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Climate Change

A map of the United States post land-ice melt.

This article originally appeared on 12.08.15


Land ice: We got a lot of it.

Considering the two largest ice sheets on earth — the one on Antarctica and the one on Greenland — extend more than 6 million square miles combined ... yeah, we're talkin' a lot of ice.

But what if it was all just ... gone? Not like gone gone, but melted?

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Science

Report shows the ozone layer is rapidly repairing itself faster than anyone imagined

The world came together in to solve the problem. Let's do it again.

via NASA

Snapshot of the Antarctic ozone hole.

There are many reasons to worry about climate change's effects and whether the world’s leaders are brave enough to make the bold decisions necessary to abate the growing crisis. But a new report from the United Nations shows that when people come together and follow the science, it’s possible to stop environmental disasters before they happen.

An executive assessment from the UN has found that the hole in the Earth’s ozone layer is on track to be completely healed within the next two decades. If current policies remain in place, the ozone layer should recover to 1980 levels by around 2066 in the Antarctic, 2045 in the Arctic and 2040 throughout the rest of the world.

The hole was first discovered by scientists in 1985 above Antarctica and it caused immediate worry. According to Discover magazine, the ozone layer acts as the planet’s sunscreen and without it, we’d be exposed to harmful ultraviolet rays that cause skin cancer and cataracts. The radiation is also harmful to marine life and plants and would cause a major disruption to the world’s food supply.

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Science

How grocery chain Kroger aims to create hunger-free communities by 2025

Since 2018, the Zero Hunger | Zero Waste Foundation has directed more than $48 million toward the huge amount of food thrown away needlessly in the US.

Kroger, one of the country's largest grocery store chains, is addressing food waste.

It’s no secret that food waste is doing a number on both our wallets and our planet. Food is the single largest contributor to landfills. Plus, producing all of that wasted food uses more than 20% of the U.S. supply of freshwater, and it creates as much greenhouse gas emissions as 33 million passenger cars.

As if all this weren’t bad enough, it’s awful (and absurd, really) to think that while this surplus of food literally rots, families go hungry.

Many people are taking it upon themselves to offset this issue, whether that’s incorporating everyday lifestyle changes or hosting pop-up dinners for those dealing with food insecurity. While these individual efforts are great, corporations also need to implement solutions. This is especially true considering U.S. retail stores generate about 16 billion pounds of food waste every year.

Kroger, one of the largest grocery chains in the country, established its Zero Hunger | Zero Waste Foundation back in 2018 with a simple mission in mind: to create communities free from hunger and waste by 2025.

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Science

How the porta potty could be an unexpected key in the climate fight

This company has transformed the 'least inspiring product' into a champion for sustainability.

Everyone poops, but very few think about where their drain ends.

When you flush in most U.S. cities, your poop is carried by valuable water into a vast network of aging pipes – many of which were installed around World War II – to a centralized treatment plant that wasn’t designed to handle extreme weather events or sea level rise, occurrences we’re experiencing more frequently as a result of climate change.

While the future of sanitation may look bleak, it doesn’t need to be.

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