ELI In the News
Apple's vice president of environment, policy, and social initiatives Lisa Jackson is being awarded the 2018 Environmental Award from the Environmental Law Institute "in recognition of her visionary leadership and outstanding environmental stewardship over a most distinguished career." . . .
A think tank, the Environmental Law Institute, is awarding Apple VP Lisa Jackson its Environmental Achievement Award both for her work at Apple and her long tenure with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, where she was made administrator under President Barack Obama. . . .
In preparation for the Wilson Center’s Earth Challenge 2020 initiative, the Serious Games Initiative rounded up educational games with themes of conservation and community. These games tackle issues ranging from community resilience to dystopian futures—and everything in between. While not a comprehensive list of environmental games, we hope it inspires you to check out these games and think of ideas for new ones that might use data from the upcoming Earth Challenge 2020 hackathons. . . .
The Missouri River is the longest and, by some accounts, most heavily engineered river in the United States. From its headwaters in the Rocky Mountains in western Montana, it stretches for more than 2,300 miles through a massive system of dams, reservoirs and levees before emptying into the Mississippi River just north of St. Louis. For Tim Briscoe, a juris doctorate degree candidate in the School of Law at Washington University in St. Louis, the Missouri River is more than an overbuilt local waterway. . . .
Few following the climate issue likely were shocked when EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced that he plans to essentially rollback the Obama administration’s more stringent climate-focused standards for motor vehicles. Less than a month after Pruitt came into office in 2017, he announced he’d be looking at them, and his and President Trump’s dismissiveness of climate change science has been well known. . . .
Severe coastal flooding during storms in January and March of this year jolted Massachusetts residents and officials into an unwelcome awareness of just how vulnerable we are to rising sea levels. Last month, Governor Baker announced a 1.4 billion dollar bond bill to finance climate resilience efforts. . . .
The Alliance for Water Efficiency (AWE) and the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) released their 2017 Water Efficiency and Conservation State Scorecard this week, and the results around climate resiliency planning were eye-opening. Most US states have a long way to go to shore up their legal frameworks and improve requirements contributing to water conservation, efficiency, and long-term resiliency, according to the AWE and ELI. The two nonprofits released the first scorecard in 2012. This five-year update gives two grades to each state: one for climate resiliency planning and another for efficiency and conservation. . . .
When it comes to artificial intelligence, a lot of attention has been focused on issues of privacy and economics – what happens if AI makes human workers obsolete. Now, a new report from the non-profit Environmental Law Institute highlights the potential environmental impacts of AI-driven technologies, from autonomous cars to smart thermostats. Listen . . . .
In early January 2018, the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management released a draft five-year program to guide leasing of the nation’s Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) areas for oil and gas drilling, from 2019-2024. The draft, which reflects the views of the administration of President Donald Trump, is aggressive. It would make over 90% of the nation’s total OCS area available to exploration and development. By comparison, the current five-year program puts 94% of the OCS off-limits to oil and gas exploration. (The current program covers the years 2017-2022 and will be replaced by the Trump administration’s eventual final plan.) . . .
As the River Jordan meanders between Israel, Palestine, and Jordan, disease-causing microbes that thrive in water contaminated with sewage pass over geopolitical lines without passports or border checks. By drinking or bathing in that contaminated water, children on each side of the border get sick. But proposed solutions could provide an opportunity to heal more than just disease. Cross-border investment in water treatment can be a mechanism for brokering peace.
This is the kind of thinking behind environmental peacebuilding, a new discipline in natural-resource management that stems from a growing realization that although natural resources can fuel conflict, they can also provide a focus for cooperation.
Read the full article here.