Biology
Breach
December 22, 2009, from Christian Science Monitor
DesA report released by the Organic Center found that the amount of herbicides used on genetically engineered crops has increased in the past 10 years, not decreased as might be expected. Since many genetically engineered crops were modified so that farmers could spray Roundup, or Glyphosate, to kill the weeds in their fields but not the crops themselves, the expectation was that less herbicide would be required. But the new report found that this is not what happened. The authors of the report, entitled "Impacts of Genetically Engineered Crops on Pesticide Use," used US Department of Agriculture data to look at America's three largest genetically engineered crops -- soybeans, corn, and cotton. They found that the amount of herbicides used on them has increased from 1996 to 2008 by approximately 7 or 8 percent, with a particularly sharp increase from 2005 on.
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Climate
Chaos
December 22, 2015, from PNAS, in Washington Post
"...The fact that this was done not just at one site, but multiple sites, is a breakthrough in our ability to quantify [methane] budgets for tundra ecosystems."
The researchers found that cold-season methane emissions are not only not negligible -- they're pretty significant. While emissions varied somewhat from one site to the next, Zona said that, overall, emissions from September to May accounted for about half of all the methane emitted from those sites throughout the entire year.
This might seem a little baffling when you consider the fact that methane is generally released as Arctic soil thaws -- a process that should be most pronounced during the warmest part of the year. Zona said the key to understanding where cold-season emissions come from lies in the way Arctic soil is structured and how it reacts to changes in temperature.
December 22, 2012, from New Scientist
For anyone living on planet Earth, 2012 was a rough year. The US sweltered in a devastating drought, only to then bear the brunt of superstorm Sandy. Meanwhile Arctic sea ice shrank to its lowest extent on record, months after evidence emerged that it might have passed the point of no return.
Even as evidence for human-driven climate change continued to mount, the world did little about it. A major UN summit achieved little other than a vague promise to pay developing countries when they suffer harm from the changing climate. Developed countries continued their dash for gas, often using hydraulic fracturing or "fracking" to extract it, and greenhouse gas emissions kept rising. On a bright note, solar panels became the cheapest energy source in parts of the tropics.
Here is our pick of this year's environment stories....
December 22, 2009, from Associated Press
Michigan asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to sever a century-old connection between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River system to prevent Asian carp from invading the lakes and endangering their $7 billion fishery.
State Attorney General Mike Cox filed a lawsuit with the nation's highest court against Illinois, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago. They operate canals and other waterways that open into Lake Michigan... The lawsuit asks for the locks and waterways to be closed immediately as a stopgap measure, echoing a call by 50 members of Congress and environmental groups last week. But the suit goes further, also requesting a permanent separation between the carp-infested waters and the lakes.
December 22, 2009, from London Financial Times
The United Nations bowed to intensifying pressure yesterday to start sweeping reforms of its processes for reaching agreement on climate change.
Developed and developing countries have condemned the bureaucratic and unwieldy process of reaching unanimous agreement from 192 countries, which many blamed for the chaotic end of the Copenhagen climate change conference at the weekend... Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, led the calls for reform yesterday, saying: "What happened at Copenhagen was a flawed decision-making process."
He attacked, without naming, the small group of countries that prevented the formal adoption of the accord. The group is known to include Venezuela, Bolivia and Sudan.
Ed Miliband, the British climate secretary, also blamed China yesterday for the outcome, as China had vetoed two important commitments that other countries wanted left in.
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Resource
Depletion
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Recovery
December 22, 2009, from New York Times
It appears that the white pages -- the section of the telephone book that lists residential numbers -- may be going the way of the phone booth and rotary dial phone. A growing cadre of consumers and elected officials see the automatic delivery of white pages as unnecessary and wasteful given the availability of free online directories. The country's largest independent online directory provider, White Pages Inc., has been a leading advocate for limiting these deliveries. The company has gathered more than 20,000 signatures for its "Ban the Phone Book" campaign, which seeks the creation of "opt-in" programs for white pages phone books so they are delivered only to people who request them. The concept has attracted 5,000 fans on Facebook.
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