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Not Enough Buzz For Bees | Earth Wise

February 11, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The dramatic worldwide decline in bees and other pollinating insects represents a serious threat to the global food supply, but it isn’t really getting much attention in the mainstream news. Close to 75% of the world’s crops for human consumption depend, at least in part, on pollinators for sustained production, yield, and quality.

A new study by researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign looked at nearly 25 million news items from six prominent sources, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Associated Press, as well as three overseas English-language news services. The study found “vanishingly low levels of attention to pollinator population topics”, even compared with what many people consider to be the limited coverage of climate change.

The study made use of the Global News Index, which is a unique database of millions of news items from thousands of global sources published over decades. It may be the largest academic study of the evolving nature of news coverage ever performed.

Even though the entomological community is highly focused on the impending pollinator crisis, the public is not paying much attention. It is not even indifference; it is just that people don’t even know about it.

The majority of studies on pollinator decline have been done in Europe and North America, which means we don’t even know how serious the problem is given that most insect biodiversity is in the tropics.

Public awareness is important because individuals can make a difference by their decisions about what flowers to plant in their gardens, which weeds to tolerate in their yards, and how to manage insect pests.

The loss of pollinators is a very serious problem, and it is not likely to get enough attention if people don’t know about it.

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Pollinators not getting the ‘buzz’ they need in news coverage

Photo, posted December 28, 2006, courtesy of Alpha via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Excluding Climate Change From Infrastructure Planning | Earth Wise

January 14, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

According to a new Trump administration proposal, federal agencies would no longer need to take climate change into account when evaluating infrastructure projects. The proposed changes to the 50-year-old National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) are aimed at speeding up approvals for highway construction, pipelines, oil and gas leases, and other major infrastructure projects.

Under NEPA, federal agencies are required to consider how their proposed actions would affect everything from water quality to wildlife to greenhouse gas emissions. They’re also required to understand how rising seas and other consequences of climate change might affect a given project. These requirements have proven to be an obstacle to projects like the Keystone XL pipeline, for example.

According to reporting in the New York Times, the administration also plans to narrow the range of projects that require environmental review in the first place. That could make it more likely for projects to be approved without having to disclose plans to do things like cut down trees, discharge waste, or increase air pollution.

The administration says that the changes would improve the environmental review and permitting process while ensuring a safe, healthy, and productive environment. Environmentalists say the proposed changes would weaken critical safeguards for air, water, and wildlife.

The proposed changes to NEPA would revise the rules that guide the implementation of the law, as opposed to amending the act itself. Once these proposed changes appear in the federal register, the public will have 60 days to comment on them.

A decision on whether or not to weaken the nation’s benchmark environmental law is expected before November.

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Trump Rule Would Exclude Climate Change in Infrastructure Planning

Photo, posted February 23, 2016, courtesy of Lissy Wild via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The Changing Face of Electricity

March 15, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The New York Times recently published an article on how electricity is made in the United States on a state-by-state basis and how it has been changing over the past two decades. Two conclusions to draw are that the mix of energy sources is wildly different from one state to another and that the mix has been changing rather dramatically in many places.

Overall, the past two decades have seen the dramatic rise in the use of natural gas and a dramatic drop in the use of coal. Coal plants used to account for over half of the electricity produced in the U.S. at the turn of the 21st century. Now natural gas has passed coal as the largest energy source at roughly 1/3 of the total generated.

Switching from coal to natural gas is a good thing since modern gas power plants emit only about half the carbon dioxide as modern coal plants. But industry spin about “clean gas” is just spin. Gas is not really clean; it is just cleaner than coal. So, having the electric grid powered by gas is not really going to solve our emissions problems.

That being said, there are still states that make nearly all their electricity with coal. Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Utah, Wyoming, and West Virginia are on that list. Meanwhile, Delaware, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nevada, and Rhode Island are powered mostly by gas. Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Vermont rely heavily on hydropower.

Newer renewables like solar and wind are starting to make major contributions in many states. Wind contributes only 6% nationwide but is much bigger in places like Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, the Dakotas, Oklahoma and Texas.

The face of electricity continues to change.

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