Nanotechnology cancer risk found: Some carbon nanotubes used in bike parts, bumpers and other products could act like asbestos if inhaled, scientists report. Workers making the products are at greatest risk, the study finds. [LA Times]
Burning Our Way Toward Fusion: While we continue to see false progress toward viable cold fusion, our goals in the realm of real fusion may have just become a little more realized. Researchers working with the Vulcan laser at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the UK have successfully heated matter to 10 million degrees Celsius, a precursor to controlled nuclear fusion. [Popsci]
Biofuel Crops: A Threat to Native Species?: Countries thinking of joining the rush for biofuels run the risk of planting invasive plant species that could wreak environmental and economic havoc, biologists warned on Tuesday. [Discovery]
In Defense of Biofuels: Biofuels—a class of fuels of which ethanol is the most prominent and immediately promising—can play a central part in weaning the United States from oil. But in recent months, a flood of press reports, articles in scientific journals, and statements from international bureaucrats have suggested that ethanol is starving the world’s poor, is a waste of government money, and is bad for the environment. These claims are simply not true. [The New Atlantis]
Dead water: Too much nitrogen being washed into the sea is causing dead zones to spread alarmingly. [Economist]
May 21st, 2008 at 11:49 am
This article is filed under Blog, Environment.
How the big picture changes from tiny beginnings: It pays to think small when forecasting environmental change. That’s “small” as in bacteria, atmospheric molecules, or beetles. Individual activity on this small scale can add up to major environmental effects that computer-based forecast modeling doesn’t adequately cover. [CSM]
How humans are putting the planet in peril: Man-made global warming is producing significant change on Earth, according to a study that has put together decades of data to reveal changes that range from the loss of ice sheets to the collapse of wildlife populations. [Telegraph]
Malibu to ban plastic bags: Supermarkets and other large retailers will have about six months to comply, smaller vendors up to a year. The action follows a number of other efforts in California to ban plastic bags. [LA Times]
May 15th, 2008 at 10:34 am
This article is filed under Blog, Environment.
Wind Energy Use to Jump, Then Soar: Two decades from now Americans could get as much electricity from windmills as from nuclear power plants, according to a government report that lays out a possible plan for wind energy growth. [Discovery]
China’s Silver Lining: Why smoggy skies over Beijing represent the world’s greatest environmental opportunity. [The Atlantic]
Floor plans: The first deep-sea mining machines - for extracting gold, silver and copper deposited near volcanic fissures on the ocean floor - are being built by a British engineering company. The pioneering designs, which will resemble giant, abrasive vacuum cleaners, are at the forefront of an emerging underwater mineral extraction industry that is sounding alarm bells among marine biologists and environmental scientists. [Guardian]
May 14th, 2008 at 10:56 am
This article is filed under Blog, Environment.
World carbon dioxide levels highest for 650,000 years, says US report: The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached a record high, according to the latest figures, renewing fears that climate change could begin to slide out of control. [Guardian]
Peregrine falcons in California’s urban areas are contaminated with toxic chemicals: The birds were endangered by DDT in the ’70s. Now, scientists have found that falcons in cities including Los Angeles contain record-high levels of flame retardant. [LA Times]
Environmental Amnesia: In need of positive messages and deliverable results, they focus on individual solutions. Don’t microwave in plastic. Buy organic. There is no place in that discussion for the barrels of waste buried atop the aquifer. The very mention of them fills a room with paralyzing despair. [Orion]
May 13th, 2008 at 10:21 am
This article is filed under Blog, Environment.
Want to Help the Environment? Eat Insects: “Americans have no idea how wasteful these large mammals are,” Gracer says. “If you want to feed a lot of people, insects are the best choice in terms of getting the biggest bang for your buck.” Insects, he claims, are nutritious. [Discover]
Is Cheap Meat Bigger Threat to Amazon than Biofuels?: Brazil plans to massively expand the production of biofuels but environmental campaigners worry about the effect this will have on the rainforest. Germany’s environment minister, who recently visited the country, thinks demand for cheap meat presents an even great danger. [Spiegel]
Pollution in paradise: Flamingos vs the factory: It is one of the world’s greatest natural spectacles. More than 500,000 flamingos congregate on the salty shores of Lake Natron in the north of Tanzania every year to breed. And it could be about to end. [Independent]
May 8th, 2008 at 9:06 am
This article is filed under Blog, Environment.
Arizona’s solar aspirations in peril: The sun shines 325 days a year in Arizona, on average, and some here see that as the state’s biggest energy asset. But fledgling efforts to turn Arizona into the solar capital of the world depend on making the initial investment in new energy plants affordable – something that could become much more difficult, perhaps even impossible, if a federal tax credit for solar projects expires at the end of the year as scheduled. [CSM]
“Green” Banana Farming Gains Industry Appeal: Today EARTH’s 600-acre (243-hectare) farm is the oldest working banana plantation in Costa Rica, selling its wares exclusively to the eco-friendly Whole Foods Market chain, which has more than 270 stores in the U.S. and the U.K. [National Geographic]
Just how ‘green’ is that shirt?: But judging competing social and environmental claims isn’t so easy, and the task is getting more complex now that companies like Britain’s Marks & Spencer are taking on climate change directly with a “carbon free” lingerie factory in Sri Lanka promising a garment produced entirely with renewable energy. [CSM]
A City Committed to Recycling Is Ready for More: So Mr. Newsom will soon be sending the city’s Board of Supervisors a proposal that would make the recycling of cans, bottles, paper, yard waste and food scraps mandatory instead of voluntary, on the pain of having garbage pickups suspended. [NYT]
May 7th, 2008 at 9:34 am
This article is filed under Blog, Environment.
Brazil defends ethanol in food-versus-fuel fight: President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva says the bad publicity is unwarranted and uninformed. Many biofuel experts agree. Critics, they say, fail to distinguish between the different kinds of ethanol. Brazilian ethanol from sugar cane is up to eight times more energy efficient to produce than ethanol derived from corn, beets, wheat, or other temperate crops. [CSM]
Oxygen-starved ocean ‘deserts’ emerging: Underwater “deserts” are emerging in tropical oceans as the oxygen vanishes from seawater, warns a new study. One of the consequences of a changing climate, the warmer oceans, is causing a decrease in the oxygen concentration and creating oxygen-starved, or “hypoxic” conditions underwater. [Telegraph]
Breeding toxins from dead PCs: Thousands of discarded computers from western Europe and the US arrive in the ports of west Africa every day, ending up in massive toxic dumps where children burn and pull them apart to extract metals for cash. [Guardian]
Air Pollution Impedes Bees’ Ability to Find Flowers: Air pollution interferes with the ability of bees and other insects to follow the scent of flowers to their source, undermining the essential process of pollination, a study by three University of Virginia researchers suggests. [Washington Post]
Antarctic Penguins Reveal Steady DDT Levels: Although use of the pesticide DDT was banned in the Northern Hemisphere in the 1970s, and DDT levels in the Arctic have declined steadily since then, new measurements show that DDT levels in Antarctic Adélie penguins have remained constant. [Discovery]
May 6th, 2008 at 9:38 am
This article is filed under Blog, Environment.
Is Desert Solar Power the Solution to Europe’s Energy Crisis?: A tiny fraction of the sun’s energy that shines upon the deserts of North Africa and the Middle East could meet all of Europe’s electricity demands. The technology to harness the energy already exists. So why is hardly anyone investing in it? [Spiegel]
Lots of climate-change studies, still few certainties: The Arctic can be frustrating for scientists trying to predict climate change. They know Arctic climate is changing faster than expected. Yet they don’t understand what’s happening today well enough to trust computer projections of what may happen there tomorrow. [CSM]
Can We Be as Smart as Bats?: So the question is: Can we humans adapt as effectively to the rain forest as vampire bats have? It doesn’t seem so. Instead of living in harmony with the rain forest — or only as parasitically as, say, a vampire bat — we’re destroying the jungle in ways that contribute hugely to global warming. [NYT]
May 1st, 2008 at 10:08 am
This article is filed under Blog, Environment.
Poison ice: As the sea ice melts, a toxic stew of mercury and synthetic chemicals is seeping into the Arctic food web, harming the area’s people. We may be next. [Salon]
Beyond petrol: There are many alternatives to oil for use as a fuel, each with its own unique set of problems. Which will we be using in 30 years’ time? [Guardian]
To Save a Species, Serve It for Dinner: That is the most complicated part of reviving traditional food, said Makalé Faber Cullen, a cultural anthropologist with Slow Food U.S.A. who contributed to the book. Farmers are often more concerned with innovating and crossbreeding than in preserving cultural traditions or encouraging biological diversity. [NYT]
Poisoned carrion sends Asian vultures spiralling into oblivion: Asian vultures are in catastrophic decline and could disappear from the wild within a decade, a study has suggested. One species, the oriental white-backed vulture, which was featured by Disney in its cartoon adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, has lost 99.9 per cent of its population in India since 1992. Also at risk are the long-billed and slender-billed vultures. Their numbers have fallen by almost 97 per cent in the same period. Scientists say that the cause is an anti-inflammatory drug given to livestock, which is poisoning vultures that feed on the carcasses of treated animals. The drug, diclofenac, causes kidney failure in the birds. [Times]
April 30th, 2008 at 9:01 am
This article is filed under Blog, Environment.
Is environmentalism the opiate of the liberals?: In this extract from his new book, Iain Murray argues that greens – who worship both a Weather God (the climate) and an Earth Mother (Gaia) and who brook no dissent – have become hectoring, intolerant religionists. [Spiked]
The future of dirt: THE EARTH’S UNCERTAIN oil reserves and dwindling freshwater supply may get all the attention, but modern society is also overtaxing the ground itself. [Boston Globe]
Movable Feast Carries a Pollution Price Tag: Cod caught off Norway is shipped to China to be turned into filets, then shipped back to Norway for sale. Argentine lemons fill supermarket shelves on the Citrus Coast of Spain, as local lemons rot on the ground. Half of Europe’s peas are grown and packaged in Kenya. In the United States, FreshDirect proclaims kiwi season has expanded to “All year!” now that Italy has become the world’s leading supplier of New Zealand’s national fruit, taking over in the Southern Hemisphere’s winter. Food has moved around the world since Europeans brought tea from China, but never at the speed or in the amounts it has over the last few years. [NYT]
Perfect harmony: Gaia theory suggests that the Earth and its natural cycles can be thought of like a living organism. When one natural cycle starts to go out of kilter other cycles work to bring it back, continually optimising the conditions for life on Earth. [Guardian]
Urban wetlands park to be developed in South L.A.: The City Council this week unanimously approved construction of an unusual urban wetland park on an old Metropolitan Transportation Authority maintenance yard in South Los Angeles. The South Los Angeles Wetlands Park project will cost $19 million in proceeds from bond issues for parks and clean water and will take up to two years to build, city officials said. It will include a small lake, marshes with native plants, footpaths, a community center and a winding waterway. [LA Times]
April 28th, 2008 at 10:26 am
This article is filed under Blog, Environment.
