Earth Wise
Why Did The Frog Cross The Road?
Here in the Northeast, after a long winter signs of spring have finally arrived. Many of us are tuned into budding plants and migratory birds. It’s also a great time to take a hike and observe the awakening of amphibian life.
Why Volcanoes Are Not Driving Climate Change
Once in a while, one will hear the argument that volcanoes are to blame for rising carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere. There are several reasons why this can’t be the case.
[Read more…] about Why Volcanoes Are Not Driving Climate Change
Cooling Cities With Electric Cars
We have previously talked about the urban heat island effect. Crowded metropolitan areas are significantly warmer than surrounding rural areas as a result of human activities. Among other things, cities fill up with cars idling in traffic and cars not only produce greenhouse gas emissions, their internal combustion engines also produce a lot of heat.
Earth Day On A Crowded Planet
In 1970, when the first Earth Day was celebrated, there were 200 million people living in the United States. Sometime during 2015, our population will top 320 million, and the Earth seems destined to harbor at least 10 billion of us by the middle of this century.
A New Catalyst for Producing Hydrogen
We have spoken before about the prospects for using hydrogen as a clean auto fuel as well as an energy storage medium. Most hydrogen is produced using the steam methane reforming process, which requires natural gas, uses lots of energy, and produces carbon dioxide as a waste product. Hydrogen made this way is not really a green fuel.
The Value of Woodland Pools
Woodland pools are small, seasonal wetlands. In the Northeast, they are typically covered with ice and snow in the winter. In the heat of summer they dry up. And in the spring and late fall they contain standing water. Now is a great time for exploring the diversity of life in woodland pools.
McDonald’s And Antibiotics
McDonald’s – the world’s largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurants – recently announced plans to source chicken that is free of human antibiotics. The corporation, which is one of the country’s biggest buyers of chicken, is trying to shake its image of offering unhealthy and unnatural foods. The transition to this cleaner meat will take two years.
Designer Wetlands
Drinking water supplies around the world often contain trace amounts of pharmaceuticals, agricultural and industrial chemicals, and other synthetic compounds that can harm reproduction in fish and may be linked to adverse health effects in humans. Many of these chemicals enter the water supply by passing through our bodies, entering the sewage system, and finding their way into rivers and other bodies of water. There are currently no US regulations for medical drugs under the Safe Drinking Water Act, so it is important to attack this problem proactively.
Animals And Earthquakes
There has long been the notion that animals can somehow sense that an earthquake is imminent. The observation is that animals suddenly withdraw and go silent before a quake. While there is plenty of anecdotal evidence for this phenomenon, there has been little solid proof; that is, until recently.
Perennial Rice
Rice is the most economically important crop in the world. It supplies humanity with about a quarter of its calories. Domesticated rice is a short-lived plant that generally dies off after it produces seeds. Rice paddies have to be cleared of vegetation and plowed each year and are highly vulnerable to soil and nutrient loss through erosion, soil compaction and decline in organic matter.
Tough Times For Amphibians
It’s a tough time to be an amphibian. Around the world, millions of frogs, toads, and salamanders are dying from two emerging diseases. The first plague appeared in the 1990s, and is so deadly to amphibians that it is causing what has been described as the most spectacular loss of vertebrate biodiversity due to disease in recorded history.
Zero Emission Buses
Most of the news about electric vehicles relates to passenger cars. We hear about Teslas, Leafs, and hydrogen-powered Toyotas all the time. But there is also an expanding fleet of electric and fuel cell buses starting to appear on urban streets in several countries, including the U.S. and China.
Are Weed Killers Killing Us?
The U.S.-based agrochemical giant Monsanto finds itself at the forefront of another controversy. Monsanto, which dominates the agriculture market with its genetically modified seeds and herbicides, has drawn unwanted scrutiny after a new report linked one of its most popular herbicides to potential health hazards.
Seeing Smog And Seeking Solutions
Technology is changing the way we ‘see’ air pollution. Advances in environmental sensors, computing power, and visualization software are allowing researchers to monitor and display air quality in many of America’s cities 24 hours a day, in real-time. This is giving clean air advocates unprecedented access to pollution hotspots.
The True Cost Of Meat
It’s not uncommon for Americans to eat meat at every meal – bacon with breakfast, a turkey sandwich at lunch, steak for dinner. Worldwide, meat production has more than quadrupled since the 1960s, when more meager portions were the norm. And mass production has driven prices down considerably.
Trash Into Treasure
In one of the world’s most impressive reclamation projects, Israel’s largest landfill dump has been turned into a 2,000-acre ecological park three times the size of New York’s Central Park.
Emptying The Skies
Here in the Northeast, winter is slowly giving way to spring. This means melting snow, thawing soils, and the return of migratory birds. The calls of warblers and woodcock and the thrill of spotting waterfowl like heron herald the warmer and greener days ahead.
Better Carbon Capture
Finding an efficient and cost-effective way to capture the carbon dioxide generated by the use of fossil fuels would be a dramatic game-changer in the fight against climate change. We have often heard about clean coal – coal that doesn’t release lots of carbon dioxide when it is burned – but we haven’t really seen it. Our supplies of coal, natural gas, and these days, even oil are plentiful. We just haven’t figured out how to use these things without damaging the environment.
Coyotes Calling
