Earth Wise

Recently, we talked about the problems New York’s native turtles have during their mating season as they cross roads and highways seeking places to lay their eggs.   The state Department of Environmental Conservation even issued recommendations for how people can help turtles avoid getting crunched by cars. Well, cars are not the only threats encountered […]

Most gas stations in the U.S. sell a blend of 90% gasoline and 10% ethanol.  Mandated by legislation, the 14 billion gallons of ethanol consumed annually by American drivers is mostly made from fermented corn.   Producing this ethanol requires millions of acres of farmland. The environmental benefits of doing this are dubious in the first […]

A tipping point is a point in time when a small thing can make a big change happen.  The term was popularized in sociology in recent decades, but really comes from physics where is refers to adding a small amount of weight to a balanced object causing it to topple over. There is much talk […]

A new study warns that coral reefs are in danger of disappearing forever.  According to U.N. research, the world’s coral reefs could die out completely by mid-century unless carbon emissions are reduced enough to slow ocean warming. The decline of coral has been well documented, but only reef-by-reef.  This new study examined the vulnerability of […]

There is no question that solar power has been growing by leaps and bounds in recent years, but whenever one really looked at the numbers, it seemed to still be only a tiny fraction of the country’s power generation – until quite recently, less than one percent. In April, solar reached a new milestone:  it […]

We have talked about the problem of food waste before.  About 40% of the food produced in the United States goes to waste, which is a truly shameful statistic.  According to a Business for Social Responsibility study on the subject, about 44% of the food that goes into landfills comes from homes.  About a third […]

Satellites orbiting the earth are becoming an increasingly powerful tool for counting and monitoring wildlife populations and to answer a host of other questions about the natural world. An example is gray seals, which as recently as the 1980s, were essentially extinct on Cape Cod.  Conservation efforts over the years had helped the seal population […]

Global consumption of coal dropped by 1.7% last year.  This is a major change considering that it had increased by an average of 1.9% per year from 2005 to 2015.   China, which accounts for about half of the coal burned in the world, used 1.6% less in 2016, as compared to an increase of 3.7% […]

A group of more than 200 scientists and medical professionals has issued a consensus statement in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives urging that antimicrobial chemicals like triclosan and triclocarban should not be used in consumer products.  The experts say that these substances offer no health benefits and are actually causing health and environmental harm. The […]

New York State has been encouraging its communities to install microgrids for quite a while.  Now the state has committed to build a 16-megawatt microgrid to power the Empire State Plaza in downtown Albany.  The microgrid will use combined heat and power to supply 90% of the electricity as well as heating and cooling for […]