How Air Pollution Regulation Can Affect Bird Populations

Although we have strong evidence that air pollution poses significant health risks to humans, how air pollutants affect plants and animals is not well studied. Birds are especially susceptible to air pollution because they have a unique way of breathing and interacting with air. Therefore, a group of scientists conducted a study on how air pollution affects North American birds and how air quality regulations, which were initially created to benefit humans, can also benefit these bird species.

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Let the games begin! Having fun and playing games can improve the lives of people and wildlife.

With environmental conditions deteriorating across the globe, there’s no time to stop and play games. Except for when the solutions to these problems can be found by playing games. Find out how researchers, conservationists, and farmers in France all played a game to improve land management in a wet grassland.

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A Walk in the Park is Better with Birds

Green spaces in cities do wonders for our health, but what types of green spaces are best? A recent study found that people tend to experience greater happiness in parks with a high diversity of bird species. This helps inform city planners that when designing parks, trying to maximize bird life should be a high priority.

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Which Nature is Your Nature?

Cultural understandings of nature vary widely, but global conservation efforts often fail to consider multiple perspectives regarding nature. Researchers have suggested a framework through which to better understand cultural conceptualizations of nature through language. By incorporating this framework into their correspondences, scientists may be better equipped to communicate their findings, and policy makers will have a platform from which to promote more inclusive legislation.

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Planting Trees for your Next Flight: Studying Behavior Around Carbon Offsetting

Want to fly without the carbon guilt? Offsetting programs let you pay to plant trees to take that carbon from the air, and researchers are studying how social factors and global policies might influence these environmentally-minded behaviors.

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The Color of Water Policy

What’s your favorite color – blue, or green? Water policy has focused traditionally on blue water (ground or surface water released into the atmosphere by evaporation), but there’s more to the water-use equation. To understand water use and availability more broadly, researchers are now considering the value and availability of green water (that which is released back to the atmosphere by plants). In this paper, green-water use and availability is investigated at a global scale, leading the authors to advocate for inclusion of green water into water policy considerations.

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Learning from Yesterday, Planning for Tomorrow: Predicting the Future Impact of Climate Change in Michigan

Climate change is scary. Michigan researchers are empowering their community to prepare for it by predicting how extreme heat and precipitation events may impact public health in the future. Policy makers can use these findings to protect the most vulnerable members of the community!

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