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Fierce love: Julia Butterfly Hill
On becoming an apocalyptic zealot.
The true challenges for the next president
When GMO ≠ GMO
Canadian schools sent brochures from climate change skeptics
Paul Stamets to the rescue
Green books for Earth Day week, 2008
Responses to the site? Feedback?
Bat die-off now found in CT
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A new biopesticide for the organic food boom
With the boom in consumption of organic foods creating a pressing need for natural insecticides and herbicides that can be used on crops certified as "organic," biopesticide pioneer Pam G. Marrone, Ph.D., is reporting development of a new "green" pesticide obtained from an extract of the giant knotweed.... "The product is safe to humans, animals, and the environment," says Marrone... The new biopesticide has active compounds that alert plant defenses to combat a range of diseases, including powdery mildew, gray mold and bacterial blight that affect fruits, vegetables, and ornamentals.
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Climate change could be impetus for wars, other conflicts, expert says
In a survey of recent research published earlier this summer in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Scheffran concluded that “the impact of climate change on human and global security could extend far beyond the limited scope the world has seen thus far.”
Scheffran’s review included a critical analysis of four trends identified in a report by the German Advisory Council on Global Change as among those most possibly destabilizing populations and governments: degradation of freshwater resources, food insecurity, natural disasters and environmental migration.
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Fish with double jaw sparks eco interest
"CALGARY - A northern First Nations band which displayed a deformed, two-jawed fish at a weekend water conference says the grotesque specimen has spurred efforts to collect evidence to show that Alberta's oilsands are poisoning both wildlife and people.
George Poitras, a spokesman for the Mikisew Cree, said the band is determining what to do with the large goldeye, which was found last week by children playing in the waters of Lake Athabasca, downstream from the oilsands."
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Satellite Images Show Continued Breakup Of Two Of Greenland's Largest Glaciers, Predict Disintegration In Near Future
Researchers monitoring daily satellite images here of Greenland's glaciers have discovered break-ups at two of the largest glaciers in the last month.
They expect that part of the Northern hemisphere's longest floating glacier will continue to disintegrate within the next year.... What worries Jason Box [and other colleagues] even more about the latest images is what appears to be a massive crack further back from the margin of the Petermann Glacier.
That crack may signal an imminent and much larger breakup.
"If the Petermann glacier breaks up back to the upstream rift, the loss would be as much as 60 square miles (160 square kilometers)," Box said, representing a loss of one-third of the massive ice field.
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52-city Report Examines Use Of Wastewater In Urban Agriculture
As developing countries confront the first global food crisis since the 1970s as well as unprecedented water scarcity, a new 53-city survey conducted by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) indicates that most of those studied (80 percent) are using untreated or partially treated wastewater for agriculture. In over 70 percent of the cities studied, more than half of urban agricultural land is irrigated with wastewater that is either raw or diluted in streams.
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Glacier Park: Disappearing namesake may make pristine wilderness symbol of climate change
"The national parks in general, and Glacier Park in particular, have become the poster child for climate change, and that means they really are stepping up as leaders in both research and education." ... Which explains Kloeck's daily talks, seven times a day, up there on Logan Pass.
"It's called 'Goodbye to Glaciers,'" said Sherry Forbes, the park's chief of interpretation and education. "And it's part of a much broader effort."
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Japan to launch carbon footprint labelling scheme
Japan is to carry carbon footprint labels on food packaging and other products in an ambitious scheme to persuade companies and consumers to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
The labels, to appear on dozens of items including food and drink, detergents and electrical appliances from next spring, will go further than similar labels already in use elsewhere.
They will provide detailed breakdowns of each product's carbon footprint under a government-approved calculation and labeling system now being discussed by the trade ministry and around 30 firms.
The labels will show how much carbon dioxide is emitted during the manufacture, distribution and disposal of each product, the ministry said.
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Shark numbers worry over fin export
The WWF says 230 tonnes of shark fin have been exported from Australia in the past 13 months....
Conservationists say they have major concerns about Australia's contribution to the shark fin industry.
WWF's Dr Gilly Llewellyn says the appetite for shark fin overseas which Australia appears to be feeding, is insatiable, and in the past 13 months 230 tonnes of shark fin have been exported from our shores, mainly to Asian markets.
"Using a really conservative estimate using the largest possible size of shark, using a low fin to weight ratio, that's still 10,000 sharks that would have needed to be killed for that amount of fin," she says.
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A better way to make hydrogen from biofuels
Researchers here have found a way to convert ethanol and other biofuels into hydrogen very efficiently.
A new catalyst makes hydrogen from ethanol with 90 percent yield, at a workable temperature, and using inexpensive ingredients.
Umit Ozkan, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Ohio State University, said that the new catalyst is much less expensive than others being developed around the world, because it does not contain precious metals, such as platinum or rhodium. "Rhodium is used most often for this kind of catalyst, and it costs around $9,000 an ounce," Ozkan said. "Our catalyst costs around $9 a kilogram."
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New sea change forecasts present a slimy picture
Earth's oceans are on the brink of massive change. You see it in such details as the hordes of Pacific mollusks that researchers have identified as ready to invade the North Atlantic as a thawing Arctic Ocean opens the way. You also see it in broad trends: A new overview warns that such relentless human impacts as overfishing or agricultural pollution -- as well as global warming -- threaten mass extinctions of marine life.
Jeremy Jackson at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, who made that overview, notes that this is "not a happy picture."
He says that "the only way to keep one's sanity and try to achieve real success is to carve out sectors of the problem that can be addressed in effective terms and get on with it as quickly as possible."
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Green catalysts provide promise for cleaning toxins and pollutants
Tetra-Amido Macrocyclic Ligands (TAMLs) are environmentally friendly catalysts with a host of applications for reducing and cleaning up pollutants, and a prime example of "green chemistry".... The oxidation catalysts are the first highly effective mimics of peroxidase enzymes. When partnered with hydrogen peroxide, they are able to convert harmful pollutants into less toxic substances.
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Chronic lead poisoning from urban soils
While acute lead poisoning from toys and direct ingestion of interior paint has received more publicity, these cases account for only a portion of children with lead poisoning. Many health officials are increasingly concerned with chronic lead poisoning, which occurs at lower levels of lead in the blood and are harder to diagnose. Babies and young children may develop chronic lead poisoning when playing in dirt yards or playgrounds or in areas with blowing dry soil tainted with the lead, which is ubiquitous in older urban areas.... As their neurons develop, the nervous system tries to use lead in place of calcium and the child's neural systems fail to form correctly. This impairs neural function leading to irreversibly decreased IQ and increased attention deficient issues.
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Australian expert says sea levels to rise four metres
"An Australian climate change expert says the world's sea levels could rise by up to four meters this century.
The head of the climate change unit at the Australian National University and science adviser to the federal Government, Professor Will Steffen, says he believes the scientific community is underestimating the speed at which the climate is changing.
Rising sea levels from global warming are predicted to make some Pacific islands unlivable within the next decade, with Tuvalu expected to be underwater by 2050."
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Carcinogens from car exhaust can linger
"The daily exposure to free radicals from car exhaust, smokestacks and even your neighbors' barbecue could be as harmful as smoking, according to a new study. Many combustion processes, such as those in a car, create tiny particles that may act as brewing pots and carriers for free radicals -- chemicals believed to cause lung cancer and cardiovascular diseases."
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Anti-Regulation Aide to Cheney Is Up for Energy Post
"A senior aide to Vice President Cheney is the leading contender to become a top official at the Energy Department, according to several current and former administration officials, a promotion that would put one of the administration's most ardent opponents of environmental regulation in charge of forming department policies on climate change."
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Tip: Bumming out? Don't forget that there's also the
Recovery Scenario, or you can try
our experimental
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Lawsuit seeks EPA pesticide data
"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is refusing to disclose records about a new class of pesticides that could be playing a role in the disappearance of millions of honeybees in the United States, a lawsuit filed Monday charges. The Natural Resources Defense Council wants to see the studies that the EPA required when it approved a pesticide made by Bayer CropScience five years ago.
The environmental group filed the suit as part of an effort to find out how diligently the EPA is protecting honeybees from dangerous pesticides..."
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Our Good Earth
"...This year food shortages, caused in part by the diminishing quantity and quality of the world's soil ... have led to riots in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. By 2030, when today's toddlers have toddlers of their own, 8.3 billion people will walk the Earth; to feed them, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates, farmers will have to grow almost 30 percent more grain than they do now. Connoisseurs of human fecklessness will appreciate that even as humankind is ratchetting up its demands on soil, we are destroying it faster than ever before. "Taking the long view, we are running out of dirt," says David R. Montgomery, a geologist at the University of Washington in Seattle."
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Spanish fear day when tap will run dry
"BARCELONA, Spain -- Water woes spiraled to such depths this year that the top regional environment minister here—a confirmed agnostic—confessed to climbing the stony shrine of the Virgin of Montserrat for a bit of solace. Winter rains refused to fall, shriveling reserves to severe drought levels and prompting a water shipment from France. Catalonia's go-to guy for the environment, Francesc Baltasar, told local radio that fear made for a quick, if dubious, epiphany at the feet of the Virgin Mary."
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Jellyfish invasion: Britain to fight them on the beaches
"The growing threat from swarms of jellyfish around Britain's coast is to be investigated for the first time by British and Irish scientists. Using the latest technology, researchers are planning to tag jellyfish to explore their life cycles and movement in a project known as Ecojel."
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"Toxic" Indian festivals poison waterways
"MUMBAI (Reuters) - Toxic chemicals from thousands of idols of Hindu gods immersed in rivers and lakes across India are causing pollution which is killing fish and contaminating food crops, experts and environmentalists said on Monday... Elaborately painted and decorated idols are worshipped before they are taken during mass processions to rivers, lakes and the sea, where they are immersed in accordance with Hindu faith.
Environmentalists say the idols are often made from non-biodegradable materials such as plastic, cement and plaster of Paris and painted with toxic dyes."
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Dying Frogs Sign Of A Biodiversity Crisis
"Devastating declines of amphibian species around the world are a sign of a biodiversity disaster larger than just frogs, salamanders and their ilk, according to researchers from the University of California, Berkeley... researchers argue that substantial die-offs of amphibians and other plant and animal species add up to a new mass extinction facing the planet."
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Green burials cost less and are earth-friendly
"...Though burials come in many shades, the greenest involve cemeteries that look less like golf courses and more like nature preserves, caskets made of cardboard and bodies that aren't juiced up with embalming fluids -- all at a fraction of the cost of a traditional burial... Not confined to the tree huggers of the Pacific Northwest, green cemeteries have opened in places such as the South Carolina foothills and northeastern Ohio."
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Democrats waver over offshore drilling ban
"Under fire from Republicans, top Democratic politicians in the United States are considering lifting a ban on new offshore oil drilling... Democrats have hitherto said new drilling would do little to relieve consumer pain at the pump, accusing Republicans of misleading the public and being a pawn of big oil companies. Yet signs are emerging that they are easing their opposition to the comprehensive ban."
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Health questions linger after state study on Fort Lauderdale trash incinerator
"FORT LAUDERDALE - A state study that found few links between toxic ashes from the Wingate trash incinerator and health problems in nearby neighborhoods downplayed important data, according to several health experts who worked on the survey.
One expert, University of Alabama at Birmingham epidemiologist Jeffrey Roseman, helped design the study and said state officials dismissed high rates of reported anemia, asthma and cancers in the northwestern Fort Lauderdale community around Wingate."
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In the face of environmental disaster, more Chinese are going green
"While Olympic visitors from around the world get a firsthand glimpse this month at China's pollution problems, a homegrown movement is racing to ward off what many here predict could be epic environmental meltdown.
Hundreds of millions of Chinese are taking the first steps to turn the tide, fueled by growing unhappiness with the plunging quality of life caused by out-of-control environmental degradation."
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Acid ocean imperils more than shells
"SYDNEY — Rising ocean acidity could reduce fertilization of marine invertebrates and might eventually wipe out colonies of sea urchins, lobsters, mussels and oysters, according to a study.
Scientists knew that ocean acidification was eating away at the shells of marine animals, but the new study has found that rising acidity hindered marine sperm from swimming to and fertilizing eggs in the ocean."
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Fattest children to be taken away from their parents
"Dangerously overweight children will have to be taken from their parents and put into care because of Britain's worsening "obesity epidemic", council leaders have warned.
One million children will be clinically obese within four years on current trends, storing up future problems from heart disease, strokes, high blood pressure and diabetes.
The Local Government Association (LGA), which represents 400 councils in England and Wales, predicted social services teams would have to take drastic action to improve the health of seriously overweight children."
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Armstrong tops list of city's largest water users
"Every minute, about five gallons of water passed through the sinks, sprinklers, fountain and pool at Lance Armstrong's house in June, making the retired professional cyclist Austin's biggest water-using individual that month.
A total of 222,900 gallons of water was used at Armstrong's home, according to the most recent city records available. That's about what 26 average Austin households use in a month."
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Worrying invasive snail found in Lake Michigan
"CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Scientists worry that a rapidly reproducing, tiny invasive snail recently found in Lake Michigan could hurt the lake's ecosystem. The New Zealand mud snail joins a long and growing list of nonnative species moving into the Great Lakes, threatening to disrupt the food chain and change the local environment."
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As the ice melts, control ebbs in the Arctic
The Northwest Passage may be ice-free this summer, for only the second time in recorded history. The Canadian Arctic is being fundamentally transformed.
As the ice diminishes, new actors and interests will arrive. Who is coming? What will they do? What does it mean for Canada? Many people expect international shippers to take advantage of the shorter distances between Europe and Asia to carry goods through an increasingly ice-free Passage. Most shipping experts, however, think that will happen only in the medium term. Before the larger companies commit themselves to Arctic voyages, they will need longer, and much more certain, times of open water.
The increased use of the Arctic for other economic activities is much more likely. In particular, the huge oil and gas resources in and around the Northwest Passage may be best brought to market by ship rather than by pipeline.... Our Coast Guard's icebreaking fleet is small and aging; our search-and-rescue capability is based in the south; our navy has a very limited ability to go north; we require industry to provide for their own rescue capability; and we maintain almost no oil-spill response equipment in the North.
In short, we are not prepared for any shipping, let alone for large tanker traffic.
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