Photo via: Laughing Shaman
The Bhut Jolokia (a.k.a. Ghost chili), the India version of the hot pepper, might be coming to a riot near you......
Photo via:
Amagill
While not often a target of
environmental groups due to the increased preparation and safety it promotes, a firefighters training regiment is anything but green. Such training often involves the controlled burning of vehicles, hay, and wood structures. The byproduct of such a rigorous training schedule results in thick, black, billowing clouds of toxic smoke and fumes, which not only simulates the danger to the firefighters and victims, but also the environmental catastrophe these types of fires promote....
Image: Green Turtle Face, by Sharon Deem, courtesy of WCS
Sad Green Turtle
If this Green Turtle appears sad, perhaps it is pondering the newest threat to its endangered species. Green turtles belong to the groups of marine denizens known to suffer from high levels of cancer in the wild. Cancer kills about one in every ten humans; now a
new study done under the auspices of the
Wildlife Conservation Society reveals that some wild animal species are dying at similar rates. Tazmanian devils, turtles, whales, sea lions, dolphins and fish are some of the species shown in the study to be suffering from elevated rates of cancer, in some cases threatening the very survival of the species. ...
Photo via stock.xchng by ortonesque
Let’s clear up one issue: There is no such thing as
local vs. organic. When it comes to consumer choice, we should be buying local
and organic, though for mostly different reasons....
Photo via pfly @ flickr
Fake plants generally don’t give off huge environmental benefits—especially when they’re the plastic kind that just barely cheer up offices and waiting rooms. But a synthetic tree now in development may be better for the environment than its natural counterparts; click through to see why....
Photo via: www.EricCastro.biz
“I Can Do Anything Better than You!”
RTP Re-Tread Products is in the testing phase of a series of recycled rubber tire products designed to one day take the place of some of the applications where
pressure treated lumber has traditionally been used. The benefit of such a trade-off would be less chemicals to leach into the ground (from the treated lumber), improved flexibility, and increased overall durability.
The tire logs are believed to be a very appropriate substitute for such applications as heavy equipment platforms, logging roadways, boat ramps, hurricane-prone building construction, highway separation, and flood-control barriers....
Photo via: D. Fletcher
This week in the news, the mud dauber wasp and Navajo Indians are facing similar problems... radioactive homes.
Read on......
Photo via: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
A new laser currently being tested at the
Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has caught the imagination of many scientists and critics. For one, it is one of the largest lasers ever to be developed. It takes up the space of a standard-sized stadium, housing 192 individual beams, each combining into one ultimate beam that is said to have the equivalent intensity and heat energy as the
sun itself....
Photo via: mysi anne
Our world has become very much reliant on technology, and why shouldn't it. Technology has progressed in leaps and bounds over the years creating new and improved methods of health care, faster and more powerful networking, cleaner and more organized industry. However, despite its many great advances, technology is not necessarily what is going to save us from the ill-effects of global warming......
photo: Andrei Taranchenko via flickr.
Melting
permafrost releasing
stored greenhouse gases has long been a known contributing and accelerating factor in global climate change. According to a study published in
Nature and reported on by the
AP, we may have a bit more time than we thought before all that trapped
methane gets released:...
Though
global warming news has been in people's minds for a while now, many still don't seem to understand the
causes of the problem.
There's also a lack of understanding of the
future effects that might occur if we wait any longer to act.
The real facts about global warming must be known so individuals and governments alike can come together to solve one of the greatest challenges acing humans to date.
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photo: Partners for Fish and Wildlife via flickr.
There's a reason the phrase "let nature take its course" exists: New research done at the
Yale University School of Forestry & Environmental Science reinforces the idea that ecosystems are quiet resilient and can rebound from pollution and environmental degradation. Published in the journal
PLoS ONE, the study shows that most damaged ecosystems worldwide can recover within a single lifetime, if the source of pollution is removed and restoration work done:...
Portrait of René Descartes.
Image credit:
Wikipedia
A panel of nuclear-power experts, meeting at MIT recently, made the point that now that the Obama administration wants to take completing the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository 'off the table,' finding an alternative is relatively low priority.
Per the report in
Technology Review: "
A much more urgent issue, the experts said, is pushing forward the permitting and construction of new nuclear-power plants." I hadn't noticed a preceding rush to finish Yucca Mountain. So, what has changed?
As you would expect from panel members from academia, it
is important to get more Federal money for researching ways to improve nuclear reactors.
And of course, there
is a 'rush' to add nuclear power capacity because of it's low carbon footprint. (When ever I hear this argument I want to know if they are counting the energy and water inputs needed for fuel extraction and processing. Probably not.)...
Two Russian roulette graphs showing potential global warming as presented by MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Warming
Sit down for this one: New analysis from
MIT on how much
global average temperatures could rise if we continue burning fossil fuels and emitting carbon like there's no tomorrow indicates that things could be twice as bad as we thought:...
"Pyrosomes are colonial tunicates, animals related to sea squirts, that look like fuzzy paint rollers, with individuals arranged around a hollow tubular center. This one has a spiny single-celled animal called a radiolarian, hitching a ride at one end."
Image credit:
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Eco-idealogs commonly characterize iron seeding proposals, which are intended to renew marine plankton growth, thus scouring more carbon from the atmosphere, as either unethical or ineffectual. The serial negativism about iron seeding amounts to spinning scientific uncertainty. Every new research report "proves" the negative (just like it does with climate deniers). If this isn't making sense for you, please see my earlier post:
Anti-Science Environmentalism: Iron Seeding Experiment Protested...Again. Then read on about the role of jellyfish in consuming plankton and then pulling atmospherically-originating carbon into the ocean depths....
Pathfinder Linden via flickr.
There's some good news/bad news on the melting Antarctic ice sheets being reported over at
New Scientist. Though the
West Antarctic ice sheet probably won't entirely collapse into the ocean all at once (that's the good news), the parts that are most likely to be released will cause some serious sea level rise:...
Vintage Car Window-Mounted Evaporative Air Cooler. Image credit:
ClassicAire, via
62-77ChevyTrucks.com
Refrigerant gases are back in the news - "HFC's" especially - now, because of their extended climate forcing potential. Remember the
Montreal Protocol, that successful, 1989 global treaty to protect the earth's ozone layer? The Protocol still has an important role to play, in encouraging development of refrigerant gases that have reduced impacts on both the ozone layer
and climate. TreeHugger interviewed Mack McFarland, Environmental Fellow with DuPont, Inc., and an active participant in both the Protocol and IPCC, to get his insights into what the refrigerant choices of the future will be, and how we'll get them. Stay cool, read on....
Photo via Flickr: Dreamijo
If you're looking for recent global warming articles
on the web, you need to know who to trust. It's true that the internet
is a great resource for information, but it's also a tool for writers
and journalists with a political agenda to publish anything they want,
to spread lies and deceive the public on the real facts about global warming.
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We'll be working on better category archives soon. In the meantime, take a look at the
if you really want to dig around, or use the search box at the top of the page.
on 07.10.09
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