Day: November 25, 2021

Fashion & beauty products, Textiles

This luxurious fabric breaks down in the ocean without leaving a trace

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Read the full story in Popular Science.

More than 70 percent of textiles used in the U.S. ends up dumped in a landfill or  burned instead of recycled. Threads from the washing machine or a landfill then eventually make their way to waterways. 

Enter sustainable fabrics. One company in particular, Lenzing, an Austria-based sustainable fiber producer that developed TENCEL, which are fibers that biodegrade rapidly in comparison with other regularly used fibers like polyester, creates fiber from raw material from wood. The plant base makes the fabric compostable, and materials are from a sustainably managed forest. 

Publications, Solar

Global online inventory of PV systems exceeding 10 kW in size

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Read the full story at pv magazine.

Through the inventory, an international group of researchers was able to identify 68,661 PV facilities, totaling 423 GW across 31 countries. According to the scientists, the online database provides insight into global trends for PV siting decisions, as well as into the gap between facility-level final investment decisions, construction start dates, construction completion dates and facility operations.

History, Information tools, Land use, Tribal/First nations

Native Land Information System (NLIS)

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Access the portal here.

The Native Land Information System (NLIS) was developed by the Native Lands Advocacy Project (NLAP); a project of Village Earth, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in Fort Collins, Colorado, with funding from the Indian Land Tenure Foundation. The NLIS serves as repository of learning resources, information, and data to help defend and protect native lands for the benefit of native peoples. It aims at challenging the status quo around historical data colonialism in Native Lands.

Information tools, Plastics

URI launches ‘Plastics: Land to Sea’ web platform

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Read the full story from the University of Rhode Island.

A new University of Rhode Island web platform, “Plastics: Land to Sea,” has been launched to provide the science community with a burgeoning array of data resources and tools designed to inform and support dialogue concerning research focused efforts to start addressing plastics pollution. The platform can be found at: plastics.uri.edu.

Climate change, Publications, Tribal/First nations

Near total loss of historical lands leaves Indigenous nations in the US more vulnerable to climate change

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Read the full story from the University of Michigan.

In a first-of-its-kind study, a team of researchers attempted to quantify the massive loss of historical lands by Indigenous nations across the United States since European settlers first began laying claim to the continent.

They also found historical land dispossession was associated with current and future climate risks as Indigenous peoples were forced to lands that are more exposed to a range of climate change risks and hazards and less likely to lie over valuable subsurface oil and gas resources.

Corporate sustainability, Standards

Investors can now police net-zero claims with this new tool

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Read the full story at Bloomberg Quint.

As corporations have churned out net-zero CO2 pledges, investors have so far had little hope of holding them to account. That’s about to change. The Science Based Targets initiative, a widely respected framework for certifying corporate climate policies, is introducing a Net Zero Standard to provide an “independent assessment of corporate net-zero target setting.” That means there’s now a tool that can reveal whether the growing list of companies — 600 and counting — that are promising net-zero emissions by mid-century actually have credible plans to reach that goal.

Wildlife

Eagles, beavers, sea turtles: Why N.Y.C. is humming with wildlife

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Read the full story in the New York Times.

New York is now ‘the greenest big city on earth,’ one naturalist said. Some creatures have noticed and are staying for a while.

Data science, Information tools, Wildlife

NOAA’s National Marine Ecosystem Status website provides one-stop shop for key marine ecosystem data

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Read the full story from NOAA.

Today, NOAA is announcing a re-launch of its National Marine Ecosystem Status website, a tool that provides easy access to NOAA’s wide range of important coastal and marine ecosystem data. The website provides a starting point for educators, outreach specialists, and the interested public to explore the status of seven major U.S. marine ecosystems and the nation. The re-launch of the site features updated indicator data, new regional coverage for some existing indicators, and a completely new Marine Species Distribution Indicator.

Wildlife

As hunting wanes, fear of a southern Michigan deer invasion grows

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Read the full story at Bridge Michigan.

They’re nature’s gentle beasts, but in parts of Michigan they’ve grown so numerous that they’re becoming a destructive nuisance, edging out other species like woodland songbirds, devouring agricultural crops and backyard gardens, stunting forest growth and driving up the rate of auto crashes. 

And with traditional deer hunting in decline and continued land development pushing humans and wild animals ever-closer together, species managers say the imbalance now felt most acutely in southern Michigan’s suburbs is likely to continue spreading across the Lower Peninsula.

Environmental disasters

Facebook’s submarine cable project marred by ‘Frac Outs’ and sinkholes

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Read the full story at 6Park.news.

Facebook recently completed a connection on the Oregon coast for 8,500 miles of fiber optic cable that runs under the Pacific Ocean. However, this important technical achievement came at a cost.

The project was delayed for about two years and was marred by a massive drilling fluid leak, a drone dispute, tons of broken abandoned equipment and at least two sumps.

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