Campus Climate Plans Come Up Short |
From Stephanie Feldstein, Population and Sustainability Program Director |
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Climate planning empowers colleges and universities to understand their contributions to the climate crisis and build resilience in the face of disasters. But campus climate plans aren’t all created equal — they can either perpetuate existing inequalities or help dismantle them.
The Center reviewed a number of college and university plans to learn whether they address the disparate harms and underlying causes of the crisis. We found gender and racial inequity noticeably absent. Upstream actions like lowering consumption or acknowledging the impacts of population growth were featured in some plans but absent in others.
These findings are consistent with what we observed in municipal climate plans and show that people still have a ways to go to ensure gender equity gets its rightful place in climate planning. Check out our full report and then read on to learn how state nutrition guidelines vary widely in addressing healthy and sustainable diets, why biodegradable plastics can be even worse for wildlife than plastics made from fossil fuels, and our efforts to protect salamander mussels.
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Crowded Planet: A group of Colorado legislators recently introduced a first-of-its-kind bill to protect beavers on public lands. Unfortunately, the bill was quickly killed by a 10-3 vote after pushback by the hunting and trapping lobby. Beavers play a crucial role in building drought and wildfire resilience. Where these animals are active, streams and streambanks act as natural fire breaks, staying greener and burning at lower severity than they do in other places. Beaver ponds and structures also reduce water pollution after fires, benefiting people and wildlife alike.
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Nutrition Guidelines Vary Across States |
A new Center analysis found that state dietary guidance is largely inconsistent in how it addresses healthy and sustainable diets across the country. The report discovered that only three states — California, Hawai`i and Virginia — consider both sustainability and the climate harm from meat production in their dietary guidance, despite the key role dietary choices play in driving climate change.
While the federal government is responsible for dictating national nutrition policies, state governments have the power and responsibility to adapt federal guidance to meet the needs of their constituents. State leadership is especially crucial since the Trump administration backtracked on its obligation to provide scientifically accurate nutrition guidance in the newest iteration of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
Here’s one thing you can do: Read our model for healthy and sustainable dietary guidelines, which shows what the dietary guidelines should have looked like if they’d followed the science. |
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The Link Between Biodiversity and Gender Equity |
Gender equity and reproductive agency matter not only for health and wellbeing but also for biodiversity and sustainability, a new brief from Population Institute highlights. When women have the power to make their own reproductive choices, they tend to choose smaller families.
Such small shifts in fertility, the brief points out, can significantly alter future population trajectories, with direct implications for land use, resource demand, and pressures on wildlife habitats. Supporting reproductive autonomy isn’t a quick fix to the environmental problems we face, but it is a solution that can help ease population pressure in the long term.
Here’s one thing you can do: Listen in as Kelley Dennings gives an overview of our sexual and reproductive health emergency preparedness kits during the EnviroNatal Symposium, which addresses how climate change affects perinatal and maternal health. |
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Protecting Wildlife From Trump’s Grazing Plan |
President Donald Trump’s new expanded livestock grazing plan will open up 24 million acres of U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Bureau of Land Management lands — including around Grand Canyon National Park — to grazing where cattle aren’t presently allowed. The plan will harm imperiled wildlife like endangered fish called razorback suckers, as well as federally protected grizzly bears and wolves, who are too often killed because of conflicts with livestock.
To stop this devastating plan from becoming reality, the Center recently notified the Trump administration of our intent to sue to ensure our nation’s most vulnerable wildlife don’t pay the price for Trump rolling over for the livestock industry.
“The federal grazing program is already a disaster for endangered species,” said Andrea Zaccardi, carnivore conservation legal director at the Center. “Expanding grazing across 24 million more acres will likely drive more animals and plants to extinction.” Here’s one thing you can do: Check out our grazing facts website, which uses science to cut through common myths about cattle’s impact on the planet. |
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Bioplastics Are Bad for Biodiversity |
The list of plastic’s problems is long: It’s made from fossil fuels and doesn’t biodegrade, polluting ecosystems, harming wildlife, and breaking down into microplastics that end up essentially everywhere, even inside our bodies. So it stands to reason that bioplastics, which are made from biodegradable materials like sugarcane, would be better for biodiversity.
But are they?
A new study found that bio-based plastics are actually more damaging to the natural world. While the carbon footprint of bioplastics is only a little over half that of plastics made from fossil fuels, their ecosystem impacts are much greater because of the farmland conversion, water use, and fertilizer used to grow crops to make bioplastics. The bottom line: The only real solution to the plastic crisis is to reduce single-use plastics.
Here’s one thing you can do: Big Oil should be responsible for the devastation it wreaks for profit. But two new bills could give the industry full legal immunity, leaving the public to deal with the fallout and shoulder the costs. Tell your members of Congress to reject any legislation that would let Big Oil freely harm wildlife, people, and the planet.
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Join Us: Virtual Trivia on World Biodiversity Day |
May 22 is the International Day for Biological Diversity, a day created by the United Nations to promote biodiversity around the world. Celebrate life on Earth — and learn more about the critical issues threatening species big and small — by joining the Center and Population Connection for a free virtual trivia event on May 20 at 4 p.m. ET.
Whether you’re a seasoned advocate or just curious to learn more, this is a great chance to test your biodiversity knowledge in a relaxed, game-style format. There will be prizes for top scorers and plenty of opportunities to discover something new. Register for the event now.
Here’s another thing you can do: Speak up for biodiversity and endangered species. Tell your representative and senators to fully fund the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and save species instead of sacrificing them. |
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Wildlife Spotlight: Salamander Mussels |
Salamander mussels are elliptical shaped and thin shelled and grow up to 2 inches long. They rely on mudpuppy salamanders to disperse their eggs by depositing them into the mudpuppies’ external gills, and are the only known mussel species to use a host who’s not a fish to help facilitate reproduction.
These mussels are threatened by habitat destruction, water pollution, invasive species, and a decline in their host species. In August 2023 the Fish and Wildlife Service proposed to protect them and their critical habitat — but missed its one-year deadline to do so. The Center just sued the Service to make sure this imperiled species gets help.
Freshwater mussels are the most imperiled group of animals in the United States. Learn more about these fascinating creatures and our work to save them. |
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Center for Biological Diversity
P.O. Box 710
Tucson, AZ 85702
United States |
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