September 2020 Environmental News: Electric Cars, Regenerative Travel, and More

Photo by Marc Heckner

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

“The whale’s aura lies in its unique synthesis of ineffability and mammality. Whales are enormous and strange. But—in their tight familial bonds, their cultural forms, their incessant chatter—they are also like us. Contained in their mystery is the possibility that they are even more like us than we know: that their inner lives are as sophisticated as our own, perhaps even more so. Indeed, contained in whales is the possibility that the creatures are like humans, only much better: brilliant, gentle, depthful gods of the sea.”
— What Have We Done to the Whale? (The New Yorker)

“Led by researchers from the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, the study found the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative has reduced fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and, due to this reduction, the region avoided an estimated 537 cases of child asthma, 112 preterm births, 98 cases of autism spectrum disorder, and 56 cases of low birthweight from 2009 to 2014. By avoiding such impacts to children's health, the researchers estimate an economic savings of between $191 million to $350 million.”
— A Northeast US climate initiative has had a major side benefit—healthier children (The Daily Climate)

“If sustainable tourism, which aims to counterbalance the social and environmental impacts associated with travel, was the aspirational outer limit of ecotourism before the pandemic, the new frontier is “regenerative travel,” or leaving a place better than you found it. ‘Sustainable tourism is sort of a low bar. At the end of the day, it’s just not making a mess of the place,’ said Jonathon Day, an associate professor focused on sustainable tourism at Purdue University. ‘Regenerative tourism says, let’s make it better for future generations.’”
— Move Over, Sustainable Travel. Regenerative Travel Has Arrived. (The New York Times)

“Technology developed with the help of a professor at the University of New Brunswick Saint John is already helping to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales in the Gulf of St. Lawrence this summer. Kim Davies helped develop an underwater acoustic glider that can monitor for the whales. Within a few hours of its launching earlier this summer it was already doing its job.”
— Underwater glider helps save North Atlantic right whales from ship strikes (CBC)

“Almost every day old iPhones and other used personal electronics arrive by the truckload at a warehouse in Carson City, Nev., where workers crack them open, pull out their batteries and strip them for raw materials. To JB Straubel, one of the brains behind Tesla Inc., that refuse holds the key to driving the electric car revolution forward—and making the vehicles affordable enough for everyone to own one.”
— One of the Brains Behind Tesla May Have a New Way to Make Electric Cars Cheaper (The Wall Street Journal)

“Battery prices are dropping faster than expected. Analysts are moving up projections of when an electric vehicle won’t need government incentives to be cheaper than a gasoline model.”
— The Age of Electric Cars Is Dawning Ahead of Schedule (The New York Times)