Wildlife and Habitat
Getting Tough On Illegal Fishing
A White House task force has issued a set of recommendations to combat the growing problem of illegal fishing and make it easier to tell if the fish you are buying is what you think it is and whether it was legally caught and imported. [Read more…] about Getting Tough On Illegal Fishing
Ants: Under-Appreciated Recyclers
A trip to Manhattan is hardly complete without patronizing a food cart. Every day, residents and tourists bustle through the streets eating pretzels and hot dogs. Breakfast is also often consumed in the streets, with workers juggling takeout coffee with their bagels. This activity results in one of the world’s busiest kitchen floors – food crumbs continuously accumulate on the city’s sidewalks and green spaces.
The Murky Hudson
Visitors to New York’s Hudson River often comment on how “dirty” or murky its water appears. This murkiness is often taken as a sign of poor water quality. Why does the river look so muddy? And what does it mean?
Turning Farms Into Deserts
By now, we all know too much salt is bad for our health. But did you know excess salt also threatens global food security? According to a new report by the United Nations, 20% of irrigated farmland worldwide suffers from escalating salt levels. Losses in crop productivity are estimated to cost 27 billion dollars annually.
Sustainable New Year’s Resolutions
With the holiday season behind us, it’s a great time to reflect on the past twelve months and set new goals for the coming year. Sure, there are tried and true New Year’s resolutions – join a gym, read the classics – but what about a resolution to be kinder to the Earth?
A Tale Of Syrup And Seeds
For decades, maple syrup producers have looked to the weather to gauge sap yields. But new research reveals a more valuable prediction tool: the number of seed helicopters that rained down from sugar maple trees in the fall.
Geoengineering: Not A Quick Fix
Geoengineering – the deliberate, large-scale intervention in the Earth’s climate system – is the subject of continuing speculation by researchers from many disciplines. The notion is that if our efforts to combat climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions are too little or too late, we may have to try to change the climate deliberately.
An App Called i-Tree
There are computerized applications for just about everything – from tracking our finances to planting a vegetable garden. So it should come as no surprise that there are even apps that aid in the conservation, management, and understanding of urban forests.
Dangerous Air Near Oil And Gas Sites
A peer-reviewed study recently published in the journal Environmental Health looked at the air quality near natural gas wells in five states: Arkansas, Colorado, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wyoming. In 40 percent of the air samples, laboratory tests found benzene, formaldehyde and other toxic substances at levels above what the federal government considers safe for brief or long-term exposure. In some cases, the levels were far above the safe standards.
Road Salt
Salt has been used to keep winter roads free of ice and snow since the 1940s. It works by lowering the freezing point of water. In the U.S. alone, some 15 million tons of salt is applied to roadways each year. While its use has real benefits, in terms of safety and navigation, there have been cumulative costs to the environment.
Deep Sea Carbon Dioxide Storage
The Southern Ocean plays an important role in the exchange of carbon dioxide between the atmosphere and the ocean. One important part of this is the growth of phytoplankton, which act like a natural sponge for carbon dioxide. When these plankton die, they can sink to the bottom of the ocean and thereby store some of the carbon dioxide that they have absorbed. This process has been termed a “biological carbon pump.”
Same Fish, Different Story
The Atlantic cod has long been a mainstay of the fishing industry. However, the cod fishing grounds of North America have either been depleted or completely wiped out by overfishing and poor management. In New England, stocks are at record lows. In the Canadian Maritimes, the cod population succumbed to overfishing long ago.
Electric Power Rights Of Way
The US has over 20 million acres of rights-of-way for electrical transmission lines and pipelines. These corridors are typically 150 feet wide and go on for hundreds of miles through our countryside. Generally speaking, they are thought of as a blight on the landscape.
Pinpointing Invasive Species
Throughout the world, invasive species plague local ecosystems, degrading natural resources and damaging infrastructure. In the U.S. alone, biological pollution is estimated to carry a price tag of $120 billion per year.
Fuel From Seaweed
Biofuel is considered to be a promising way to shift our energy needs to sustainable and climate-neutral sources. Replacing petroleum with fuels made from crops or other plants basically recycles CO2. The plants absorb it as they grow and release it when they are burned.
Bats And Wind Turbines
Large numbers of bats are being found dead beneath wind turbines, leading researchers to believe they may be mistaking the turbines for trees.
Citizen Scientists Help Gauge Conservation Success
In the 1970s, the world’s fastest bird – the peregrine falcon – was nearing extinction in North America. The culprit: the toxic legacy of DDT. The widely used pesticide caused the birds to suffer reproductive problems, and their numbers plummeted.
[Read more…] about Citizen Scientists Help Gauge Conservation Success
Saving The Monarch Butterfly
For the past 20 years, the population of monarch butterflies has been dropping. In the past few years, it has been dropping catastrophically. In 1996, there were an estimated 1 billion monarchs in North America; today there are only about 35 million.
Will Natural Gas Help Reduce Carbon Emissions?
The US is in the midst of a transition from depending upon coal for generating electricity to the use of natural gas instead. This has been driven in great part by the boom in shale gas and the widespread use of fracking technology.
[Read more…] about Will Natural Gas Help Reduce Carbon Emissions?