Your Fresh Fish Dinner Now Comes with a Dose of Prescription Drugs Researchers have known for more than a decade that the pharmaceuticals we consume tend to turn up secondhand in wildlife. Sometimes this can have horrible effects. Chemical hormones in birth control pills, for instance, pass into the urine and are released via municipal sewage plants into the environment, where they can become potent endocrine disruptors. These drugs alter the reproductive physiology and behavior of fish downstream, with impacts including feminized or intersex males. But so far, society’s reaction has largely been a collective shrug: Those are fish, not people. Why should we care? A new study in the journal Food Chemistry should shake us out of our complacency. The results: Eleven of 14 fish servings contained elevated levels of the two drugs. Moreover, the fish weren’t just freshwater species, such as catfish or its Asian cousin swai, which might predictably pick up wastewater treatment byproducts in river habitats.
Can Technology Save Africa’s Forests? In 2000, Lilian Pintea was getting ready to end his first stint of fieldwork at Gombe Stream Research Center, in Tanzania, when he was invited to stop by Jane Goodall’s house for a drink (she prefers Scotch). Goodall tries to spend a few days each year in the place where she made the discoveries about chimpanzees that made her famous, and she enjoys hearing about the ongoing work at what is possibly the world’s longest-running continually operated field station in wildlife research. Pintea’s specialty was using satellite photos to show changes to ecosystems. He had come to Gombe by way of Moscow State University in Russia, the University of Minnesota, and the World Bank, to see firsthand how the center’s long-term data on chimps, matched to his images, might explain how habitat changes were affecting the animals. “When you see her for the first time,” Pintea recalled of meeting Goodall, “she’s a superstar—one of the last explorers.” “Nobody could read it,” Moore told me.
Why Moby Wants You To Stop Showering Skip Showers For Beef, a new grassroots project born of the California drought, acknowledges that giving up beef — a product that uses huge amounts of water — is hard. So the campaign’s creators have come up with a creative way for Californians to keep eating meat while reducing their water use: Just stop showering. The project’s premise is a simple one — by the creators’ calculations, every four ounce hamburger requires roughly 450 gallons of water to produce. To offset those gallons, the average Californian would need to skip 26 showers. “We’re not saying people should eat beef, we’re just saying people can eat beef, and here’s how,” Tom Bransford, co-founder of Skip Showers For Beef, told ThinkProgress. The California cattle industry is the fifth largest in the state’s agricultural sector, bringing in $3.3 billion in revenue in 2012. California also grows a huge amount of alfalfa as food for cows — which, though highly nutritious, is also extremely water-hungry.
EIA finds wind energy will have largest role in cost-effectively meeting Clean Power Plan | Wind | Generation and Storage | Energy Central Low-cost, zero-emission wind energy will become even more valuable as states and utilities develop plans to cost-effectively reduce carbon pollution to comply with EPA’s Clean Power Plan, according to new economic analysis from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), a nonpartisan branch of the Department of Energy (DOE). EIA’s analysis modeled a range of options for complying with EPA’s proposed rule across a variety of scenarios, and wind energy consistently emerged as the lowest cost option for reducing emissions. World Resources Institute also released analysis today that looked at all economy-wide options for reducing carbon pollution and found that, thanks to recent cost declines, renewable energy is poised to make the largest contributions to emissions reductions. In WRI’s optimal energy mix scenarios, renewable energy grew to provide 27 to 28 percent of electricity in 2030 and 36 to 38 percent in 2040. Change in output under Clean Power Plan relative to Reference Case
Nutella Sparks War Of Words Between European Environmental Ministers There’s a storm brewing in Europe over a chocolate breakfast spread. The French minister of ecology has Italy up in arms over comments she made about deforestation on French television Monday, during which she encouraged people to stop eating Nutella, an Italian-made chocolate hazelnut spread. “We have to replant a lot of trees because there is massive deforestation that also leads to global warming. Italian politicians shot back Tuesday, with the Italian minister of the environment telling Royal to “leave Italian products alone.” Another politician tweeted that Royal should apologize, calling her comments a “grave and ugly” insult. Cutting down on palm oil use is seen as a key part of curbing deforestation — and carbon emissions. Worldwide, oil palm plantations cover 40.6 million acres — an area larger than the entire state of Georgia, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. This is not the first time France has gone on the offensive against palm oil, or Nutella.
2030 Districts: Communities Collaborating to Reach Inspirational Goals with Measured Performance If buildings are a major contributor to climate change, then what’s the solution? Reductions in energy use, water use, and transportation emissions, of course. But, how do we know how far we have to go, how fast – and how will we know when we as an industry are part of the solution and not still the problem? For almost a decade, The 2030 Challenge has provided an inspirational, measurable goal for properties to reach for – and measures for figuring out how we’re doing. Existing Buildings – 50% reductions in energy use, water consumption, and transportation emissions below baselines by 2030 (with incremental goals).New Construction – 70% reduction in energy use below baseline today, leading towards carbon neutral design by 2030; 50% reductions today below baselines for water use and transportation emissions. 2030 Measures 2030 District goals are those of The 2030 Challenge, but their achievement is measured performance against national and district baselines. 2030 District Water Baselines
How Science Denial Derails Scientists Mostly, I recommend bypassing the climate science “debate” altogether. There’s no actual debate so even debunking it gives it undeserved credence. But that’s just it: doubt and denial are more than just states of mind; their perpetuation is strategic. An eye dropper of doubt has proven more potent in stalling action on climate change than an ocean of ironclad scientific warnings. Sometimes it’s good to call attention to this kind of strategy in order to undercut its power. In my line of work, there’s even an obsession with measuring it. “It doesn’t matter! But we’re all vulnerable to the drumbeat. Here are at least three ways denial derails scientists: First, scientists are getting sidetracked by science denial campaigns. Second, when scientists feel compelled to go on the defensive and spend time refuting denialist theories, they not only add credence to false claims, giving them air time, they often begin to adopt the language and frames of the science deniers, thus reinforcing them.
New Fund Will Help More Seattle Residents Build Rain Gardens RainWise garden Image by Lisa Stiffler Seattle’s RainWise rain garden program is spreading green stormwater solutions across the city, but the rebate program has been out of reach for some homeowners with more modest incomes. While RainWise offers generous reimbursements—$4,600 on average for the installation of rain gardens and cisterns—the homeowner has to pay for the work upfront, then wait up to two months for the program to pay them back. It’s an expense that not everyone can shoulder. A new financial program called the Green Infrastructure Rebate Advance Fund (GIRAF) should remove that hurdle by bridging the payment gap. A separate access fund will also provide small grants to partially pay for projects near the Duwamish River that cost more than the city’s rebate. RainWise “is definitely an exciting success story,” said Aaron Clark, the driving force behind GIRAF and program manager for the non-profit Stewardship Partners. Seattle rain garden image by Lisa Stiffler