Wildfires tore through central Chile last year, killing 133 people. In California, 18,000 buildings were destroyed in 2018 causing US$16bn (A$24bn, 12bn) in damage. Portugal, Greece, Algeria and Australia have all felt the grief and the economic pain in recent years. As the headlines, the death tolls and the billion dollar losses from wildfires have stacked up around the world, so too have the rising temperatures fuelled by the climate crisis that create tinderbox conditions.
On Wednesday, the French government launched a new scheme designed to help shoppers learn about the environmental impact of the clothes they are purchasing. Participating clothing stores and brands can now include a small label called an 'écoscore textile', similar to France's Nutri-Score label, which denotes the healthiness of food from A to E, on new pieces of clothing. The label will be optional.
Ciarán Bollard, CEO of The Corporate Governance Institute, warned that dissolving the committee could undermine confidence in Currys' approach "Statements of this kind are becoming more common. We hear companies say: 'we are stepping back from formal ESG structures, but our commitment remains.' In the United States, this has often been driven by political hostility towards ESG. The UK, however, is a very different environment."
In recent years, several European countries have adopted models similar to FaaS, supported by infrastructure funds, green bonds and public guarantees. These initiatives, which have enabled the financing of electric buses and fleets, trams, digital ticketing systems and MaaS platforms, confirm that FaaS is one of the most successful solutions for fleet decarbonisation. However, many providers of this model focus on individual aspects of the transition: some on electric vehicles, others only on infrastructure.
Eric Davies, a forest ecologist at the University of Toronto, led a group of undergraduate students in the university's foresters club as they gathered about six litres of acorns from a tree in Queen's Park North, one of four remaining large White Oaks in the park. White Oaks, a common deciduous tree species in North America, are the largest and oldest trees in the green spaces outside the Ontario Legislature. "This tree in particular is one of the oldest remaining white oaks at Queens Park," Davies said said, pointing to a massive tree behind him. "It's a beautiful long-lived tree."
With costs climbing across the US, energy prices stand out -made worse by record-breaking summer heat and recent waves scorching multiple states. Having endured several of them this season, I'm always searching for ways to cut back on energy use. There are many little things you can do that can shave dollars off your monthly energy bill, and they go beyond switching off the lights when you leave the room.
The main answer is, how is the place tourism managed? That's the absolute key. In many countries, the government finds that people will pay to go and see, for example, mountain gorillas in Rwanda. So the researchers there said, 'No more than six people at a time, and they can't stay more than an hour.' Well, the governments there think, 'Okay, we get all this money for six.'
The B-Clip uses vacuum press forming technology to create a strong, weather-resistant clip from cellulose fibers. Unlike conventional plastic clips, the B-Clip is biodegradable and naturally composts at the end of the growing season. By using renewable agricultural by-products like straw, the project demonstrates how waste materials can be transformed into valuable resources. This approach not only promotes a circular economy but also highlights the potential of sustainable innovation in everyday agricultural tools.
Once upon a time, Lapland was a word that conjured up the home of Santa Claus in the imagination of British children, but increasingly it has become a tourist destination. Last year, more than 700,000 people came to the region, with 100,000 of them coming from Britain. That number is up 160% compared with 30 years ago. Soaring tourism is making a substantial footprint on Lapland's environment.
The shutdown of the U.S. government could have ripple effects for human health and the environment as an already weakened Environmental Protection Agency will see nearly all of its staff furloughed and many of its operations paused. The first shutdown in six years went into effect late Tuesday and requires federal agencies to stop all nonessential work. Most EPA work is considered only partially essential under federal rules.
[Our] goal is to give [students] a sense of how important it is to use the power that they will wield as a lawyer to bring about good in the communities that they live in and work in, he said. And so we want to empower them and we want to make communities strong and do service. To this end, he's pursued mission-driven goals.
Americans will pay more at the pump if Donald Trump succeeds in tossing out tailpipe pollution regulations, a new analysis shows. That's on top of job and GDP losses that could result from stifling innovation in cleaner transportation. The Trump administration wants to do away with the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, policies that have encouraged carmakers to manufacture more fuel-efficient cars and electric vehicles over time.
Water could be seen running next to the curb along Castleton Avenue, beginning at Brighton Avenue, near Morris Intermediate School. The water runs down Castleton and makes a right turn at N. Randall Avenue. The water continues to run for a bit longer until petering out near Valencia Avenue. The water runs for more than a tenth of a mile.
Monday, the Environmental Protection Agency began overseeing cleanup of the lithium-ion batteries that burned in a massive fire at the Moss Landing Power Plant in January. The effort, which involves removing tens of thousands of damaged battery modules, is the largest lithium-ion battery cleanup in the EPA's history.
On Jan. 16, lithium-ion batteries located in the Moss Landing storage facility and owned by Vistra, a Texas-based energy company, ignited and burned for two days. The fire, which burned about 55% of what was at the time the world's largest battery energy storage system, made international headlines and caused local concern and confusion over the possible environmental and health effects of the disaster.
We need to talk about e-bikes and e-scooters: The city of Alameda encourages active transportation walking, bicycling and riding public transportation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) that cause global warming and sea level rise and for the health benefits. Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft is the mayor of Alameda. (photo courtesy of Maurice Ramirez BANG archives) Transportation, primarily on-road travel, is the single largest source of GHGs in California, according to the California Air Resources Board.
The arroyo looks dry but there's water inside the bright-lipped cholla and yellow cactus, the belly of a fleeing rabbit, and the snake's bright stripes of pale on black crossing the junction of the Camino Real and the Armijo route where I once cradled a child's twisted ankle and carried him back along the brush to the parked school bus.
Despite being a small island nation, Palau became the first in the world to have adopted in 1981 a constitution banning nuclear weapons and created the world's first shark sanctuary in 2009, banning all commercial shark fishing in its waters. Between 2014 and 2015, the country experienced a rapid tourism boom, particularly with mass tourism from China, when annual visitor numbers reached a record 170,000.
As of Aug. 14, more than half a million motorists statewide had an active decal on their vehicle to access carpool lanes. California has an estimated 1,171 carpool lane-miles, with 803 miles in Southern California and 366 miles in Northern California, according to a UC Berkeley study. With more than 35 million total registered vehicles in California, that means 1% to 2% of the vehicle fleet will lose access to the carpool lane, said Antonio Bento, professor of public policy and economics at USC.
For as long as there have been people in what is now California, the granite peaks of the Sierra Nevada have held masses of ice, according to new research that shows the glaciers have probably existed since the last Ice Age more than 11,000 years ago. The remnants of these glaciers, which have already shrunk dramatically since the late 1800s, are retreating year after year, and are projected to melt completely this century as global temperatures continue to rise.
A 2022 study demonstrated that viewing an environment with natural elements stimulates a flexible imagination. The authors noted that nature allows our minds to temporarily detach from daily states, such as moments when we are in a daze or daydreaming, to obtain "flashes of inspiration." They provided evidence demonstrating that more unique and diverse creative ideas become possible when opinions are flexible, as may occur when we are in natural environments.
The world's biggest capital cities are now sweltering under 25% more extremely hot days each year than in the 1990s, an analysis has found. Without urgent action to protect millions of people from high temperatures, more and more will suffer in the dangerous conditions, analysts said. From Washington DC and Madrid to Tokyo and Beijing, the analysis shows a marked rise in hot days as the climate crisis intensifies.
Brooklyn-based CRÈME Architecture & Design has been exploring how to bypass the waste cycle of disposable cups through a biodegradable, molded gourd. CRÈME builds on this centuries-old craft by using molds to grow gourds directly into functional shapes - such as cups and flasks - creating sustainable, renewable, and compostable products with virtually no waste. Their custom-designed, 3D-printed molds echo the silhouette of a classic faceted glass, enabling gourds to grow into a stackable design.
Paddling through the inky blue water in Stockholm's outer archipelago, all I can see is scattered islands and birds. Some of the islands are mere skerries rocky outcrops and reefs so small they can host but a single cormorant drying its outstretched wings while others, such as our target Bulleron, can be a mile or more in length, with historic fishing huts, summer cottages and wooden jetties sitting among their smoothly weathered rocks and windswept forests.
The hope that followed the signing of the Paris climate agreement in 2016 has long gone as the global community has failed utterly to rein in emissions, which barring a small pandemic-induced blip in 2020 have headed remorselessly upwards ever since. And there is little sign of this changing anytime soon. Indeed, as global heating has accelerated over the past few years, instead of trying harder, the world is turning its back on measures to tackle the climate crisis.
Hoger points to a troubling legal loophole: "There's a thriving black market for trading protected species. Exotic animals are openly advertised in WhatsApp groups and at pet fairs even those strictly protected in their countries of origin. Because Germany doesn't recognize their protected status, these animals can be sold legally here, despite having been smuggled out illegally in the first place."
Highland Electric Fleets will provide 500 zero-emission school buses for the 2028 Olympic games to be held in Los Angeles. The vehicles, normally idle during the summer months, will be repurposed to transport accredited stakeholders across venues in Los Angeles. The initiative, presented at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum with Mayor Karen Bass, LA28 CEO Reynold Hoover, and Highland CEO Duncan McIntyre, is described as a first-of-its-kind program for a global sporting event.
