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A new study says meal kits may be greener than a trip to the store

by haroldclemente3 Posted on April 22, 2019

I’ll be the first to admit that I was skeptical of meal kits — you know, those cooking-for-dummies-style food bundles sent to your doorstep. Visually framing the cooking process with single-serving mise-en-place ingredients while touting sustainability seemed, to me, the epitome of greenwashing. But according to a new study, meal kits can let you successfully cook up a deliciously climate-conscious meal.

The first-of-its-kind study released Monday by University of Michigan researchers revealed that after accounting for every step in the process — from the farm to the landfill — home-delivered meal kits are more environmentally friendly than picking up the same ingredients at your local grocery store. Of course, there are some important caveats: Meal kits tend to have a bad environmental rap due to their monumental amount of packaging. But from a carbon emissions perspective, it turns out food waste is an even bigger sin.

“Even though it may seem like that pile of cardboard generated from a Blue Apron or Hello Fresh subscription is incredibly bad for the environment, that extra chicken breast bought from the grocery store that gets freezer-burned and finally gets thrown out is much worse,” said Shellie Miller, senior author of the study, in a press release.

Meal kits have been booming ever since the major players — Blue Apron, HelloFresh, and Plated — entered the market in 2012. Dozens of other meal kit companies have cropped up around the country catering to every kind of dietary preference, from vegan to paleo, single serve to family style. Meal kit sales reached $3.1 billion nationwide in 2018 after an annual growth rate of nearly 22 percent, but until now, very little was known about their overall environmental footprint.

According to the study, the average carbon footprint for a meal Blue Apron came to the equivalent of 6.1 kg CO2, about 33 percent lower than the 8.1 kg CO2 footprint for the store-bought version. (Though this shouldn’t be a shocker: Meal kits that either contained red meat or were otherwise associated with large amounts of wasted food were found to have the largest environmental impact.)

“I hadn’t quite realized the amount of environmental impact contributed through the supermarket retail process,” Brent Heard, Ph.D. student and lead study author, told Earther. “That includes foods that become food loss from overstocking or stores culling blemished produce, but also operation of supermarkets.”

Now before you throw out that giant pot of vegetarian chili you made from scratch and look up a meal kit code, keep in mind the study only compared meal kit footprints with grocery store equivalents. Figuring the greenest way to get your grub on is beyond the scope of this particular research paper. But despite their egregious wrapping, it seems that meal kits are doing a better job environment-wise than haters like me initially thought.

So yes — I stand corrected, meal kit companies. Now let’s tackle that wasteful packaging issue, shall we?

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A new study says meal kits may be greener than a trip to the store

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The internet is ablaze with Lil Dicky’s bizarre, star-studded climate anthem

by RobbyPriestley Posted on April 19, 2019

Lil Dicky, the self-flagellating Jewish rapper slash comedian, came out with another banger on Friday. Born Andrew David Burd, Lil Dicky is known for his hits with rappers Fetty Wap, Rich Homie Quan, and Chris Brown. His songs are about stuff other artists don’t usually discuss, like fiscal responsibility and being a white rapper, and often verge into satire.

Lil Dicky’s latest jam, Earth, takes on new and unusual subject matter, even for him: climate change. The 7-minute music video is his most celebrity-packed yet, featuring Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, Halsey, Bad Bunny, PSY, Zac Brown, Miley Cyrus, Sia, Snoop Dogg, and more. How did Dicky get all those celebs to star on his track? Probably the same way he got strangers to let him use their mansions and yachts for free for his $ave Dat Money music video: a lot of begging.

Regardless of how Lil Dicky pulled it off, Earth is already trending on YouTube with 6 million views and climbing, and the rapper worked with the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation to donate proceeds from the video to climate and environment projects. So what all is the song about? Think “We Are The World,” but animated and millennial as f***.

The video opens with a clip of a newscaster talking about the fires that ripped through California last year. But the video rapidly leaves the sweltering California streets and enters an animated world, replete with talking bald eagles and safari animals.

Dicky frolics with penguins, analyzes chatty microbes under a microscope, and talks to a marijuana plant voiced by Snoop Dogg (duh). The video might look like a Disney channel special, but isn’t too concerned with being wholesome (Justin Bieber’s line: “I’m a baboon. I’m like a man just less advanced and my anus is huge).

The second half of the video is a call to action. “These days it’s like we don’t know how to act, all these shootings, pollution, we under attack on ourselves,” he says. “Like let’s all just chill.” Gripping stuff.

If you don’t want to watch an animated Lil Dicky sing about the planet in a loincloth g-string for seven minutes, I don’t blame you. But think of it this way: what if this whole video is a critique of the tired and worn-out tropes used by old-school Earth Day advocates? Hmm??

As Dicky recently told TIME in an interview, “If we don’t completely redefine how we do everything on earth, from an energy perspective, from a food perspective, from a conserving nature perspective, in the next 12 years, the damage is irreversible and we’re screwed.” Clearly, he knows that recycling bottles and changing light bulbs isn’t enough to get ourselves out of this climate predicament.

Then again, the celebrities in his video are contributing more than their fair share of pollution by jetting around the world to play shows, as Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg points out. Commenters have also noted some racist and misogynistic tropes. (Case in point: Lil Dicky points out India, Germany, and “Africa” as he twirls around the globe. You can’t group a whole continent with a bunch of countries, ya dingus.) Maybe this shit isn’t that deep and I’m just looking for an excuse to dunk on Earth Day? You be the judge.

Either way, the fact that Lil Dicky chose to focus one of his songs on climate change in the first place marks a shift in popular culture. “I’d like to figure out a way to impact humanity as best as I possibly can beyond my typical d**k and fart jokes,” he said. Well, Mr. Dicky, I guess you succeeded?

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The internet is ablaze with Lil Dicky’s bizarre, star-studded climate anthem

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Russians used coal to sow discord among Americans, says Mueller report

by NapoleoGoold Posted on April 18, 2019

The U.S. is divided over coal: Coal plants and mines have been shuttering, with miners held up as the casualties of environmental regulation, despite the fact that it’s cheap natural gas and automation that’s been siphoning most coal jobs. Still, it’s an issue that captures the growing chasm between Americans, with one side holding up the economic loss in coal towns and the other desperate to ditch the fossil fuel in the face of dangerous climate change.

Trump used this friction as a campaigning technique, but according to special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, so did the Russians.

About a third of Mueller’s long-awaited report, released on Thursday, has been redacted. But enough is left to determine that Russia tried to exploit America’s mixed feelings about coal in order to tip the election in Trump’s favor.

In the lead up to the 2016 presidential election, a Saint Petersburg-based group called the Internet Research Agency employed hundreds of people to post divisive messages and pro-Kremlin propaganda using American aliases on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Coal was one of many issues used by the Russian trolls to drive a wedge between American voters, the report says. The group was indicted by Mueller in 2018 for conspiring to influence the election. And a report by the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee found that the trolls also posted about pipelines, fossil fuels, fracking, and climate change between 2015 and 2017.

But the Russians didn’t stick to social media alone. The Internet Research Agency also organized a number of 2016 pro-Trump events in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, the report says. One of the rallies featured a “miners for Trump” poster: “How many PA workers lost their jobs due to Obama’s disruptive policies? Help Mr. Trump fix it.”

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Russians used coal to sow discord among Americans, says Mueller report

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Here’s where all the official Democratic presidential candidates stand on climate

by rmac22221971 Posted on April 18, 2019

So far, 18 Democrats have announced bids to tussle with Donald Trump for the presidency in 2020, with more expected to throw their caps in the ring. In such a crowded field, it’s hard to decipher where each candidate stands on any issue, including climate change — a topic that was conspicuously absent in the 2016 election but appears will be front and center this time around. Luckily, the New York Times sent around a survey to each of the 18 declared Democratic candidates and got them all on the record about everything from a carbon tax to nuclear energy to renewables.

There are a few things that all of the candidates seem to agree on: The U.S. should stay in the Paris climate accord, reinstate President Obama’s climate legacy (which has suffered under Trump’s deregulation push), and invest in renewable energy. Some candidates said they would go even further in one or more of those issue areas, by adding their own flourishes to Obama’s Clean Power Plan or promising to work with the global community to strengthen the Paris pact.

Taking a look at where the candidates diverge yields a much more interesting analysis. Though there are many small distinctions between the 18 presidential hopefuls on climate policy, there are two issues where there is meaningful daylight between candidates.

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A carbon tax

A carbon tax is still controversial in the United States, despite its prominence in countries like Sweden and Norway, and the success of carbon-trading schemes in the state of California and the multi-state coalition named the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative on the opposite seaboard. That’s in part because politicians don’t agree on what to do with the money generated by the tax — though most of the candidates said they’d at least be willing to consider a price on carbon.

Cory Booker, in his response to a survey question on whether he supports a carbon tax, said he would like to see the money from the tax go toward alleviating inequality. That progressive approach clashes with Pete Buttigieg’s response. The South Bend, Indiana, mayor said he supports a tax but advocates for returning the money generated by the fee to American families — a scheme favored by some Republicans.

Both the progressive and conservative versions of a carbon tax failed to pass in Washington Governor Jay Inslee’s deep-blue state. The self-described climate candidate has watched many iterations of such a tax fail, in spite of his state’s liberal voter base. Perhaps that’s why Inslee is still in the undecided camp when it comes to pricing emissions — there’s only so many times you can bang your head against the same wall.

Nuclear energy

Like it or not, nuclear energy will likely have to play a role in weaning the United States off of its oil and gas addiction. Any candidate who supports the Green New Deal (five senators and counting) will have a hard time achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 without leaning on nuclear, at least in the short-term.

Regardless of that inconvenient truth, the question on nuclear energy was the most divisive in the survey, according to the Times. Seven out of the 18 were in favor of new nuclear development, including Booker, Inslee, John Hickenlooper, and Amy Klobuchar. Bernie Sanders, one of the earlier proponents of the Green New Deal and the emissions target it centers around, is not in favor of new nuclear. Eight of the candidates either didn’t respond or had “strong reservations.”

“Nuclear energy is not ideal, by any stretch,” said Marianne Williamson, the spiritual healer who famously counseled Oprah Winfrey and is one of those with reservations. “But it is still head and shoulders above coal and natural gas.”

In such a crowded field, it’s these minute differences between candidates that will help climate-conscious voters decide who’s serious about tackling rampant warming, among the many other issues facing the nation. As a presidential candidate, it’s easy enough to say you’ll reenter a climate agreement that nearly every other global leader supports. It’s much more difficult to speak with literacy about controversial topics like nuclear energy, or thorny emission reduction plans like a federal carbon tax. As election season heats up, these candidates will have to expound on the ways they aim to cool the planet down.

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Here’s where all the official Democratic presidential candidates stand on climate

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Elizabeth Warren raises the pressure on the military to take climate change seriously

by KendrickC18 Posted on April 16, 2019

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Elizabeth Warren raises the pressure on the military to take climate change seriously

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Falter – Bill McKibben

by Myrna Posted on April 16, 2019

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Falter

Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?

Bill McKibben

Genre: Nature

Price: $14.99

Publish Date: April 16, 2019

Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.

Seller: Macmillan


Thirty years ago Bill McKibben offered one of the earliest warnings about climate change. Now he broadens the warning: the entire human game, he suggests, has begun to play itself out. Bill McKibben’s groundbreaking book The End of Nature — issued in dozens of languages and long regarded as a classic — was the first book to alert us to global warming. But the danger is broader than that: even as climate change shrinks the space where our civilization can exist, new technologies like artificial intelligence and robotics threaten to bleach away the variety of human experience. Falter tells the story of these converging trends and of the ideological fervor that keeps us from bringing them under control. And then, drawing on McKibben’s experience in building 350.org, the first truly global citizens movement to combat climate change, it offers some possible ways out of the trap. We’re at a bleak moment in human history — and we’ll either confront that bleakness or watch the civilization our forebears built slip away. Falter is a powerful and sobering call to arms, to save not only our planet but also our humanity.

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Falter – Bill McKibben

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Elizabeth Warren’s latest policy proposal shares roots with the Green New Deal

by KoryZgwkuqz Posted on April 16, 2019

For all her experience and name recognition, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren is being out-fundraised by relative newcomers like Texas’ Beto O’Rourke and Indiana’s Pete Buttigieg this quarter. But when it comes to policy proposals, the Democrat is still outpacing most of her rivals in the 2020 Democratic primary.

On Monday, Warren released a proposal that promises, among other things, an executive ban on new offshore leases and drilling on government-owned lands on her first day in office. It marks her sixth policy plan in three and a half months, and is one of the primary field’s first climate proposals that touches on the themes laid out in the Green New Deal.

Warren’s proposal includes free access to national parks for American citizens and pledges to restore protections to national monuments like Bears Ears that were rolled back by the Trump administration. Most interestingly, she introduces the framework for the kind of conservation workforce that would put a smile on FDR’s face.

The 21st Century Civilian Conservation Corps, as she describes it, “will create job opportunities for thousands of young Americans caring for our natural resources and public lands.” The idea is to house the new corps under the umbrella of Americorps — the voluntary civil society program funded by the federal government.

If you squint you can see some similarities between Warren’s notion of putting 10,000 young Americans and veterans to work in conservation and the federal jobs guarantee laid out in the Green New Deal, which promises a family-sustaining wage to every American. The two plans, of course, borrow from Franklin Roosevelt’s economic stimulus package post-Depression in both name and content.

The centerpiece of the larger proposal is two-pronged: a moratorium on new drilling on federal lands with “a goal of providing 10% of [the nation’s] overall electricity generation from renewable sources offshore or on public lands.” Her idea effectively swaps oil and gas for renewable energy projects on public lands.

While some regions across the country have taken it upon themselves to impose their own temporary or permanent fossil fuel moratoriums, doing it on a federal level across all American public lands — more than 25 percent of the country’s total land — is unprecedented. Obama, in his last year as president, accomplished a portion of his (now partially dismantled) climate legacy through executive action. His administration removed certain areas of the country from oil and gas drilling, such as parts of the Atlantic Coast and Alaska, but also encouraged natural gas development as part of its “all-of-the-above” energy policy.

Warren’s public lands proposal contains seeds of what could grow into a full-fledged Green New Deal if the senator manages to clinch the presidency next year. Regardless of where she ends up, her plan is ambitious enough that her fellow 2020 contenders will likely feel the need to produce their own climate and environment proposals lickity-split.

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Flying microplastics? Researchers find plastics on remote French mountaintop

by ZacCissell Posted on April 16, 2019

Plastic takes a ton of energy to produce and lasts hundreds of years. It accumulates in our food web, fills our landfills, and now, tiny microparticles have been found in the most pristine and remote parts of the French Pyrenees. Is nothing sacred anymore?

The new study measured the amounts and sizes of microplastic particles raining down on the Pyrenees. The French researchers found that, on average, 365 pieces of microplastic filaments fell on each square meter per day. The source? Since there were no significant nearby populations or industries, the researchers think the plastic traveled over 60 miles on the wind from larger cities like Barcelona to deposit in the mountains.

Microplastics have been an environmental conundrum for years. They’re tiny pieces of plastic — some small enough to inhale — that are degraded remnants from larger plastics, filaments shed from synthetic clothing, or tiny beads in toothpaste and exfoliating face wash. These particles eventually end up … everywhere. Rivers and lakes, Arctic fjords, table salt, even human stool have been shown to contain microplastics. And these particles, when ingested, have been linked to health problems in animals and could harm people, too.

At this very moment, we’re all surrounded by these invisible filaments. However, this discovery in the French Pyrenees shows just how far and in what quantities these plastic particles can travel.

Deonie Allen, a researcher on the team, spoke about the results to The Guardian: “Because we were on the top of a remote mountain, and there is no close source, there is the potential for microplastic to be anywhere and everywhere.”

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The Science of Harry Potter – Mark Brake & Jon Chase

by Myrna Posted on April 13, 2019

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The Science of Harry Potter

The Spellbinding Science Behind the Magic, Gadgets, Potions, and More!

Mark Brake & Jon Chase

Genre: Science & Nature

Price: $1.99

Publish Date: November 14, 2017

Publisher: Racehorse

Seller: SIMON AND SCHUSTER DIGITAL SALES INC


How does magic in J. K. Rowling’s universe work? Finally, the scientific secrets are revealed! The story of the boy who lived has brought the idea of magic and sorcery into mainstream fruition more than any other book series in history. Modern muggle scientists have uncovered explanations to the seemingly impossible, including answers to such questions as: • Will we ever see an invisibility cloak? • How hazardous is a flying broomstick like the Nimbus 2000 ? • How has medicine made powerful potions from peculiar plants? ( Felix Felicis , anyone?) • Can scientists ever demonstrate Wingardium Leviosa , or the flying power of a Golden Snitch? • Is it possible to stupefy someone? • And many more! Often perceived as a supernatural force, magic captivates and delights its audience because of its seeming ability to defy physics and logic. But did you ever wonder if science has any explanation for these fantastic feats? The Science of Harry Potter examines the scientific principles—behind some of your favorite characters, spells, items, scenes, and even games like Quidditch and Wizard’s Chess—from boy wizard Harry Potter’s world, providing in-depth analysis and scientific facts to support its theories. Author Mark Brake, whose The Science of Star Wars was a knockout success, has found the answers to satisfy the curious spirits of muggles everywhere… A perfect Harry Potter gift for anyone obsessed enough to stand in line to be the first to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child or Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them , witches and wizards alike will be fascinated by the merging of this improbable realm and real science!

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The Science of Harry Potter – Mark Brake & Jon Chase

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Natural history museum to host anti-natural honoree Jair Bolsonaro

by JoannaLipscombe Posted on April 12, 2019

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, known for his strong anti-environmental policies and intention to open up the Amazon rainforest to increased deforestation, will be one of the guests of honor next month at a gala at, wait for it, the American Museum of Natural History.

On May 14th, the New York museum, whose permanent collections include the hall of biodiversity and the hall of North American forests, is scheduled to house the black-tie event, put on by the Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce. Each year, the organization honors two “persons of the year” — one Brazilian, one American– who have advanced economic ties between the two countries. While the American honoree has not yet been announced, Bolsonaro is slated to take the Brazilian slot, Gothamist reports.

But the irony of lauding a man who has repeatedly aired racist, homophobic and misogynist views all the while rolling back environmental protections in the Amazon at a venue dedicated to the natural world has not been lost on advocates or fans of the museum.

“The fact that American Museum of Natural History would accept an event for something so counter to their own values, they should be ashamed themselves,” Priscila Neri, a Brazilian activist with the New York City-based human rights organization WITNESS, told Gothamist. “In a moment when there’s been a rise of authoritarianism around the world, they’re giving a positive nod to a man who is rolling back human rights protections and scientific knowledge.”

Bolsonaro, dubbed the “Trump of the Tropics,” has undertaken an aggressive campaign of deforestation and mining that indigenous groups have likened to an “institutionalization of genocide in Brazil.”

The Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce has close ties to the Bolsonaro regime. Earlier this week, Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Ted Helms struck a $9 billion deal with Bolsonaro’s government to sell oil production rights, and the organization’s president and board chairman, Alexandre Bettamio, was reportedly one of Bolsonaro’s choices to run the country’s state-run bank.

To be fair to the American Museum of Natural History, the pro-Bolsonaro event is external, meaning the Museum is only acting as a venue; the event was also booked at the before the honoree was announced.

Roberto Lebron, a spokesperson for the museum, told Gothamist that the event “does not in any way reflect the Museum’s position that there is an urgent need to conserve the Amazon Rainforest, which has such profound implications for biological diversity, indigenous communities, climate change, and the future health of our planet.”

Museum representatives also tweeted that they are “deeply concerned” and are exploring their options.

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Natural history museum to host anti-natural honoree Jair Bolsonaro

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