If the Chicago region replaced 30% of all on-road combustion-engine vehicles — including motorcycles, passenger cars and trucks, buses, refuse trucks and short- and long-haul trucks — with electric versions, it would annually save more than 1,000 lives and over $10 billion, according to a new Northwestern University study. The new study, which simulates air...
The closure in January 2016 of one of Pittsburgh’s biggest coal-processing plants led to immediate and lasting declines in emissions of fossil fuel-related air pollutants. These in turn were linked to near-instant decreases in local heart-related emergency department visits and hospitalizations for cardiovascular diseases, a new study shows. The impact of the closure persisted through...
A group of researchers from the Nicolaus Copernicus University, the SWPS University in Warsaw, and the University of Waikato in New Zealand have for some time been scientifically looking at the relationship between different types of identifications with a group and attitudes towards, for example, science, vaccines and workplace behaviour. This time they were interested...
There is a massive, mineral-rich region in the Pacific Ocean—about twice the size of India—called the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), which has already been divided up and assigned to companies for future deep-sea mining. To better understand what may be at risk once companies start mining, a team of biologists has built the first “CCZ checklist”...
New simulation combines emissions with weather and chemistry in an air-quality model First neighborhood-scale simulation of its kind focused on Chicago tracks air quality hour by hour across areas as small as 1.3 kilometers-sized blocks Simulation can show how pollutants move across space and time throughout the city and surrounding areas Air pollution along highways...
Construction of the main railway lines in Sweden included a large-scale garden project. Parks and kitchen gardens were built around the new stations, and long hedges were planted along the railways. A new dissertation from the University of Gothenburg describes how this came to be and explains why almost all of these cultivated areas are...
Shaking a traditional rattle, Brazil’s incoming head of Indigenous affairs recently walked through every corner of the agency’s headquarters — even its coffee room — as she invoked help from ancestors during a ritual cleansing. The ritual carried extra meaning for Joenia Wapichana, Brazil’s first Indigenous woman to command the agency charged with protecting the...
Located in the low-lying islands in the Bay of Bengal, the Sundarbans straddle the border between India and Bangladesh and cover more than 1 million hectares, making them the world’s largest single contiguous mangrove swamp. A Ramsar site added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1987, they are home to a wide range of...
Climate change is already affecting much of the world’s population, with startlingly high temperatures from the Arctic to Australia. Air pollution from wildfires, vehicles and industries threatens human health. Bees and pollinators are dying in unprecedented numbers that may force changes in crop production and food availability. What do these have in common? They represent...
New research reveals how climate change is likely to increase the potential for wine production in the UK – with conditions projected to resemble those in famous growing regions of France and Germany. Over the last 20 years, climate change has contributed to a growth in UK vineyard area – with more than 800 vineyards...
