One toke over the line sweet Jesus

by Bill Schlesinger Living in Maine, a state with legalized sale and use of marijuana, I’ve seen a proliferation of pot shops across the countryside. A lot of cannabis was…

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The Futility of Soil Carbon Sequestration

by Bill Schlesinger In the past few years, many agronomists have promoted the sequestration of carbon in soils as a means of mitigating climate change by reducing the amount of…

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Embodied Energy in Housing

Wooden house by Bill Schlesinger The housing of the world contains a lot of carbon, mostly in wood, so it is interesting to ask if this carbon stock is large…

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Upon Further Reflection

Earth's albedo map by Bill Schlesinger Just as a Full Moon reflects the Sun’s radiation to the Earth, the Earth reflects some of the Sun’s incoming radiation to space. If…

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Carbon Dioxide and Mental Health

Carbon dioxide emissions by Bill Schlesinger With a lethal concentration for humans of about 10%, the current concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere, 0.04%, would seem to pose only…

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Nitrogen in Runoff

by Bill Schlesinger Among the tools of the “green revolution,” that has increased crop yields worldwide and allows us to fed nearly 8 billion people, are breeding and genetic modifications…

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Can we harvest our way to a better climate?

by Bill Schlesinger As many policy groups—such as Maine’s Climate Council—try to grapple with effective responses to the ongoing global changes in climate, interest has focused on harvesting vegetation as…

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Airborne Plastics

by Bill Schlesinger Futile attempt to avoid airborne plastics With some 350 million tons of plastic produced each year, it is not surprising that some of it escapes to the…

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Grasping at Straws

CO 2 rising by Bill Schlessinger In the face of the inexorable rise in atmospheric CO2, widespread observations of long-term warming trends, and intransigent policy makers in the face of…

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Fracking, flowback, and fish

by Bill Schlesinger Hydraulic fracturing (aka fracking) has become a standard practice for the production of oil and gas, not just from the shale-gas areas, such as the Marcellus shale…

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