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Scientists at the European Space Agency have found an enormous hole in the Earth’s ozone layer, and it is unusual because it is over the North Pole.
Why This Matters: This is believed to be the largest hole ever to have formed above the Arctic.
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On Thursday, the Trump Administration continued its environmental armageddon by changing the way costs and benefits of rules are calculated in favor of polluters and thus fundamentally weakening current regulatory protections from mercury and other toxic metals emitted by oil and coal-fired power plants.
Why This Matters: The polluters win again – President Trump continues to deliver for his big donors.
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In yet another painful ripple effect of the coronavirus pandemic, according to Scientific American, scientists are being forced to pause critical data collection and research that could reduce the quality of weather forecasts in the near term, and threaten long-standing climate studies.
Why This Matters: There’s that word again — unprecedented. The loss of water and air data that is critical for use in weather forecasting models is unprecedented.
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On Tuesday, the Trump administration proposed to leave in place the national ambient air quality standards for Fine Particulate Matter (PM2.5) or soot, even though the Agency’s science staff recommended tightening it, saying that a tougher standard would save 12,000 lives each year.
Why This Matters: Industry groups such as the American Petroleum Institute and the Chamber of Commerce “cheered” the decision saying the air in the U.S. is clean enough.
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Researchers at Carbios, a French company, report in the Journal Nature that they’ve “engineered an enzyme that can convert 90% of that same plastic back to its pristine starting materials” and they are working to open a demonstration plant next year. The enzyme breaks down plastic all the way into a recyclable form — the company, in collaboration with Pepsi and L’Oréal, hopes to have market scale production within 5 years.
Why This Matters: 70 million tons of Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is produced annually.
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by Lee Hannah, Senior Scientist, Conservation International Right now, money is flowing from Capitol Hill to provide us with much needed economic support in response to the coronavirus pandemic. As this happens, we need to make sure that money also flows towards preventing similar pandemics from happening in the future. To stop this cycle of […]
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