Read the full story at Inside Climate.
Eric Schneiderman says he has evidence that Exxon used one set of numbers in describing risks to investors but used a secret set internally.
Day: June 5, 2017
The Endangered Species Act is often too little too late, but it’s all we’ve got
Read the full story from Grist.
Why isn’t the ESA more effective? The reasons are myriad, but they boil down to the problem that by the time most species are listed, they’re too far gone for the act to be able to do much to revive them, both from a cost and feasibility perspective. And it doesn’t help that there’s more demand than ever before.
EPA says Trump budget would ensure resources needed for TSCA
Read the full story from ChemicalWatch.
Despite the Trump administration’s proposal to massively cut the US EPA’s funding, the agency says the draft federal budget ensures it has the resources to address the safety of new and existing chemicals through implementation of the new TSCA.
This sentiment was expressed in the EPA’s “Budget in Brief” – a document that explains how the agency would make use of the funds allocated to it by the administration’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2018.
Viewing this together with documents leaked by the nonprofit National Association of Clean Air Agencies (NACAA) – which include more details on the programme-level cuts posited by the Trump administration – sheds more light on the changes that could come in the EPA’s work on chemicals.
EPA Gives to Toxics With One Hand What It Takes From Climate
Read the full story from Chemical Regulation Reporter.
Climate change’s loss at the EPA has been a boon to its chemicals work, which has been the recipient of funds previously earmarked for greenhouse gases.
Rethinking the water cycle through corporate collaboration
“Business as usual will lead to a 40 percent gap in supply demand of water by 2030,” said Emilio Tenuta, vice president of corporate sustainability at Ecolab. However, despite water conservation projects, since 2011, corporate water use has declined only by 10 percent.
According to Tenuta, if the world is to address the pressing issue of water quality scarcity, “we’re going to have to create partnerships that accelerate change and reinvent the way we work.”
Success and resilience in a water quality constrained world will require ingenuity and collaboration to go beyond conservation to reuse, recycling and stewardship. One of these partnerships includes Ecolab, a global services provider; software solutions provider Microsoft; and Trucost, a natural capital accounting expert.
Together, they are aiming to be part of the solution by improving water risk analysis in the next-generation Water Risk Monetizer tool, which they launched in March. Collaboration helps leverage perspective and expertise to be part of the solution, said Tenuta: “Water conservation alone is delaying the inevitable.”
Putting Green Infrastructure on Private Property in New York City
This paper proceeds in four sections. The first provides an overview of the problems confronting New York City as a result of existing stormwater management infrastructure and regulation, and also summarizes the City’s current green infrastructure (GI) goals. The second section summarizes the benefits and costs that are expected to accompany GI in the New York City context. The third describes the City’s goals for creating GI on public and private property, as well as the timeframes currently envisioned for the task. It also notes the particular importance — and difficulty — of scaling up GI installations on private property. Finally, the fourth section examines the knotty administrative and legal issues involved in using public money to increase the volume of GI on private property.
Does Silicon Valley Still Care About Climate Change?
Read the full story in the Harvard Business Review.
Earlier this month, venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins began the process of separating its cleantech investing from the rest of its fund. It marks the end of an era. Ten years after Kleiner star John Doerr was moved to tears during his TED talk about climate change, there’s no longer any question that VCs’ interest in clean energy is waning.
Save Energy, Save Lives: Announcing ACEEE’s newest program, Health and Environment
Read the full post from ACEEE.
Energy efficiency doesn’t just protect indoor health; it cleans outside air by reducing pollution from fossil fuel combustion. Power plants and vehicles create pollution by burning fossil fuels, causing hospitalizations and premature deaths. Energy efficiency policies have reduced the pollution of hundreds of power plants and improved the fuel economy of tens of millions of new vehicles. Yet four out of every 10 people in the US still live where the air is unhealthy
At ACEEE we recognize that increasing energy efficiency doesn’t just save us money; it improves public health. Today ACEEE is launching a Health and Environment program with a team dedicated to helping people understand how energy efficiency affects our health–both indoors and out.
Why The Supreme Court’s Ruling In Toner Cartridge Case Is A Win For Consumers
Read the full post at Consumerist.
“Patent exhaustion” isn’t exactly a thrilling pair of words. But that was the crux of a case the Supreme Court ruled on today that answered one incredibly important question for consumers: Can a company that sold you something use its patent on that product to control how you choose to use after you buy it?
Happily for consumers, the Court’s answer is, basically, “nope.”
The Court heard the case, Impression Products, Inc v Lexmark International, Inc, in March and issued a final ruling on the matter today.
The key question at play in the Lexmark case was one of patent exhaustion. Precedent has held that a patent-holder’s rights are used up — legally, exhausted — at the moment that it sells the thing it has a patent on to someone else. But in the modern era of microchips and DRM, some usage restrictions are suddenly enforceable long after an original item is sold. So question the Court was setting out to answer was: Can the company that sold you something it holds the patent on determine what you do with it after you’ve bought it, or do they exhaust their patent and therefore relinquish control?
That case was, basically, a dispute between a company that makes printers (Lexmark) and a third-party company that makes and refills ink and toner cartridges for use in printers (Impression Products).
Even as Wind Power Rises, It Falls Under a Political Cloud
Read the full story in the New York Times.
As utility operations increasingly avail themselves of wind, the administration looks at whether conventional sources have been placed at a disadvantage.
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