Category: COVID-19

Neighbors worried about pollution from troubled North Side scrap shredder during pandemic

Read the full story in the Chicago Tribune.

Much of Chicago is shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic, but a North Side company with a long history of pollution problems is still shredding flattened cars, twisted rebar and used appliances every day.

Neighbors are livid.

They have been complaining for years about metallic odors from General Iron Industries, a scrap yard sandwiched between the densely populated Bucktown and Lincoln Park neighborhoods. With Chicagoans under orders to stay home until at least April 7, many are worried their exposure to air pollution could make people more susceptible to a dangerous coronavirus that attacks the lungs and upper-respiratory tract.

Food waste and food insecurity rising amid coronavirus panic

Read the full story in National Geographic.

Nervous consumers hoard groceries and restaurants go take-out, while unemployment skyrockets and food pantries suffer. But solutions exist.

COVID-19 will slow the global shift to renewable energy, but can’t stop it

Read the full story at The Conversation.

The renewable energy industry, which until recently was projected to enjoy rapid growth, has run into stiff headwinds as a result of three era-defining events: the COVID-19 pandemic, the resulting global financial contraction and a collapse in oil prices. These are interrelated, mutually reinforcing events.

It’s much too early to be able to assess how large their economic, environmental and policy impacts will be. But as someone who has worked on energy policy in academia, the industry, the federal government and Wall Street, I expect a significant short-run contraction followed by a catch-up period over the next few years that returns us to the same long-term path – perhaps even a better one.

Coronavirus Pandemic Spawns Many Stories on Environment Beat

Read the full SEJ Issue Backgrounder.

For journalists reporting about coronavirus/COVID-19, the main story — the reason it is top news — is the viral pandemic that is killing people all over the world. That said, COVID-19, along with its causes and consequences, is also a major story for the environment and energy beats. 

Journalists of all flavors have been busy writing about that. And you can, too. But your audience will be well served if you don’t stretch the environment and energy connection too far just to tag along on a top story.

Still, many journalists have drawn connections between the COVID-19 story and the other big environment story, climate. The important links involve collective denial of a looming public disaster and failure to take effective action in time to minimize and respond to it.

Citing outbreak, EPA has stopped enforcing environmental laws

Read the full story from PBS Newshour.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday abruptly waived enforcement on a range of legally mandated public health and environmental protections, saying industries could have trouble complying with them during the coronavirus pandemic.

The oil and gas industry were among the industries that had sought an advance relaxation of environmental and public health enforcement during the outbreak, citing potential staffing problems. The EPA’s decision was sweeping, forgoing fines or other civil penalties for companies that failed to monitor, report or meet some other requirements for releasing hazardous pollutants.

IFT20 will go virtual because of coronavirus threat

Read the full story at Food Dive.

The Institute of Food Technologists is transitioning its annual event and food expo to a virtual experience, the group announced Monday night. IFT20 was scheduled for July 12-15 in Chicago.

In a video posted to IFT’s conference website, IFT Board President Pam Coleman said this decision was thought to be the safest course of action in light of continuing developments around the spread of COVID-19. The decision was made now to give food scientists, experts and exhibitors time to change their travel plans and shift gears.

“IFT’s board focused on a solution that provided an engaging, accessible and inclusive platform which will be able to convene our global community, enabling us to connect, to learn, to share knowledge and to advance the science of food and food innovation — a purpose that is more important today than ever before,” Coleman said in the video.

Pandemic response should mobilize around low-carbon solutions

Read the full story at Policy Options.

Canada has an opportunity to meet urgent needs, while taking a significant step towards the future sustainable economy it already wants to build.

Coronavirus is wreaking havoc on scientific field work

Read the full story in the Washington Post.

As the novel coronavirus pandemic continues to upend life around the world, scientific research is beginning to suffer. Over the past several weeks, major Earth science field campaigns, some years in the making, have been called off or postponed indefinitely.

COVID-19 puts BYO coffee cups on hold, but sanitized reusable systems could fill the void

Read the full story at WasteDive.

Major brands like Starbucks and Dunkin’ have banned the use of personal to-go containers in recent weeks over coronavirus fears, raising new questions in a wider debate around packaging safety.

The Ecology of Disease

Read the full story in the New York Times.

There’s a term biologists and economists use these days — ecosystem services — which refers to the many ways nature supports the human endeavor. Forests filter the water we drink, for example, and birds and bees pollinate crops, both of which have substantial economic as well as biological value.

If we fail to understand and take care of the natural world, it can cause a breakdown of these systems and come back to haunt us in ways we know little about. A critical example is a developing model of infectious disease that shows that most epidemics — AIDS, Ebola, West Nile, SARS, Lyme disease and hundreds more that have occurred over the last several decades — don’t just happen. They are a result of things people do to nature.

Coronavirus: The worst way to drive down emissions

Read the full story in Grist.

The rapidly spreading coronavirus has infected over 90,000 people worldwide, stoked fears about a worldwide pandemic, and rattled global markets. The coronavirus is also having an unexpected environmental effect: It’s cutting carbon emissions.

China’s work stoppages and flagging industrial output have decreased the country’s normally sky-high carbon emissions by at least a quarter, according to an analysis recently published in CarbonBrief by Lauri Myllyvirta, an analyst at the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air. That drop translates to a 6 percent decline in overall global emissions. New research from China’s statistics bureau shows that the country’s factory activity suffered the deepest contraction on record last month.

A decline in air travel might be playing a supporting role. By mid-February, around 13,000 flights a day had been canceled, with many airlines suspending flights to and from mainland China. Aviation remains one of the most carbon-intensive activities, accounting for 2 percent of emissions worldwide.

But how should we think about something as objectively terrible as the coronavirus — which has left more than 3,000 people dead — temporarily slowing climate change?

ASTM Standards & COVID-19

ASTM International is providing no-cost public access to important ASTM standards used in the production and testing of personal protective equipment – including face masks, medical gowns, gloves, and hand sanitizers – to support manufacturers, test labs, health care professionals, and the general public as they respond to the global COVID-19 public health emergency.

Destroying habitats has opened a Pandora’s box for new diseases to emerge

Read the full story at GreenBiz.

Research suggests that outbreaks of animal-borne and other infectious diseases such as Ebola, SARS, bird flu and COVID-19, caused by a novel coronavirus, are on the rise. Pathogens are crossing from animals to humans, and many are able to spread quickly to new places. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that three-quarters of “new or emerging” diseases that infect humans originate in nonhuman animals.

Some, such as rabies and plague, crossed from animals centuries ago. Others, such as Marburg, thought to be transmitted by bats, are still rare. A few, such as COVID-19, which emerged last year in Wuhan, China, and MERS, linked to camels in the Middle East, are new to humans and spreading globally.

Other diseases that have crossed into humans include Lassa fever, first identified in 1969 in Nigeria; Nipah from Malaysia; and SARS from China, which killed more than 700 people and traveled to 30 countries in 2002–03. Some, such as Zika and West Nile virus, which emerged in Africa, have mutated and become established on other continents.

Kate Jones, chair of ecology and biodiversity at UCL, calls emerging animal-borne infectious diseases an “increasing and very significant threat to global health, security and economies.”

Food waste impacts emerging as coronavirus shifts life from commercial to residential

Read the full story in Waste Dive.

Food waste experts are slowly assessing the short and long-term impacts of the new coronavirus, which remain murky. With the fallout likely stretching into coming months, some are worried about supply chain impacts — including food recovery for donation — as well as a future uptick in waste amid dramatic lifestyle alterations. 

Initial volume shifts are unclear at the moment, but a major surge in grocery purchases appears to be driving a decline in food waste associated with retail. Higher education and entertainment venue closures, however, are generating greater amounts than usual, while the shuttering of farmer’s markets is also expected to drive an increase in discarded products.   

One concern is public demand for food may lead to an uptick in waste, not only through organics, but through packaging as people shift to takeout and delivery. “I think waste is very low priority [for people right now], but food is very high priority,” Dana Gunders, executive director of ReFED, told Waste Dive. Her organization and the Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic (FLPC) are sharing resources aimed at connecting those issues. 

Alcohol companies pivot to producing hand sanitizer as coronavirus intensifies

Read the full story in Food Dive. See also Parade Magazine’s running list of distilleries making hand sanitizer.

As consumers are emptying store shelves of hand sanitizer and causing shortages, spirit makers are producing branded hand sanitizers that they are donating, according to Beverage Industry. Both local distilleries and nationally recognized companies such as Pernod Ricard, Diageo and Anheuser-Busch  are taking part in producing hand sanitizer.

This surge in distillery-produced hand sanitizer follows the FDA’s announcement last week that the agency will permit certain facilities and licensed professionals to produce hand sanitizer as long as they follow the agency’s prescribed recipe.

“The hospitality industry is going to be decimated by this and they are our primary clients. We’re looking for ways to help in the response to this, but also to find other ways to look for revenue streams,” Brad Plummer, spokesman for the American Distilling Institute and editor of Distiller Magazine told NBC News.