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
Category Archives: Water
Water Crisis
February 12, 2016 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 … Continue reading
Biodegradable Hydrogen Catalyst 150 Times More Efficient
January 6, 2016 Scientists at Indiana University Bloomington have created a biodegradable, easy to mass-produce catalyst called P22-Hyd consisting of a modified enzyme (hydrogenase) protected within the protein shell of a bacterial virus. The material forms a nano-reactor that catalyzes hydrogen formation 150 times more efficiently than the enzyme would … Continue reading
Global Electricity Output May Drop Due To Climate Change
January 4, 2016 Climate change impacts on rivers and streams may substantially reduce electricity production capacity around the world. Particularly vulnerable are the United States, southern South America, southern Africa, central and southern Europe, Southeast Asia and southern Australia. A new study by the International Institute For Applied Systems Analysis in … Continue reading
COP21 And The Distribution Of Wealth
January 1, 2016 Background COP21 is a pragmatic face-saving agreement for politicians, nothing more. Essentially, signatory nations have agreed only to commit individually and severally to maximum annual carbon emissions. Reporting the results is mandatory, but unlike global lending institutions that routinely force helpless quasi-bankrupt governments into painful austerity programs … 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
World’s Largest Aquifers Beyond Tipping Point
June 16, 2015 An informative, pivotal article explains how some of the largest aquifers on Earth are being depleted. This is “fossil” water, stored naturally underground over hundreds or thousands of years. Some of the aquifers are in deserts with little or no precipitation to offset their high use. The … 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