Earth Wise

In 2019, the European Union announced the “Green Deal,” a comprehensive program aimed at making Europe the first climate-neutral continent, implementing environmentally friendly transport, increasing recycling, and expanding renewable energy. The Green Deal involves significant changes to European agriculture.  Over the next ten years, under the ambitious environmental program, at least a quarter of all […]

Last February, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced that he was launching the Bezos Earth Fund that would grant money to scientists, activists, NGOs and others making an effort to help preserve and protect the natural world.  The fund would start out with $10 billion and would begin issuing grants later in the year. In November, […]

We had a particularly colorful fall in the Northeast this year.  Almost everywhere you looked, there were brilliant displays of yellow, orange, and red.  The colors of fall are a result of chemistry and environmental events that may have taken place many months in the past. The color of leaves comes from 4 pigments whose […]

There is growing concern about the climate effects of methane leaking from oil and gas wells.  The 20-year global warming potential of methane is 84, meaning that over a 20-year period, it traps 84 times more heat per mass unit than carbon dioxide.  Global methane concentrations have increased by nearly a factor of 3 since […]

According to a new report published by the International Energy Agency, global renewable energy installations will hit a record level in 2020 in sharp contrast with declines in the fossil fuel sectors caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. For the year, almost 90% of all new electricity generation will be renewable, with only 10% powered by […]

An international research team has revealed that critically endangered Antarctic blue whales have returned to the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia, 50 years after whaling just about wiped them out.  Other recent research has found that humpback whales are also returning to the region. Blue whales were commonplace off South Georgia before 20th century industrial […]

Airbus, the giant European aerospace company, hopes to have hydrogen-powered commercial airliners in the sky by 2035.  Such planes would have no carbon dioxide emissions. Greenhouse gas emissions from commercial aviation have been a rapidly increasing contribution to the global total.  Of course, the Covid-19 pandemic has drastically reduced air travel, so emissions are currently […]

Historically, many diseases have jumped from animals to people with serious consequences for the human host.  In fact, coronaviruses alone have caused outbreaks in humans three times in the past 20 years:  SARS, MERS, and COVID-19.  The majority of human pathogens that caused substantial damage to human health and economies during the past three decades […]

There have been countless stories about the major and minor changes in the world caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.  A few of those changes, such as reductions in pollution and traffic, have been positive.  Most have been decidedly negative. One of the stranger things that has happened is that the pandemic has affected the quality […]

In the 1990s, cardiovascular health issues associated with partially hydrogenated oils containing harmful trans fats became a focus of great concern.  As a result, food companies looked for substitutes and the alternative they identified was palm oil.  Its ability to remain solid at room temperature made it well suited for many food applications.  Unfortunately, that […]