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he environmental concerns of global warming and energy consumption are among the most severe issues and challenges facing human beings worldwide. Due to the relatively higher predicted temperatures (150–180 °C), the latest research on pavement energy consumption and carbon dioxide (CO2) emission assessment mentioned contributing to higher environmental burdens such as air pollution and global warming. However, warm-mix asphalt (WMA) was introduced by pavement researchers and the road construction industry instead of hot-mix asphalt (HMA) to reduce these environmental problems. This study aims to provide a comparative overview of WMA and HMA from environmental and economic perspectives in order to highlight the challenges, motivations, and research gaps in using WMA technology compared to HMA. It was discovered that the lower production temperature of WMA could significantly reduce the emissions of gases and fumes and thus reduce global warming. The lower production temperature also provides a healthy work environment and reduces exposure to fumes. Replacing HMA with WMA can reduce production costs because of the 20–75% lower energy consumption in WMA production. It was also released that the reduction in energy consumption is dependent on the fuel type, energy source, material heat capacity, moisture content, and production temperature. Other benefits of using WMA are enhanced asphalt mixture workability and compaction because the additives in WMA reduce asphalt binder viscosity. It also allows for the incorporation of more waste materials, such as reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP). However, future studies are recommended on the possibility of using renewable, environmentally friendly, and cost-effective materials such as biomaterials as an alternative to conventional WMA-additives for more sustainable and green asphalt pavements.
Question Is there an association between early life exposure to air pollution and the risk of asthma by early and middle childhood, and is this association modified by individual and community-level characteristics?
Findings In this cohort study of 5279 children, mean fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and mean nitrogen dioxide (NO2) air pollution during the first 3 years of life were associated both with asthma incidence by early and by middle childhood, after adjusting for individual-level characteristics. The association of ambient pollution (PM2.5 or NO2) with incident asthma was modified by community-level and individual-level socioeconomic circumstances, including maternal education and race.
Meaning These findings suggest that exposure to PM2.5 or NO2 air pollution during early childhood may play a role in the development of childhood asthma, with higher risk among minoritized families living in densely populated communities characterized by fewer opportunities and resources and multiple environmental coexposures.
IMPACT OF THE EAST PALESTINE TRAIN DERAILMENT
On November 6–7, 2023, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine hosted a 2-day virtual public workshop1 on health research and surveillance priorities related to the East Palestine,
Ohio, train derailment and hazardous material release
that occurred on February 3, 2023.2 The workshop was intended to explore potential human health impacts and lessons learned from the incident, focusing on research questions specific to affected communities in East Palestine and surrounding areas of Ohio and Pennsylvania. Kristen Malecki, a professor and the division director
of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences at the University of Illinois Chicago, opened the workshop emphasizing the development of a research agenda responsive to community questions and concerns across hazards, exposures, risks, and health impacts to inform strategies for protecting residents now and in the future.
This section covers the physical, emotional, and social impacts described by community members and local responders and providers after the derailment.
It highlights the acute health symptoms, mental trauma, loss of trust, financial hardships, gaps in disaster preparedness, mental health care access, and uncertainties concerning long-term health risks reported in the community.
Across the United States, progress is accelerating toward economy-wide decarbonization. The establishment of federal emissions reduction targets, coupled with the passage of major pieces of legislation to advance decarbonization, mark historic steps toward addressing climate change. Still, significant hurdles remain to meeting both near-term and mid-century climate goals. These obstacles are particularly acute in the industrial sector. Compared to other economic sectors, such as power or buildings, industry is conventionally considered “difficult to decarbonize,” and progress toward decarbonization has been accordingly slower. The challenges in decarbonizing the industrial sector stem from a range of factors, including the diversity of industrial processes, the need for high temperature heat to drive many processes, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions released as byproducts of industrial processes, and growing demand for many industrial products.
In Pennsylvania, the industrial sector has been a central economic driver for more than a century, producing critical goods, including steel, cement, and glass, that helped build and grow the modern U.S. economy. Today, manufacturing contributes more than $113 billion in state domestic product and provides 11% of the commonwealth’s jobs. This significant manufacturing footprint means that industry is responsible for one-third of Pennsylvania’s GHG emissions, the largest-emitting sector in the commonwealth’s economy. While state policies, research and demonstration projects, and other ongoing efforts will help move Pennsylvania toward its goal of reducing economy-wide GHG emissions 80% below 2005 levels by 2050, emissions from the industrial sector are still projected to increase in the future, absent further actions.
In this inventory, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) provides data on greenhouse gas
(GHG) emissions in the state from 2005 to 2020 and tracks progress toward the GHG emission-reduction targets. The
data provided in this report were primarily obtained from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA)
State Inventory Tool (SIT) and the U.S. EPA’s Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks by State report,
which disaggregates the national inventory emissions to the state level. Preliminary data for 2021 from United States
Energy Information Administration (U.S. EIA) estimates have also been included.
New methane reduction regulations outlined by the US Environmental Protection Agency will require the creation of up to 15,530 jobs to plug leaky oil and gas wells across Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Kentucky.
Methane leaks from oil and gas wells comprise a significant share of climate-warming methane emissions in the four-state region, which is home to an estimated 816,000 total wells. Decommissioning orphaned and abandoned wells can significantly reduce the region’s methane emissions, improving public health outcomes and even increasing crop yields.
Using data from recent well decommissioning contracts in Pennsylvania, this report estimates the total number of direct methane abatement jobs needed to deal with EPA’s new methane mitigation requirements, the number of job-years that will be created across the four states by IIJA and MERP funding, and the number of job-years that would be required to decommission the region’s total inventory of orphaned, abandoned, undocumented, and active wells.
The report outlines policy recommendations to ensure decommissioning jobs are safe, well-paying and union, including enacting tax credits that incentivize skilled worker training, incentivizing union contracts, and ensuring prevailing wages. Each of the four states have above-average union coverage across sectors, including among well commissioning jobs in the construction sector. The recommendations have the added benefit of ensuring taxpayers get the biggest bang for their buck with high quality work, and that federal grants funds stay in local communities and help increase the number of skilled workers.
As the world recognizes the need to transition away from fossil fuel-
based plastic products and packaging, promising research continues to
emerge around novel biomaterials, offering a potential solution to the
environmental harm caused by plastics.
However, biomaterials are far from uniform in their characteristics,
environmental fate, and impact. Due to a lack of vetting, scientific
research (in realistic environmental scenarios), and challenges
surrounding end-of-life management, many have observed confusion
and disagreements over the role biomaterials should play. In this
study, we aim to provide greater transparency, providing details on
emerging materials, their real-world behavior in the environment, and
considerations that should be made before the widespread adoption
of bioplastics in all sectors of society. Through five chapters, we aim
to provide greater clarity, context, and scientific results to help inform
decision making:
As climate change accelerates, aluminum has taken a lead position in the race for a lower-
carbon, less polluting industrial future. Lightweight and durable, the metal is a key
component in solar panels and wind turbines, more efficient cars and planes, and long-
lasting construction materials. Given this, global aluminum demand is projected to be 40
percent higher in 2030 than in 2020.
Yet the aluminum industry accounted for 1.2 billion tons of global greenhouse gases in 2021, the
same amount as the energy used by over 150 million U.S. homes—and its contribution to climate
change is only set to grow alongside demand.
The aluminum industry in the United States is not ready to jump on the decarbonization
bandwagon. While there is a potential for the industry’s expansion, U.S. operators clearly need to
make financial investments and compliance commitments to participate in a lower-carbon, less-
polluting, and more economically robust aluminum industry—or be left behind.
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