Day: August 27, 2021

Webinar: Nature-based pollution prevention – Tactics for implementation, reporting, and partnerships

Sep 15, 2021 noon-1 pm CDT
Register here.

From strategic tree plantings to wetland restoration projects, nature-based solutions (NbS) are quickly becoming a key part of many pollution prevention strategies. These solutions are accessible, scalable and offer many co-benefits, like increased biodiversity and climate resilience. In this webinar, experts and advocates from a federal agency, the private sector and a nonprofit will explore how NbS can advance pollution prevention goals on corporate lands while enhancing ecosystem services and contributing to local, regional and large-scale restoration efforts. The panelists will explain how their respective organizations approach pollution prevention, provide insights on implementation and share success stories from their work.

What you’ll learn

  • Best practices for nature-based pollution prevention
  • How pollution prevention tactics can translate into key metrics
  • The benefits of forming inter-sector partnerships for pollution prevention initiatives

Who should take this webinar

  • Corporate teams looking to implement site-based pollution prevention work
  • Representatives from nonprofits and government agencies who want to learn how corporations are utilizing NbS for pollution prevention

Tampa Bay Water asks users to cut back as COVID-19 saps oxygen supplies

Read the full story in the Tampa Bay Times.

Hospitals and municipal water systems are in competition for crucial supplies of liquid oxygen. Facing a shortage, utilities are switching chemicals.

EPA dismissed Biden officials’ criticism of auto emissions plan

Read the full story from Bloomberg Green.

White House and other administration officials told the Environmental Protection Agency that its industry-backed plan for tightening auto emissions limits was too lax, but the agency rebuffed those warnings and released the proposal with provisions that could lessen its bite.

Climate change in California is threatening the world’s top almond producer

Read the full story at NPR.

A historic drought across the U.S. West is taking a heavy toll on California’s $6 billion almond industry, which produces roughly 80% of the world’s almonds. More growers are expected to abandon their orchards as water becomes scarce and expensive.

Guess who’s coming to dinner? Roadkill placed on ‘sky tables’ to lure rare birds of prey

Read the full story in The Guardian.

Farmers are laying out carcasses to tempt vultures and eagles back to the UK countryside.

3D-printed concrete to help build $147B UK high-speed rail system

Read the full story at Smart Cities Dive.

Skanska is planning to use 3D-printed concrete in its work on HS2, a high-speed rail system reported to cost as much as $147 billion, under construction in the U.K. 

The joint venture between Skanska, U.K. civil contractor Costain and Austrian contractor Strabag will employ a technology called “Printfrastructure” that will print concrete structures on site instead of shipping them in prefabricated slabs or mixing and pouring it at the location. 

The machine is also capable of going into physically restricting spaces, removing the costs of sending people in to do the same job. Proof-of-concept trials are due to begin next spring, according to an HS2 press release.

California is considering legalizing composting the dead

Read the full story from Los Angeles Magazine.

A bill introduced by a local legislator could give folks in the Golden State a greener alternative to burial or cremation.

Computer models of civilization offer routes to ending global warming

Read the full story from NPR.

As the world’s top climate scientists released a report full of warnings this week, they kept insisting that the world still has a chance to avoid the worst effects of climate change…

That hopeful pathway, in which dangerous changes to the world’s climate eventually stop, is the product of giant computer simulations of the world economy. They’re called integrated assessment models. There are half a dozen major versions of them: four developed in Europe, one in Japan, and one in the U.S., at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

Sustainable bank Aspiration is going public via a SPAC

Read the full story at Fast Company.

The company, which offers services like buying offsets when you buy gas and using the money from rounded-up purchases to plant trees, will be valued at $2.3 billion.

Surface water vulnerable to widespread pollution from fracking, a new study finds

Read the full story at Inside Climate News.

The research suggests that the impacts of the fracking boom may have outrun the science documenting its effects.