Weekly Climate News

April 15, 2021 

• Non-fungible tokens, a new blockchain technology, have been found to have a large environmental impact. 

• Many cyclists are unhappy about a new rule change that ends the tradition of tossing water bottles to fans during races. 

• The Muldrow Glacier in Alaska is moving up to 90 feet a day, 100 times faster than its normal pace. 

• A cyclone hit Indonesia, leaving over 160 people dead from flash floods and landslides. Many are claiming the Indonesian government’s recent rollback of environmental protections worsened the crisis. 

• Japan’s recent approval of treated radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean has been met with fierce opposition. 

• Despite a slow economy resulting from COVID-19, greenhouse gases are currently on the rise. 

• The proposal for the construction of a controversial biomass power plant in Springfield, Massachusetts, was revoked by the state’s Department of Environmental Protection. 

• CACTO claims to be the first “carbon negative fashion company in the Americas” because it removes more atmospheric carbon than it produces through the manufacturing of its cactus leather products.

Weekly Climate News

April 8, 2021

• Flooding in Australia has forced over 20,000 people to evacuate and over 150 schools to close down. 

• The journal Geophysical Research Letters published a new study that shows summer in the Northern Hemisphere is lengthening. As a result of climate change, by the end of the century, summer could extend by nearly six months. 

• Pope Francis made an appeal for humanity to face climate change by quoting Shakespeare, writing, “To see or not to see, that is the question.”

• Human activity is currently responsible for degrading two-thirds of Earth’s tropical rain forests. Read more about it here.

• A NASA study has confirmed that human activities are shifting Earth’s energy budget, as more energy from the sun is being trapped than can escape back into space.

• A recent experiment found that coffee pulp, left over from the coffee making process, can aid in the regrowth of forests. 

• The Biden administration announced an expansive offshore wind plan that would install enough wind turbines on the East Coast to power 10 million American homes. 

• How is climate change affecting major league baseball? Read this article to find out.

Weekly Climate News

March 25, 2021 

• Many companies are advocating for the profitability of conservation, sustainable fishing and carbon sequestration. 

• Research has found that farmed fish are consuming more vegetables than wild fish stocks. 

• Flooding in Australia has forced about 20,000 Australians to evacuate and has caused the closure of over 150 schools. 

• Carbon markets haven’t felt the economic impacts of COVID-19.  

• In the face of political turmoil, COVID-19 and economic crisis, Lebanon is becoming more ambitious in its climate policy with the goal of cutting carbon emissions 20 percent by 2030. 

• A new NASA satellite has been designed to track natural disasters, melting ice and other climate change-related effects. 

• A new study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters indicates that summer in the Northern Hemisphere is lengthening. In response to global heating, the end of the century could see the extension of summer by nearly six months. 

• NASA has recently joined the White House National Climate Task Force. 

• Tropical rainforest used to cover 13 percent of Earth’s surface. Today, 34 percent of that area is gone while an additional 30 percent is degrading.