Read the full story from Wisconsin Public Radio.
Underscoring a new push to advance equity and justice, an Environmental Protection Agency leader said Monday the federal regulator is hiring about five full-time employees to work on environmental justice.
Jun 23, 2022, 2 pm CDT
Register here.
Competing priorities in primary and secondary school systems mean there is rarely enough money to fund capital building projects which improve efficiency, health and the bottom line. There are ways to overcome this funding barrier. One is a proven model of internal capital financing referred to as a Green Revolving Fund (GRF).
During this webinar, presenters will explore the virtuous cycle of the revolving fund and showcase stories from K-12 schools that are using the GRF model to support sustainability programs on their campuses, including successes and pitfalls. Attendees will see first-hand the various tools designed specifically to help institutions implement and manage a fund, from simple spreadsheets to the GRITS software.
We welcome all school leaders and community advocates interested in financing sustainability programs with a revolving fund to join us for this free webinar.
Presenters
The Duke Carbon Offsets Initiative is collecting information about how higher education institutions with carbon neutrality goals use (or don’t use) carbon offsets. The goal of the survey is to better understand how institutions think about and interact with carbon offsets.
Institutions with a carbon neutrality goal are invited to complete the confidential survey by June 30.
Read the full story from the University of Queensland.
Researchers have found a species of worm with an appetite for polystyrene could be the key to plastic recycling on a mass scale.
Read the full story from the University of Southampton.
Research has revealed that an abrupt change in climate conditions in the North Atlantic around 800 years ago played a role in a decline in Atlantic salmon populations returning to rivers. Subsequent human exploitation of salmon combined to reduce their populations still further.
Read the full story at Waste Today.
A former hazardous waste landfill in Waukegan, Illinois, is getting a second life as a renewable energy facility after decades of mitigation efforts by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Located 42 miles north of Chicago, the Yeoman Creek Landfill has been on the federal Superfund list since its closure in the late 1960s. Cleanup to address high levels of methane and other toxic gasses is largely complete, though EPA is still monitoring the site.
While a site of this nature can come with several restrictions and regulations, BQ Energy CEO Paul Curran views it as a business opportunity. As reported by WBEZ, the New York-based company will be installing 20,000 solar panels on the Yeoman Creek site—a project that will cost roughly $10 million.
The Washington State Department of Ecology has published Cost Analysis for Pollution Prevention, a guide to help identify major costs for current industrial processes and potential pollution prevention alternatives. It provides basic information about calculating payback while considering operational costs, environmental compliance requirements, and oversight costs.
Read the full story from the University of Washington.
Countries around the world pledged in the Paris Agreement to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, or, at most, 2 degrees Celsius. As emissions rates gradually begin to decline, countries are looking at how many greenhouse gases can still be emitted while remaining below these temperature targets, which are deemed the upper limits to avoid the most catastrophic impacts to the climate system.
New research led by the University of Washington calculates how much warming is already guaranteed by past emissions. While previous research has explored this question for carbon dioxide, the new work includes related emissions such as methane, nitrogen oxide and aerosols, like sulfur or soot.
Read the full story from the National Center for Institutional Diversity.
In this Spark series we learn from scholars writing from multiple positionalities: those living in environmental justice communities, scholars based in traditional academic settings working in partnership with environmental justice communities, scholars from environmental justice communities working within traditional academic settings, and those creating innovative local solutions while experiencing environmental collapse. The series encompasses work that employs multiple formats, takes an explicitly anti-racist approach to inform public discussion, and lifts up leadership from those historically marginalized from decision making processes.
Read the full story at Environment + Energy Leader.
Over the past 25 years, hospitals have decreased fossil fuel use, but electricity use isn’t declining as much. According to a survey by Grumman|Butkus Associates, the average combined Btu/ft2 (electricity plus gas/steam) for participating facilities was 236,743 in this year’s survey, up from 233,491 in 2019.
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