News Headlines

Zero-emission vehicle adoption reduces air pollution, climate impact from transportation

Megan Maneval — Fri, 11 Apr 2025 19:58:29 +0000

Zero-emission vehicle adoption reduces air pollution, climate impact from transportation Megan Maneval Fri, 04/11/2025 - 13:58

CIRES

California鈥檚鈥済oing zero鈥� policy, which strives for 100% zero-emission passenger vehicle sales by 2035, will reduce ozone pollution and carbon dioxide emissions in Los Angeles, according to recent CIRES-led work.

Traditional

White

Tax Day highlights the costs of single living鈥攂ut demographics are forcing financial change

Megan Maneval — Fri, 11 Apr 2025 17:09:07 +0000

Tax Day highlights the costs of single living鈥攂ut demographics are forcing financial change Megan Maneval Fri, 04/11/2025 - 11:09

Singles often pay more than their coupled counterparts, and not just on taxes. As solo living rises, so does pressure on the rest of the world to catch up. Read from 欧美口爆视频 expert Peter McGraw on The Conversation.

Read the Article The Conversation on 欧美口爆视频BT

The Conversation

The Conversation is an independent, nonprofit publisher of commentary and analysis, authored by academics and edited by journalists for the general public. On a mission 鈥渢o promote truthful information and strengthen journalism by unlocking the rich diversity of academic research for audiences across America,鈥� they publish short articles by academics on timely topics related to their research. 欧美口爆视频 Boulder provides funding as a member of The Conversation U.S.

Traditional

White

When helping can hurt: How efforts to adapt to climate change can backfire for vulnerable populations

Yvaine Ye — Fri, 11 Apr 2025 15:05:14 +0000

When helping can hurt: How efforts to adapt to climate change can backfire for vulnerable populations Yvaine Ye Fri, 04/11/2025 - 09:05

Yvaine Ye

When Hurricane Helene made landfall in the southeastern U.S. last September, it brought record-breaking rainfall to states including North Carolina, dumping as much as 2 feet of water in some rural communities.

It was the deadliest hurricane to strike the U.S. mainland since 2005, killing more than 200 people. Despite authorities鈥� efforts to evacuate residents in the region, many people had no choice but to stay put, some due to a lack of resources or unwillingness to leave their homes or pets behind.

鈥淣ot everyone can respond the same to climate change,鈥� said Karen Bailey, assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Studies. 鈥淭here鈥檚 been a growing recognition that climate change disproportionally impacts marginalized communities, but our current strategies for adapting and mitigating risk from hazards could potentially exacerbate inequity.鈥�

Bailey, who studies how climate change, and efforts to adapt to it, impact different populations, sat down with 欧美口爆视频 Boulder Today to share her insights.

Karen Bailey

How do different populations adapt differently to climate change?

People鈥檚 ability to adapt depends on many factors, from where they live to the resources available to them.

Low-income families, for example, may not be able to install ventilation systems to improve air quality after 欧美口爆视频. In fire-prone areas, the ability to remove trees around a home depends on how much money the residents have or whether they own that property.

On a global scale, people in wealthy countries contribute the most to emissions that drive climate change, but those in low-income countries experience the worst consequences. For example, extreme heat has led to many deaths in South Asia, and the problem is worsened because of limited access to cooling devices.

You recently did a case study on a flood mitigation program in a rural community in the state of New York. What did you find?

In the Catskills region of southwestern New York, the government runs a flood mitigation program that buys out properties at high risk for flood damage. While the intent is to protect people and their property and reduce the risk of water pollution from flood-damaged structures, some community members who participated in the program told us they struggled to find affordable housing elsewhere. The buyout program also impacted the essential services the community had provided by potentially shutting down their local health clinic and putting the local grocery store at risk of relocation.

For this program, the primary metric of success that the authorities were using was how much land was bought up. They weren't really thinking about other potential benefits or harms associated with buying out property.

How do decision-makers balance the urgent need to prevent harm from natural disasters while considering the needs of different groups?

There's no easy answer to this question. Federal, state, and municipal authorities need to work quickly and provide resources to get people out of harm's way when emergencies like fires or hurricanes strike. But before, during, and after a hazard, it's important to have a planning process that asks: How can we help community members and ensure all of them continue to thrive despite these challenges?

Keep in mind that urgency is sometimes intentionally or unintentionally used to exclude people from conversations. We sometimes need to slow down these preparedness processes a little bit, so we can talk to more people and consider their diverse perspectives.

Define 鈥榚quity鈥� in the context of climate change adaptation?

Broadly speaking, equity deals with fairness in the distribution of harms and benefits. While people may have different goals, can we still design systems that account for those differences?

Equity also deals with fairness in the decision-making process. Are we including the perspectives of the most impacted or marginalized communities? Are we making the processes open and transparent?

How do you respond to people who take issue with the term 鈥榚quity?鈥�

Last year, my team and I published a paper where we looked at prior research in this field and found scholars rarely define 鈥渆quity鈥� explicitly. This vagueness has made the concept more susceptible to politicization. People often attack 鈥渆quity鈥� based on their own interpretations, while we may mean something entirely different.

If people have concerns about 鈥渆quity,鈥� I would encourage them to look at what those advocating for equity and inclusion are actually doing. Are they making resources available? Are they communicating in different languages? Are they having programs that are open to and target marginalized communities?

I encourage them to reflect on whether these are truly the things they disagree with before arriving at a conclusion.

欧美口爆视频 Boulder Today regularly publishes Q&As with our faculty members weighing in on news topics through the lens of their scholarly expertise and research/creative work. The responses here reflect the knowledge and interpretations of the expert and should not be considered the university position on the issue. All publication content is subject to edits for clarity, brevity and university style guidelines.

As natural disasters become more frequent and intense, Environmental Studies Professor Karen Bailey wants policymakers to include a broader range of voices when making adaptation plans.

Traditional

Devastation in Asheville, North Carolina, after Hurricane Helene. (Credit: Bill McMannis)

White

Devastation in Asheville, North Carolina, after Hurricane Helene. (Credit: Bill McMannis)

Embracing all the joy in Mudville

Megan Maneval — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 19:07:19 +0000

Embracing all the joy in Mudville Megan Maneval Thu, 04/10/2025 - 13:07

欧美口爆视频 Arts and Sciences Magazine

Even though Major League Baseball faces an uncertain future in its 150th season, Opening Day still held a special place in the culture and fans鈥� hearts.

Traditional

White

Tales as old as time...yet we still love them

Megan Maneval — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 18:30:45 +0000

Tales as old as time...yet we still love them Megan Maneval Thu, 04/10/2025 - 12:30

欧美口爆视频 Arts and Sciences Magazine

Taking in a movie this weekend? With yet another Snow White adaptation currently in theaters, 欧美口爆视频 Boulder scholar Suzanne Magnanini reflects on the enduring appeal of fairy tales.

Traditional

White

As 401Ks, college funds plunge, expert advises patience over panic

Yvaine Ye — Wed, 09 Apr 2025 19:15:02 +0000

As 401Ks, college funds plunge, expert advises patience over panic Yvaine Ye Wed, 04/09/2025 - 13:15

Lisa Marshall

Editor's note: The S&P 500 spiked 9.5 percent Wednesday after President Trump announced a 90-day pause on proposed tariffs.

U.S. financial markets continued their week-long roller-coaster ride Wednesday, rattling the nerves of the roughly two-thirds of Americans who hold stock of some kind.

鈥淪eeing trillions of dollars of wealth disappear from people鈥檚 retirement accounts in two days is pretty shocking,鈥� said Shaun Davies, referring to last week鈥檚 market sell-off after President Donald Trump announced sweeping global tariffs. 鈥淎ny of us who have logged into our 401Ks recently have had to get the Tums out.鈥�

欧美口爆视频 Boulder Today caught up with Davies, associate professor of finance at the Leeds School of Business, to get his take on the recent stock market plunge, how worried we should be, and what鈥檚 to come.

Shaun Davies

Has anything like this ever happened before?

This is unusual, but not unprecedented. Not to bring up the Great Depression, but, we saw corrections like this in 1929. We saw them when France was taken over by Germany during World War II. We saw them in October of 1987, when, on 鈥淏lack Monday,鈥� the Dow dropped 22% in a single trading session, and again in the early 2000s with September 11 and the dot-com bubble bursting. The one that's most salient to most of us is the 2008 great financial crisis after the fall of Lehman Brothers, and there was a short little blip in March of 2020, during COVID.

Some might be tempted to pull their money out. What would you tell them?

Last week definitely blind-sided markets. Everyone knew these tariff announcements were coming out. But they were far more extreme than expected. When you see markets down 10% over two days, you say, I don't want to be a part of this. But it's really hard for an individual to time markets and know when to stay in and get out. One of the best things you could do is talk to a professional. When markets are up, nobody thinks they need financial advice. But during times like this, when they talk you off the ledge from doing something you鈥檒l regret, they鈥檙e really valuable.

But why stay in?

You have to separate yourself emotionally from the investment and remember that, in exchange for our willingness to take risk, we earn compensation during good times. For example, in 2023 and 2024 the S&P 500 was up over 20%. That is compensation for moments like right now. Back in March of 2009, the market was plummeting. Everyone wanted to get out. But if you did, you missed one of the best bull runs in stock market history. Your goal is to build wealth over that long runway to retirement, where your good years offset your bad years and you make something like a 10% or 15% average return per year over that horizon.

What if your kid is going to college soon?

The 529 (college savings plan) is unique in that it's a relatively short horizon from when you start contributing to when you withdraw. If you鈥檙e concerned that tuition is due in the fall and you feel like you have a sufficient amount, it may be prudent to pull that money out, put it into something like a money market fund, where you'll still get a little over 4%, and at least you know you have that nest egg for tuition. Again, talk with your financial advisor.

What if you have cash to invest right now? Should you just tuck it under your mattress?

No. You definitely do not want to put your money under the mattress. We are in a period of relatively high inflation, still about 3%, so if you are just holding on to cash you are going to lose purchasing power because goods are going to go up in price. If you want something safe and short-duration, consider a money market fund, short-term U.S. Treasury bills, or short-duration U.S. Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS).

How is this different than past corrections?

2008 was a very scary time, because lots of governments, companies and pensions were holding bonds backed by things like subprime mortgages, and we had no idea what they were worth. In 2020, with the global pandemic, it was a quick blip with a quick recovery.

The concern here with these tariffs is the impact of all the uncertainty on the real economy. I can't imagine being a CFO of a fortune 500 company debating whether to take production on shore. You might make some huge capital investment, build factories in the United States, and then the U.S. tariff policy totally changes with a single tweet. If I were a CFO right now, I'd just be sitting on my hands, and that's going to have real implications. I imagine we're going to see corporations providing guidance that the next few years may not be as profitable. We're going to have supply chain disruptions. It could disrupt the labor market. Who knows?

How long will this craziness last?

There's a great gauge of volatility called the VIX index, which tracks the potential for volatility in the market over the next 30 days. The math is a bit complex, but one truism is that a high VIX corresponds with high anticipated volatility in returns. A normal VIX is between 15 and 20. This past week, we've seen the VIX around 50, which is huge. Buckle up. It鈥檚 going to be a roller coaster.

欧美口爆视频 two-thirds of Americans own stock, and many have been watching as their savings have tanked. 欧美口爆视频 Boulder Finance Professor Shaun Davies offers his take on the market's wild ride and what investors should consider.

Traditional

The trading floor at the New York Stock Exchange. (Credit: Scott Beale / Laughing Squid)

White

The trading floor at the New York Stock Exchange. (Credit: Scott Beale / Laughing Squid)

What if your food had a carbon footprint and human rights label?

Yvaine Ye — Wed, 09 Apr 2025 14:48:09 +0000

What if your food had a carbon footprint and human rights label? Yvaine Ye Wed, 04/09/2025 - 08:48

Yvaine Ye

Imagine walking into a grocery store where every product has a clear carbon label: 鈥淭he making of a pound of beef produces 130 pounds, or 59 kilograms, of greenhouse gases and could ultimately take 2.3 hours off a human life by exacerbating climate change.鈥�

Would these labels drive consumers to purchase food with a smaller carbon footprint and less negative impact on humans?

Zia Mehrabi wants to find out.

In a recent paper, published in the journal Nature Human Behavior, he and collaborator Ginni Braich, a senior data scientist at 欧美口爆视频 Boulder, use existing data on deaths per pound of greenhouse gases added to the atmosphere to calculate how much high-emission products like beef, gasoline, and flights shorten life expectancy worldwide. They call for regulators to mandate labels on these products and services, indicating their contributions to climate change and their impact on human well-being.

Zia Mehrabi

This policy could encourage consumers and food manufacturers to buy and produce food with smaller impacts, Mehrabi said.

He notes that the food industry, including production and transportation, emits a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. The developing world, however, takes the brunt of the impact of climate change, including extreme heat, drought and flooding, and resulting damage to human health.

For example, prior research suggested that the U.S., one of the world鈥檚 top emitters, caused nearly $2 trillion in climate damage to other countries between 1990 and 2014, including $310 billion in losses to Brazil and $257 billion to India.

鈥淚f you compute the number of people who die or will die due to an additional ton of carbon in the atmosphere today, the majority of them are in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia,鈥� said Mehrabi, assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Studies and director of the Better Planet Laboratory. 鈥淲e are hoping to communicate those consequences with people through these labels and bring the human dimension into the climate dialogues.鈥�

Ahead of Earth Day 2025, Mehrabi shared his take on adding carbon labels to certain products.

Are there any carbon labels in use now?

Some companies are offering carbon labels on products. For example, if you use Google Flights to search, it will tell you the emissions associated with that flight. If you are a consumer who cares about the environment, the label might influence what products you buy. Unilever also puts labels on products showing their carbon footprints.

What are some problems with the current carbon labels?

For everyday citizens, even me as a scientist, it's very hard to contextualize what that emission number actually means in a real-world sense. How are 273 pounds of carbon emitted flying from Denver to Los Angeles going to impact ecosystems? How is that going to impact people in different parts of the world?

What if, instead, you knew that taking a transatlantic flight would end up removing 16 hours of someone else's life due to the impact of climate change? Or that eating a kilogram of steak costs more than five hours of someone else鈥檚 life?

These are tangible impacts, that the products we consume and the services we use are directly stripping life from other people.

An example cigarette package label (left). A food label that illustrates human effects of climate change (right). (Credit: Zia Mehrabi/欧美口爆视频 Boulder)

Why is incorporating human impacts in these labels important?

It's an undeniable fact that the key perpetrators of climate change are the ones who feel the impacts the least, and the ones who are most affected are the people who have contributed least to the problem.

Embed human rights in that labeling so that you don't just know the number of greenhouse gas emissions that are associated with it, you also know the number of people that were impacted and how.

As consumers, as members of the public, and as citizens of our country and our world, we should have access to such information.

Should we put the burden of addressing climate change on individuals?

With these labels, consumers are not the main target. We want to drive the companies, the food manufacturers for example, to make changes.

If we can mandate such labels on high-emission food products, companies would be incentivized to reduce emissions elsewhere in their supply chain to compensate for the carbon-intensive products they sell to avoid those labels.

There are many solutions for reconfiguring the supply chain, so that the product is better for the environment. For example, there are more climate-friendly ways to farm food, using cleaner forms of energy. We have many of these solutions in the world right now. But producers, manufacturers and retailers are not really pressured in any way to take action.

What would the rollout look like?

There is needed discussion on how such labels should be rolled out. 欧美口爆视频 90% of the projected emissions over the next 50 years will come from the top 10% income earners of society. This indicates high-income brackets of society might be targeted.

According to the United Nations resolution on the human right to a healthy environment, everyone has a right to access a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.

To do this companies need to change their practices, and they need to be forced to do this through regulation.

Could steps like this really slow down climate change?

I think carbon labeling, when incorporating human rights impacts, opens an opportunity for individuals to affect change through the choices they make. More critically, it can pressure companies toward more sustainable practices.

There is a lot of evidence that such labels work in practice in other domains, like high sugar labeling and tobacco labels.

There is a massive gap between what we need to do to tackle climate change, and what is actually being done in the world. We need all of our tools at our disposal. And we need ones that elicit rapid and radical change.

Assistant professor Zia Mehrabi wants you to know how what you eat impacts the planet鈥攁nd other humans. He lays out his plan in a new paper.

Traditional

A grocery store aisle. (Credit: Franki Chamaki/Unsplash)

White

Who has the influence to curb gender bias in STEM?

Megan Maneval — Tue, 08 Apr 2025 16:38:31 +0000

Who has the influence to curb gender bias in STEM? Megan Maneval Tue, 04/08/2025 - 10:38

欧美口爆视频 Arts and Sciences Magazine

Charlotte Moser studies how allyship in male-dominated fields influences workplace culture. Her findings reveal an unsettling but potentially useful truth.

Traditional

White

Reina Callier fighting to keep Latin classes alive through video storytelling

Megan Maneval — Tue, 08 Apr 2025 16:22:20 +0000

Reina Callier fighting to keep Latin classes alive through video storytelling Megan Maneval Tue, 04/08/2025 - 10:22

欧美口爆视频 Arts and Sciences Magazine

For one teaching assistant professor of Classics, learning Latin 鈥渋s like lifting weights for your brain鈥� and a field people love.

Traditional

White

Dams鈥� failures intensified flood tragedy in Libya

Megan Maneval — Thu, 03 Apr 2025 20:48:16 +0000

Dams鈥� failures intensified flood tragedy in Libya Megan Maneval Thu, 04/03/2025 - 14:48

CIRES

Researchers analyzed satellite data and models to find dam failures鈥攏ot rainfall鈥攍ed to increased flood damage in Derna, Libya, in 2023.

Traditional

White

News Headlines

Zero-emission vehicle adoption reduces air pollution, climate impact from transportation

Related Articles

Tax Day highlights the costs of single living鈥攂ut demographics are forcing financial change

Related Articles

When helping can hurt: How efforts to adapt to climate change can backfire for vulnerable populations

How do different populations adapt differently to climate change?

You recently did a case study on a flood mitigation program in a rural community in the state of New York. What did you find?

How do decision-makers balance the urgent need to prevent harm from natural disasters while considering the needs of different groups?

Define 鈥榚quity鈥� in the context of climate change adaptation?

How do you respond to people who take issue with the term 鈥榚quity?鈥�

Related Articles

Embracing all the joy in Mudville

Related Articles

Tales as old as time...yet we still love them

Related Articles

As 401Ks, college funds plunge, expert advises patience over panic

Has anything like this ever happened before?

Some might be tempted to pull their money out. What would you tell them?

But why stay in?

What if your kid is going to college soon?

What if you have cash to invest right now? Should you just tuck it under your mattress?

How is this different than past corrections?

How long will this craziness last?

Related Articles

What if your food had a carbon footprint and human rights label?

Are there any carbon labels in use now?

What are some problems with the current carbon labels?

Why is incorporating human impacts in these labels important?

Should we put the burden of addressing climate change on individuals?

What would the rollout look like?

Could steps like this really slow down climate change?

Related Articles

Who has the influence to curb gender bias in STEM?

Related Articles

Reina Callier fighting to keep Latin classes alive through video storytelling

Related Articles

Dams鈥� failures intensified flood tragedy in Libya

Related Articles