The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations recently suggested that eating bugs (yes, insects) could help feed the world’s fast-growing population. Along these lines, Anna Jansson, professor of animal science at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, has shown how nutrient-rich insects can make a big contribution to diet in poor countries. Surprisingly, they can also help
The oceans are huge carbon sinks for the world. Fish and whales comprise only a tiny part of their overall biomass. Nevertheless, studies have shown that fishing and whaling by humans have altered the ocean’s carbon storage and sequestration capabilities by causing a change in the food chain, or a trophic cascade. As naturalist and
When environmentalists, farmers, and loggers speak about forests, the discussion usually revolves around the issue of deforestation, which is one of the largest contributors to climate change. As James Ayre pointed out in a recent PlanetSave article, forest cover estimates are currently a subject of hot debate because a new satellite imaging study contradicts the
We took up some basics about mangrove forests in a previous article, including how widespread and productive these ecosystems can be. Now people have begun to realize the importance of mangrove forests to the health of the planet. Not just for the obvious reasons, but for the single fact that mangroves are benevolent guardians of
Aquafina, Dasani, and Poland Spring are names on the water bottle that have come to evoke images of pristine waterfalls, swift cool streams, and shimmering, unspoiled mountain lakes. As well they should. These three carefully selected names are among the largest selling brands of bottled water in the United States. They play a vital role
Remember the difference between weather and climate? We know what happens when the weather changes—it’s obvious. Climate is another story. Read on. When it rains, you put on a raincoat or take your umbrella when you go out. It snows: time for high boots, a heavier coat, scarf, and warm gloves. And sunny days, well,
Or do you? It’s time to pay attention to climate change now—as if it wasn’t back in 1800, when our current problems started. We all need to acknowledge that stunning industrial achievements can carry with them enormous unforeseen risks and challenges. Americans should take particular note, because on the whole we are wa-a-a-y behind on this.
The White House released a report this morning from the Council of Economic Advisers that shows the consequences of not doing something about climate change NOW. Our sister publication, CleanTechnica, has the full story, along with a word from noted Penn State climatologist Michael E. Mann. One important section of the report discusses a number of
OCO-2 is only a little thing, about 6 ft long, 3 ft in diameter, and less than half a ton in weight (NASA/JPL-Caltech, artist’s conception). It will be harder to deny the existence of climate change now that NASA has successfully launched Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2. A United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket from Vandenberg Air
Underwater habitat at Aquarius Reef Base (photo provided to Flickr courtesy of Stephen Frink, www.stephenfrink.com/) On July 2, 2014, ocean scientists who have spent the last 31 days living in an ocean-floor habitat 63 feet underwater will decompress and return to the surface. They’ve been down there on “Mission 31” intensively studying ocean acidification and climate
Fabien Cousteau, ocean explorer and grandson of famed Jacques-Yves Cousteau, began a historic subsea mission on Sunday. He’s studying ocean impacts of climate change (especially acidification, which occurs as the sea absorbs atmospheric carbon dioxide), effects of plastic and other pollution on marine life, and overfishing of marine resources, which diminishes the ocean’s biodiversity. You
Looks like a comment on today’s EPA carbon rule, but we do hope you’ll notice that this cartoon is seven years old. Thanks to the artist and the University of Colorado—Boulder for being ahead of their time! (Or not.)
If you’re looking for answers about greenhouse gas pollution and other climate indicators, you’ll get a quick step up from the Climate Analysis Indicators Tool (CAIT 2.0) produced by the World Resources Institute. (WRI is a global research organization founded in the early 80s that works closely with leaders “to turn big ideas into action
Thankfully, this headline does not single out the United States as the worst carbon polluter, although we have certainly done more than our part to choke the world in a gaseous greenhouse. No, the honor belongs to humans in general. If you’re wondering which countries have emitted the most carbon over the past couple of
US “clean gas” wells in operation (Irekia-Eusko Jaurlaritza in blogs.lse.ac.uk) Turns out that just about everyone (including President Obama) has been hugely underestimating the methane pollution levels of so-called “clean gas.” The booming American economy now seems to come at a greater cost than we originally thought when we found out that natural gas produces
(All figures are from the 2014 National Climate Assessment draft.) Later today (Tuesday, May 6), at 8 a.m. EDT, the National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee of experts meets by conference call to approve the final version of the Third National Climate Assessment. The gist of their message, as Suzanne Goldenberg of The Guardian
The worst environmental effect of solar energy? Go for it. Thanks to Give a Shit about Nature for this viral photoon, via the Daily Kos!
One way of getting the message of global climate change across to people in a simple and easy to understand manner is to compare it to something that’s a lot more accessible to them, such as a video game, and in this case, Joss Fong uses the Tetris to explain how CO2 emissions affect the
Agora Energiewende this week released the results of a cost analysis of four different CO2-free power scenarios in Europe. Says Patrick Graichen, executive director of Agora: Wind and solar systems will dominate the power system in increasingly more countries. The battle for the cheapest CO2-free power mix is decided. In the future wind and solar
BREAKING: Late this evening (8 pm EST, or tomorrow, March 31, at 9 am in Tokyo), something large and unpleasant will hit the fan about climate change. At a press conference in Yokohama, the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will release its Fifth Assessment Report on impacts of human activities on current and
A firefighter pauses at the $2013 Rim Fire in Yosemite National Park, August-September 2013 (Calfire photo on facebook). President Obama released the federal budget for 2015 last week. Overall, it involves the lowest deficit ($514 billion) of his five-year tenure in office and restores some funding cut in last year’s sequester. Parts of the new
Premium hydroponic-grown, pesticide-free vegetables and herbs growing in the U.S. Gotham Greens facility (from eponline.com). Two entrepreneurs have recently made London the home of a very creative architectural reuse for food production—underground. Steven Dring, a former executive with Bunzl, an international provider of food-related products and services, and his friend and business partner Richard Ballard,
At the late November meeting of UN climate delegates in Warsaw, negotiators from Canada–once a strong supporter of fast-start financing to limit greenhouse gas emissions from developing countries–and Australia, now led by a rashly conservative government, sat on their hands. Reeling from the costs of mitigation at Fukushima and a stopgap return to fossil fuels,
Officials open the 2013 UNFCCC meetings with determination and louder warnings…. (Photo source: http://ow.ly/qL43P) It’s time for the governments of the world to struggle with climate change policy again. Every year, late in November and early in December, representatives of 195 nations gather for two weeks to try to negotiate global responses to the increasingly
The nation’s most-polluting power plant, Georgia Power Company’s Plant Scherer in Juliette, Georgia, emits more carbon dioxide than all of Maine’s energy emissions. Here’s more from Environment America: On September 10, the Environment America Research & Policy Center, an independent nonprofit, and the Frontier Group presented a mighty appealing fast track toward limiting the U.S.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations have been closely monitored for some time now. Just last month it was predicted that if we did not break through the 400 parts per million (ppm) barrier this May, it would happen next year, according to the longest continuous record of carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. On May 9, true
New research has shown that rising sea levels could be greatly slowed if certain fast cycling pollutants are cut from the numerous emissions being pumped into the atmosphere. According to the research, published in the journal Nature Climate Change this week, cutting levels of methane, soot, refrigerants, and gases that lead to the formation of ground-level ozone,
A team of scientists from Britain, Russia, Mongolia, and Switzerland have released a report which finds that evidence obtained from Siberian caves suggest that a global temperature rise of 1.5 degrees Celsius could result in permanently frozen ground end up thawing across a massive swathe of Siberia, threatening a release of carbon dioxide. Such a
Turn the clock back a decade and we had all sorts of grand plans for reducing our greenhouse gas emissions levels, hoping that by 2020 we would be on the path to saving our planet. Welcome to 2013 and … not so much. Unsurprisingly, scientists at Stanford University have recently come out and said that
Republicans don’t want taxes at all, whereas Democrats want to tax everything. It might be an oversimple explanation but it’s definitely going to be right more than it’s wrong. It’s also a good indicator of your allegiance when you hear that US Senators Barbara Boxer and Bernie Sanders have proposed a tax on carbon emissions. The
With each year that passes us by the carbon dioxide emission reductions required to limit global warming to a 2°C increase are becoming more and more difficult to reach according to new figures reported today in the latest Global Carbon Project calculations published today in the advanced online edition of the journal Nature Climate Change. “A
Permafrost covers almost a quarter of the northern hemisphere, and according to recent calculations contains 1,700 gigatonnes of carbon – that’s an amount twice what is currently in our atmosphere. A new report released by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) entitled ‘Policy Implications of Warming Permafrost’ warns that the release of this permafrost carbon could seriously amplify
Like huge, ravening monsters, the top causes of global warming are ignoring man’s attempts to stop them and continue to hit record highs, according to the World Meteorological Organisation. The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the biggest single cause of global warming, rose by 2ppm (parts per million) in 2010-2011, reaching a
A study conducted by researchers at MIT found that increased levels of carbon dioxide cause ice to weaken and make it more likely to split and fracture, regardless of the temperature. With the increase in global temperatures and CO2, the polar ice caps could melt at a faster rate than experts previously projected. The study was published
NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has provided scientists with the clearest evidence to date of carbon-dioxide snowfalls on Mars, revealing the only known example of carbon-dioxide snow falling anywhere in our solar system. Frozen carbon-dioxide is better known here on Earth as dry ice, and requires temperatures of around minus minus 125 Celsius (193 degrees Fahrenheit), much, much colder than what
Planet Earth’s oceans, forests, and other assorted ecosystems are continuing to soak up approximately half the carbon dioxide we humans pump into the atmosphere every day, even as those emissions continue to increase, once again belying the very little knowledge we currently have of our planet. “Globally, these carbon dioxide ‘sinks’ have roughly kept pace
New research from the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen has shown that the rise in temperature after the last ice age into the warmer intergrlacial period was followed closely by a rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide, contrary to previously held opinion. The research was published in the journal Climate of the Past and showed
The global levels of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil-fuel combustion reached a record high of 31.6 gigatonnes (Gt) in 2011, only 1 Gt beneath the necessary levels required to keep global temperatures to a 2°C increase. The figures are part of the preliminary estimates provided by the International Energy Agency (IEA) released Thursday. Global
Scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have concluded a study to measure levels of carbon at various levels in the Arctic Ocean, providing a baseline for further understanding. The study was recently published in the journal Biogeosciences. It provides data that will help researchers in the future as they try to better
{Note to the reader: this is my entry into the UNEP’s World Environment Day (WED) blogging competition, addressing the 2012 theme: The Green Economy – Does It Include You? After considering many examples of who the ‘you’ in the title could refer to, I’ve decided to hand over this blog entry to my GAIA (General
by Rob Painting of Skeptical Science As a recent SkS post by Dana Nuccitelli has pointed out global warming hasn’t stopped, despite a recent lull in global surface temperatures. The oceans, which are the main heat sink for global warming, have scarcely skipped a beat in soaking up heat. The hiatus in global surface temperatures appears to
A new study has found that rising human carbon dioxide emissions may in fact be affecting the brains and central nervous systems of sea fishes, decreasing their inherent ability to survive. Carbon dioxide concentrations predicted to occur in the ocean by the end of this century will interfere with fishes’ ability to hear, smell, turn
Human land use of the Amazon basin has begun to change the regional water and energy cycles, says a new report, which also notes that continued interaction between deforestation, fire, and climate change have the potential to drastically alter carbon storage, rainfall patterns, and river discharge on an even larger basin-wide scale. All of these
NASA has released a study that highlights 14 key air pollution control measures that could slow the pace of global warming, improve health, and boost agricultural production if they were implemented. This Flickr slideshow highlights key emission control strategies that could help limit the release of black carbon and methane into the atmosphere. NASA’s Drew
The massive levels of greenhouse gasses left in the atmosphere as a result of human burning of fossil fuels is liable to disrupt normal patterns of glaciation say scientists in a new study. If humans had not arrived and interrupted things, science tells us that the Earth’s current warm phase would have given way to
Climate change is expected to increase the frequency and severity of drought in many of the world’s peatlands which, in turn, is liable to release far more carbon dioxide than had previously been assumed. This new discovery comes as a result of a report published in the journal Nature Geosciences by Dr Nathalie Fenner and
Huge percentages of forests are destroyed each year as a result of hurricanes, insect outbreaks and wildfire, but scientists are only just beginning to get a handle on what this does to the overall carbon intake of a forest.
A new study from a team of French researchers from the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (CNRS/IPGP/Université Paris Diderot) working on conjunction with scientists from Brazil and the United States has challenged the belief that Earth was completely covered in ice 635 million years ago, creating what is now colloquially known as the Snowball Earth hypothesis.
