June 2021 Public Policy News: Transportation, Trees, and More

Photo by Jacob Culp

Here’s the best of what we’ve read over the last month.

“A decade ago, natural gas displaced coal as America’s top electric-power source, as fracking unlocked cheap quantities of the fuel. Now, in quick succession, natural gas finds itself threatened with the same kind of disruption, only this time from cost-effective batteries charged with wind and solar energy.”
— Natural Gas, America’s No. 1 Power Source, Already Has a New Challenger: Batteries (The Wall Street Journal)

“One of the giants of the deep is shrinking before our eyes, a new study says. The younger generation of critically endangered North Atlantic right whales are on average about three feet (one meter) shorter than whales were 20 years ago, drone and aircraft data show in a study in Thursday’s journal Current Biology.”
— Shrinking giants: North Atlantic right whales getting tinier (Associated Press)

“There’s a need for more mobility in metro Boston as the state ends its constraints on a variety of events and activities. Employers in those sectors privileged to have been able to adopt “work from home” protocols during the worst of the pandemic are preparing to bring employees back to the office workplace, either flexibly or full time. Colleges and universities are preparing for full on-campus reopenings in the fall. In general, there’s a lot of pent up demand for people to simply get out and about. As a direct result, traffic congestion is returning, and predictably worsening.”
— With transportation, we must not return to ‘normal’ (CommonWealth Magazine)

“Access to clean air and outdoor activities seems like a basic right. But in cities across the country, lower-income communities and communities of color more often live in neighborhoods with a higher share of concrete surfaces such as roads, buildings and parking lots, and a very limited number of trees and parks.”
— Since When Have Trees Existed Only for Rich Americans? (The New York Times)