Economy and Policy
Preservatives
Augmenting food with preservatives is not a recent practice. For thousands of years, we have canned fruits with sugar, preserved meats with salt, and pickled vegetables so that they could keep in hot humid environments.
Lake Ohrid: Respecting An Elder
Nestled in the mountainous border between southwestern Macedonia and eastern Albania, Lake Ohrid is a deep, ancient lake. Its waters provide refuge to hundreds of plants and animals that live nowhere else, including seventeen species of fish.
Clean Energy And The Internet
A number of large Internet companies are being very proactive in the area of clean energy. Companies like Google, Facebook, and Apple have invested billions on green energy solutions. This isn’t just good citizenship and good publicity for progressive companies, it is an essential part of the global effort to reduce greenhouse emissions.
Food Waste And Wildlife
We have talked quite a bit about food waste and in particular its impact on world hunger and on the economy. The world wastes more than $750 billion worth of food each year and 1.6 billion tons of food is left in fields, sent to landfills or scattered about the landscape. Another 7 million tons of fishery discards are dumped in the sea.
The Second Hottest Year On Record
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – or NOAA – 2015 was the second hottest year ever recorded in the contiguous United States.
Land, Water and Energy
The city of Holtville in California is sometimes called the “Carrot Capital of the World.” This agricultural community has signed an agreement with Australian company Infratech to build a floating solar power system for its water treatment plant.
Wild Bee Loss Puts Crops At Risk
Between 2008 and 2013, the United States lost nearly a quarter of its wild bees. Some 39% of our nation’s croplands rely on pollinators. Important farming regions – from California’s Central Valley to the Midwest’s Corn Belt – are among the areas grappling with wild bee declines.
San Diego Green
While 195 countries reached agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions in December, the city of San Diego made a major commitment of its own. Whereas the Paris climate accord is non-binding, San Diego has gone much further.
California’s Methane Leak
It’s being called the largest environmental disaster in California’s history. On October 23, 2015, a massive natural gas leak erupted at a storage well operated by Southern California Gas in Aliso Canyon, outside of Los Angeles. The leak has forced more than 2,800 families from their homes, and to make that worse, they have no idea when they’ll be able to return.
Pulling Carbon Out Of The Air
The world is increasingly united in the desire to reduce carbon emissions into the atmosphere. There is much emphasis on reducing and someday eliminating our use of fossil fuels, which is the main culprit in the situation we find ourselves in today. More and more we are embracing the use of renewable energy sources to produce electricity and we are starting to slowly move away from internal combustion engines to power our cars.
Road Salt
Snow season is here. The chances are good you’ll find yourself behind a truck spreading salt on the roads in an attempt to deice them. You may even try a little salt on your own front porch. Annually we spread about 20 million tons of road salt in the U.S., and we’ve been doing it since the late 1930s.
Primates And Toucans As Climate Allies
Many of us have a soft spot for primates and toucans. These charismatic creatures are prized for their intellect and beauty. But did you know they also play a vital role in combating climate change?
The World’s Lakes Are Heating Up
Climate change is causing the world’s lakes to warm, with repercussions for fisheries and freshwater supplies. So reports an ambitious new study, funded by NASA and the National Science Foundation, and recently published in Geophysical Research Letters.
China And Renewable Energy
When it comes to carbon dioxide, three countries are responsible for half of the world’s emissions into the atmosphere: China, the US, and India. On a per capita basis, we are far worse than China, but its population is so huge that that it produces twice as much CO2 as the United States and nearly one-third of the world’s emissions.
Is Natural Gas Cleaner Than Coal?
The widespread use of hydraulic fracturing (or fracking) as well as improved drilling techniques have created a major boom in natural gas production. This unquestionably has positive economic impacts for many. One of the important consequences of this is that natural gas is increasingly taking the place of coal for powering electrical generating plants.
Food Deserts
A food desert is a geographic area – often an urban area – where affordable and nutritious food is difficult to obtain, particularly for those without access to an automobile. Food deserts disproportionately affect occupants of poor, low-income neighborhoods where there are often no groceries stores or farmer’s markets. These are places were food comes from convenience stores or fast-food chains. More than 20 million Americans are thought to live in food deserts.
Composting Pays
Many people compost their food scraps and yard waste because they think it is the right thing to do. In some places, like San Francisco and Seattle, there is curbside pickup available to have these organic materials composted.
Ecology And Designing Future Cities
When most people hear the word ‘ecology’ – chances are it conjures up images of scientists working in distant, wild landscapes, such as old growth forests or remote mountain lakes. Increasingly, however, ecological studies are focused on urban and suburban areas.
