Biology
Breach
November 12, 2009, from University of Granada, via EurekAlert
Children who eat fish more than 3 times per week show a worse performance in the general cognitive, executive and perceptual-manipulative areas. Those with higher levels of exposure to mercury show a generalised delay in cognitive, memory and verbal areas. Mercury is a contaminant found especially in oily fish and canned fish and to a lesser extent in white fish....
Researchers warn that although environmental exposure levels found in children are low enough not to cause any obvious concern, they could have an impact on child development in the long-term, only appearing as symptoms many years after first exposure. Consequently, they explain, "whatever the extent of involvement of environmental exposures in the etiology of the disease, the simple fact of acting very early in life opens the door to a transcendental field in public health: the possibility of applying early prevention measures to minimize problems."
November 12, 2009, from Environmental Science and Technology
A salt-loving alga that killed tens of millions of fish in Texas has struck for the first time in an Appalachian stream that flows along the border of Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Prymnesium parvum or "golden alga" caused the sudden death of thousands of fish, mussels, and salamanders in early September along some 30 miles of Dunkard Creek. University and government scientists fear the disaster could presage further kills in the region. Streams at risk due to high concentrations of total dissolved solids (TDS) include portions of the northern branch of the Potomac River and 20 other streams in West Virginia, according to state scientists. Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky also have many vulnerable rivers and streams, according to U.S. EPA scientists.
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Climate
Chaos
November 12, 2012, from High Country News
James Inhofe, a 77-year-old senator from Oklahoma, a grown man with no history of mental illness, claims to have uncovered divine logic that refutes the science of global warming. He has sanguinely decoded the rubric among verses in the first book of the world's most famous text -- the Bible... Since Democrats control the upper chamber, California Senator Barbara Boxer from California will retain her chairmanship of the committee. She'll steer legislation dealing with climate change, EPA regulations and a number of large water infrastructure projects coming down the pipe. Inhofe's minority lead role in the committee is term-limited by the Republican caucus, so he will pass the torch as ranking member to David Vitter (R-La.), a more moderate climate skeptic. (If such a thing exists.)
November 12, 2012, from Omaha World-Herald
Aside from people's political leanings, there's a dominant trait that helps define Nebraskans' views on global warming: their gender... While 63 percent of women believe that reports on the seriousness of global warming are correct or underestimated, just 45 percent of men feel the same way. By contrast, 51 percent of male survey respondents think those reports are exaggerated, compared with 31 percent of females.
November 12, 2009, from The Daily Climate
Some ideas are the stuff of science fiction: 15 trillion mirrors positioned in orbit to shield the planet from the sun's rays; a fleet of blimps 20 kilometers up feeding a constant stream of sulfur into the stratosphere; a navy of robot-controlled ships prowling the world's oceans, spraying seawater skyward to generate reflective clouds.
Others are more mundane: Plant trees to soak up carbon dioxide or paint roofs white to reflect sunlight. Most are unproven. All have major drawbacks. None offset ocean acidification. But the concept is gaining more traction as politicians, confronted with the ugly reality of trying to wean economies off fossil fuels, cast about for a strategy that will work if climate changes quickly or in nasty ways.
November 12, 2009, from Mongabay
A new report states that boreal forests store nearly twice as much carbon as tropical forests per hectare: a fact which researchers say should make the conservation of boreal forests as important as tropical in climate change negotiations.
The report from the Canadian Boreal Initiative and the Boreal Songbird Initiative, entitled "The Carbon the World Forgot", estimates that the boreal forest -- which survives in massive swathes across Alaska, Canada, Northern Europe, and Russia -- stores 22 percent of all carbon on the earth's land surface. According to the study the boreal contains 703 gigatons of carbon, while the world's tropical forests contain 375 gigatons.... Researchers explain that while tropical forests store most of their carbon in vegetation, boreal forests store vast amounts of the greenhouse gas deep in permafrost soil and peatlands in addition to its trees. Cold temperatures prevent the complete breakdown of dead biomass in the boreal, so that carbon is accumulated over time, sometimes even millennia. Scientists have found carbon that has been locked away for 8,000 years.
November 12, 2009, from Georgia Institute of Technology, via EurekAlert
"Most large U.S. cities, including Atlanta, are warming at more than twice the rate of the planet as a whole -- a rate that is mostly attributable to land use change. As a result, emissions reduction programs -- like the cap and trade program under consideration by the U.S. Congress -- may not sufficiently slow climate change in large cities where most people live and where land use change is the dominant driver of warming."
According to Stone's research, slowing the rate of forest loss around the world, and regenerating forests where lost, could significantly slow the pace of global warming.... Stone recommends slowing what he terms the "green loss effect" through the planting of millions of trees in urbanized areas and through the protection and regeneration of global forests outside of urbanized regions.
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Resource
Depletion
November 12, 2014, from Nature
Farmers have produced less food during the past three decades than they would have done were climate change not happening, according to a study published today1. Global maize (corn) production, for example, is estimated to be about 3.8 percent lower than it would have been in a non-warmed world -- the equivalent of Mexico not contributing to the maize market.
November 12, 2012, from Crain
In any discussion about "fracking" natural gas and oil wells from layers of shale deep beneath the surface, the talk quickly steers to the balancing act between those natural resources -- how much water is used and its source, where to put fracking fluid after it more resembles turpentine than water, and how much gas and oil can be captured in the tradeoff.... Opponents say that oil and gas companies consume on average the equivalent of a small lake of water -- about 3 acres by 5 feet deep -- to use hydraulic fracturing to open a horizontally drilled well in deep shale. The dark sedimentary rock splits easily into plates to release oil and gas.
Proponents say a fracked well may produce enough natural gas to meet the needs of 30,000 to 50,000 homes for a year.
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Recovery
November 12, 2014, from New York Times
BEIJING -- China and the United States made common cause on Wednesday against the threat of climate change, staking out an ambitious joint plan to curb carbon emissions as a way to spur nations around the world to make their own cuts in greenhouse gases.
The landmark agreement, jointly announced here by President Obama and President Xi Jinping, includes new targets for carbon emissions reductions by the United States and a first-ever commitment by China to stop its emissions from growing by 2030... A climate deal between China and the United States, the world's No. 1 and No. 2 carbon polluters, is viewed as essential to concluding a new global accord.
November 12, 2012, from American Technion Society
Using the power of the sun and ultrathin films of iron oxide (commonly known as rust), Technion-Israel Institute of Technology researchers have found a novel way to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. The breakthrough, published this week in Nature Materials, could lead to less expensive, more efficient ways to store solar energy in the form of hydrogen-based fuels. This could be a major step forward in the development of viable replacements for fossil fuels....these cells could store solar energy for on demand use, 24 hours per day. This is in strong contrast to conventional photovoltaic cells, which provide power only when the sun is shining (and not at night or when it is cloudy).
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