Delhi, the capital city of India, has always been a city bursting at the seams. With over 19 million people, heavy industry, growing numbers of vehicles, and choking amounts of road dust, Delhi suffers from some of the worst air pollution in the world. It is a situation the country has been struggling with for years.
As the world looks to reduce carbon emissions, many companies are dealing with paying for their carbon emissions as part of the cost of doing business. But apart from the situations in which companies already are required to pay for their carbon emissions, a growing number of companies now build carbon pricing into their business plans even if they are not yet directly paying for their emissions. This practice is known as putting an internal price of carbon into their business plan.
There is deservedly a great deal of focus on the effects that carbon pollution is having upon the climate and most countries around the world are working to reduce their emissions. However, even if climate effects were not a serious threat to humanity, pollution is a deadly menace to human health.
A group of 10 major transnational corporations has launched a new global initiative to slash vehicle emissions by increasing the number of electric vehicles in their corporate fleets. Known as EV100, the initiative commits companies to integrate EVs in their owned or leased fleets and install charging stations for customers and employees.
Coral reefs are essential for much of marine life and are the basis of many commercial fisheries. In places from Florida to Australia, they are major tourist attractions. Estimates are that the economic impact of coral reefs is more than $375 billion a year. And apart from all of that, they are some of the most beautiful places on the planet.
Globally, an estimated 4.5 billion people are exposed to particulate air pollution levels that are at least twice that of what the World Health Organization considers safe. But the impact that sustained exposure to air pollution has on a person’s life expectancy has remained a frustratingly unanswered question. That is until now.
Over 50 million Americans mow their lawns each week, which uses 800 million gallons of gas per year and produces tons of air pollutants. Garden equipment engines were completely unregulated with respect to emissions until the late 1990s and still emit high levels of carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, and nitrogen oxides. In fact, gas mowers and their relatives like leaf blowers and edgers produce 5% of the air pollution in this country.
Plastic pollution is a major problem for the world’s oceans and non-biodegradable plastics continue to fill the planet’s landfills and litter the landscape. There are many approaches to making plant-derived, biodegradable plastics but most of these materials do not offer the resistance to heat and moisture that is characteristic of petroleum-based plastics.
In a recent report to a United Nations ocean conference, scientists are warning that new rules are desperately needed to protect marine life in the open seas. That’s because more than 60% of the ocean has no conservation rules since it’s located outside national jurisdictions. The open ocean is at risk from climate change, over-fishing, deep sea mining, farm pollution, and plastics pollution.
Electric cars represent only a tiny fraction of the overall auto market. The numbers are growing, most certainly, but they are still quite small in most places. The recent start of production of the Tesla Model 3 has attracted quite a bit of attention to electric cars, but in many countries, there is much more to the story than just media buzz about a new car.
We’ve discussed the problem of microplastics polluting our oceans at great lengths on this program before. Much of the small plastic particles result from the breakdown of plastic litter, such as plastic bags, packaging, and other materials. Another source is microbeads, which are often found in health products such as face scrubs and even some toothpastes. But there is a another source of microplastic pollution that is quite troubling: dirty laundry.
We are well-aware of the negative effects of air pollution on human health and on the environment, but a recent study at Duke University has revealed that global solar energy production is taking a major hit due to air pollution and dust.
The world’s largest floating solar power plant is now operational and connected to the electric grid in China. It is a 40-megawatt facility and floats in water 13 to 30 feet deep in a lake that was created by a former mining operation.
The Pitcairn Islands are a group of four volcanic islands in the South Pacific, mostly known from the famed mutiny on the British ship Bounty. Pitcairn Island itself is where many of the mutineers settled and where some of their descendants live today. That small island, with a population of 57, is the only one of the group that is inhabited.
Poor air quality is a problem all around the world. Exposure to air pollution is linked to the premature deaths of an estimated 6.5 million people every year, making it the fourth largest threat to human health, trailing only high blood pressure, dietary risks, and smoking.
Plastics clogging up our landfills and polluting our oceans are a scourge of modern life and we struggle with ways to combat this growing problem. The biggest issue is that most plastics are simply not biodegradable. Polyethylene, the common plastic found in shopping bags and numerous other products, takes between 100 and 400 years to degrade in a landfill.
Sea lions in California are under duress from a rather unassuming source: algae. Driven by higher water temperatures and pollution, toxic algae is leading to fatal brain damage in many California sea lions.
There’s ample evidence over the past decade or so that Americans are gradually changing their diets, driven by health concerns among other factors. But there’s one change that really stands out. According to a study by the Natural Resources Defense Council, Americans have sliced their beef consumption by 19% between 2005 and 2014.
Poor air quality is a major problem worldwide. Exposure to air pollution is linked to the premature deaths of an estimated 6.5 million people every year. This makes air pollution the fourth largest threat to human health, trailing only high blood pressure, dietary risks, and smoking.
Researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have developed a new method for producing hydrogen from water using solar energy. If successfully developed, their approach would make it possible to produce hydrogen in a centralized manner at the point of sale such as at a fueling station for hydrogen-powered cars.
