Earth Wise

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The Deadly Cost Of Pollution

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There is deservedly a great deal of focus on the effects that carbon pollution is having upon the climate and most countries around the world are working to reduce their emissions.   However, even if climate effects were not a serious threat to humanity, pollution is a deadly menace to human health.

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Is A Real Christmas Tree Or A Fake One Better for the Planet? 

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For many, the Christmas tree is a quintessential part of the holiday season.  According to the American Christmas Tree Association, 81% of Christmas trees Americans decorated in 2016 were artificial.  But are artificial trees really the better option for the environment?

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Transparent Solar Panels

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 It is now commonplace to see solar panels on the rooftops of homes and businesses.  There are more than a million solar homes in the US alone.  But a new generation of see-through solar technology has the potential to also turn the windows of buildings and cars, as well as other glass-coated objects, into electricity generators.

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Is Sustainable Seafood Really Sustainable?

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Tuna is perhaps the most popular seafood.   We eat it out of a can, we splurge on high-end sushi, and we prepare it in many other ways.   Some species of tuna are over-fished and some fishing methods are unsustainable.   As concerned consumers, we would like to know what sort of tuna we are eating.

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Corporate Fleets And Electric Cars

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A group of 10 major transnational corporations has launched a new global initiative to slash vehicle emissions by increasing the number of electric vehicles in their corporate fleets.  Known as EV100, the initiative commits companies to integrate EVs in their owned or leased fleets and install charging stations for customers and employees.

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Can We Stop A Hurricane?

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This has been a particularly terrible hurricane season.   Harvey, Irma, Jose, Maria, and Nate all formed in the Atlantic and headed for North America. People in Houston, Florida, all over the Caribbean, and especially Puerto Rico are trying to recover from the effects of these powerful storms.

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GM And Fuel Cells

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There has been a spate of announcements from major car manufacturers in recent times detailing their plans to electrify their future vehicles.  General Motors recently announced its “path to zero emissions” plan which includes the introduction of at least 20 electric vehicles by 2023.  They are joining Volvo, Volkswagen, Toyota and others in making such an announcement.

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A New Orangutan Species

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Orangutans are some of the planet’s most intelligent animals.  In fact, orangutans and human beings share 97% of their DNA sequence.  Orangutans can only be found in the wild on the Indonesian island of Sumatra and the island of Borneo, which is a land mass shared by Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei. 

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Fuel From Greenhouse Gases

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Carbon dioxide and methane are the two greenhouse gases that are having the greatest impact on the global climate.  There are basically three ways to prevent them from getting into the atmosphere:  don’t emit them, trap them and store them away, or turn them into something useful.

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Saving African Cattle With Perfume

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Tsetse flies are widespread in Africa. They feed on blood and are the source of the dreaded sleeping sickness, an infection that can be lethal, damages the nervous system and, in its final stage, causes a dozy state, which gave the disease its name. Sleeping sickness is a real danger for people in tropical Africa, but tsetse flies can also transfer the disease to cattle.  This leads to huge losses in milk, meat and manpower.  The damage caused by the flies in Africa is estimated to be nearly $5 billion a year.

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Celebrity Organisms

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The holiday buying season is upon us, and as always, people are looking for creative gift ideas.  One that pops up every year is naming a distant star after a gift recipient.  This dubious enterprise results in a handsome certificate and a promise to enter the person’s name in some mysterious book.  Sorry to say, astronomers around the world do not start calling some far-flung sun Aunt Gussie.

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A Decline In Flying Insects

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When was the last time you used a squeegee to remove squashed insects from your windshield?  It’s been a while, right?  It’s not just you.  This is known as the windscreen phenomenon.  Scientists and some motorists have long suspected that flying insects are in dramatic decline.  New research has confirmed these suspicions.

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Carbon And Heating Soil

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Plants are a critical part of the Earth’s carbon cycle.   They take in carbon dioxide during photosynthesis.   Eventually, dead leaves, branches and other materials fall to the ground where bacteria and fungi decompose the materials and release the CO2 back into the atmosphere.  This carbon-soil feedback loop is a complicated one that is critical to the overall carbon balance because soils actually contain two to three times more carbon than the atmosphere.

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More Fake Fish News

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There has been quite a bit of news in recent years about the mislabeling of fish sold in markets and restaurants.  One study a few years ago concluded that 1/3 of fish sold is not what it is labeled to be. Much of the practice is economic fraud:  substituting cheaper, easier-to-find fish for rarer, more valuable types.  For example, the study found that fish sold as red snapper was almost always not what it claimed to be.  But cheating paying customers is not the only problem associated with the misidentification of fish.

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Energy From Evaporating Water

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Researchers at Columbia University have demonstrated a potential new energy harvesting technique based on the natural evaporation of water.   Every day, vast amounts of water evaporate from the surfaces of lakes and rivers, a process powered by the heat energy of the sun.   The amount of energy involved is enormous but generally speaking is not something we can tap into.

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Corals Like Plastic

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Microplastics, which are tiny pieces of weathered plastic less than 5 millimeters in diameter, have been accumulating in the oceans for the past 40 years and are now ubiquitous in the marine environment.  They are a major threat to many kinds of marine life, including numerous species of birds, turtles, fish, marine mammals and invertebrates who ingest the stuff causing a variety of problems.

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An All-Electric Plane

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The British discount airline EasyJet recently announced a partnership with American company Wright Electric to develop an all-electric commercial airplane that they said could be flying within 10 years.  The goal of the partnership is to develop aircraft with a maximum range of 335 miles, which is long enough for many of the European routes that EasyJet flies from its hub in England.

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WAMC Northeast Public Radio

WAMC/Northeast Public Radio is a regional public radio network serving parts of seven northeastern states (more...)