Archive for the 'Environment' Category
From Darkness To Light
August 27th, 2019Via: Ty Schmitt: From Darkness To Light is an 8k Time-Lapse film shot by storm chaser Ty Schmitt. All the clips in the film were captured on the Great Plains during the 2019 spring storm season. Ty traveled over 30,000 miles in 3 months chasing Mother Nature’s most intense moments.
Brazil: Bolsonaro Admitted Farmers Could be Setting Rainforest Fires, Tells Foreign Powers Not to Interfere
August 23rd, 2019Via: Reuters: Amid growing international criticism over the wildfires raging through the Amazon, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Thursday admitted farmers could be illegally setting the rainforest ablaze but told foreign powers not to interfere. French President Emmanuel Macron and United Nations Secretary General António Guterres both took to Twitter to express concern about the […]
How the Plastics Industry Is Fighting to Keep Polluting the World
August 21st, 2019I’ve been seeing the bales of plastic piling up at my local dump and I thought, “Why not make building materials out of all this stuff?” It turns out that there are some small moves being made in that direction. Here are a few examples: Of course, these efforts are noise level in the scheme […]
It’s Raining Plastic: Microscopic Fibers Fall From The Sky In Rocky Mountains
August 14th, 2019Via: Guardian: Plastic was the furthest thing from Gregory Wetherbee’s mind when he began analyzing rainwater samples collected from the Rocky Mountains. “I guess I expected to see mostly soil and mineral particles,” said the US Geological Survey researcher. Instead, he found multicolored microscopic plastic fibers. The discovery, published in a recent study (pdf) titled […]
The Average U.S. Farm Is $1,300,000 In Debt
August 14th, 2019Via: End of the American Dream: We haven’t seen anything like this since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Leading up to this year, farm incomes had been trending lower for most of the past decade, and meanwhile farm debt levels have been absolutely exploding. So U.S. farmers were desperate for a really good year, […]
California Farmers Are Planting Solar Panels as Water Supplies Dry Up
August 2nd, 2019In Blade Runner 2049, the California Central Valley looks like this: (In case you’re wondering, the solar concentrators in the opening scene of the film were inspired by the idiotic Ivanpah Solar Power Facility, which is based on concentrated solar thermal energy.) Nestled in among the heliostat fields are protein farms: They grow some variety […]
Gigantic, Mysterious Radiation Leak Traced to Facility in Russia
July 29th, 2019Via: New Scientist: The source of a gigantic, mysterious leak of radioactive material that swept across Europe in 2017 has been traced to a Russian nuclear facility, which appears to have been preparing materials for experiments in Italy. The leak released up to 100 times the amount of radiation into the atmosphere that the Fukushima […]
Tesla Announces Megapack: Utility-Scale Energy Storage
July 29th, 2019Big guns. Via: Tesla: Less than two years ago, Tesla built and installed the world’s largest lithium-ion battery in Hornsdale, South Australia, using Tesla Powerpack batteries. Since then, the facility saved nearly $40 million in its first year alone and helped to stabilize and balance the region’s unreliable grid. Battery storage is transforming the global […]
Area 51: “Testing Of The Tissues From Workers Showed Chemicals That Were Unknown To Doctors”
July 24th, 2019Via: Los Angeles Times: In the late 1990s, I represented workers at Area 51 who were suffering from health issues and trying to find out what toxic substances they had been exposed to on the base. The case ultimately led to the government acknowledging the existence of the site, where highly classified research into next-generation […]
Decades Old Russian Nuclear Sub Wreck Leaking Radiation 100,000 Times Higher Than Normal
July 13th, 2019Via: ZeroHedge: Researchers in Norway have discovered radiation levels in excess of 100,000 times normal next to a Soviet-era nuclear submarine which sank in the Arctic 30 years ago – a reading which is higher than those taken 12 years ago, according to Norwegian news outlet TV2. The Kosomolets went down in the Barents Sea […]
