 Air
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Ridesharing For Kids: A Safe And Greener Option in Boston
For many of you, it’s the first day of school for your kids and you’re wondering how you will get them where they need to be — school, soccer practice, or piano lesson — on time and safely. In Boston, one woman-run and Mom-tested tech startup has local parents breathing easier. Zemcar is distinctly different from other ridesharing services — they put a premium on safety and security — they extensively screen drivers and have a unique technology that includes a panic button that gives parents and caretakers peace of mind. They also have live streaming video from inside the vehicle so that parents (or adult children for elderly riders — another passenger cohort) can keep tabs on the trip in real time.
According to researchers at MIT, congestion is both expensive and bad for public health. Texas A&M’s Transportation Institute reported in their 2015 Urban Mobility Scorecard that “travel delays due to traffic congestion caused drivers to waste more than 3 billion gallons of fuel and kept travelers stuck in their cars for nearly 7 billion extra hours – 42 hours per rush-hour commuter. The total nationwide price tag: $160 billion, or $960 per commuter.” The company’s CEO Juliette Kayyem tells ODP, “Zemcar’s focus on safety and security provides an option for parent’s struggling with transportation needs. It also serves important environmental efforts by taking more drivers (parents!) off the road, allowing for shared mobility, and decreasing travel because of our focus that driver’s come from a kid’s neighborhood. While bikes, scooters and driverless cars are an important aspect of the future of mobility, other pools of riders — kids and elderly, for example — will still need something extra in the ride experience. We are testing that now in Boston.”
Why This Matters: The potential to vastly expand ridesharing into previously untapped markets for children and elderly passenger could be another transportation sector game changer. These riders are not likely to switch to ridesharing from public transportation — one of the reasons that estimates of environmental benefits from ridesharing services have been “discounted” in some studies. Even driverless cars won’t work for this segment of the market without the safety features Zemcar is pioneering. I (Monica) spent many days wishing a service like this existed when my kids were in school! Hopefully, Zemcar will be able to attract more funding to scale their model beyond Boston.
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 Water
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School Water In Detroit Contaminated with Lead and Copper
Today is the first day of school for 47,000 students in the City of Detroit’s public schools, but they will be drinking from bottled water because the City found elevated levels of lead and/or copper in a series of recent tests. Last week the City made headlines (and many major news TV networks) when they announced that out of an abundance of caution they were closing drinking fountains in ALL city public schools. According to the Detroit Free Press, 34 of 106 schools in the Detroit Public Schools Community District have elevated lead and/or copper levels — and 16 of them were recently tested and had contamination so Superintendent Nikolai Vitti ordered all schools’ fountains shut off. The students will use bottled water and portable water coolers for the time being. District officials announced they would create a task force to identify the cause of the elevated levels and solutions.
In addition, the DMC Children’s Hospital of Michigan announced it would offer extended hours at its Lead Clinic to allow parents to have their children tested for lead exposure, The City also began a public education campaign to warn parents of the danger signs of lead exposure, noting that symptoms of exposure could come from multiple sources — and not just schools. The Washington Post reported that “[e]ven small amounts of lead can cause serious health problems, and children under the age of 6 are especially vulnerable, according to the Mayo Clinic. Beyond learning and behavior problems, lead exposure can impact physical development, and in some cases, be fatal. Drinking water with high levels of copper can also have adverse health consequences, including vomiting, diarrhea, stomach cramps and nausea. Copper toxicity has been associated with liver and kidney failure.”
Why This Matters: The chances are high that other school systems with old water pipes and lead solder have the same drinking water issues as Detroit. Parents should inquire at back to school nights nationwide whether their school system’s water has been tested. And parents everywhere should also get their kids tested for lead just to be sure. According to Dr. Kanta Bhambhani, director of the Lead Clinic at the DMC Children’s Hospital of Michigan, there are so many sources of potential exposure, they “still see significant numbers of children with very high lead levels, which should not happen,” Bhambhani said. “The reality is many homes are getting old, dilapidated. There’s a lot of chipping, peeling paint that kids are exposed to.”
To Go Deeper: You can learn the warning signs of lead exposure in kids here. And watch this CBS news report on one Mom’s fight for cleaner drinking water in Detroit here.
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 People
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Kavanaugh Confirmation Hearings Begin But His Enviro Docs Are MIA
Late last month, Think Progress reports that ten Democratic Senators (including Senators Whitehouse, Booker, Gillibrand and Duckworth) demanded that Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, release documents showing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s environmental record. Senator Tom Carper (D-DE), the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, in a letter dated August 24 letter, made a formal request for all the records detailing Kavanaugh’s involvement in environmental matters while he served in the White House for President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2006 as staff secretary and subsequently as White House Counsel.
Senate Republicans have been stonewalling on the documents, that contain Kavanaugh’s unfiltered views on a range of issues including conservation and environmental regulation. The letter states,
“Without access to Judge Kavanaugh’s environmental records during these ‘formative years’,” the letter states, “the members of this Committee — and the Senate at large — lack the information necessary to responsibly perform our constitutional obligation to advise, and if appropriate, provide consent for the President’s nominee.”
The documents are under review now, but the National Archives warned that hundreds of thousands of documents relating to Kavanaugh’s work prior to becoming a judge, when he served in the George W. Bush White House, will not be fully available until late October — well after the vote is expected to take place.
Why This Matters: It is not right to ask members of the Senate to confirm Judge Kavanaugh without key documents that reveal his true views on the most important issues of the day, such as climate change. When Justice Elena Kagan was nominated by President Obama and went through the confirmation process, the records from her service in the White House during the Clinton Presidency were released online for all the public to see. If confirmed, Judge Kavanaugh could serve for decades — well into the time when even more extreme climate impacts are no longer a distant reality. The public deserves to know where he stands on this and other important environmental issues.
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 Food
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Climate Change Supercharges Appetites of Crop-Eating Insects
This summer has shown just how difficult rising global temperatures can be for farmers. In Europe, extreme heat and drought have decimated crops and have forced dairy farmers to slaughter their cattle as there’s not enough grain available to feed them. As NPR reported, The grain harvest this year is down 25% from normal, with some farms reporting more than two thirds of their crops have been lost. The German government has offered nearly $400 million in emergency aid, but the farmers say that is far too little to offset their losses. Farmers across northern and central Europe are being forced to declare bankruptcy as regional droughts continue.
To make matters worse, a recent study has revealed that as climate change continues to warm our planet it will also make conditions more favorable for insects that eat food crops even if we do manage to cap global warming at 2 degrees Celsius, the upper-end target of the Paris climate agreement. As Mashable explained, the team of scientists led by Curtis Deutsche and Joshua Tewskbury examined how insects would affect three of the most important crops: rice, maize, and wheat. They found that any increase in global temperature could lead to insect-driven losses of 10 to 25 percent, especially in places used to more moderate temperatures. A 2 degree Celsius rise in temperature could lead to 213 million ton loss in the three crops measured. Inside Climate News further explained that the biggest crop losses are expected in temperate areas where global warming will increase both insects’ population growth and their metabolic rates. That includes the major breadbaskets of North America and Europe.
Why This Matters: Deutsch put things in perspective by saying that “Insect pests currently consume the equivalent of 1 out of every 12 loaves of bread (before it ever gets made). By the end of this century, if climate change continues unabated, insects will be eating more than 2 loaves of every 12 that could have been made.” Climate change has the potential to make food insecurity more severe and it’s crucial that our government (and courts as you read in the story above this one) not only acts to slow it down but also works with various sectors of our economy on preparedness measures. We can’t be caught flat-footed if the food source for 4 billion people comes under threat.
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 Sustainability
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Watch the video above to learn more about the problems caused by microfibers. Video: The Story of Stuff
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What To Do About Microfibers
Microfibers are tiny particles that are shed from synthetic materials like nylon and polyester. When garments made of these materials are washed they release these microscopic fibers that are so small they make their way into the watershed where they are ingested by all sorts of animals. The unfortunate part is that most performance materials that hold up to wear and tear (think of your favorite fleece or running pants) are synthetic and while they last longer and require us to buy less clothing, their shedding problem is a serious issue for our oceans. To complicate things further, garments shed even more the older they get and the more we wash them.
The Story of Stuff project, which works to raise awareness and find solutions to the microfiber pollution problem explained that once the fibers enter the watershed “they act like sponges, sucking up other pollutants around them. They’re like little toxic bombs full of motor oil, pesticides, and industrial chemicals that end up in the bellies of fish and eventually in the bellies of us. It’s gross. It’s already estimated there are 1.4 million trillion in our oceans. That’s like 200 million microfibers for every person on the planet!” Mother Nature Network recently reported that while the most significant solution to this problem will have to come from product manufacturers themselves, there are measures we can take personally by making some simple changes in what we buy and our laundry routines. Washing clothes less frequently and using a microfiber collecting device in the wash cycle (like Guppyfriend, or Cora Ball) are simple steps we can take to help lessen the problem. Additionally, wastewater treatment reform can help water treatment plants to better trap microfibers before they have a chance to make it into waterways.
Why This Matters: While microplastics get a decent amount of media attention it’s critical that awareness is raised about microfiber pollution as well. Scientists are just beginning to understand the breadth of the impact our addiction to plastic is having on our planet and as consumers it’s up to us to ask the companies that make and sell our clothes what they’re trying to do about microfiber pollution. Companies like Patagonia are starting to think through these issues but they can’t be the only one!
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 Teachers
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Just a quick shout out today to all science and particularly environmental science teachers everywhere — we are grateful to you and know that you are changing the world! Have a great school year! And if our Friends of the Planet want to help them, here’s an idea:
The Cornell-affiliated Paleontological Research Institution (PRI) has launched a new partnership with the New York Sea Grant (NYSG) program in its quest to bring climate change science to every U.S. high school. With the goal of providing the book to 200,000 teachers, PRI has launched the second phase of its crowdfunding campaign through GiveGab, which has already raised more than $115,000.
The crowdfunding effort began in 2017 with “The Teacher-Friendly Guide to Climate Change,” a 284-page book that provides teachers with perspectives, statistics and graphics for teaching climate science in the classroom.
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