Peak News and Blog

Sustainable school district in action in Whatcom County School districts have a compelling reason to reach for sustainability in their operations and curriculum. The energy their buildings and buses use, the food they serve, the water they consume, and the waste they generate puts schools at the fulcrum of what sustainability entails – reducing their…

Food, agriculture, and land use Human activity has transformed a significant fraction of the planet’s land, especially for growing food and harvesting forests. Land is the livelihood for billions of people. The twin forces of a growing population and rising consumption mean the challenge of stewarding land in sustainable ways will only intensify. How can…

Plant-rich diets Paring down and replacing that hamburger with meatless meats has multiple benefits. It reduces demand which reduces the associated land clearing, fertilizer use, emissions from burping cattle, and greenhouse gas emissions from animal operations.Shifting to a diet richer in plants is a solution that runs counter to an American diet that includes an average…

Quit using warm water for laundry​Who would think that doing laundry with cold water could do way more than save you money? It’s actually a BIG deal!That’s the message from Tide in a newly launched campaign to decarbonize common everyday laundry habits. What if consumers did three out of every four loads of laundry with cold…

​Pacific Northwest ports unveil cross-border pact to cut emissionsThe ports of Seattle and Tacoma, their Northwest Seaport Alliance container shipping joint venture, and the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority in Canada are adopting a voluntary joint plan to phase out emissions by 2050. The collaboration, unveiled Wednesday by leaders of the four publicly owned port agencies,…

​Social Cost of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Scientific studies show that climate change will have, and in some cases has already had, severe consequences for  society,  like  the  spread  of  disease,  increased  food  insecurity,  and  coastal  destruction.  These  damages  from emitting greenhouse gases are not reflected in the price of fossil fuels, creating what economists call…