The Senate Budget Committee on March 1 heard testimony on the costs U.S. coastal communities may be facing because of shifts in the Earth’s climate. “Coastal communities will become harder places to live and work, and real estate values and local tax bases will decline,” predicted Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who now chairs the committee,…

New research by Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) has revealed that plastic pollution on Australia’s beaches has decreased by almost a third since 2013. Lead researcher and recent PhD graduate from CSIRO and the University of Tasmania, Kathryn Willis, said in a release on Thursday that waste control is generally driven at a local…