Toledo, Ohio voters approve Lake Erie Bill Of Rights
Voters in Toledo, Ohio voted overwhelmingly to approve the so-called Lake Erie Bill Of Rights, a declaration that the lake has the legal right to be protected from harm from human activity.
North & Central America
Salem Red Sox to debut first all-female broadcast booth in professional baseball
The Salem Red Sox, the organization’s Class A affiliate, announced that their booth will feature professional baseball’s first all-female broadcast team this season. Melanie Newman and Suzie Cool will debut together on April 23.
California reaches its 33% renewable energy target two years before deadline
The state’s next renewable milestone is at 44% by 2024, a 33% growth in just over five full years.
Costa Rica launches formal ‘National Decarbonization Plan 2018-2050’ to completely decarbonize
The newly devised plan involves ensuring the electric grid is capable of operating with 100 per cent renewable energy by 2030, according to The Climate Group.
Amazon launches initiative to make all deliveries carbon neutral
The company just published a blog post about the initiative, which it’s calling Shipment Zero. The proposal is scarce on tangible details, but the retail giant did commit to making half its shipments carbon neutral by 2030.
The U.S. Senate passes decade’s biggest public lands package, protecting 1.3 million acres of wilderness
The measure protects 1.3 million acres as wilderness, the nation’s most stringent protection. It permanently withdraws more than 370,000 acres of land from mining around two national parks.
Earth has more tree and leaf coverage now than in 2000, thanks to China and India
According to U.S. NASA, there are now more than 2 million sq miles of extra leaf area per year, compared with the early 2000s — a 5% increase. The greening effect stems mainly from ambitious tree-planting and intensive farming in China and India.
11.9 GW of wind capacity installed in the Americas in 2018
Total installed wind capacity in North, Central, and South America increased to 135 gigawatts (GW) in 2018 with the addition of 11.9 GW of new wind capacity, an increase of 12% on 2017.
Scientists are using AI to find hotel rooms being used for child sex trafficking
Washington University engineers developed AI that recognizes features of a hotel room from a photo and identify where it may have been taken, offering new leads to fight child trafficking.
Researchers use healthy stem cells for future Type 1 diabetes cure for the first time
For the first time ever, researchers have successfully transformed human stem cells into mature insulin-producing cells, a major breakthrough in the effort to develop a cure for type 1 (T1) diabetes.