Environment

The Upside To Thawing Permafrost Is...Nothing, It's Bad

Every dark cloud has a silver lining and the silver lining for a thawing permafrost is...still a dark cloud. The climate is warming in the Arctic at twice the rate of the rest of the globe. That has led to a longer growing season and increased plant growt ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 21 2014 - 8:30pm

Vegetarian Advocates Say You Must Give Up Meat If You Care About Global Warming

Greenhouse gas emissions from food production may threaten the UN climate target of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, according to a paper from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden. What is the data? No data needed. ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 30 2014 - 4:51pm

Photosynthetic Activity Shows High Productivity Of US Corn Belt

American farmers lead the world in productivity coupled with environmental responsibility, producing far more food on far less land than was even imagined decades ago. If the world had America's efficiency in agricultural dematerialization, an area t ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 7 2014 - 3:30am

Urban Gardeners Could Be Doing More Health Harm Than Good

Consuming foods grown in urban gardens has become a big fad, and those foods might even offer health benefits, unless a lack of knowledge about the soil used for planting poses a health threat to both consumers and gardeners.  A new paper the Johns Hopkin ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 31 2014 - 2:58pm

How To Take Millions Of Tons Of Pesticides Out Of Our Environment

When Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" was taking the country by storm 50 years ago, it was a puzzle to scientists and farmers who did not see the cultural future looming in front of them. Scientists dismissed it as anecdotal evidence while fa ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Apr 1 2014 - 1:58pm

Environmental Groups Claim NASA Is Reneging On The Santa Susana Field Lab Cleanup Agreement

Five environmental groups are alleging that NASA could be about to break the commitments it made in a 2010 agreement to clean up all the detectable contamination at its former Santa Susana Field Lab (SSFL) rocket testing site in the Simi Hills of Californi ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 2 2014 - 1:35am

Can You Put A Price On Ecological Restoration?

Can you put a price on ecological restoration? Of course you can. In fact, you must, or the discourse will be taken over by activists for whom price is no object. In the real world, an evidence-based price on clean water and soil fertility helps the United ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 7 2014 - 6:42pm

The Mercury Threat To Antarctic Birds

Scientists who monitored skuas in Adélie Land and the Kerguelen Islands for ten years have found when these seabirds exhibit high mercury levels in their blood, their breeding success decreases.  The researchers from the Centre d'Etudes Biologiques de ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 11 2014 - 9:12pm

Without Science Leadership, Food Shortages Could Be Critical World Issue By 2050

The world could be less than 40 years away from a food shortage that will have serious implications for people and governments, according to a senior science advisor at the U.S. Agency for International Development. It's not Paul Ehrlich/John Holdren ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 17 2014 - 12:02pm

Some Fish In Remote National Parks Show Elevated Levels Of Mercury

Mercury levels in excess of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency health thresholds for potential impacts to fish, birds, and humans have been detected in fish in some of the most remote national park lakes and streams in the western United States and Alask ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 18 2014 - 2:38am