The Real Cost of Food
Peter Lehner
Wednesday, July 26, 2023

What we grow and consume in America has a profound impact on our lives. It is also directly influenced by federal policy, and most importantly the Farm Bill, a collection of government programs that requires renewal every five years. This sprawling legislation governs initiatives from farm subsidies to low-income nutrition support. In our first blog in this three-part series, we explain the severe environmental and climate impacts of modern industrial agriculture.

Global Coalition Awarded the 2023 UN Humans Rights Prize
Planet Earth held by two hands in a green tint
Kristine Perry
Thursday, July 20, 2023

By formally recognizing the Right to a Clean, Healthy, and Sustainable Environment through two separate resolutions in 2022, the United Nations has set the stage for a more just and inclusive world. Big headlines like this often overlook all the background work necessary to make it happen. That’s what makes the 2023 UN Human Rights Prize incredibly exciting.

Fast Like Flash
lightning bolt superhero style
Jordan Diamond
Tuesday, June 27, 2023

My youngest child adores the superhero Flash. He slips a felt mask over his eyes and has me run around after him, feigning exhaustion and the inability to keep pace with his three-year-old legs. He is enamored with the idea of superspeed.

After reading the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, released in late March, it seems we all must be. The IPCC found as a baseline that we are on track to exceed 2 degrees Celsius warming by the end of the century. How far we exceed it depends on what we do over the next two decades.

Conservation Actions for Climate Resilience: Bureau of Land Management Accepting Comments on Proposed Rule
Escalante National Monument
Wednesday, May 17, 2023

On April 3, 2023, the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) proposed regulations that would update how the agency approaches public land management “by prioritizing the health and resilience of ecosystems across those lands.” The updates are important, and have the potential for significant impact, because BLM manages nearly 10% of the United States, or almost 250 million acres.

Water, Water, Everywhere?
sea level rise
C. Scott Fulton
Wednesday, April 5, 2023

One of my roles as ELI’s International Envoy is serving on the Steering Committee of the new Climate Crisis Commission established by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). For those of you unfamiliar with the IUCN, it is a fairly unique international NGO with an extensive interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral membership base that includes governments, other NGOs, practitioners, academics, and the like.

A Down Payment on Climate Change
Capitol Hill
Jordan Diamond
Wednesday, December 14, 2022

When I last sat down to write this column, the Supreme Court had just issued its 6-3 decision in West Virginia v. EPA. As I said at the time, it was disheartening, and many in the environmental law field were assessing how to bounce back from its potential effects limiting agency action. Fast-forward two months, and while the concerns raised by that case aren’t gone, we’ve spun in the other direction.

Counting Sheep
sheep for hire_by Akielly Hu
Akielly Hu
Wednesday, December 21, 2022

A longstanding problem for solar farms has a surprisingly cute solution. “Sheep are the solar industry’s lawn mowers of choice,” writes Amrith Ramkumar in the Wall Street Journal. Farmers maintaining thousands of acres of panels need to contend with tall grasses, which, unabated, can obstruct sunlight. Enter the star of nursery rhymes and an unexpected hero of renewables. Hard-working flocks are now generating millions of dollars in annual revenue by helping to chomp on pesky weeds.

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