As pollution gets worse, air-filtering face masks get fashionable

What is the average person supposed to do when the air around them is no longer safe to breathe? “It’s just impractical to tell people: ‘Don’t go outside. Don’t breathe,’” says Morgan Gorris, a PhD candidate at UC Irvine who researches valley fever and dust storms.

Enter the face mask, an accessory ripe for the market in these dystopian times. People who live in desert areas have long known to cover their mouths and protect their lungs from dust. But in the past few years, a handful of companies have started making air filtration masks engineered specifically for both fashion and function.  https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/3/19/18262556/face-mask-air-filter-pollution-vogmask-airpop
Article courtesy of VOX by Sarah Lawrence

Forget cars. We need electric airplanes.

If we’re going to limit climate change this century, we need to electrify everything. That includes air travel, a large and rapidly growing source of some of the most potent greenhouse gas emissions. Yes, high-speed rail could displace some flights, but for longer journeys, travelers will clearly still have to take to the skies. https://www.vox.com/2019/3/1/18241489/electric-batteries-aircraft-climate-change
Article courtesy of VOX by Umair Irfan

Australia records hottest summer: report

Australia's record-breaking summer ravaged the nation with temperatures so high fruit was cooked on trees while bushfires and floods caused havoc.  https://www.9news.com.au/2019/03/07/03/33/australia-s-record-setting-extreme-summer 
Article courtesy of nine.com.au by AAP

Oceans Losing Oxygen

Warmer water holds less oxygen than cool water does, so as the globe and the oceans heat up, they’re losing oxygen. The problem is heightened by pollutants like nitrogen and phosphorus, which contribute to oxygen-starved “dead zones” in the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere. https://loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=19-P13-00010&segmentID=3 
Article courtesy of Living on Earth 

Get Off My Lawn

How a small group of activists (our correspondent among them) got leaf blowers banned in the nation’s capital. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/04/james-fallows-leaf-blower-ban/583210/
Article courtesy of The Atlantic by James Fallows

Climate change will increase violent turbulence on airline flights

Severe turbulence is expected to increase by several hundred percent in the crowded airspace over North America, Europe and the North Pacific by mid-century, when the CO2 in the atmosphere is double its pre-industrial concentration. It is expected to rise 149 percent in the busy North Atlantic flight corridor, according to Paul D. Williams, a professor of Atmospheric Science in the Department of Meteorology at the University of Reading, UK.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2019/03/11/climate-change-will-increase-violent-turbulence-on-airline-flights/#76da038423cd
Article courtesy of Forbes by Jeff McMahon

It’s raining on Greenland’s ice sheet. That’s a big problem.

Changing weather patterns have triggered a stark change in how Greenland is melting, according to a new paper published on Thursday. By combining data from satellites and weather stations, a team of scientists found that rainstorms are now driving nearly one-third of the frozen island’s rapid melt. https://grist.org/article/its-raining-on-greenlands-ice-sheet-thats-a-big-problem/?utm_content=buffer1752f&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Article courtesy of Grist by Eric Holthaus