Technology
Saving The Sea From Salt
The Persian Gulf along with the Red and Mediterranean seas are getting saltier all the time because of the waste products of desalination. The United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman account for 45% of the world’s desalination capacity. And the byproduct of desalination is brine, which is twice as salty as seawater. Even advanced desalination plants produce two cubic meters of waste brine for every one cubic meter of clean water.
Reducing Food Waste
It’s no secret that food waste is a global problem of epic proportions. Approximately one-third of all food is either lost or wasted, while more than 800 million people worldwide go hungry.
Mapping Emerging Infectious Diseases
Ebola. Hantavirus. Lyme disease. What do they have in common? Like most emerging infectious diseases, they originated in mammals. So many debilitating pathogens make the jump from wildlife and livestock to humans, yet at the global scale little is known about where people are most at risk of outbreaks.
Turning CO2 Into Rock
One of the strategies to tackle the problem of increasing greenhouse gas emissions that are resulting in climate change is Carbon Capture and Storage or CCS, which seeks to prevent CO2 from entering the atmosphere and to instead tuck it away somewhere. A longstanding approach to doing it is to store it underground in voids such as abandoned oil and gas reservoirs. There are various complications associated with this idea, not the least of which being potential leakage of the stored CO2.
Sunscreen And Coral Reefs
Coral reefs are great tourist attractions. Nearly a million species of fish, invertebrates and algae live in these biodiversity hotspots and they generate billions of dollars yearly from the tourism industry.
Testing The Ocean Cleanup Array
It’s no secret that our oceans are full of plastic. Plastic trash can be found on up to 88% of the oceans’ surfaces, with most of the debris concentrated in the top two meters of water. The plastics gather in certain areas of the ocean due to the swirling nature of ocean currents, known as gyres. Some of these concentrations, such as the infamous Great Pacific Garbage Patch, are so large they can be seen from space.
Solar Power And Social Justice
The U.S. recently celebrated the milestone of having one million solar installations nationwide. It took 40 years to get there, but experts believe the next million could take only a couple of years. The solar revolution is clearly well underway.
CO2 Air Capture
The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached 400 parts per million and is still rising. Climate scientists say that 450 parts per million would be dangerously high. Many experts say that we really need to get back to 350 parts per million. We are trying to prevent global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Reducing Emissions From Ships And Planes
The global efforts to reduce carbon emissions are marked by a conspicuous omission: the aviation and shipping industries. These two industries contribute 6% of all man-made CO2 emissions, but have so far managed to avoid international control. And not only are they major sources of carbon emissions, their contributions are growing three times faster than overall global CO2 emissions.
Shoes From Garbage
Apparel giant Nike recently announced that 71% of its footwear now contains materials made from waste products from its own manufacturing processes. They call the waste material “Nike Grind,” and it is made from recycled sneakers, plastic bottles, and manufacturing scraps from Nike’s factories.
The Trouble With Burning Forests
President Obama has set 2030 as the target for reducing U.S. carbon dioxide emissions to comply with the Paris Climate accord. Unfortunately, the Senate’s new Energy Bill would allow states to count wood as a “carbon neutral” fuel when drawing up plans to comply with the EPA’s Clean Power Plan.
Big Data + Technology = Improved Global Health
Scientists are calling for the creation of a global early warning system for infectious diseases. Such a system would use computer models to tap into environmental, epidemiological, and molecular data – gathering the intelligence needed to forecast where disease risk is high and what actions could prevent outbreaks or contain epidemics.
[Read more…] about Big Data + Technology = Improved Global Health
Hidden Costs of E-Waste
Recycling is often a great thing. But, when you hear about the conditions under which electronic waste is disassembled by impoverished peoples of developing nations, it gives one pause. [Read more…] about Hidden Costs of E-Waste
The Debate Over GMOs
GMO crops have been the source of a great deal of controversy over the years. A major concern has been whether they potentially cause health issues for consumers, which is an understandable worry.
One Million Roofs
Sometime early in May, the United States installed its one millionth solar energy system. Achieving this milestone took the solar industry about 40 years to accomplish. Because of the phenomenal growth of solar power in this country, industry experts predict that it will only take two more years to reach the second million and there are predictions that by the year 2025, there will be one million new installations in the U.S. each year.
