On Thursday, Congress approved $475 million to restore the Great Lakes by combating invasive species, cleaning up highly polluted sites and expanding wetlands, reports the Detroit News.
The bill also includes $131 million to finance wastewater and drinking water projects in Michigan, $11.2 million for 14 projects in the state, and $1 million for mass marking [...]
Are Coral Reefs Beyond Saving?
BBC News reports that prospects of saving the world’s coral reefs now appear so bleak that scientists have recommended freezing samples in liquid nitrogen to preserve them for the future so that, should global temperatures be stabilized, corals could be reintroduced.
If you’re wondering whether the situation is really that bad, read [...]
Shifting seasons are destroying harvests and causing widespread hunger, and that is just one of the multiple climate change impacts taking their toll on the world’s poorest people, according to a recent report from Oxfam International. Oxfam is a U.K.-based confederation of 14 like-minded organizations working together and with partners and allies around the world [...]
Kenya, one of the world’s most popular and exotic wildlife ecosystems, has all but been decimated by loss of forest cover in recent history, severely threatening the health of the land, its people and once powerfully robust wildlife.
To address the country’s massive losses in forest cover, Kenyan communities will plant 7.6 billion trees over the [...]
The chant that came to define the McCain-Palin campaign’s energy policy during the 2008 U.S. presidential race may no longer be just a slogan to rouse the faithful for those who live near Santa Barbara, California.
In reaching an agreement Monday night to address the State of California’s $26 billion budget deficit, “Democrats agreed to Republican [...]
On September 26, 1991, Jane Poynter and seven others embarked on a 2-year experiment in Biosphere 2, a three-acre, sealed environment in the Arizona desert designed to model the complex interactions involved in a self-sustaining ecosystem.
Like Earth — the original biosphere — Biosphere 2 was a materially closed system, dependent upon external systems only for [...]
Mountaintop mining, more commonly known as “mountaintop removal,†ranks among the ugliest and most violent examples of man’s disrespect for nature.
Most prevalent in the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia and eastern Kentucky, mountaintop mining became widespread in the 1980s, and involves literally blasting up to 1,000 feet from the tops of mountains to expose the [...]
Among the major players in Earth’s carbon cycle are its oceans. Acting as a natural carbon sink, our oceans absorb nearly one-third of atmospheric carbon dioxide, creating the chemical equilibrium that fosters marine life as we’ve known it.
What happens when atmospheric carbon increases? The oceans try to absorb it. upsetting the equilibrium and increasing ocean [...]
Guest Post by Adam Downing
Virginia Cooperative Extension Agent, Forestry & Natural Resources
With the approach of Arbor Day, we should all have plans to plant a tree. To encourage you in this direction, I would like to recap some of the wonderful services trees offer.
(Note: If you do not have a yard or space to plant [...]
The melting of the polar ice caps has been capturing the attention of scientists and climatologists – in fact, people from all walks of life around the world – the past few years due to the dramatic changes taking place within them. The phenomenon affecting both ends of the Earth is considered an unquestionable harbinger [...]
Following up on Monday’s discussion of volcano monitoring, Mt. Redoubt and the “wisdom of storing 6 million gallons of crude near an active volcano” we begin with a story from the Anchorage Daily News, February 2 — a week after rumblings were detected but more than six week prior to the latest round of eruptions:
When [...]
A new Wildlife Phenology Program will enlist professional and citizen scientists across the country to monitor and record seasonal wildlife events to help managers understand and respond to climatic and other environmental changes.
The Wildlife Society (TWS) and the USA National Phenology Network (USA-NPN) announced the program as the second phase in the USA-NPN’s monitoring efforts; [...]
