Gina McCarthy was appointed by President Obama in 2009 as assistant administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Air and Radiation, and was subsequently named EPA administrator in 2013. A longtime public servant and progressive leader, she previously served as commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection, deputy secretary of the Massachusetts Office of Commonwealth Development, and undersecretary for policy for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs. Watch…
New NAACP Report Shows Disproportionate Energy Shutoffs Among African Americans in the US
A new report from the NAACP highlights how low-income and Black communities are affected disproportionately from utility companies energy shutoffs relative to the rest of the country. The report uses JPB Fellow Diana Hernandez’s framework of energy justice to support it’s findings. Read more about the report at Color Lines.
JPB Fellow Awarded Outstanding New Environmental Scientist Award
Madeleine Scammell, one of the 2014 – 2017 fellows was recently awarded a prestigious ONES award! Read more about Madeleine and the four other 2017 winners here.
The latest footwear trend: reducing plastic waste
Timberland has partnered with Thread International to bring recycled material to their shoes. This partnership not only reduces plastic waste, but brings stable jobs to Haitian communities. – GreenBiz
New Fellow Research: Diana Ceballos
In a new study, JPB Environmental Health Fellow Diana Ceballos looks to better understand connections betweek home- and work-related exposures in high-risk communities by identifying occupation-specific of home exposure. Learn more here: https://sites.sph.harvard.edu/cressh/y2-pilot-project-2-of-2/
New study finds wide racial disparity in cervical cancer deaths
“According to the analysis published Monday, the hysterectomy-corrected mortality rates put black American women on par with women living in some underdeveloped countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.” – The New York Times
One year later: evaluating the global response to Zika
We did not do “so great, according to more than a dozen public health experts who were asked to reflect on the response. The battle was a series of missed opportunities, they said, that damaged still-uncounted numbers of babies across a whole hemisphere.” – The New York Times
Study reveals striking disparities between urban and rural health
“When the federal government tries to address health disparities, it usually focuses on large population areas where they can get the most bang for the federal dollar … [a]nd that leaves vast areas of America without a federal or state partnership on ensuring access to care.” – The Washington Post
Rusty-patched bumblee is now an endangered species
“Pollinators are small but mighty parts of the natural mechanism that sustains us and our world…[w]ithout them, our forests, parks, meadows and shrub lands, and the abundant, vibrant life they support, cannot survive, and our crops require laborious, costly pollination by hand.” – The New York Times
President Obama reflects on his Administration’s clean energy legacy
“We have long known, on the basis of a massive scientific record, that the urgency of acting to mitigate climate change is real and cannot be ignored. In recent years, we have also seen that the economic case for action—and against inaction—is just as clear, the business case for clean energy is growing, and the trend toward a cleaner power sector can be sustained regardless of near-term federal policies.” –…
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