MIT startup Graviky Labs is partnering with the fashion label Pangaia to create clothing featuring graphics made from pollution sucked out of the air, reports Elizabeth Segran for Fast Company. “It’s an entirely new approach to carbon capture,” says alumnus and Graviky Labs co-founder Anirudh Sharma. “We’re literally extracting carbon particles from the atmosphere and selling it to the consumer.”
Hanna Ali of NOVA Next speaks with Prof. Desiree Plata about methane emissions and Prof. Tim Swager about his work developing sensors that could allow users to “see” methane, track down its source and mitigate impacts. “You probably hear headlines all the time, ‘Everywhere we look for plastics in the environment, we find them,’” Plata says. “The same is true of most industrial chemicals, but the problem is I can’t pull out my cell phone and take a picture of [them]. Tim’s sensors are helping to close that gap.”
A new study by MIT researchers finds that the oceans may begin emitting chlorofluorocarbons by 2075, reports Valerie Yurk for E&E News. “Even if there were no climate change, as CFCs decay in the atmosphere, eventually the ocean has too much relative to the atmosphere, and it will come back out," says Prof. Susan Solomon.
Financial Times reporter Michael Pooler highlights MIT startup Boston Metals, which has devised “a technology for making brand-new steel without emissions using electricity.”
CNN reporter Ivana Kottasová writes that a new study co-authored by MIT researchers finds there has been a significant drop in CFC emissions and a resumption in the recovery of the ozone layer. Prof. Ronald Prinn, director of the Center for Global Change Science at MIT, said that the results were “tremendously encouraging,” adding that “global monitoring networks really caught this spike in time, and subsequent actions have lowered emissions before they became a real threat to recovery of the ozone layer.”
Wall Street Journal reporter Paul Berger highlights Superpedestrian, an MIT startup and electric scooter company that secured $60 million in funding. Berger notes that Superpedestrian “spent more than four years designing a vehicle intelligence system that can diagnose and maintain itself.”
Architects from MIT and Generate Technologies have designed Boston’s first cross-laminated timber (CLT) building, a “’revolutionary’ type of timber [that] promises to reduce emissions that cause climate change, create affordable housing and jumpstart a new job-producing, homegrown industry in New England,” reports Bruce Gellerman and Kathleen McNerney for WBUR.
A new study by MIT researchers examines the environmental impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, reports Steven Reinberg for HealthDay. "If the pandemic leads to a persistent global recession, there is a real threat to the adoption of clean technology, which could outweigh any 'silver lining' in environmental benefits," says Prof. Jing Li.
Verge reporter Justine Calma writes that states in the Midwest and Great Lakes region could see $4.7 billion in health benefits by maintaining current renewable energy standards. “This research shows that renewables pay for themselves through health benefits alone,” explains Emil Dimanchev, senior research associate at MIT’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research.
A new study by MIT researchers examining the impact of energy policies that reduce fine particulates in the air finds that there are “substantial health benefits in Rust Belt states when utilities are required to supply escalating amounts of renewable power,” reports Ben Geman for Axios.
A new MIT study shows that “China’s move away from fossil fuels would mean 2,000 fewer premature deaths in the U.S. by 2030,” reports John Fialka for E&E News. "It reminds us that air pollution doesn't stop at national boundaries," said Prof. Valerie Karplus, a co-leader of the paper.
A study by Prof. Dan Rothman finds that increasing greenhouse gas emission rates could trigger a mass extinction in the ocean, reports Priya Shukla for Forbes. Shukla writes that Rothman found if a certain carbon threshold “is breached, it would take tens of thousands of years for the oceans to return to their original unperturbable state.”
A study by Prof. Daniel Rothman finds that if carbon emissions exceed a critical threshold, it could lead to a mass extinction, reports Martin Finucane for The Boston Globe. "We should limit carbon dioxide emissions,” says Rothman. “The carbon cycle is a non-linear system, and if you perturb it, surprising things may happen.”
A new study co-authored by MIT researchers finds that factories in China have been emitting a compound banned under the Montreal Protocol that destroys the Earth’s ozone layer, reports Yen Nee Lee for CNBC. The researchers found that “China accounted for 40% to 60% of the global increase in trichlorofluoromethane, or CFC-11, emissions between 2014 and 2017.”
Technology Review reporter James Temple spotlights a new study co-authored by MIT researchers that finds factories in China are using a banned compound. The finding underscores the need for monitoring adherence to pollution accords, explains Prof. Ronald Prinn. “At the end of the day, any treaty that doesn’t have an independent verification mechanism isn’t going to be successful,” he explains.