As plants ‘breathe’ and ‘perspire’ they help cool the atmosphere. Plants consume carbon dioxide—a significant greenhouse gas—in the process of photosynthesis. The reduction of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has an indirect cooling effect. Plants also cool the atmosphere because they release water vapor when they get hot, a process similar to sweating. The diagram [...]
Clean Water Out of Thin Air
The EcoloBlue Atmospheric Water Generator (AWG) does just that, producing up to 7 gallons per day.
Military Embraces Green Energy
Solar panels, wind turbines, plug-in vehicles, energy-efficient tents and more are being tested at Ft. Irvin, California in an effort to reduce the military’s voracious appetite for energy — as well as [...]
Scientists need a more detailed understanding of how human-produced atmospheric particles, called aerosols, affect climate in order to produce better predictions of Earth’s future climate, according to the US National Aeronoutics and Space Administration (NASA) and the U.S. Climate Change Science Program.
Aerosols are suspended solid or liquid particles in the air that often are visible [...]
Visualizing World Data
Some of the more mathematically-inclined among us have the ability look at large quantities of raw data and see relationships, trends and patterns. I’m not one of those. For me, visualizing requires something, well, visual: a chart, a diagram, a map.
Enter the folks at worldmapper.org. Using cartograms, or density-equalizing maps, they’ve created a [...]
After a frustrating year and half of delay the US Environmental Protection Agency has finally been able to introduce new regulations that target summer pollution levels.
The new regulations could result in a 25 percent reduction of smog-forming emissions and carbon monoxide from the nation’s motor vehicle sector.
Small gasoline engines that power pleasure craft boats and [...]
According to the recently published book, “Green to Gold,†by Daniel C. Esty and Andrew Winston, the top ten environmental issues facing the world today are:
1. Climate Change
2. Energy
3. Water
4. Biodiversity and Land Use
5. Chemicals, Toxics and Heavy Metals
6. Air Pollution
7. Waste Management
8. Ozone Layer Depletion
9. Oceans and Fisheries
10. Deforestation
These issues clearly cut across and [...]
The G8 leaders meeting in Japan last week backed away from accepting realistic binding greenhouse gas limits. Adopting a attitude of denial about carbon emissions and in an attempt to coddle U.S. President George Bush during his waning days of office the major leaders of the Western World decided to fudge their math test.
