October 6, 2016 A farm in Australia is now using seawater and sun to grow vegetables, and it does not require pesticides or fossil fuels. Instead, it relies on a sun-powered desalination plant and a greenhouse to irrigate tomatoes. This is of course a great step forward along the lines … Continue reading
Category Archives: Water
High Risk of Severe Water Stress in Asia
March 30, 2016 A study published in the peer-reviewed online journal PLOS (Public Library of Science) finds that in the absence of autonomous adaptation or societal response, there is a high risk of severe water stress in some densely populated Asian watersheds by 2050. Abstract The sustainability of future water … Continue reading
Australia’s Great Barrier Reef At Greater Risk Than Previously Believed
February 23, 2016 According to an article published in Nature Communications, the prognosis for Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is in much worse than previously thought. Excerpt “The Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is founded on reef-building corals. Corals build their exoskeleton with aragonite, but ocean acidification is lowering the aragonite saturation … Continue reading
Water Crisis
06/05/2021 A comprehensive research article published in Science Advances found that water scarcity is actually worse than first thought. The authors found that fully two-thirds of the global population suffer severe water scarcity at least 1 month per year, and nearly half of them live in India and China. In … Continue reading
Mercury Pollution in the Permafrost
October 12, 2015 The inexhaustible stream of ominous news related to climate change continues. A study published in the journal Science found that ancient methylating bacteria, dormant for thousands of years in the Arctic permafrost, may become active and begin transforming inert mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants long accumulated … Continue reading
Study of Mercury Pollution in Northeastern U.S.
Chemical and Biological Control of Mercury Cycling in Upland, Wetland and Lake Ecosystems in the Northeastern U.S. EPA Grant Number: R827633 Title: Chemical and Biological Control of Mercury Cycling in Upland, Wetland and Lake Ecosystems in the Northeastern U.S. Project Period: November 1, 1999 through October 31, 2002 (Extended to … Continue reading
California Needs 42 Cubic Km of Water
December 16, 2014 RELEASE 14-333 NASA Analysis: 11 Trillion Gallons to Replenish California Drought Losses It will take about 11 trillion gallons of water (42 cubic kilometers) — around 1.5 times the maximum volume of the largest U.S. reservoir — to recover from California’s continuing drought, according to a new … Continue reading
Sao Paulo’s Water Crisis
December 9, 2014 Sao Paulo, a city of 20 million people, has water for 60 days. Whether the cause is global warming, deforestation in the Amazon, or something else is irrelevant. The point is that the city depends on rainfall to replenish its reservoirs. Well, it’s not raining, and there’s … Continue reading
The Conquest of Drought
Speaking at Brookings on the economics of climate change, Secretary of the Treasury Jacob Lew remarked that “the cost of inaction or delay is far greater than the cost of action.” The fact of the matter is that there is no national or international consensus among leaders on what, if … Continue reading