Happy August everyone!  In today's edition of ClimateRoots, we have a very cool insight into a certain European country's approach to recycling.  Next up we have our monthly headlines, including some staggering numbers about Greenland's ice sheets and some positive news from the US Senate! Lastly, we another amazing environmental policy education piece as we quickly approach the end of the 20th century. Enjoy!

Image courtesy of Pranali Ashara

Featured Writer - Pranali Ashara

For this month's featured writer we are excited to have Pranali Ashada! Pranali is a rising second year at Northeastern University majoring in Environmental Science and Chemistry with interest in the intersection between society, science, and engineering in the renewable energy sector. She is currently completing an operations internship with a solar contractor based out of North Andover, MA, through the MassCEC Internship program. At Northeastern, she is involved in multiple extracurriculars as a member of the Solar Decathlon team and the composting club, an undergraduate researcher in an analytical chemistry lab looking at plastics, and a dancer with a Boston-based K-pop dance team. 

As a part of her time at Northeastern, Pranali was able to study abroad in Sardinia, an Island region in Italy. Mostly known for their pizza, pasta and gelato, Pranali was lucky enough to discover another source of pride for the people of Sardinia; recycling. Being home to a highly successful waste sorting and recycling program is not something that happens overnight, and it takes total buy-in from the community. Check out Pranali’s short piece on the recycling program that has been designed and implemented in the region, and what it could potentially mean for other countries moving forward!

Click below to read the piece on our blog.

Interested in being a Featured Writer? Fill out this survey and let us know!

Weekly Headlines

Global Copper Shortage Threatens to Slow Clean Energy Development (Axios, Gizmodo, CNBC)

• Copper, a key conductive material in the transfer and generation of energy, is expected to be at a shortage by the end of this decade with a gap between supply and demand opening up in the middle of this decade.
• Unless new sources of supply are found, achieving net zero emissions are expected to remain out of reach.
• Growth from grid upgrades, batteries and renewable energy is expected to push copper demand higher in the next 30 years than has been used since 1900.

Manchin Continues to Flip on Climate Action (NPR, Associated Press, Axios, Independent)

• West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, who two weeks ago told fellow democrats that he would not support action on Climate Change, released the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.
• Included in this Act is over $350 billion for climate and energy programs, more than any other federal clean energy investment in the US’s history.
• A massive step forward, it still needs to be reviewed and then approved by the House and the Senate before landing on the President’s desk.

An Unprecedented Amount of Greenland’s Ice Melted in One Weekend (CNN, Climate Signals)

• After a bout of unusually warm weather in Greenland earlier this month, 6 billion tons of glacial melt water per day flowed into the Atlantic Ocean between July 15 and July 17; this is the equivalent of covering the state of West Virginia in a foot of water.
• In recent years, it has become apparent that Greenland’s ice sheet has passed the point of no return and will continue to melt regardless of climate action. If the entire ice sheet were to melt, global sea levels would rise 7.5 meters.
• Climate Change is rapidly rising sea levels around the world through ice melt and warming ocean temperatures, which causes them to expand the more heat they absorb.

Biden Expected to Declare National Climate Emergency (Associated Press, Reuters, Axios)

• On July 20th, President Biden stood in sweltering heat in Somerset, MA and declared that he looks at Climate Change as an emergency, without actually declaring an emergency.
• If a climate emergency is declared, the door would be open for more aggressive executive action to curb increasing emissions.
• Following the address, special climate envoy to the president John Kerry said that this declaration, along with executive actions, soon and is only a matter of timing.
   

To read more headlines from this week, click below.

Acadia National Park, Maine / Image Courtesy of  Colby Lawless

Education Piece - Environmental Policy 1990-94

Happy August- summer is just flying by, isn't it!? 

This month we are covering domestic environmental policies from 1990-1994. To be honest, this is a quiet few years in terms of environmental policy at the federal level. However we do see a continuation of the international environmental collaboration established by the Montreal Protocol in 1987 through the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. The summit, formally known as the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, included 179 countries that came together to “… to produce a broad agenda and a new blueprint for international action on environmental and development issues that would help guide international cooperation and development policy in the twenty-first century.”(Nations). The summit attracted massive international media attention, with “thousands of reporters, photojournalists and television camera crews” and according to reporting by the New York Times, there were about 8,000 journalists on site (Dalby). One of the primary conclusions of the Earth Summit was that “sustainable development was an attainable goal for all the people of the world” and that “…integrating and balancing economic, social and environmental concerns in meeting our needs is vital for sustaining human life on the planet,”(Nations). This newfound focus on sustainable development can be seen in the federal policies passed between 1990-1994 and beyond. 

1990- The Pollution Prevention Act (PPA)

Signed into law by President George Bush, the Pollution Prevention Act (PPA) was designed to “...focus industry, government, and public attention on reducing the amount of pollution through cost-effective changes in production, operation, and raw materials use”(OP US EPA, Summary of the Pollution Prevention Act). The PPA is primarily concerned with pollution control through “source production” as a preventative measure against pollution that, “refers to practices that reduce hazardous substances from being released into the environment prior to recycling, treatment or disposal” (OP US EPA, Summary of the Pollution Prevention Act) rather than  just focusing waste management or pollution control. 

1990- National Environmental Education Act (EE)

Under the directive of Congress, the EPA became the national leader in the creation, and support of, environmental education programs for students and teachers meant to “...encourage students to pursue careers related to the environment” (OA US EPA, Milestones in EPA and Environmental History). As of 2022, EE programs are focused on “programs that support environmental education, including professional development, youth and educator recognition, and grants” (OA US EPA, Environmental Education (EE)).

1994- Brownfields Program

Throughout the 1980s, citizen concern across the country turned to the health and economic impacts of environmental degradation. Particularly in cities and towns that were losing manufacturing industries, there was great concern over the economic viability of the polluted properties left behind, and the fact that, “property redevelopment is challenged by the presence or (potential presence) of environmental contamination” (OLEM US EPA, Brownfields and Land Revitalization Program History). Following collaboration with states like Minnesota and Illinois to create state level Voluntary Cleanup Programs (VCP), the EPA formally launched the Brownfield Programs to, “clean up abandoned, contaminated sites and return them to productive community use” (OA US EPA, Milestones in EPA and Environmental History). Since the launch of the program in 1994, the EPA has cleaned up 450 contaminated sites and created 61,000 jobs through its Brownfield job training partnerships (OA US EPA, Milestones in EPA and Environmental History).

Check back in next month when we will be covering policy from 1995-2000! 

To read this full piece with works cited, check it out on our blog!

Newcomb Hollow beach, Wellfleet MA   / Image Courtesy of  Gabbi Rutherford

Missed our last issue? Want to start from the beginning? No worries! Click below to catch up on all our newsletters.