Environment

Last Updated: March 12, 2024, 15:10 ISTTrack Your Green Ride Impact With Uber's 'Emission Savings' Feature. By keeping riders informed about their environmental impact, Uber aims to encourage positive change and contribute to building more sustainable communities. Uber has rolled out a cool new feature called ‘Emission Savings’ that lets riders keep tabs on how much they’re helping the environment by riding in Uber Green vehicles.This feature shows users exactly how many kilograms of CO2 emissions they’ve saved.Available…

The cargo pallet after being tossed by the by the Canadarm2 robotic arm in 2021.Photo: NASAOn Friday, March 8, a pallet of used batteries from the International Space Station (ISS) reentered Earth’s atmosphere over the Gulf of Mexico following an unpredictable journey through orbit.Taking out the Trash (in Space)The pallet contained nine batteries and weighed in at 2.9 tons. It had been tossed by the Canadarm2 robotic arm in March 2021 and and has since been tumbling towards Earth in an uncontrolled reentry. The chaotic…

This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here.Coastal Animals Are Thriving on Plastic Pollution Out in the Pacific Ocean | Extreme EarthLast month, Democratic New York City Council Member James Gennaro introduced a bill that would change the way countless New Yorkers do their laundry — by banning laundry detergent pods.More specifically, the bill — dubbed “Pods Are Plastic” — proposed a ban on dishwashing and laundry detergent pods coated in polyvinyl alcohol, or PVA, a type of…

“Degradation means that you still have standing forest, but you are losing some of the structure, some of the functioning,” says Armenteras Pascual. “You might even look and think it’s really a beautiful forest, but it’s not so healthy.”Being degraded also makes a forest more prone to wildfire. And once a part of the Amazon burns, it’s more likely to catch fire again. “When a forest burns, trees die, releasing organic matter above the soil and opening the canopy,” says Flores. “Hence, more fuel is available and more…

A view of the vehicles parked on the street in Paris, France on Nov. 22, 2023. Anadolu | Anadolu | Getty ImagesParisians have voted to hike parking fees on large SUVs — and it's not the only European city to set its sights on heavier, more polluting cars.At a referendum in Paris last month, almost 55% voted in favor of a specific parking rate for sports utility vehicles (SUVs) for non-residents. With a turnout rate of 5.7%, however, the poll represented only a small proportion of the capital's electoral list.The measure…

As another season of tubing down Clear Creek in Golden beckons, the city is considering a novel approach to controlling the crowds that descend on the popular waterway: a reservation system. The discussions are still in the early stages and the system, if it moves forward, wouldn’t be implemented until 2025. But the mere idea of requiring people to sign up for a float down Clear Creek is a testament to the increasing number of people Golden has had to manage on the water in recent years, especially in the wake of a…

A sprawling international study of humpback whales in the northern Pacific has found their population has shrunk significantly since 2012 — despite the once-endangered species' remarkable comeback from the brink of extinction. The new research, published in Royal Society Open Science journal on Wednesday, estimated a roughly 20 per cent drop in the cetacean species' numbers over a decade.But despite that, one of the study's nearly 75 listed authors said the findings are not yet cause for alarm.Thomas Doniol-Valcroze is…

A privately funded satellite is set to push methane tracking into a new era, once it launches into space on Monday.A collaborative mission between Environmental Defense Fund, Google, the Government of New Zealand and several other partners, MethaneSAT will track methane emissions around the globe in attempts to identify and quantify sources spewing the climate-heating greenhouse gas. For 20 years after its release into the atmosphere, methane gas is 80 times more harmful than carbon dioxide in its ability to increase…

Federal authorities have closed Canada's only known live coral reef in the Pacific Ocean to all commercial and recreational bottom-contact fishing.Fisheries and Oceans Canada says the indefinite closure came into effect on Feb. 14 for the Lophelia Reef, located in the Finlayson Channel of British Columbia's Central Coast, about 500 kilometres northwest of Vancouver and 200 kilometres directly east of Haida Gwaii.The department says the reef was first discovered in 2021 and is the "first and only" known live coral reef in…

With four damaged underwater cables in the Red Sea, telecommunication providers are now looking to the skies for connectivity. Satellite operators are lending their space-based connectivity to reroute internet traffic, suggesting that a hybrid system combining underwater and orbital internet might be the best approach moving forward.Astronomers Could Soon Get Warnings When SpaceX Satellites Threaten Their ViewEarlier this week, four out of 15 communication cables were cut, disrupting network traffic that flows through the…