Biology
Breach
April 3, 2014, from DesdemonaDespair, from DailyMail
Numerous fresh air stations have been set up in some of China's most polluted cities.
The stations are stocked with individual air bags which provide users with pollution-free fresh air.
And they have proved to be a big hit with one air station in Zhengzhou city in central China's Henan province which was inundated with visitors.
Uniformed air hostesses hook up visitors to oxygen masks so they can breathe air sourced from the Laojun Mountain scenic spot in Luanchuan county, which is 80 percent green land, in Henan province.
There was no shortage of takers as locals flooded to enjoy the free fresh air.
User Feng Lin, 75, said: 'The air is really good, but the time is too short. I had to stop too soon but it was really great until then.'
April 3, 2013, from InsideClimate News
...The town of 2,000 people is now suddenly the focus of national attention in the divisive debate over whether President Obama should approve the Keystone XL, a $5 billion pipeline to ship Alberta's heavy crude to U.S. refineries along the Texas coast.
The stakes are high and Exxon is running the show here, with federal agencies so far publicly invisible.
April 3, 2013, from Associated Press
Cleanup crews were working Tuesday to contain about 300 to 500 gallons of hydraulic fluid that spilled from a Lansing power plant and left a sheen on the Grand River.
April 3, 2013, from Associated Press
Authorities are investigating after construction crews discovered a problem with a liquid gas pipeline that allowed a carcinogen to seep into the ground near a large creek that feeds into the Colorado River.
The leak near an energy plant in Western Colorado was discovered largely by accident, even though several state and federal agencies are charged with monitoring gas pipelines in the state.
"It's possible that we've narrowly dodged a bullet this time," said Michael Saul, with the National Wildlife Federation.
The breach, however, should be a "wake-up call" for involved agencies, he said, underscoring concerns over the risk of a larger danger.
April 3, 2012, from United Press International
The world's most popular weed killer can induce morphological changes in vertebrate animals, U.S. biologists studying its effect on amphibians say.
University of Pittsburgh researchers said the weed killer Roundup, in sub-lethal and environmentally relevant concentrations, caused two species of amphibians to change their shape.
The study is the first to show that a pesticide can induce morphological changes in a vertebrate animal, biological sciences Professor Rick Relyea said in a university release Monday.
April 3, 2009, from Environmental Science and Technology
Equine estrogens, presumably derived from human hormone replacement therapy (HRT) medications, are pervasive in effluents from sewage treatment works (STW) in the U.K., according to a comprehensive study published in ES&T (DOI 10.1021/es803135q). The study demonstrates, both in vitro and in vivo, that these compounds can have substantial effects on the reproductive systems of fish.
In most HRT regimens, women ingest estrogens derived from the urine of pregnant mares. The researchers routinely detected one of these equine estrogens, equilenin (Eqn), and a metabolite, 17β-dihydroequilenin (17β-Eqn), in STW discharge from multiple facilities, says lead author Charles Tyler of the University of Exeter (U.K.).
April 3, 2009, from UN IRIN
Thousands of people in Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka, are dying prematurely because of air pollution, say health experts. An estimated 15,000 premature deaths, as well as several million cases of pulmonary, respiratory and neurological illness are attributed to poor air quality in Dhaka, according to the Air Quality Management Project (AQMP), funded by the government and the World Bank.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says vehicular air pollution is a major cause of respiratory distress http://www.whoban.org/sust_dev_mental_env.html] in urban Bangladesh. "If pregnant mothers come across excessive pollution, it may cause premature death of their children," said Soofia Khatun, a professor of paediatrics at the Institute of Maternal and Child Health.
April 3, 2009, from The Nation
The Tennessee Valley Authority manipulated science methods to downplay water contamination caused by a massive coal ash disaster, according to independent technical experts and critics of the federally funded electrical company. The TVA is the largest public provider of electricity in the nation, providing power to 670,000 homes and burning through some 14,000 tons of coal per day. On December 22 the authority made headlines when one of its retention ponds collapsed, letting loose an avalanche of coal ash--the toxic residue left over when coal is burned. More than 5 million cubic yards of ashy mud pushed its way through a neighborhood and into Tennessee's Emory River, knocked houses off foundations and blanketed river water with plumes of gray scum that flowed downstream.
New evidence indicates that in the wake of the disaster, the TVA may have intentionally collected water samples from clean spots in the Emory River, a major supplier of drinking water for nearby cities and a popular site for recreational activities such as swimming and fishing. Third-party tests have found high levels of toxins in the river water and in private wells, while the TVA has assured residents that tap water, well water and river water are safe.
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Climate
Chaos
April 3, 2013, from Mongabay
Critics of climate change often claim that warming has stopped since the late 1990s. While this is categorically false (the last decade was the warmest on record and 2005 and 2010 are generally considered tied for the warmest year), scientists do admit that warming hasn't occurred over land as rapidly as predicted in the last ten years, especially given continually rising greenhouse gas emissions. But a recent study in Geophysical Research Letters has found this so-called missing heat: 700 meters below the surface of the ocean...."This signals the beginning of the most sustained warming trend in this record of [ocean heat content]," the scientists write in the paper. "Indeed, recent warming rates of the waters below 700 meters appear to be unprecedented."
April 3, 2013, from Center for Climate Change Communication
This short report is based on a January 2013 national survey of Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents. We found that they prefer clean energy as the basis of America's energy future and say the benefits of clean energy, such as energy independence (66 percent) saving resources for our children and grandchildren (57 percent), and providing a better life for our children and grandchildren (56 percent) outweigh the costs, such as more government regulation (42 percent) or higher energy prices (31 percent).
By a margin of 2 to 1, respondents say America should take action to reduce our fossil fuel use. Also, only one third of respondents agree with the Republican Party's position on climate change, while about half agree with the party's position on how to meet America's energy needs.
April 3, 2013, from Popular Science
Using nuclear power for energy instead of coal has prevented almost 2 million pollution-related deaths around the world, and could save millions more lives in the future, according to a new paper. It's the latest publication from James Hansen, NASA's fiery climate change scientist, who is retiring on Wednesday after 46 years with the space agency.
The paper argues that policymakers should increase nuclear power, rather than continuing dependence on fossil fuels. The 2011 disaster at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant should not deter governments from expanding nuclear power... Nuclear power has already prevented 64 gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions, and would prevent the equivalent of another 80 to 240 gigatons, again depending on which fuel it replaces.
April 3, 2012, from Neorenaissance
I'm going to tell you something that my Republican friends are loath to admit out loud: climate change is real. I am a moderate Republican, fiscally conservative; a fan of small government, accountability, self-empowerment, and sound science. I am not a climate scientist. I'm a meteorologist, and the weather maps I'm staring at are making me uncomfortable. No, you're not imagining it: we've clicked into a new and almost foreign weather pattern. To complicate matters, I'm in a small, frustrated and endangered minority: a Republican deeply concerned about the environmental sacrifices some are asking us to make to keep our economy powered-up, long-term. It's ironic. The root of the word conservative is "conserve." A staunch Republican, Teddy Roosevelt, set aside vast swaths of America for our National Parks System, the envy of the world. Another Republican, Richard Nixon, launched the EPA. Now some in my party believe the EPA and all those silly "global warming alarmists" are going to get in the way of drilling and mining our way to prosperity. Well, we have good reason to be alarmed.
April 3, 2011, from The Independent
Some mountain glaciers are melting up to 100 times faster than at any time in the past 350 years.
The findings, based on a new ice loss calculation technique developed by studying the glaciers of Patagonia in South America, have worrying implications for crop irrigation and water supplies around the world. The quantity of ice lost from Patagonia is equivalent to a fifth more than the contents of Lake Erie, one of the Great Lakes of North America.
Scientists behind the discovery claim their findings show that the rate of melting at the start of the 20th century was much slower than previously calculated, but that over the past 30 years it has been significantly faster than suspected....
The figures show the contribution to sea level rise is increasing, though still at a low level, but what alarmed the team most was that the rate of loss has sped up rapidly since 1980.
"The glaciers have lost a lot less ice up until 30 years ago than had been thought. The real killer is that the rate of loss has gone up 100 times above the long-term average. It's scary," said Professor Glasser, who carried out the study with the University of Exeter and Stockholm University.
April 3, 2011, from The Independent
The past month has been the driest March for around 40 years, forecasters said today.
Provisional recordings show that the UK has also seen 25 percent more sunshine than usual over the last four weeks as temperatures climbed and Britons enjoyed their first taste of spring.
But there was bad news for those hoping for an early start to summer - April showers are on their way as usual.
According to provisional Met Office figures, the average rainfall between March 1 and 29 stands at only 39.1mm (1.5in).
This is expected to rise very slightly when the showers of the past two days are factored in.
However, it is still expected to be well below the 95.9mm (3.8in) norm for March.
April 3, 2009, from Associated Press
Arctic sea ice is melting so fast that most of it could be gone in 30 years.
A new analysis of changing conditions in the region, using complex computer models of weather and climate, says conditions that had been forecast for the end of the century could occur much sooner.
A change in the amount of ice is important because the white surface reflects sunlight back into space. When ice is replaced by dark ocean water, the sunlight can be absorbed, warming the water and increasing the warming of the planet.
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Resource
Depletion
April 3, 2013, from The Australian
More than half of the rivers previously thought to exist in China appear to be missing, according to the 800,000 surveyors who compiled the first national water census, leaving Beijing fumbling to explain the cause.
Only 22,909 rivers covering an area of 100sq km were located by surveyors, compared with the more than 50,000 in the 1990s, a three-year study by the Ministry of Water Resources and the National Bureau of Statistics found.
Officials blame the apparent loss on climate change, arguing that it has caused waterways to vanish, and on mistakes by earlier cartographers. But environmental experts say the disappearance of the rivers is a real and direct manifestation of headlong, ill-conceived development, where projects are often imposed without public consultation.
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Recovery
April 3, 2013, from Indiana Living Green
....growing numbers of patients have discovered Logan's mind-body-spirit approach to wellness--one that focuses less on treating symptoms and more on identifying their root cause.
One of the biggest root causes of health problems is diet. "In cases of chronic illness, incorporating dietary changes into patients' lives really makes a world of difference in how they feel. I talk about food all day long with my patients, the things they should be eating, the things they should be avoiding. I see things that you wouldn't even expect would be food-related.”
April 3, 2009, from Reuters UK
Kenya's huge and squalid slums don't have much of anything, except mountains of trash that fill rivers and muddy streets, breeding disease.
Now Kenyan designers have built a cooker that uses the trash as fuel to feed the poor, provide hot water and destroy toxic waste, as well as curbing the destruction of woodlands.
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