European Union leaders on Wednesday introduced the bloc’s most comprehensive plans yet to combat climate change, with a new goal of reducing carbon emissions to 55% below 1990 levels by 2030.Unveiled by the European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, the legislation would make the bloc’s goal of reaching climate neutrality by 2050 legally binding and completely overhaul its energy system.European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said during a press conference that the “Fit for 55” plan would act as a road map of concrete actions necessary to achieve the …

More than 93,000 people died from drug overdoses in the U.S. last year, a record experts said was partly triggered by the isolation that many experienced during the height of the coronavirus pandemic.The government reported Wednesday that the 2020 total easily surpassed the previous record of about 72,000 deaths in 2019.“This is a staggering loss of human life,” Brandon Marshall, a Brown University public health researcher who tracks overdose trends, told The Associated Press. He said the United States was already faced with an overdose epidemic but that the pandemic …

Residents in Sydney, Australia will remain under lockdown for another two weeks as officials continue to struggle to contain a growing outbreak of the delta variant of COVID-19.The lockdown was first imposed on June 26 after a Sydney airport limousine driver who had been transporting international air crews tested positive for the variant. More than 800 people have since been infected, including 97 new infections reported Wednesday.  Two people have died in the current outbreak.”It always hurts to say this, but we need to extend the lockdown at least a further …

New Zealand students have developed sustainable materials made from cabbage tree leaves and flax that could soon be used to make high-performance skis, kayaks and skateboards. Their plan is to use them to replace traditional fiberglass and carbon fiber. Skateboards need to be tough. Two students at New Zealand’s University of Canterbury, Ben Scales and William Murrell, believe they can make them even more durable by using fiber from plants. After experimenting in their garage workshops, they created new, natural composite materials.  Scales, who is 21 and studies product design, says their first version is looking good. “The prototype is a harakeke bio-composite skateboard. So, it is 25 percent harakeke fiber and …

The United States should accommodate millions of refugees who will be forced to flee disasters and other effects of a changing climate, according to a task force report released Wednesday.  The In this April 15, 2021, file photo, President Joe Biden speaks in the East Room of the White House in Washington. No nation offers asylum or other protections to people displaced because of climate change. Biden’s admin is studying the idea.In an executive order in February, U.S. President Joe Biden instructed National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan to examine how to identify and resettle people who will be displaced by climate change.    “We …