Data and Findings from the Great Lakes Plastic Cleanup’s 2024 Season Point to it Being the Most Impactful Yet
New technologies provide rich insights on plastic pollution and strengthen efforts to protect the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Plastic Cleanup (GLPC), a joint initiative of Pollution Probe and the CGLR Foundation, the charitable arm of the Council of the Great Lakes Region (CGLR), is pleased to release data from its 2024 season. The findings showcase the initiative’s continued success in removing plastic and other debris from the Great […]
Actions, Behavior Changes, and Support Needed
Convenience Drives Environmental Action, Study Finds As shown in parts 1 and 2 of this 3-part article series, residents in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York, comprising the U.S. Great Lakes region, report strong concern and high knowledge about climate change aspects and the causes. The data from the 2024 EcoFocus […]
Final Report of the IJC Great Lakes Science Advisory Board Work Group on Microplastics
Monitoring, Ecological Risk Assessment, and Management of Microplastics in the Laurentian Great Lakes Plastics are a diverse and ubiquitous group of materials that have seen a surge in production in the past century. The widespread use of plastics coupled with unsustainable materials management has led to plastic pollution, including the ubiquity of microplastics across the […]
Knowledge and Understanding of Environmental Issues
Study Finds: Great Lakes Residents Show Understanding of Environmental Facts, but Struggle with Making Green Choices Climate change acceptance and efforts to lead an eco-friendly and sustainable lifestyle has become a broad trend in the U.S. However, without knowledge of the contributors to climate change, we as a nation and each of us individually, will […]
CGLR Announces Honorary Patrons
December 05, 2024 Ottawa, ON and Cleveland, OH – CGLR is extremely pleased to announce the appointment of two new Honorary Patrons, the Honourable Elizabeth Dowdeswell, the longest-serving Lieutenant Governor of Ontario (2014–2023) and Ambassador Bob Rae, Canada’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York. CGLR is also very pleased to announce the […]
Consequences of Less Ice on Lakes Due to Climate Change
The lakes in the Great Lakes region and around the world don’t freeze over as they did in past centuries. That has serious consequences for people, wildlife, and the environment as a whole. That’s been shown by many scientific studies — but the consequences of that reduction of ice coverage have been scattered across many […]
Choosing Your Great Lakes Future: A New Online Scenario Game
The Great Lakes of today are much cleaner and healthier than they were in the early and mid-1900s. Substantial investment and effort have improved the environments and communities around the Great Lakes. Yet, there is more work to be done to fix problems that remain and protect recent improvements from threats on the horizon. To […]
Establishing a Regional Waste Management Authority in the Pittsburgh Region: A Vital Step Towards Economic Growth and Sustainability
In recent years, the issue of waste management has emerged as a critical challenge for cities across the globe. Pittsburgh, a city renowned for its industrial heritage and vibrant cultural scene, faces its own set of waste management issues. As the region continues to grow economically and demographically, the need for a unified approach to […]
Life is Better by the Lakes: A New Summary of Great Lakes Climate Plans
What common themes exist across the Great Lakes region around climate action? What if the region had a unified vision? A team from the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) and the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise aimed to find out. With the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in […]
Measuring What Matters: Household Water Use in the Great Lakes Region
“Measure what matters” and “You can’t manage what you can’t measure”: those may be old clichés, but they’re still goodies! Business managers everywhere know that tracking important metrics and trends and understanding the drivers behind them is essential to strategic decision-making and course-correcting when necessary. But in the world of water management, good measurements can […]