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By Azzedine Downes As we emerge from a year of lockdowns and begin to “build back better,” it is more important than ever to remember what we’ve learned. The pandemic has shown us the fragility of our economy and how reliant it is on our health. For without health, we potentially have nothing. COVID 19 […]
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by Ashira Morris, ODP Staff Writer After a year of pandemic working conditions, companies that sent teams home last March are planning a return to the office, in some form. When considering the environmental impact of remote work vs office work, the calculation isn’t straightforward. It depends on a number of factors, including if commuters […]
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A coalition of 63 health, wildlife, and environmental organizations has written a letter urging the Biden administration to adopt policies to combat the increased threat of zoonotic disease spillover into human populations. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, experts say that human population expansion and increased interactions with wildlife, present increased chances for future pandemics as well.
Why This Matters: According to the World Health Organization, there are over 200 known zoonoses, diseases that have jumped from non-human animals to humans.
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By Ashira Morris, ODP Staff Writer “Nature is healing” memes aside, the past year of paused travel has had an unexpected downside for wildlife worldwide. In some countries, fewer tourists and cruise ships have given animals a reprieve, like whales off the coast of Alaska no longer subjected to five months of constant cruise ship […]
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According to a report out on Tuesday from the International Energy Agency, while the pandemic allowed a brief reprieve from the uptick in global carbon dioxide emissions, global carbon pollution had returned to pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2020. Carbon emissions in Brazil, India, and China were all up over 2019 levels.
Why this Matters: Under the Paris Agreement, nations agreed to prevent the rise in global temperature from reaching two degrees Celsius and keeping the rise under 1.5 degrees celsius, but that won’t be possible if our emissions start going up again.
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By Mary Kay Henry When a climate-driven fire, flood, extreme heat, or cold event, or — as we have endured over the past year — pandemic hits, working Americans face difficult, life-changing crises. Working families are more likely to watch their homes get destroyed, lose access to power and water, go through the shock of […]
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