Blogs

Astra to launch Earth-observing satellites for Planet in 2022

By EarthX Stories posted 06-01-2021
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By Mike Wall Two Bay Area startups will work together to get satellites to orbit next year. San Francisco-based company Planet has tapped Astra , which is based in the East Bay, to launch some of its Earth-observing spacecraft in 2022. "We are thrilled to be working with Planet Labs on a multi-launch mission in 2022," Astra CEO and co-founder Chris Kemp wrote in a blog post last week , referring to Planet by another name that the company has used. "This is a milestone for both of our companies and creates an important inflection point as we begin delivering launch services to our customers that are creating a healthier and ...
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People of color face more pollution. This study was still a surprise.

By EarthX Stories posted 05-07-2021
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By Hiroko Tabuchi It’s well known that people of color in the United States suffer from pollution exposure much more than white Americans. Now, a new study has shown just how broadly those disparities hold true . People of color in general, including Black and Hispanic people and Asian-Americans, are exposed to more pollution from nearly every source, researchers found. The study builds on a wealth of research that has shown that people of color in America live with more pollution than their white neighbors. But the findings still came as a surprise to researchers on the project, who had not ...
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A deadly combination: Extreme heat and power failures

By EarthX Stories posted 05-07-2021
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By Christopher Flavelle There’s a growing risk of major cities in the United States being hit by power failures and heat waves at the same time, researchers found — and the health consequences would likely be devastating. Researchers looked at what would happen to indoor temperatures in three cities if a blackout overlapped with a severe heat wave. They found that at least two-thirds of residents in Detroit, Atlanta and Phoenix would be exposed to heat exhaustion or heat stroke if a heat wave overlapped with a blackout. "Climate change is making heat waves more frequent and intense. Blackouts are also ...
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Washington Moves to Cut Greenhouse Gases

By EarthX Stories posted 05-07-2021
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By Lisa Friedman Over the past week, Congress and the Biden administration took their first concrete steps to reduce emissions of two dangerous greenhouse gases: Methane, which is emitted during natural gas extraction and by leaks from oil and gas wells, and hydrofluorocarbons, which are used in refrigeration and air-conditioning systems. Both planet-warming gases are many times more potent than carbon dioxide, even though they don’t stay in the atmosphere as long. Scientists say dealing with them is critical to slowing the pace of global warming. What happened ? The Democratic-controlled Senate, using ...
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Is Green Finance ready for Better World ?

By Rakesh Vazirani posted 01-05-2021
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Facts First, then Quiz 1) Climate Change due to human activities is real, Inequality is real 2) Of the world's $80 trillion economy (WEF), financial services are linked to 20% of the GDP . Depositors and borrowers are many #entrepreneurs belonging to the economic sectors that are positively or negatively affected by climate change 3) Over 500 policy instruments that address ESG factors exist now. Taxonomies and definitions of sustainability vary greatly across industries and geographies 4) Investors are now seeing huge opportunities in Climate Action 5) Financing "Climate Mitigation" and a "Just Transition" is a viable option for Financial ...
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H&M Cleaning up their sustainability image

By Dawn Spalding posted 11-17-2020
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Circularity in Fashion

By Dawn Spalding posted 11-13-2020
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Stylish designer shoes from regenerated leather 💚
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Circularity in Fashion Sustainability

By Dawn Spalding posted 11-10-2020
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View on Web New reader? Subscribe Even as more and more apparel businesses are starting to embrace the need for a circular fashion model as a means of keeping clothes out of landfills, the industry has yet to address the toll garment care takes on the environment. Evidence shows that the way people wash, dry and dispose of clothing contributes to 37 percent of their total emissions. Furthermore, though 95 percent of clothing can be recycled, 85 percent ends up in landfill. Indeed, the impact is significant. This is why the EU is putting ...
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Vogue Business

By Dawn Spalding posted 11-07-2020
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In the 2020s, the Netherlands breeds startups that push fashion to experiment in both technology and sustainability, such as 3D digital design, biodesigned textiles and new manufacturing techniques. With sustainability at the core of their philosophy, they are helping fashion to reimagine its business models.
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Blue Carbon: An Overlooked Resource

By EarthX Stories posted 07-01-2020
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When environmental conversations turn to carbon a lot of attention is paid to both atmospheric carbon in the form of greenhouse gases and terrestrial carbon such as forests. An often overlooked piece of the global carbon puzzle for both carbon sequestration and as an economic tool to be wielded in international voluntary carbon markets is oceanic carbon, also known as blue carbon. What is blue carbon? According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), blue carbon is the “the term for carbon captured by the world's ocean and coastal ecosystems.” The world’s oceans and coastal areas have a powerful effect on sequestering greenhouse gases. ...
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EarthxOceans: Shark Conservation

By EarthX Stories posted 06-24-2020
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Prowling at the top of the food chain, sharks maintain the balance of the ocean ecosystem. Without them, lesser predators would deplete herbivorous fish that modulate the abundance of plant life. Yet an estimated 100 million sharks are killed each year—almost 11,000 per hour—usually by fishermen, sometimes by governments pandering to public fear. Since the 1950s, the shark population has plunged 90 percent. “The main culprit is the same culprit for the decline in all fisheries: commercial fishing,” said Paul de Gelder, a former Australian Navy diver who became a shark advocate after surviving a shark attack. “The human hunger for seafood is pushing ...
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Sustainable Fisheries Report

By EarthX Stories posted 06-24-2020
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Sylvia Earle, renowned marine biologist and oceanographer, once called oceans “the real world bank.” She cautioned that people were making many more withdrawals than deposits. On June 10, the second day of the virtual EarthxOcean conference, Lelei LeLaulu moderated a Sustainable Fisheries panel that probed the consequences of those withdrawals, and offered a sampling of reasoned responses. The chairman of the Earth Council Alliance, and an expert in global fisheries, LeLaulu described the broad outlines of current conditions. “Because of non-sustainable practices and downright voracious, vicious illegal fishing,” he said, “we’ve arrived at ...
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EarthXOcean 2020: Celebrate our Ocean Planet to Awaken Ocean Conservation

By EarthX Stories posted 06-24-2020
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Whaling, climate change, habitat loss — these are only a few challenges facing our oceans. Research and preservation may seem like the only steps required to progress — but public awareness and advocacy can build the momentum needed to turn the tide. During EarthXOcean 2020’s virtual session, “Celebrating our Ocean Planet,” speakers showed the role art, education, and love of life play in renewing and preserving the ocean. A common theme amongst some visionaries who spoke was the impact they have been able to make through their art, advocacy, and ingenuity to diminish global whaling. Captain Paul Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, described ...
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EarthxOceans: Reef Restoration

By EarthX Stories posted 06-24-2020
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Coral reefs routinely host a quarter of the ocean’s biodiversity, and at some point more than half of fish species spend time on a reef. Those fish go on to feed hundreds of millions of people, but back at the foundation of the food chain, corals are facing mass mortality, according to presenters at the EarthxOceans Conference, and could go extinct in this century. Corals live in an intimate symbiotic relationship with microscopic algae that, like all plants, convert sunlight and carbon dioxide into sugars and oxygen. The algae feed the corals and lend them their vivid colors. As climate change warms those algae, they produce more oxygen, explained ...
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Ocean Plastic Solutions

By EarthX Stories posted 06-24-2020
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Like too many other dire challenges to Earth’s natural systems, plastic pollution in the oceans is visible, immense, and defies ready solutions. Nearly 400 million metric tons of plastic are manufactured annually, according to various market analyses. As much as 13 million tons of plastic ends up in oceans , causing an estimated $13 billion in economic damage to global marine ecosystems, according to the UN Environment Program. Unless the world changes its practices and embraces new technology, quickly, the volume and weight of plastics in the ocean in 2050 could be greater than all the fish in the seas, the World Economic Forum reported in 2016. ...
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EarthXOcean 2020: Protect the Ocean’s Life Support Systems and High Seas; Preserve Life on Earth

By EarthX Stories posted 06-24-2020
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The average person may imagine the high seas as rough waters, vast highways for whales and sharks that stretch across plains of rock and sediment… an empty deep blue — certainly not coral reefs, mountains, and sea beds teeming flora and fauna. But they should. This year’s EarthXOcean 2020 virtual sessions on protecting the ocean’s life support systems and high seas brought to light the little-known vitality and global significance of our international waters, the challenges they are facing, and exactly what we all can do now to preserve this ocean planet. Speakers — icons of ocean exploration and advocacy — discussed how preserving the ocean is not simply ...
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30% by 2030: A Plan to Protect the High Seas

By EarthX Stories posted 06-18-2020
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The world’s oceans are the lifeblood of all life on planet Earth. And it is widely known the oceans are under attack across a range of environmental issues from climate change leading to warming oceans and acidification to overfishing to widespread pollution in the form of toxic spills and plastics. While all of Earth’s oceans need protecting, a major area of those waters – the high seas – are often overlooked. In fact, during the recently held EarthxOcean Conference 2020 , Peggy Kalas, director of the High Seas Alliance , said, “Sometimes we say they are the forgotten half of our planet.” What are the high seas? Kalas offered a series of facts and ...
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March for Science Global Youth Forum: What Can Youth Do to Save the Planet?

By EarthX Stories posted 05-13-2020
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In the wake of a global pandemic, climate action may feel futile. Most of the world’s inhabitants are stuck inside for the foreseeable future, meaning that in-person demonstrations are impossible — at least for now. The global economy could be entering a years-long downturn, with less money for ambitious projects or plans. And the urgency for some time will be on rebuilding, not rethinking. But luckily, youth climate activists aren’t buying this. Rather than wait for life to return to ‘normal,’ they are sounding the alarm from their homes; that the pandemic is a time to reflect, persist, and engage. At the March for Science Global Youth Forum ...
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EarthxCities 2020: Urban Resilience After the Pandemic

By EarthX Stories posted 05-13-2020
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Over the last decade, cities have increasingly been recognized as integral to resiliency. Home to a majority of the world’s population, cities are at the forefront of climate resiliency, as urban residents collectively face the brunt of environmental hazards. As jobs coalesce in urban areas, cities are at the forefront of economic resiliency, as they continue to attract talent and absorb disruptions. And with inequities persistent in both, cities are the forefront of social resiliency, where damage disproportionately posed to vulnerable populations is front and center. Then a global pandemic hit. “Talk about chronic stress and shock, to not ...
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EarthxE-Capital 2020: How Can Cleantech ‘Reset’ After COVID-19?

By EarthX Stories posted 05-12-2020
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The COVID-19 pandemic is ushering in could be a years-long economic slump, spelling trouble for consumer confidence at least for some time. Startups and early-stage investments are being hit particularly hard, as unknowns linger over when projects can break ground again, or when facilities can reopen. Pilots have been put on pause, and expenses are being cut. Access to capital is under threat, too, as investors will likely be hesitant to take risks until markets stabilize, whenever that may be. But here’s the thing: cleantech has no time to slow down. “We are still going to need to get their solutions that address climate change to market,” ...
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