Trees may become the key to ‘greener’ foam products | Science News for Students

Made from wood pulp, they’re just as strong as Styrofoam — and work better at keeping things cold.
If you’re heading to the beach on a hot summer day, you don’t want to forget the cooler full of drinks. You might load that cooler with ice. However, ice on its own won’t keep things cold for long. That’s why a cooler packs insulation in its walls. The best insulators have long been plastic-based foams, such as Styrofoam. But a new type of foam made from wood pulp works even better. And it’s friendlier to the environment.

Unlike this Styrofoam cup, made from plastic, a new kind of foam is biodegradable. TOMSCHIRTZ/ISTOCK/GETTY IMAGES PLUS
Plastic foam is both incredibly useful and popular. Filled with millions of tiny air pockets, its frothy structure is both lightweight and strong. This material protects fragile packages during shipping. And when used as an insulator, plastic foam’s tiny bubbles help keep heat in — or out — for hours. That’s why people have relied on it for everything from cups and coolers to packaging and home insulation.
Continue reading at: Trees may become the key to ‘greener’ foam products | Science News for Students

10 things a committed U.S. President and Congress could do about climate change » Yale Climate Connections

The federal government has available to it, should it choose to use them, a wide range of potential climate change management tools, going well beyond the traditional pollution control regulatory options. And, in some cases (not all), without new legislative authorization.

There’s a big “if” behind that remark: It will take an exceptionally climate-savvy and climate-concerned Executive Branch to have the political will to initiate some of these steps. And there’s more: It likely will take supportive bipartisan majorities in both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives. More still: It will also take widespread and strong public support and citizen engagement, and, even then, strong leadership skills on the part of federal leaders.



It’s not clear when or if that time will come, nor what kind of climate catastrophe could precipitate such a coming-together. It brings to mind a phrase often attributed, but with some uncertainty, to Winston Churchill: “You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing, after they have exhausted all the other possibilities.”

Continue reading at: 10 things a committed U.S. President and Congress could do about climate change » Yale Climate Connections

Heat waves and climate change: Is there a connection? » Yale Climate Connections

Extreme heat may not trigger the same visceral fear as a tornado, but according to NOAA’s natural hazard statistics, it causes nearly twice as many fatalities in the United States each year – more than any other weather hazard. As the climate continues to warm, that number could rise dramatically in the U.S. and around the world.



Since the late 1800s, human-caused climate change has warmed the Earth’s average temperature by around 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit). That doesn’t sound like much, but a relatively small warming of the average temperature results in a large jump in extreme heat.

Continue reading at: Heat waves and climate change: Is there a connection? » Yale Climate Connections

Mark Jacobson Has A Plan To Convert The World To 100% Renewable Energy. Is It Realistic? | CleanTechnica

Mark Jacobson is a professor of civil and environmental engineering and director of the Atmosphere/Energy Program at Stanford University. He is also one of our heroes here at CleanTechnica because instead of just writing papers and giving speeches about how important it is for the world to stop burning fossil fuels, he and his colleagues actually did the hard work of creating a road map that details precisely what each of the 50 US states need to do to transition to 100% renewable energy.



Continue reading at: Mark Jacobson Has A Plan To Convert The World To 100% Renewable Energy. Is It Realistic? | CleanTechnica

A 100% renewable grid isn’t just feasible, it’s in the works in Europe – ThinkProgress

Europe will be 90% renewable powered in two decades, experts say.
The myth that a very high level of renewables can’t be integrated into the electric grid is being demolished by the clean tech and battery storage revolution.
“By 2040, renewables make up 90% of the electricity mix in Europe, with wind and solar accounting for 80%,” predict the experts at Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) in their annual energy outlook released this week.
“Cheap renewable energy and batteries fundamentally reshape the electricity system,” explains BNEF. Since 2010, wind power globally has dropped 49% in cost. Both solar and battery prices have plummeted 85%.

A LARGE WIND FARM IN MECKLENBURG-WESTERN POMERANIA, GERMANY, MAY 14, 2019. CREDIT: BERND WÜSTNECK/PICTURE ALLIANCE VIA GETTY IMAGES.

Continue reading at: A 100% renewable grid isn’t just feasible, it’s in the works in Europe – ThinkProgress

Survey sees biggest US honeybee winter die-off yet

WASHINGTON (AP) — Winter hit U.S. honeybees hard with the highest loss rate yet, an annual survey of beekeepers showed.
The annual nationwide survey by the Bee Informed Partnership found 37.7% of honeybee colonies died this past winter, nearly 9 percentage points higher than the average winter loss.
The survey of nearly 4,700 beekeepers managing more than 300,000 colonies goes back 13 years and is conducted by bee experts at the University of Maryland, Auburn University and several other colleges.
Beekeepers had been seeing fewer winter colony losses in recent years until now, said Maryland’s Dennis vanEngelsdorp, president of the bee partnership and co-author of Wednesday’s survey.
“The fact that we suddenly had the worst winter we’ve had ... is troubling,” vanEngelsdorp said.

In this Oct. 12, 2018 file photo, a man holds a frame removed from a hive box covered with honey bees in Lansing, Mich. According to the results of an annual survey of beekeepers released on Wednesday, June 19, 2019, winter hit America’s honeybees hard with the highest loss rate yet. (Dale G. Young/Detroit News via AP)
Continue reading at: Survey sees biggest US honeybee winter die-off yet

‘Climate apartheid’: UN expert says human rights may not survive

The world is increasingly at risk of “climate apartheid”, where the rich pay to escape heat and hunger caused by the escalating climate crisis while the rest of the world suffers, a report from a UN human rights expert has said.
Philip Alston, UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, said the impacts of global heating are likely to undermine not only basic rights to life, water, food, and housing for hundreds of millions of people, but also democracy and the rule of law.

International climate treaties have been ineffective, the report said. Photograph: Arun Sankar/AFP/Getty Images
Alston is critical of the “patently inadequate” steps taken by the UN itself, countries, NGOs and businesses, saying they are “entirely disproportionate to the urgency and magnitude of the threat”. His report to the UN human rights council (HRC) concludes: “Human rights might not survive the coming upheaval.”
Continue reading at: ‘Climate apartheid’: UN expert says human rights may not survive