Earth Wise

According to a new analysis by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, hybrid systems of floating solar panels and hydroelectric plants have the potential to produce a significant portion of the world’s electricity. According to their estimates, adding floating solar panels to bodies of water that host hydropower stations could produce up to 7.6 terawatts of […]

According to a new report from UNICEF and the international nonprofit Pure Earth, a staggering number of children – approximately 800 million or one out of every three globally – may have dangerously high levels of lead in their blood.     Long-term exposure to lead can cause serious health problems, especially in children.  Children are particularly […]

Climate change, pollution, development and other stresses have accelerated the decline of reef ecosystems across much of the world’s oceans in recent years.  Large predators such as sharks, mackerels, barracudas, jacks and others that formerly fed around reefs have had to venture outside their normal migratory routes in search of suitable alternatives. According to a […]

A chemist at the University of Copenhagen has invented a technology that uses carbon dioxide to convert seawater into drinking water within minutes.  This desalination technology has the potential to replace electricity with CO2 and be used in survival gear and in large-scale industrial plants in places where people don’t have clean drinking water. Over […]

As the oceans have warmed in recent decades, various marine species ranging from whales to corals have begun to shift poleward in search of cooler waters.  But a new study, reported in the journal Nature Climate Change, found that many sedentary marine species – including snails, worms, and mussels – are actually being transported in […]

We talk about globalization primarily in the context of how human activities connect up distant parts of the world.  But there are natural processes that are global in scope as well.  One of these is the transportation of mineral-rich dust from the Sahara Desert in North Africa to the Amazon Basin in South America. Every […]

Coral bleaching is happening five times more frequently than it did forty years ago.  Its increasing occurrence is a result of global warming which leads to marine heat waves – periods of higher ocean water temperatures.  Heat stress on living coral animals causes them to expel the algae that live symbiotically within the coral structure.  […]

As the climate changes, wildfires get bigger and more destructive and hurricanes and powerful storms are more frequent and damaging.  In places where these things are occurring, it is getting harder and more expensive for many homeowners to get insurance.  The affordability of home insurance in the face of climate change has become a huge […]

The lobster industry is somewhat unique, at least in this country, in that it involves an animal food that is kept alive until it has reached the destination where it will be consumed or used.  As a result, the industry has to deal with a problem they call “shrink”, which is the mortality lobsters experience […]

The Bering Sea forms the divide between the two largest landmasses on Earth:  Eurasia and the Americas.  Recent analysis of vegetation from a Bering Sea island has determined that the extent of sea ice in the region is the lowest it has been for over 5,000 years. St. Matthew Island, a small island in the […]