I checked in with the How2Recycle director about where the label fits in with the latest recycling trends.

Sponsored: The U.S. dairy sector is identifying promising solutions, practices and technologies that are paving the way for a more sustainable future.

A bump in the road could shake confidence — and hold lessons for other climate tech startups.

Earth’s average temperature has “shattered” the previous record for September by more than 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit, the biggest monthly margin ever recorded.

According to separate analyses by climate scientists from Japan and Europe, last month temperatures all over the world were more like July, reported The Washington Post.

“It’s astounding to see the previous record broken by so much,” said Kristina Dahl, principal climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, as WIRED reported. “And astounding to see that the global temperature this September is on par with what we normally see in July — the hottest month of the year, typically. So it really just illustrates how profoundly our climate is shifting.”

The average global temperature for September was about 1.8 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average.

“The first global temperature data is in for the full month of September. This month was, in my professional opinion as a climate scientist – absolutely gobsmackingly bananas. JRA-55 beat the prior monthly record by over 0.5C, and was around 1.8C warmer than [pre-industrial] levels,” Zeke Hausfather, a climate researcher with Berkeley Earth, posted on X.

The temperature estimates were calculated using climate models based on data from all over the globe.

“Concerning, worrying, wild — whatever superlative you want to use,” said Kate Marvel, senior scientist at nonprofit Project Drawdown, as reported by WIRED. “That’s what it is.”

Weather satellite data also revealed that September was by far the warmest ever, which scientists say is indicative of El Niño along with human-caused climate change.

The current El Niño climate pattern is still developing, but the phenomenon is generally known to add a few tenths of a degree Celsius through the transfer of ocean warmth into the atmosphere. It does this through wind patterns moving over the tropics that allow heat from the ocean’s depths to rise to the surface.

“I’m still struggling to comprehend how a single year can jump so much compared to previous years. Just by adding the latest data point, the linear warming trend since 1979 increased by 10%,” Mika Rantanen, a weather and climate change impact researcher with the Finnish Meteorological Institute, said on X.

The last major El Niño was in 2015 and 2016, but the planet is much hotter this year. There have been marine heat waves across the globe, increasing the likelihood of the extreme weather, flooding and brutal heat that people all over the world have been experiencing.

“What the science says is that every tenth of a degree matters. Every ton of emissions that can be avoided matters. If the world passes 1.5, then you shoot for 1.6. If it passes 1.6, you shoot for 1.7. And I think we now know after this year how 1.5 is not safe,” Marvel said, as WIRED reported.

The post Global Heat Record for September ‘Shattered’ by Wide Margin appeared first on EcoWatch.

Few images of childhood are as iconic as the yellow school bus. Perhaps that’s because…

The post Why It’s Time for Electric School Buses appeared first on Earth911.

If your company’s climate goals are misaligned with your trade association memberships, it’s time to act now.

It’s October, which means pumpkin season is here. From pumpkin spiced lattes to pumpkin pies,…

The post Leave no Waste: Pumpkins appeared first on Earth911.

In an appeal to those who deny climate change and politicians who have been slow to take action to mitigate it, Pope Francis has written a 7,000-word “Apostolic Exhortation” urging the world to speed up its transition to renewable energy.

Pope Francis said the human factors contributing to climate change and the scientific facts behind global heating cannot be ignored or denied while our planet “may be nearing the breaking point,” reported Reuters.

“With the passage of time, I have realized that our responses have not been adequate, while the world in which we live is collapsing,” Pope Francis wrote, as The New York Times reported.

The document, released ahead of next month’s COP28 climate conference in Dubai, is entitled Laudate Deum (Praise God). It follows his encyclical on the environment from 2015, Laudato Si (Praise Be).

Since the publication of Laudato Si, extreme weather events he said were the planet’s “cries of protest” inspired him to write Laudate Deum.

“Despite all attempts to deny, conceal, gloss over or relativize the issue, the signs of climate change are here and increasingly evident. No one can ignore the fact that in recent years we have witnessed extreme weather phenomena, frequent periods of unusual heat, drought and other cries of protest,” Pope Francis wrote, as reported by CNN.

In his plea, Pope Francis warned against investing too much trust in carbon capture technology. While it may be promising, he said, it did not address the root human causes of global warming.

“Some effects of the climate crisis are already irreversible, at least for several hundred years, such as the increase in the global temperature of the oceans, their acidification and the decrease of oxygen,” he wrote.

Pope Francis also said activist groups should not be called “radicalised” since they are “filling a space left empty by society as a whole,” Reuters reported.

He noted the speed of the changes that are happening to the planet in “one generation — not centuries or millennia,” as reported by Reuters.

“The rise in the sea level and the melting of glaciers can be easily perceived by an individual in his or her lifetime, and probably in a few years many populations will have to move their homes because of these facts,” Pope Francis wrote.

He called for businesses and “certain countries” to abandon their short-term interests, saying the climate change’s “antropic” origins could no longer be denied.

“If we are confident in the capacity of human beings to transcend their petty interests and to think in bigger terms, we can keep hoping that COP28 will allow for a decisive acceleration of energy transition, with effective commitments subject to ongoing monitoring,” Pope Francis wrote, as Reuters reported.

The post Pope Francis Urges World to Speed Up Transition to Renewable Energy appeared first on EcoWatch.

Smoke from wildfires across the continental U.S is stalling — in some places, reversing — years of progress on air quality. 

A new study published in Nature found that since 2016, wildfire smoke has undone 25 percent of air quality improvements achieved since 2000. 

“We’re not back to 2000 levels. But in some parts of the country where we’re headed in that direction,” said Marshall Burke, the study’s lead author and professor of environmental policy at Stanford University. 

That’s concerning because previous studies found that wildfire smoke is bad for human health. It’s not just that it exacerbates respiratory illnesses like asthma; breathing in wildfire smoke is also associated with an increased risk of cancer, heart attacks, and preterm birth.

“Basically we find that there is no safe level of exposure,” Burke said. 

His latest study found that air pollution varied by state — in Oregon, wildfire smoke has become so severe as to erase much of the air quality progress of the past two decades. 

The problem isn’t limited to the West. Burke noted that the study found smoke influenced pollution levels even in the South, Midwest and Northeast — regions where wildfires are far less common.

“The influence of wildfire smoke is broad and it is affecting populations that did not used to be affected,” Burke said. “We are seeing influence in states that basically have none of their own wildfires. They are getting affected by wildfires from thousands of miles away.”

The new study analyzed data up to 2022, meaning it didn’t include any data from the Canadian wildfire smoke that shrouded New York City in an orange haze earlier this year, nor the air pollution produced by the West Maui wildfire last month, the deadliest in modern U.S. history. 

Researchers used ground and satellite-based data that was only available comprehensively for the 48 contiguous states, Burke said. The study also notes that air pollution from wildfires is not currently included under any federal air quality regulations. 

The number of wildfires globally is expected to grow by 50 percent by 2100, according to a report published by the United Nations Environmental Programme and the Norway-based environmental nonprofit group GRID-Arendal last year. 

One key factor behind the increase in U.S. wildfire pollution is climate change. But another reason is poor land management. A recent study found that prescribed burns could reduce wildfire smoke exposure in California. Such intentional burns have been used to manage forests by Indigenous communities there for thousands of years. But in 1850, the U.S. government outlawed such fires. 

That’s a key reason why so many forests are carpeted with layers upon layers of ready fuel. In the Sierras, “it is just remarkable how much dead trees and dead wood there is in the forest,” Burke said.

“Parts of the forest you literally can’t walk through because of the accumulated fuel,” he said.
“So that stuff is just ready to go if it’s hot and you get a spark.” 

California has more recently changed its stance, making it easier for Indigenous cultural practitioners to engage in controlled burns, but there are still a lot of hurdles to conducting prescribed burns, including fears of legal liability and the vastness of the forests themselves. Meanwhile, Indigenous communities are among those exposed to a disproportionate amount of wildfire smoke.

In addition to changing land management policies, there are also things that people can do personally to help protect the health of themselves and their families. Heidi Huber-Stearns is a researcher at the Western Forest and Fire Initiative at the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability. She recommends people go to AirNow.gov to see current data on air quality in their communities. The Environmental Protection Agency also provides a smoke-ready toolbox with suggestions for how to protect your health, such as creating your own indoor air cleaning device.  

But Huber-Stearns adds that not everyone faces the same risk from wildfire smoke. Like Native peoples, outdoor workers and unhoused people are more likely to be exposed to air pollution. People without access to technology and non-English speakers are less likely to benefit from existing resources. 

“Not only are these issues prevalent, there are some pretty major equity and access concerns as to who can get what kind of support for navigating smoke events as well,” she said. 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Study: Wildfire smoke is reversing years of US air quality progress on Sep 20, 2023.

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has announced changes to Britain’s plans for addressing the climate crisis that effectively water down earlier commitments by delaying targets and relaxing the energy transition timeline.

Sunak said the ban on sales of new gas-powered vehicles would be extended from 2030 to 2035, citing the “unacceptable costs” the energy transition had imposed on British households and a need to maintain the public’s approval of the path to net zero emissions, reported Reuters. The prime minister said he would also ease the transition from residential gas stoves to heat pumps.

“It cannot be right for Westminster to impose such significant costs on working people,” Sunak said, as The New York Times reported. “If we continue down this path we risk losing the consent of the British people.”

Sunak said his commitment to achieving net zero by 2050 had not changed, but that Britain would be able to slow its progress because it was already “so far ahead of every other country in the world,” reported Reuters.

Environmental activists and businesses said decarbonizing the economy offers a chance to increase economic growth and investments and create high-earning jobs.

But in order for that to happen, they say the government would need to give consumers and companies a predictable and stable environment.

Alok Sharma, who served as COP26 president, told the BBC that backtracking on net zero promises would be “incredibly damaging for business confidence,” as CNN reported. “Frankly, I really do not believe that it’s going to help any political party electorally which chooses to go down this path,” Sharma added.

A variety of businesses, including producers of cars, electric vehicle charging stations and solar panels were dismayed by the government’s relaxing of climate commitments.

“Our business needs three things from the UK government: ambition, commitment and consistency. A relaxation of 2030 would undermine all three,” said Lisa Brankin, chair of Ford UK, as reported by The New York Times.

Conservative Member of Parliament Chris Skidmore, who is the former chair of the government’s net zero review, told the BBC that Sunak risked making “the greatest mistake of his premiership,” warning that the UK could end up missing out on “growth, jobs and future prosperity.”

The opposition Labour Party said it was committed to the original target of 2030, Reuters reported.

Britain was the world’s first major economy to legally commit to net zero by 2050. Since 1990, emissions have been cut almost in half, with the closing of coal power plants and the success of offshore wind power.

“[D]elivering on net zero provides a benefit not a cost,” Skidmore told the BBC, as reported by The New York Times.

The post ‘The Greatest Mistake of His Premiership’: UK’s Sunak Rolls Back Net Zero Plans appeared first on EcoWatch.