Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund With our nation facing a growing crisis of antibiotic-resistant infections, leading health organizations have been calling for not only for a reduction in the amount of unnecessary antibiotics used in human medicine, but also in animal agriculture. That’s because more than 70 percent of drugs that are deemed […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund Guest authors: Dr. Jeff Wells and Harvey Locke In the midst of a steady stream of grim reports about the environment, a new study offers a welcome ray of hope. Researchers have determined that there are still hundreds of regions around the globe healthy enough to help maintain […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund With summer on the way, it’s time to take steps to make sure your home will be comfortable without wasting energy—or overheating your wallet—as the temperature rises. The Natural Resources Defense Council is working to make sure that the government’s energy efficiency standards developed or updated over the […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund There’s good news from China about management policies that aim to strengthen domestic fisheries management in China’s ocean waters. These new policies, which aim to control the total domestic marine catch, are a promising step forward, and an exciting opportunity for China to create resilient fisheries. Restoration of […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund We’ve seen this time and again: pipelines leak and tankers run aground. At a time when the federal government is doing everything in its power to permit fossil fuel infrastructure, we have a rare opportunity in New York State to say “No!” Coalition Against Pilgrim Pipelines-NY in front […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund An alfalfa field in central California Ken Figlioli/Flickr California’s fertile Central Valley is known for its rows upon rows of carrots and tomatoes, fields of rice, and groves of almond and orange trees. It is less known for the untamed nature in its midst. Yet the pastoral lands […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund As 2017 brings record-breaking heat to its capital Hyderabad, the state of Telangana in India continues to lead efforts to make buildings more energy-efficient. At a recent regional workshop on implementing the Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC)—the building energy code that sets minimum energy efficiency levels for commercial […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund Welcome to our weekly Trump v. Earth column, in which onEarth reviews the environment-related shenanigans of President Trump and his allies. © Chris Boyer, Kestrel Aerial Services, Inc. A Win! A Win! In a week of big surprises and dramatic twists in Washington, D.C., the defeat of the Republican-led effort […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund G7 leaders will meet in Rome later this month Gaetano Virgallito/Flickr The Trump administration has kept the country waiting on whether the United States will keep its promises in regard to the Paris climate agreement. The latest word from White House watchers is that the president will postpone […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund Start spreading the news: New York City ranked second in the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy’s (ACEEE) 2017 City Energy Efficiency Scorecard, released this week. ACEEE has published this report detailing the energy efficiency efforts of cities across the country every other year for the last six […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund Filip Fuxa/Shutterstock We bid farewell this week to a particularly pernicious period in President Trump’s and the congressional Republicans’ double-barreled assault on public health and our environment. The window finally closed on their legal ability to annul a handful of Obama-era safeguards through an obscure measure known as the […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund If the Trump administration’s strategy is to put a foreign mining company first—and America’s greatest wild salmon fishery dead last—then sadly it’s succeeding. Today EPA settled a lawsuit with Northern Dynasty Minerals—the Canadian junior mining company behind the proposed Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay, Alaska. The settlement has […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund Today the city of Ahmedabad, in Gujarat state in India, is taking another giant step toward improving health among its residents. Ahmedabad’s A.I.R. (Air Information and Response) plan is a health-based program designed to protect and increase awareness among residents on air pollution, with an AQI as its […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund A strong and timely endorsement for western grid integration forcefully rebuts claims that moving from a balkanized system with 38 separate entities to a regional operation could introduce environmental problems, raise costs, or open state energy and climate policies to challenge by federal regulators. In fact, the analysis […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund “Descent” Josh Keyes The image of a whale’s tail covered in graffiti may exaggerate humanity’s impact on the natural world—but only just. A recent study of the Mariana Trench turned up scads of pollutants in the most unexplored habitat on the planet. The sentiment, at least, evoked by […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund Scott Pruitt, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, sure has been busy since he took over the agency. He’s spent most of his time cancelling, stalling, or starting the deconstruction of numerous public protection actions that the Obama administration took, and plenty of time promoting himself. None […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund Ten City Energy Project cities rank in the “Top 20” cities in the third edition of the City Energy Efficiency Scorecard, released yesterday by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE). The Scorecard ranks 51 of the largest cities in the United States based on scores in […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report this week detailing how oil and gas operations managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) are often granted waivers to allow industry to conduct drilling activities without necessary environmental safeguards. These activities are often discreet, but their impact can […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund New York’s housing agencies are adopting an innovative property evaluation tool that will improve New York’s affordable housing by helping owners invest in cost-efficient energy, water, and health performance upgrades. Across New York State, more than 1.7 million families live in affordable apartment buildings. Owners of these buildings […]
Published by the Natural Resources Defense Fund “‘Listening Sessions’: Excellent!” Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency held “listening sessions” to hear public comment on Executive Order 13777, which requires an EPA Task Force to recommend “specific rules that should be considered for repeal, replacement and modification.” Not surprisingly few if any individual citizens or public […]