Archive for the 'Environment' Category
Oilsands Emit More Greenhouse Gas Emissions Than Some European Countries
September 15th, 2009Just wait until they hook up a few nuclear power plants to that apocalypse. Welcome to Alberta: “The worst of all worlds.” Via: CBC: Alberta’s oilsands produce more greenhouse gas emissions than some European countries right now and will produce more than all of the world’s volcanoes in just 11 years if the pace of […]
NASA Rocket to Create Clouds
September 15th, 2009Possibly Related: HAARP Via: Live Science: A rocket experiment set to launch Tuesday aims to create artificial clouds at the outermost layers of Earth’s atmosphere. The project, called the Charged Aerosol Release Experiment (CARE), plans to trigger cloud formation around the rocket’s exhaust particles. The clouds are intended to simulate naturally-occurring phenomena called noctilucent clouds, […]
Dr Pepper’s Wet Dream: Water, Government Subsidies and Transfer of Wealth in the Middle of the Desert
September 10th, 2009Via: Alternet: On a sun-baked afternoon in October 2008, a group of soft-drink executives and city officials gathered for a groundbreaking ceremony at an old Air Force base on the outskirts of the city, 100 miles east of Los Angeles. They were standing on the edge of the Mojave Desert, one of the driest, most […]
‘Pacific Garbage Patch’ Expedition Finds Plastic, Plastic Everywhere
September 2nd, 2009Via: San Jose Mercury News: Scientists who returned to the Bay Area this week after an expedition to the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” brought piles of plastic debris they pulled out of the ocean — soda bottles, cracked patio chairs, Styrofoam chunks, old toys, discarded fishing floats and tangled nets. But what alarmed them most, […]
As Farmers Battle Weeds ‘Conventionally,’ the Chemical Treadmill Speeds Up
July 24th, 2009Via: Grist: I’m an ag nerd, so sometimes you’ll catch me reading stuff like Delta Farm Press—a trade publication for large-scale farmers in the deep south. I find the damnedest things on those reading jags. Here’s one: farmers down there—which is cotton, soy, and corn country—are having a hell of a time controlling weeds, and […]
Huge Blob of Arctic Goo
July 17th, 2009Update: Algae Via: Anchorage Daily News: A sample of the giant black mystery blob that Wainwright hunters discovered this month floating in the Chukchi Sea has been identified. … It looks to be a stringy batch of algae. Not bunker oil seeping from an aging, sunken ship. Not a sea monster. “We got the results […]
Bill Gates Sets His Sights On Controlling the Weather
July 10th, 2009Via: Popular Science: Truly this is the age of Greenfinger: Billionaire Bill Gates has patented the idea to halt hurricanes by decreasing the surface temperature of the ocean. The patent calls for a large fleet of specially equipped ships which would mix warm water from the ocean surface with colder water down below, according to […]
Fears for the World’s Poor Countries as the Rich Grab Land to Grow Food
July 5th, 2009A pants shitting, must read. Via: Guardian: The acquisition of farmland from the world’s poor by rich countries and international corporations is accelerating at an alarming rate, with an area half the size of Europe’s farmland targeted in the last six months, reports from UN officials and agriculture experts say. New reports from the UN […]
China Loans Zimbabwe US$950 Million
June 30th, 2009There will be something in the dirt that China wants to dig up. Or, maybe just the dirt would do. More: China arable land fears end reforestation drive Arable land shrinking fast Via: BBC: China has agreed to give Zimbabwe a loan of $950m (£573m) to help it revive its battered economy, Prime Minister Morgan […]
Boy Discovers Microbe That Eats Plastic
June 23rd, 2009Via: Mother Nature Network: PhDs have been searching for a solution to the plastic waste problem, and this 16-year-old finds the answer. It’s not your average science fair when the 16-year-old winner manages to solve a global waste crisis. But such was the case at last May’s Canadian Science Fair in Waterloo, Ontario, where Daniel […]
