By Doug ChadwickPhotograph by Joel Sartore …Lakes, swamps, and rivers make up less than 0.3 percent of fresh water and less than .01 percent of all the water on Earth. Yet these waters are home to as many as 126,000 of the world’s animal species, including snails, mussels, crocodiles, turtles, amphibians, and fish. Almost half […]
Contact: Joe Caspermeyer, joseph.caspermeyer@asu.edu, 480-727-0369Arizona State University Plastics surround us. A vital manufacturing ingredient for nearly every existing industry, these materials appear in a high percentage of the products we use every day. Although modern life would be hard to imagine without this versatile chemistry, products composed of plastics also have a dark side, due […]
By Ken Ward Jr., Staff writerMarch 15, 2010 CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Water quality downstream from surface coal-mining operations in West Virginia and Kentucky greatly exceeds recommended toxicity limits, according to previously unreleased sampling data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. EPA scientists found toxicity levels as high as 50 times the federal guidelines in water […]
Landings refer to the amount of catch that is brought to land. Chinook salmon landings are most often reported in terms of numbers of individual fish. Numbers of fish caught are sometimes converted to estimates of weight, but this is primarily for the purpose of quantifying the economic value of the commercial catch. Salmon managers […]
By Michaael Doyle | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — Controversial cuts in water deliveries to central California farms to protect endangered fish appear to be “scientifically justified” but still in need of further study, scientists have concluded in a report to be issued Friday. In a politically sensitive study, the National Research Council determined two federal […]
By Renee Schoof | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — Many of America’s coal-fired power plants lack widely available pollution controls for the highly toxic metal mercury, and mercury emissions recently increased at more than half of the country’s 50 largest mercury-emitting power plants, according to a report Wednesday. The nonpartisan Environmental Integrity Project reported that five […]
As you know, Desdemona loves data, of all sorts, and this makes Google Analytics especially fun to use. So here are all the visits to Desdemona Despair for the last year. Here are some statistics to go with that graph. Looks like the trend is generally upward, which pleases Desdemona. Here are the top ten […]
Longtime doomspotters ‘Doc Jim and ‘Doc Michael have published their compendium of unhappy tidings in Converging Emergencies, 2010-2020. It’s 60 pages of face-slapping wake-up call, which begins with a quick summary of Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’s five stages of grief[*], and then dives into an overview of their big themes: Species Collapse, Resource Depletion, Biology Breach, Climate […]
By LOUIS BERGERON In the first study ever done on the local health effects of the domes of carbon dioxide that develop above cities, Stanford researcher Mark Jacobson found that the domes increase the local death rate. The result provides a scientific basis for regulating CO2 emissions at the local level and points out a […]
Global meat production has tripled in the past three decades and could double its present level by 2050, according to a new report on the livestock industry by an international team of scientists and policy experts. The impact of this “livestock revolution” is likely to have significant consequences for human health, the environment and the […]
