The definitive story from environmental journalism icon and Pulitzer Award-winner Mark Schliefstein:
“A massive, 22-mile-long underwater plume of oil droplets flowed to the southwest of the BP’s failed Macondo well at the end of June, and the threat it poses to natural resources of the Gulf of Mexico remains uncertain, scientists who mapped the plume said [...]
Experts hope to use sonar images of a sunken ship off California’s coast to determine whether the vessel is at risk of leaking oil. The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) sent a robotic submersible down to the wreck of the SS Montebello last week in an effort to assess the condition of the ship. [...]
Our friends Seth Keller and Mark van Soestbergen have developed a great greenhouse gas accounting course here in Gainesville and they’re taking it to Atlanta next week. Please pass the word to anyone you think might be interested in learning about this:
Carbon Footprint and Greenhouse Strategies Seminar: August 26
Participants will learn how [...]
Charles Harvey traces the source of widespread arsenic poisoning in Bangladesh, setting the stage for programs that could benefit 20 million people.
Millions of people in developing countries drink groundwater contaminated with much higher levels of arsenic than the old U.S. standard, every day…Cruelly, Bangladeshis were getting sick because they followed the advice of [...]
A federal district court judge revoked the government’s approval of genetically engineered sugar beets Friday, saying that the Agriculture Department had not adequately assessed the environmental consequences before approving them for commercial cultivation.
The decision, by Judge Jeffrey S. White of Federal District Court in San Francisco, appears to effectively ban the planting of [...]
Thanks to Monica Carter for posting this neat video of Carl Sagan and others sharing their take on the state of universe.
You have to wonder why this takes anyone by surprise. They’ve been denying this sort of thing for years, in spite of increasing evidence. Then there is the common sense factor. Of COURSE whatever is in the soil or water will feed the plant along with the nutrients it’s there to [...]
Ecological scientists will discuss findings on human-ecosystem interactions — from the effects of nanomaterials on plant growth to the diversity of insect species on green roofs, and even communities of airborne microbes in hospital buildings — at the Ecological Society of America’s 95th Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh from August 1-6, 2010. [...]
Researchers at Yale University have developed a custom membrane that can clean and purify water from oceans, salty ground water or sewage water with far less energy input than currently is required to do a similar job.
The membrane may be a big step forward in reaching the goal of reliable and affordable sources of fresh [...]
Pennsylvania may soon become the capital of energy that is really green — as in algae.
It turns out that algae — that slimy stuff that makes your skin crawl when you swim through it — is pretty powerful stuff.
via Berks lawmaker courts algae farms for Pennsylvania – The Mercury News: Pottstown, PA and The Tri [...]
Faced with hundreds of lawsuits and a deep need for experts, BP has been offering some Gulf Coast scientists lucrative consulting contracts that bar them from releasing their findings on the company’s massive oil spill for three years.
Some scientists say the contracts constrain academic freedom. A few signed the agreements, then changed their minds.
via Gulf [...]
Dan Sullivan of BioCycle explores the possibilities for using compost for a green solution to Deepwater Horizon’s Gulf oil catastrophe, http://www.jgpress.com/archives/_free/002118.html#more.
In another nod to science and the practice of putting health and safety over profits…
“Columbia University has quietly suspended research at a nationally prominent brain-imaging center and reassigned its top managers after federal investigators found that it had routinely injected mental patients with drugs that contained potentially dangerous impurities.”
via Brain Center at Columbia Gave Patients [...]
Dozens of chemicals and pharmaceuticals — antidepressants, veterinary hormones, even cocaine — have been detected in the Ohio River upstream and downstream from Louisville.
Researchers who conducted the study downplayed the potential effects for the 5 million people along the 981-mile river who use it for drinking water. The contaminants, they said, are in extremely low [...]
North American industrial facilities released or transferred more than 5.7 billion kilograms of toxic pollutants in 2006, the Commission for Environmental Cooperation said in its annual report released Tuesday.
That’s up from 5.5 billion kilograms reported in 2005.
The pollutants were released in the air, water and on land, dumped or taken to recycling sites, the [...]
With a top speed of 112 miles-per-hour, the DeZir is powered by a lithium-ion battery and an electric motor. The two-seater coupe comes with a kevlar body and tubular steel frame, and has a 100-mile range. It can be re-charged to 80 percent of capacity in 20 minutes.
The DeZir will debut in October at this [...]
A group of independent scientists, frustrated and dumbfounded by the continued lack of the most basic data about the 77-day-old BP oil disaster, has put together a crash project intended to definitively measure how much oil has spilled and where and how it is spreading throughout the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
via Gulf Oil [...]
Pflugerville, Texas is a small city of about 50,000 people, near Austin. Officials there are currently negotiating with RRE Austin Solar, and Travis County to develop a solar powerplant that could generate enough power for every house in the city. The plant will likely be located on a 600 acre farm about fifteen miles away. [...]
Thanks to Ed Brown for sending this our way:
Through the forum of Solutions, we hope to collectively come up with strategies for overcoming the political and cultural hurdles standing in the way of soil-based carbon capture.
…Humanity has always been carbon based. The carbon that supported us through most of history was slow carbon embodied [...]
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One of a kind vintage finds for girls with sunny auras and kitten souls.
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A citizen's introduction to the local Superfund Site.
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