Media

Below are a collection of articles that we wanted to share to help us stay engaged with the bigger picture.

Use the search below to help narrow to specific topics of interest.

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Pacific Heartbeat: Hawai'i's Precious Resources

Hawai'i's Precious Resources

Three short films that explore the delicate balance in Hawai‘i’s ecosystems, that encourage us to reflect on our relationship with the natural world and show us that even the smallest species, like Hawaiian tree snails, and ornamental trees, like the coconut, are worth saving.

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83,000 Hawaii homes dispose of sewage in cesspools. Rising sea levels will make them more of a mess

With climate change, rising seas are eroding Hawaii’s coast near homes with cesspools. Sea rise also is pushing the island’s groundwater closer to the surface, allowing the cesspool effluent to mix with the water table and flow into the ocean. And scientists say cesspool pollution may even percolate into streets and parks in low-lying former wetlands in the future.

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Why the U.S. is so bad at building clean energy, in 3 charts

The United States has big plans to move away from fossil fuels. By 2050, the Biden administration has promised, the country will have a carbon footprint of zero — thanks to thousands of wind and solar farms, new nuclear and geothermal power plants, electric vehicles and all-electric homes and buildings.

There’s just one problem: The United States really isn’t very good at building clean energy.

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‘If you win the popular imagination, you change the game’: why we need new stories on climate

So much is happening, both wonderful and terrible – and it matters how we tell it. We can’t erase the bad news, but to ignore the good is the route to indifference or despair

by Rebecca Solnit

Thu 12 Jan 2023 01.00 EST

Every crisis is in part a storytelling crisis. This is as true of climate chaos as anything else. We are hemmed in by stories that prevent us from seeing, or believing in, or acting on the possibilities for change. Some are habits of mind, some are industry propaganda. Sometimes, the situation has changed but the stories haven’t, and people follow the old versions, like outdated maps, into dead ends.

We need to leave the age of fossil fuel behind, swiftly and decisively. But what drives our machines won’t change until we change what drives our ideas. The visionary organiser adrienne maree brown wrote not long ago that there is an element of science fiction in climate action: “We are shaping the future we long for and have not yet experienced. I believe that we are in an imagination battle.”

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Grant Projects to Bring More Trees, Create Healthier Learning Environments at Hawai‘i Public Schools

(HONOLULU) – Three nonprofit organizations have been selected to receive funding for tree planting projects at Hawai‘i public school campuses through the U.S. Forest Service’s 2022 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Grant. Each project will advance the Hawaiʻi Forest Action Plan priorities in Urban and Community Forestry while the trees planted will contribute toward the State’s pledge to conserve, restore, or grow 100 million trees by 2030.

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Preliminary US Greenhouse Gas Emissions Estimates for 2022

Based on preliminary economic activity and energy data, Rhodium Group estimates that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the US slightly increased in 2022, rising 1.3% compared to the previous year. While this is the second year in a row that emissions have increased, it nonetheless marks a change from 2021, when emissions rebounded faster than the economic growth rate. This reversal in 2022 was largely due to the substitution of coal with natural gas—a less carbon-intensive fuel—and a rise in renewable energy generation.

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Revealed: the dangerous chemicals in your food wrappers

Thu 24 Mar 2022 06.15 EDT

Last modified on Thu 24 Mar 2022 11.16 EDT

Independent testing of more than 100 packaging products from US restaurant and grocery chains identified PFAS chemicals in many of the wrappers, a Consumer Reports investigation has found.

The potentially dangerous “forever chemicals“were found in food packaging including paper bags for french fries, wrappers for hamburgers, molded fiber salad bowls and single-use paper plates.

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Microplastics found in human blood for first time

Microplastic pollution has been detected in human blood for the first time, with scientists finding the tiny particles in almost 80% of the people tested.

The discovery shows the particles can travel around the body and may lodge in organs. The impact on health is as yet unknown. But researchers are concerned as microplastics cause damage to human cells in the laboratory and air pollution particles are already known to enter the body and cause millions of early deaths a year.

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