polluting SUVs and pickups took over America. Lawmakers are partly to blame. Cars, you might have noticed, have grown enormous. Low-slung station wagons are all but extinct on American roads, and even sedans have become an endangered species. (Ford, producer of the iconic Model T a century ago, no longer sells any …

Subjects: Climate Change, Economy, Energy, Environmental Law, Health Care, Legal Research, Legislation, Transportation

‘World’s Largest Wildlife Crossing’ Will Help Animals Walk Safely Over 8 Lanes of California Traffic

Smithsonian Magazine: “When freeways are built through their natural habitats, animals often end up suffering—and so do humans on the road. Every year, more than one million wildlife-vehicle collisions occur across America, resulting in 200 deaths and 26,000 injuries to drivers and passengers. Now, an ambitious project in California aims to help address this problem. Crews are …

Subjects: Environmental Law, Transportation

Global study revealed world’s biggest known plastic polluters

Washington Post: “Every year, companies produce more than 400 million metric tons of plastic. Some of that plastic spills onto waterways or beaches, clogging streams or floating in huge gyres in the ocean. Some of it breaks down into tiny microplastics or nanoplastics that float in the air and enter human lungs, blood and organs. …

Subjects: Climate Change, Economy, Energy, Environmental Law, Food and Nutrition, Health Care