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By Monica Medina, Founder and CEO of Our Daily Planet Earlier this year, I drafted a chapter for a book of “big” new environmental ideas entitled “A Better Planet: Forty Big Ideas for a Sustainable Future.” In my essay, I propose that in order to brace ourselves for the impacts of climate change that we […]
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Dr. Mildred McClain is an environmental justice activist from Savannah, GA and founder and executive director of the Savannah-based Harambee House/Citizens For Environmental Justice.
Don’t miss her viral speech/sermon from the 2019 Georgia Climate Conference.
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Yesterday Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders announced that they plan to introduce the Green New Deal for Public Housing Act, legislation that would give a green overhaul to the entirety of the nation’s 1.2 million public housing units.
Continue Reading 533 wordsStay in the know, empower yourself to be a #FriendOfThePlanet, sign up to receive ODP in your inbox each morning!
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) held a workshop this week with the goal of advancing the use of new technologies such as electronic monitoring and electronic reporting in order to better and more safely monitor and manage U.S. fisheries — which will significantly help to manage fisheries in the face of climate change. Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of Senators passed out of committee several pro-conservation bills.
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Daniel Esty is the Hillhouse Professor of Environmental Law and Policy at Yale University and the editor of a new book entitled “A Better Planet: 40 Big Ideas for a Sustainable Future.” ODP: The Yale Environmental Dialogue was launched in 2017 — why? What did you hope it would accomplish? DE: Dean Indy Burke of […]
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The Keystone 10 Million Trees Partnership is a partnership led by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) between national, regional, state, and local agencies, conservation organizations, outdoors enthusiasts, businesses, and citizens that have committed to improving Pennsylvania’s communities, economy, and ecology by planting of 10 million new trees in priority landscapes in Pennsylvania by the end of 2025. Their goal is to plant them alongside rivers and streams to rebuild “riparian forest buffers” that can significantly reduce the amount of polluted runoff coming from those areas and improve soil health by keeping it on the land instead of in the water, as well as providing habitat for fish and other animals.
Why This Matters: This is a win-win-win — due to its climate benefits, soil health improvements, and its contribution to clean water in streams, rivers, and even the Chesapeake Bay. It could be a model for other states.
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According to the Lancet’s 2019 Countdown report, the worst effects of climate change will fall to the youngest, and most dire for them lie ahead.
Bottom Line: Children alive today stand to experience significant public health risks unless we take drastic action on climate change.
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by Miro Korenha and Alexandra Patel Venice called a state of emergency on Wednesday morning as flooding of the city’s famous canals reached levels that haven’t been witnessed in 50 years. Heavy rains caused waters to rise over 6 feet, inundated 85% of the city (including the historic St Mark’s basilica), and caused 2 deaths. […]
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New Orleans city officials, according to BuzzFeed News, buried a 2017 city Inspector General Report that showed that they had failed to test for lead in the water and they claimed that the City’s water was safe even though they were unable to locate the city’s many lead pipes — both of which they are required to do under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act. And last week, water samples from 27 schools in Virginia Beach, Virginia were found to have levels of lead higher than industry safety recommendations.
Why This Matters: Lead exposure is extremely bad for children. According to the World Health Organization, children are “particularly vulnerable” to lead poisoning. Experts say that young children absorb 4-5 times more of the lead they ingest than adults, and high levels of lead in the bloodstream can adversely affect the development of their nervous systems and brains.
Continue Reading 599 wordsFox News’ Tucker Carlson in a news segment on Monday night created a firestorm over racist remarks in which he claimed that proposals to allow many more climate refugees to enter the U.S. would result in overcrowding and would “despoil” and “pollute” our country.
Why This Matters: Millions of people around the world — including Americans — are already suffering due to climate change and it has created a refugee crisis. According to the proposal’s proponents, since 2009, a climate-related disaster has displaced about one person every second due to severe weather events, famine, drought, and rising sea levels, and other climate impacts. The United Nations believes that 22.5 million people worldwide have been displaced due to climate change since 2009 and that number could rise to 200 million forcibly displaced people by 2050. We will be confronted with this problem regardless of whether Congress passes a law allowing the government to deal with it directly.
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ICYMI, on Monday the planet Mercury made one of its rare appearances transiting the Sun. It won’t do that again until 2032, and that one won’t be visible in the U.S. It was super hard to see, but NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) had several special cameras filming it and on Wednesday they released a […]
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Yesterday, presidential candidate Senator Elizabeth Warren released a plan (!) calling for companies who have misled federal regulators to be prosecuted under a new corporate perjury law.
She also singled out Exxon as her example, tying in climate change to her signature anti-corruption platform.
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