Environment

by Bill Schlesinger Late last month the National Academy of Sciences released a report recommending that the U.S. initiate a $200 million research program to understand the potential for and potential consequences of geoengineering to mitigate the effects of global ...
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by Bill Schlessinger When certain oxidized gases, such as sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2), dissolve in water, they make it acid.  When these gases are emitted as air pollutants, they cause acid rain in the regions downwind of ...
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  by Bill Schlesinger While periodic shutdowns due to electric blackouts, athletic events, and governmental decrees against air travel have allowed us to ascertain the effect of certain activities on air pollution, the shutdown due to COVID is the first ...
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the belled beast by Bill Schlesinger I’ve blogged before on the impact of free-ranging domestic cats on wildlife (https://blogs.nicholas.duke.edu/citizenscientist/songbird-its-whats-for-dinner/ ). In China, a new study estimates annual bird mortality from cats at 2.7 to 5.5 billion birds each year. Recent ...
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by Bill Schlesinger It is a crowning manifestation of the dominance of Homo sapiens over nature that sometime in the past year, the total mass of materials produced (and in use) by humans—our collective stuff—exceeds the mass of all the ...
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A humpback whale leaping, or breaching, out of the Sea of Cortez (Gulf of California) , Mexico, spraying water as it does so by Bill Schlesinger The Atlantic Northern Right Whale is an endangered species, with (at last count) only ...
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by Bill Schlesinger For years, doctors have used an analysis of urine, including its color, to help recognize and diagnose certain diseases in humans. Similarly, ecosystem scientists can recognize subtle changes in ecosystems by shifts in the chemical composition and ...
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by Bill Schlesinger A long-standing belief is that buses and railroads use less energy for personal transport than passenger cars and airplanes. Several patterns emerge from a new analysis of data by Andreas Schafer and Sonia Yeh. Here, we define ...
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Those who reject the importance of population as an environmental issue stress that resource consumption rather than population size has led to our current global environmental impact. True, resource consumption is central, leading to perhaps two thirds of the growth ...
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by Bill Schlesinger What’s Out What’s In ___________________________________________________ Climate Change Denial The Paris Climate Accord Pebble Creek Mine Chinook Salmon Beliefs Science Maskholes Vaccines Polluted Streams Clean Water Rule Beautiful Coal Solar Power Agent Orange Deliberative Discourse Golf Dogs in ...
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