Can hunger really be falling around the world? Unfortunately, the stats say no
According to a 2017 WHO report, “After a prolonged decline, the most recent estimates indicate that global hunger increased in 2016 and now affects 815 million people.”
Ron Meador
Ron Meador is a veteran journalist whose last decade in a 25-year stint at the Star Tribune involved writing editorials and columns with environment, energy and science subjects as his major concentration.
As modern life retreats from nature, science documents its healing powers
What medical, psychological and social researchers are learning about our “epidemic dislocation” from the outdoors.
In a reversal, climate scientists now say goal set in Paris accord is within reach
Recalculation of recent emissions reductions and renewables growth make the 1.5°C cap on global temperature rise look doable — though still difficult.
U.S. burns through wildland firefighting budget, and the season may yet worsen
This is shaping up to be the worst year for U.S. wildland fire in at least a decade and maybe far longer.
Despite all that undeveloped habitat, Canadian wildlife is in sharp decline
Species adaptable to living just about anywhere are doing fine, including pestiferous deer and geese.
Commerce Department’s analysis of Enbridge’s new pipeline could just be the death of this project
The Commerce Department concluded that no new pipeline capacity is needed to ensure “future adequacy, reliability and efficiency of energy supply.”
New findings suggest serious threat to Great Lakes fish from, yes, Prozac
From top game species to a lowly invader, every fish tested in Niagara River carried antidepressants in its brain tissue — and no, it’s not because they’re really working on themselves.
Floods, FEMA, and a sustainable food future — some terrific recent reads
I want to direct your attention, right at the start of another monthly roundup of recent great reads, to an inspiring look at a sustainable future for farming.
Trump, in a gift to industry, puts new infrastructure at flood risk
Many conservatives supported the now nullified rule, including one who ranks it among “the few unalloyed good things the Obama administration did.”
World’s densest region of volcanoes is found beneath West Antarctica’s ice
And, yes, there’s a likelihood that increased volcanic activity could accelerate the losses from the West Antarctic ice sheet and, in turn, sea-level rise.
Why Japanese ‘forest bathing’ — which has nothing to do with soap — is trending as a way to address mental and physical ills
Mindful experience of woodlands is used for stress reduction, better immune support, and diabetes management.
Some happier news, for a change, on honeybees’ health and colony collapse
Varroa mites, pesticides and other burdens continue to take their toll.
A new bridge opens over the St. Croix, and even a skeptic finds it beautiful
As I waited for the ribbon-cutting with many hundreds of others, it was possible to appreciate the St. Croix Crossing for its own sake, without a twinge of rancor.
On peatlands as critical carbon banks, our gridlocked national parks, and more
Commending five terrific longer and thoughtful pieces for your midsummer reading list.
Falling sperm counts are linked to endocrine-disrupting chemicals
The analysis lists environmental pollution as the most prominent explanation for this widespread, 38-year-long decline, which one expert is calling “a death spiral of infertility in men.”
Wide contamination in U.S. tapwater, though most systems meet standards
Minneapolis water met federal health standards even though it contained 14 contaminants of concern. But not all Minnesota water systems were within legal limits.
Letter from Letchworth State Park: The bridge over ‘Grand Canyon of the East’
Testing an 8-year-old’s memory of terror in a beautiful place.
A new way of seeing sea-level rise looks at chronic flooding of U.S. cities
The authors ask: How much flooding must occur in a community in, say, coastal Mississippi before people decide to pull up stakes and move to someplace like Minnesota?
From toxic prisons to sand’s scarcity, good reads for the holiday weekend
At the crossroads of mass incarceration and environmental injustice, nearly 600 U.S. prisons sit near Superfund sites — and inmates are getting sick.
A record-setting siege of deadly heat gives Southwest a taste of its future
Air-conditioning failures are a leading cause of heat-driven demise in a region that is used to be scorched but can’t engineer invulnerability.
