• Sustainability

Protecting Nature Through “Personhood”

• #30x30
• clean water
• rights of nature
• rivers

Clean water is a human right, and some cities are ensuring it by giving their waters legal personhood. Legal rights for nature are a growing movement in environmental law, putting the natural world on more equal footing in court. 

Why this Matters: The natural world is essential for us humans to survive. From oil spills to toxic PFAS chemicals to leaking landfills, there are plenty of threats from human activity. Protecting the environment is beneficial to our own health in the short term

• Water

New Study Finds 1 in 3 Rivers Have Significantly Shifted Color

• agriculture
• algal blooms
• rivers
• runoff
• sediment

by Amy Lupica, ODP Contributing Writer A new study shows that 1 in 3 rivers in the United States have significantly shifted in color since 1984. Researchers surveyed more than 108,000 kilometers of rivers at least 60 meters wide found that  56% appeared predominantly yellow and 38% appeared predominantly green. These colorations are often caused […]

• Water

Two-Thirds of World’s Longest Rivers Don’t Flow Freely Anymore

• damns
• hydroelectric
• rivers

by Yoel Fessahaye  The largest-ever study on global hydrology has discovered that only 37% of the longest rivers (longer than 600 miles) remain free-flowing and 23% flow uninterrupted to the ocean. As National Geographic explains, rivers are the lifeblood of our planet — they provide food and water for hundreds of millions of people, deliver […]

• Health

NYT Exposé: Health Risks on the Rise Due to Regulatory Rollbacks

• air
• air pollution
• benzene
• cancer
• carbon dioxide
• coal power plants
• Farm Workers
• fossil fuels
• health
• methane
• Native Americans
• oil and gas drilling
• pesticides
• regulations
• rivers
• sickened
• toxic chemicals
• toxic waste
• water pollution

The New York Times investigated and found that the consequences of the President keeping his promise to deregulate in favor of industry and development, particularly for fossil fuels, are beginning to have real detrimental impacts for those who live or work in proximity to them. The stories of those impacted demonstrate that the U.S. environment is not as clean as most think.