Blogs

When you will hear next that the oil spill is not that big of a deal, take a look at how the oil spot influences the ecosystem and the living pattern of the rare types of birds, birdwatchers all over America are so very fond of.

Geoff Manaugh: For a stunningly realized thesis project submitted last month at the University of California, Berkeley, Taylor Medlin focused on what he called "Towards a...

WorldChanging Team: An economic transformation to rival the Industrial Revolution is on its way – and this time nature will be properly valued, predict John Elkington and...

A TV station in North Carolina is reporting that a young diner out to dinnerwith his family in Mooresville found a tar-like substance in his rawoyster.

Despite the sheer size of the Gulf oil spill, cleanup jobs are hard to come by. Job-seekers in New Orleans say they have gotten the runaround from BP and the Louisiana Workforce Commission when inquiring about work.

WorldChanging Team: Looking back one, two and five years ago today (give or take!) on Worldchanging: 2009 Reader Report: The World's First Real Time Carbon Counter Bryan...

Joe Romm: A new Center for American Progress (CAP) report by Sean Pool presents the “network lifecycle” approach to clean energy innovation. The paper shows how the...

Alex Steffen: (Urban Renewal #5, City Overview From Top of Military Hospital, Shanghai, 2004. By photographer Edward Burtynsky; used with permission.) If we want to anticipate...

U.S. scientists say a global shift in the planet’s wind and ocean currents, caused by melting ice sheets in the northern hemisphere, is likely to have pushed warmer air and seawater south, putting an end worldwide to the last ice age. The trigger that ended the ice age, roughly 20,000 years ago, was the periodic change in the Earth’s orbit that caused more sunlight to hit the northern hemisphere. Scientists from Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory said that orbital shift set in motion the melting of ice sheets across much of the northern hemisphere, which then altered the planet’s wind and ocean currents, warming more southerly regions and pulling carbon dioxide from the ocean’s depths into the atmosphere, accelerating the heating of the planet. The Columbia scientists pieced together this sequence of events by analyzing climate data from caves, polar ice cores, and deep-sea sediment. “These same linkages that brought the Earth out of the last ice age are active today, and they will almost certainly play a role in future climate change as well,” said Bob Anderson, a geochemist at Lamont-Doherty and coauthor of the study, published in the journal Science.

A captive breeding program has helped a species of giant Galapagos tortoise recover from near extinction, according to a new survey on the island of Española. The giant tortoise, Geochelone hoodensis, an iconic species encountered by Charles Darwin during his expeditions two centuries ago, had been all but decimated by humans in the decades that followed, primarily by sailors who slaughtered the tortoises for their meat. In the 1970s, only about 15 of the species remained, said Washington Tapia, of Ecuador’s Galapagos National Park Service and leader of the survey. The 10-day survey, conducted on the archipelago’s southernmost istockA giant tortoise island, found that there are now 1,500 to 2,000 tortoises on the island. “During the expedition we found nests, recently hatched tortoises, and adults born on Española, which indicates that the tortoise population is doing well,” Tapia said. Key to the recovery was the destruction of goats that had been introduced to the island by sailors and then devoured the island’s vegetation, making it uninhabitable for the tortoises. Once the goats were removed in the 1990s, numerous tortoises that had been transplanted for the captive breeding program were returned to Española.

A Florida boatbuilder who teamed up with singer Jimmy Buffett to manufacture a line of custom flats boats designed to rescue wildlife affected by the Gulf oil spill but BP has turned down their help.

Subtitle:  Solar degradation of lignin at wood’s surface is the single most important factor affecting the weathering of wood and subsequent paint adhesion Images: 

The weathering of wood is very different from decay; weathering is breakdown at the surface only. While there are a number of forces that contribute to weathering of wood—moisture, temperature, abrasion by wind-borne particles, air pollution—it’s the narrow band of high-energy ultraviolet light in sunlight that is the dominant force (see Image #1).

What bare wood looks like when cut or milled

Many energy experts contend natural gas is the ideal fuel as the world makes the transition to renewable energy. But since much of that gas will come from underground shale, potentially at high environmental cost, it would be far better to skip the natural gas phase and move straight to massive deployment of solar and wind power. BY DANIEL B. BOTKIN

Many energy experts contend natural gas is the ideal fuel as the world makes the transition to renewable energy. But since much of that gas will come from underground shale, potentially at high environmental cost, it would be far better to skip the natural gas phase and move straight to massive deployment of solar and wind power. BY DANIEL B. BOTKIN

Adding renewable energy to the existing grid and making it more reliable will require many new transmission lines. Highlighted below are areas suitable for large wind or solar projects, and congested areas where lines are most in need of relief.

Tension is mounting between BP and the neighborhood retailers that sell its gasoline. As more Americans shun BP gasoline as a form of protest over the Gulf oil spill, station owners are insisting BP do more to help them convince motorists that such boycotts mostly hurt independently-owned businesses, not the British oil giant.

New research suggests that the decrease in sea-ice seen in recent years in the Arctic may not be as bad as some have suggested. Some models suggest that Arctic ice is in long-term decline leading to sea-ice free summers. Whilst such speculations have been amplified by the media there are many climate scientists who regard this as unlikely...

Government documents obtained by The Associated Press show extensive efforts since 2000 to remove vast amounts of waste and contaminants from Plum Island, site of top-secret Army germ warfare research and decades of studies of dangerous animal diseases.

*****

It's deadly, barely regulated, and everywhere. Can Obama crack down on America's second-biggest river of industrial waste?