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Because of its toxicity, the sale of leaded gasoline in passenger cars was banned by the EPA in 1996. But its use was still allowed for “off-road” vehicles, such as farm machinery, marine engines and race cars. There are more than a dozen major race tracks around the United States where leaded gasoline is still in use. But only one of these racetracks is close to residential
Happy has lived at the Bronx Zoo for most of her 48 years, and for more than a decade has remained largely isolated and lonely. Like all elephants, Happy has a complex mind and a deep social, intellectual, and emotional life; she desires to make choices and has a sense of self-recognition. But like all nonhuman animals, Happy is considered a thing in the eye of the law, with
Last month Multnomah County filed suit against several of the largest fossil fuel and coal-producing corporations to hold them accountable for damages from the 2021 Pacific Northwest Heat Dome, one of the deadliest and most destructive human-made weather disasters in American history, in which 69 Multnomah County residents lost their lives. The County alleges in this lawsuit
On June 28, 2021, Portland State Geography Professor Vivek Shandas drove around Portland on this hottest day ever recorded in the city, measuring the temperatures of the pavement in various neighborhoods around town. And what he found was a dramatic discrepancy between the ambient temperatures of the pavement in low income communities - as high as 160 degrees Farenheit - and
Throughout history, mankind has dammed rivers at the cost of wild fish, Indigenous peoples, forested land, and healthy watersheds. Adding to the havoc of today’s climate-change-induced weather extremes and water shortages, science says there’s no future for the business of dam-building.