Items tagged with climate change:
News & Updates:
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Caffeine has been heralded as the world’s most popular drug. However, as more people want their coffees to go, the industry has failed to confront the waste from single-use cups. In the last two decades, the United Kingdom has seen a 400% increase in the number of coffee shops. The sheer volume of waste affects both the environment and the country’s waste management infrastructure [1][2]. In the UK alone, people throw away 2.5 billion disposable coffee cups a year [3]. The scope of this problem is magnified by the difficulty of recycling wax-lined paper (the most common material for coffee cups), with only 0.25% of these cups being reprocessed [4]. In order to combat the growing practical and environmental effects of throwing away single-use cups, UK lawmakers have stepped in, and are considering instituting a “latte levy,” a new tax to influence on-the-go coffee drinkers. -
House votes to loosen coal-fired plant air pollution standards; Layoffs down, but unemployment rebounds; Oil falls on US supply. -
Faculty Affiliate Cary Coglianese discusses why state and local governments must consider the potential legal risks of their climate change policies. -
What are the biggest risks that individuals, businesses and governments face in the year ahead, and beyond? According to the 2018 Global Risks Report, published by the World Economic Forum, the environment, cyber security and geopolitics are the areas drawing the most concern.
“The big message that came out of this report is the tremendous importance of the environment” as an area to watch, said Faculty Affiliate Howard Kunreuther, co-director of the Risk Management and Decision Processes Center. “It’s not that that wasn’t [a concern] earlier, but it certainly didn’t have as high a profile.” -
As Chancellor Merkel was continuing to forge a coalition government following the September elections, Germans overall remained strongly supportive of the goal of Energiewende, or energy transition. An August 2017 poll found “95 percent of Germans support further expanding renewable energy” [1]. Still, in Germany and abroad, Energiewende faces criticism for not delivering enough greenhouse gas emission reductions for the given level of investments [2].
