News & commentary on sustainability, activism, urban planning, politics, and our world.
One of the most difficult tasks in achieving a greener and more resource efficient life on planet Earth is changing inherent patterns or attitudes in each and everyone of us. Because it is the direct grand collective impact of our actions in regards to resource usage and consumption that will determine the future of Earth’s [...]
An October, 2002 the EPA-funded study on the health risks from Coal Ash dumps, which showed an increased cancer risk as well as the risk of non-cancer illnesses, was never released to the public. The predicted cancer risk increase–up to 1 in 50 more cases per site–was due to arsenic leaching into the water table [...]
According to the journal Nature Geosciences, “increasing concentrations of black carbon have substantially contributed to rapid Arctic warming during the past three decades.” A paper from that journal, “Climate response to regional radiative forcing during the twentieth century,” was authored by climate researchers Drew Shindell, at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and Greg [...]
Marine biologists have discovered a dense population of mussels (the vent mussel Bathymodiolus brevior, a common, edible bi-valve “shellfish”), carpeting the sides of a submarine volcano, which has survived–despite the highly acidic environment–for the past 40 years. The results of this study were reported in a recent, on-line edition of the Journal Nature Geoscience. The [...]
