The Think City: In Norway, they’re building your first electric car: “The car was 95% complete when Ford stopped development in 2002,” says Fretheim. In the long run, he says, the down time might have been a good thing. “When we started work again we had better options for batteries.” [LA Times]
Climate Issues Tied to U.S. Security: U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that global climate change will worsen food shortages and disease exposure in sub-Saharan Africa over the next two decades, creating operational problems for the Pentagon’s newest overseas military command. [Washington Post]
Deal could restore the Everglades: It was a strategy so bold no environmentalist or state bureaucrat dared dream it could happen: Buy out Big Sugar’s polluted fields, railroad and refinery within the Everglades so the wounded “river of grass” could heal after more than a century of man’s industrial intrusions. [LA Times]
June 26th, 2008 at 10:40 am
This article is filed under Blog, Environment.
Climate change activists have chosen a magic number: In a PowerPoint presentation he gave at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco last December, he named a number: 350 parts per million carbon dioxide. That, he said, was the absolute upper bound of anything like safety—above it and the planet would be unraveling. Is unraveling, because we’re already at 385 parts per million. And so it’s a daring number, a politically unwelcome one. [Orion]
Is the fuel crisis a blessing in disguise?: It depends on your point of view, of course, but there is some evidence that the surge in oil prices is succeeding where green campaigners and government initiatives have not: in persuading people to drive less. This means a cut in carbon dioxide emissions, and ultimately, less global warming. [Guardian]
Nanotech: Why Something So Small Can Be So Dangerous: Nanotech does hold clean and green potential, especially for supplying cheap renewable energy and safe drinking water. But nanomaterials also pose possible serious risks to the environment and human health — risks that researchers have barely begun to probe, and regulators have barely begun to regulate. [AlterNet]
Twenty years later: tipping points near on global warming: James Hansen, director of the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, marks the 20th anniversary of his groundbreaking statement to Congress by saying there’s no time left to delay in defusing the global warming time bomb. [Guardian]
Wildlife and livelihoods at risk in Kenyan wetlands biofuel project: Kenya has approved a controversial biofuel project that environmentalists say could destroy some of the country’s most pristine wetlands. More than 80 sq miles of the Tana river delta is scheduled to become a sugar cane plantation, with much of the crop turned into ethanol in a purpose-built factory. [Guardian]
June 24th, 2008 at 11:20 am
This article is filed under Blog, Environment.
Inside the Solar Hydrogen House: No More Power Bills–Ever: Mike Strizki has not paid an electric, oil or gas bill—nor has he spent a nickel to fill up his Mercury Sable—in nearly two years. Instead, the 51-year-old civil engineer makes all the fuel he needs using a system he built in the capacious garage of his home, which employs photovoltaic (PV) panels to turn sunlight into electricity that is harnessed in turn to extract hydrogen from tap water. [Scientific American]
Scientists find bugs that eat waste and excrete petrol: Silicon Valley is experimenting with bacteria that have been genetically altered to provide ‘renewable petroleum’. [Times]
Top of sea warming 50% faster than thought: The top few hundred metres of the world’s oceans have warmed 50 per cent faster than previously thought during the past half century, a discovery that has solved an enduring puzzle about the world’s rising sea levels. [Telegraph]
MIT team plays with fire to create cheap energy: New solar dish harnesses power from heat – at a size and cost that make soaking up the sun even more attractive. [CSM]
Think you love shopping? It’s the marketing scam of the century: The exact point at which a life of frugality – led by most people until the 1950s – developed into one of comfort, before slipping into absurd excess, is impossible to determine, admits Benjamin Barber, author of the best-selling Jihad Vs. McWorld. His new book, Consumed, tackles obsessive, “hyper” consumption. This trend, predicts Barber, is leading democratic societies towards an early grave. [Independent]
June 19th, 2008 at 10:40 am
This article is filed under Blog, Environment.
Global Drying: The world’s agriculture and water crisis is only going to get worse. As China and India grow, their populations are demanding more and wider varieties of food stuffs, competition for arable land is intensifying and freshwater withdrawals of agriculture are soaring. [WSJ]
Shark numbers crash: Sharks in the Mediterranean Sea have suffered dramatic declines in the past few decades as overfishing has taken its toll on the sleek and ancient predators. Some species, including hammerheads and threshers, have dwindled by more than 99%, according to historical fishing records examined by conservationists. [Guardian]
Congress Pushes to Keep Land Untamed: With little fanfare, Congress has embarked on a push to protect as many as a dozen pristine areas this year in places ranging from the glacier-fed streams of the Wild Sky Wilderness here to West Virginia’s Monongahela National Forest. [Washington Post]
June 16th, 2008 at 10:59 am
This article is filed under Blog, Environment.
Trump snubs experts over golf course threat to rare dunes: Donald Trump has rejected repeated warnings from his own environment experts that his plans for “the world’s greatest golf course” will severely damage a rare and legally protected stretch of dunes in north-east Scotland. [Guardian]
Global warming turning sea into acid bath: Increasing carbon dioxide emissions could leave species such as coral and sea urchins struggling to survive by the end of the century because they are making the oceans more acidic, research led by British scientists suggests. [Times]
City-Size Tract of Amazon Forest Cleared in April: In just a month, an area nearly the size of New York City was cleared in the Amazon rain forest—an “alarming” and “worse-than-imagined” development, the Brazilian government said in a statement. [National Geographic]
June 11th, 2008 at 9:52 am
This article is filed under Blog, Environment.
7 Condors Poisoned by Lead; One Dies: Officials do not yet know the source of the contamination, but a United States Fish and Wildlife Service official said the birds had probably been poisoned by eating the carcasses of animals shot by hunters. Lead poisoning is a known threat to the birds, and the state will soon ban hunting with lead bullets. [NYT]
The race for nonfood biofuel: A big step forward came last week with the opening of the nation’s first demonstration-scale cellulosic ethanol plant in Jennings, La. The facility, built by Cambridge, Mass.-based Verenium Corp., will use high-tech enzymes to make 1.4 million gallons per year of ethanol from the cellulose in sugar cane bagasse, a waste product. [CSM]
Puffin numbers plummet in UK’s biggest colony: The North Sea’s largest colony of puffins has suffered a sudden collapse in numbers, raising fears that climate change and overfishing may be destroying the sea bird’s food supplies. [Guardian]
The future is now: A new report from the US government gives a surprisingly blunt assessment of how climate change is harming the environment. [Guardian]
June 5th, 2008 at 11:13 am
This article is filed under Blog, Environment.
Warming Leads to Water Shortage and ‘Africanization’ of Spain: Murcia, is running out of water. Swaths of southeast Spain are steadily turning into desert, a process spurred on by global warming and poorly planned development. [NYT]
Depleted Uranium Shells Used by U.S. Military Worse Than Nuclear Weapons: The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority has estimated that 50 tons of DU dust from the first Gulf War could lead to 500,000 cancer deaths by the year 2000. To date, a total of 2,000 tons have been generated in the Middle East. [NaturalNews]
Microgeneration could rival nuclear power, report shows: British buildings equipped with solar, wind and other micro power equipment could generate as much electricity in a year as five nuclear power stations, a government-backed industry report showed today. [Guardian]
June 3rd, 2008 at 10:03 am
This article is filed under Blog, Environment.
Is water becoming ‘the new oil’?: Barcelona is not alone. Cyprus will ferry water from Greece this summer. Australian cities are buying water from that nation’s farmers and building desalination plants. Thirsty China plans to divert Himalayan water. And 18 million southern Californians are bracing for their first water-rationing in years. [CSM]
Climate Enters Debate Over Nuclear Power: The proposed closing, albeit a long shot, has gained some support this year among Vermont politicians. The discussion is bringing into sharp relief a conflict between two objectives long held by environmental advocates: combating nuclear power and stopping global warming. [NYT]
Apocalypse in the Oceans: With 150 dead zones in our oceans, some the size of Ireland, author Taras Grescoe argues that there’s been a massive die out of sea life. [AlterNet]
May 30th, 2008 at 10:51 am
This article is filed under Blog, Environment.
Oceans turning acidic decades earlier: Greenhouse gases are turning the oceans acidic enough to dissolve the shells of sea creatures decades earlier than scientists had expected, with potentially catastrophic consequences for marine life. [Telegraph]
Wasps on the rise in Alaska as climate warms: Wasps used to be an uncommon sight in Fairbanks until two years ago. Then huge numbers of them swarmed on the city, ten times more than normal. The number of stings grew so bad that outdoor school events were cancelled, 178 patients were treated in hospital for stings and two people died. [Times]
US south-west warned of dire climate challenges: The US south-west, a region that is experiencing one of the fastest rates of population growth, faces dramatic challenges in the next 50 years from drought, wildfires and changing ecosystems caused by global warming, a report from the Bush administration warns. [Guardian]
May 29th, 2008 at 10:50 am
This article is filed under Blog, Environment.
Down with Descartes: For better or worse, the distinction between humans and nature is collapsing. THE SHAMAN Martín Prechtel once told me that back in his village, no one would say, “I am healthy but my child is sick.” A person would say, “My family is sick” or “My village is sick.” To think any one individual could be healthy when his or her family, village, or indeed the land, the water, or the planet were not would be as absurd as saying, “I’ve got a fatal liver disease, but that’s just my liver—I am healthy!” Just as my sense of self includes my liver, so theirs included their social and natural community. [Orion]
Why a Gulf Wetland May Become a City: If America learned one thing from hurricane Katrina, hydrologists argue, it should be this: Don’t fill in tideland marshes and build on them. Such human activity, they insist, diminishes the marshes’ ability to absorb some of the wallop of storms as they strike coastal communities. [AlterNet]
Dressing Locally: You’ve probably tried eating locally. What about dressing locally? In my small town in western Colorado, gardeners abound, but seamstresses and tailors are endangered species, made scarce by $9.99 imported t-shirts. Yet local clothes are still grown and raised in the town’s cavernous old livery, where my friend Elisabeth Delehaunty runs her sewing machine and hoards her vast collection of fabric. [Orion]
May 22nd, 2008 at 10:49 am
This article is filed under Blog, Environment.
