A look at our changing environment.
The Inuit Calendar is based on six seasons defined by weather, ice, animal migration, daylight hours and the night sky. All these variables are in flux according to Harvard Narwhal Biologist Dr. Martin Nweeia. Last August in the high Canadian Arctic, at 72 degrees north latitude, temperatures were at an astounding 70 degrees during the day. […]
We’ve been hearing more and more about plastic contamination (microplastics) in the ocean. It is pulled from the nostrils of sea turtles, found in Antarctic waters, and tracked in increasing quantities in sedimentary layers dating back to the 1940s. A new study by researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography suggests that there could be […]
Many of us are very concerned about the environment and want to try to do the right things as we go about our daily lives. New research from the University of Gothenburg shows that we tend to overestimate just how much we are actually doing. A study of over 4,000 people in United States, England, […]
Researchers are considering a wide range of approaches to mitigate the effects of global climate change. Among these are various strategies of geoengineering, which must be viewed with enormous caution, given the high likelihood of unintended consequences from almost anything we might do. Researchers at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis have investigated potential […]
Renewable sources are playing a growing role in meeting our energy needs, but one place where they have continued to fall short is in industrial processes that require extreme heat. These include the cement, steel, and glass industries, among others. These industries account for a significant amount of CO2 emissions because the most effective way […]
A new study of bird migration shows the migration patterns are shifting as a result of climate change. Researchers at Colorado State University, the University of Massachusetts, and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, looked at the impacts of climate change on a continental scale. The team looked at the nocturnal migratory behaviors of hundreds of […]
Mealworms are widely cultivated beetle larvae that people feed to pets and to wild birds. But it turns out, they may have an even more valuable purpose: they can eat plastic and even plastic containing dangerous chemical additives. Four years ago, researchers at Stanford discovered that mealworms can actually subsist on a diet of various […]
The Amazon is the largest tropical rainforest in the world. It covers an area approximately equal in size to the lower 48 states, and is home to an estimated 10% of the world’s biodiversity and 15% of its freshwater. These so-called “lungs of the planet” provide many important global ecological services, including carbon storage, and […]
Last December, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management auctioned off lease rights for developing offshore wind in the New England Wind Energy Area. The auction brought in hundreds of millions of dollars. Recently, the five New England offshore wind leaseholders – Equinor, Mayflower Wind, Ørsted, Eversource, and Vineyard Wind – jointly submitted a uniform turbine […]
Nitrogen dioxide is a prominent air pollutant produced by internal combustion engines burning fossil fuels as well as by a variety of industrial processes. It is a toxic material associated with a number of respiratory illnesses. Researchers at the University of Manchester in the UK along with an international team of scientists have developed a […]
New research by Ohio State University suggests that adding plants and trees to the landscapes near factories and other pollution sources could reduce air pollution by an average of 27%. In addition, the study indicates that, in many cases, plants may be a cheaper option for cleaning the air than more technological approaches. The study […]
According to a new Trump administration proposal, federal agencies would no longer need to take climate change into account when evaluating infrastructure projects. The proposed changes to the 50-year-old National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) are aimed at speeding up approvals for highway construction, pipelines, oil and gas leases, and other major infrastructure projects. Under NEPA, […]
Wildfires raging across Australia have devastated large swathes of land and prompted one of the largest evacuations in the country’s history. The fires, which have scorched approximately 20 million acres, have also killed 27 people and affected an estimated one billion animals at the time of this recording. The fire season, though still young, already […]
Solar energy is a nearly unlimited resource, but it is only available to us when the sun is shining. For solar power to provide for the majority of our energy needs, there needs to be a way to capture the energy from the sun, store it, and release it when we need it. There are […]
Gas flaring is the burning off of flammable gas released by pressure relief values during over-pressuring of plant equipment at petroleum refineries, chemical plants, natural gas processing plants, and a variety of oil and gas production plants. Flaring is also used during plant startups and shutdowns. A new study by Rice University concludes that reducing […]
Mirror Lake is a popular recreational lake located in the Village of Lake Placid. It is the most developed lake within the Adirondack Park, which is a publicly protected area that is actually larger than Yellowstone, Yosemite, Glacier, and Grand Canyon National Parks combined. New research has revealed that road salt runoff into Mirror Lake […]
According to the World Meteorological Organization, levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have reached yet another new record high. Globally averaged concentrations of carbon dioxide reached 407.8 parts per million in 2018, up from 405.5 parts per million in 2017. The increase year-over-year was similar to that from 2016 to 2017, and remains […]
As the world continues to struggle to find ways to reduce carbon emissions, there is increasing attention being paid to so-called negative emission technologies (NET), which remove and permanently sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The University of Victoria in British Columbia has brought together an international team of experts to explore the possibilities of […]
This past fall saw yet more of the high temperatures the world has been experiencing in recent times. Both the season (September through November) and the year to date were the second hottest in recorded history. November itself was the second-hottest November in the 140-year global climate record. The high temperatures were felt at both […]
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, both wind and solar power are contributing more and more to total electrical generation in the United States. For the first 8 months of 2019, the combination of wind and solar power accounted for almost 10% of U.S. electrical generation. Solar, including small-scale PV systems on home rooftops, […]