Eco Report – September 17, 2021

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HEADLINES

The Observer, the student newspaper at Notre Dame, reports the university has pledged to become a carbon-neutral campus by 2050, University President Friar John Jenkins announced last Friday.

—Norm Holy

IndyStar reports that an Indiana University scientist will lead an ambitious effort to determine the effect toxic chemicals have on an indigenous community in Alaska — research that might shed light more broadly on how contamination harms health and degrades the environment.

—Norm Holy

In 2020, the Trump administration endorsed spending millions of dollars on creating a uranium stockpile, known as a strategic uranium reserve, to boost domestic mining after years of industry lobbying. Now, Biden’s Department of Energy is following through on that proposal even though it conflicts with the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council’s recommendations to do no harm to frontline communities.

—Linda Greene

Harvard University, the world’s wealthiest institution of higher learning, has finally divested from fossil fuels. Specifically, the university no longer has any direct investments in fossil fuel companies, and it will permit its indirect investments through private equity funds to lapse.

—Linda Greene

Conservation groups who responded were disappointed with the Biden administration’s long-awaited new rule for protecting the endangered North Atlantic right whales from Maine to Florida, citing that they want more decisive action from the government to protect whales.

—Norm Holy

The state of California is teaming with conservation groups, biologists and scores of citizen scientists to rescue the western monarch butterfly from the brink of extinction.

—Norm Holy

Two new studies carry serious warnings about deaths from air pollution. The first, published in the BMJ Journal, concluded that long-term exposure to air pollution is associated with higher levels of illness and death even when the pollution levels are well below legal limits set by the EPA, European Union and World Health Organization. The second study concluded that air pollution is shortening the lives of billions of people by up to six years.

—Linda Greene

A third to a half of the world’s wild tree species are at risk of extinction, threatening the existence of the wider ecosystem. That’s the conclusion of the State of the World’s Trees report, which was issued recently along with a call for urgent action to reverse the trend.

—Linda Greene