Earth Wise

New York is home to 11 native species of land turtles.  Many of the species can’t breed until age 10 and then they lay just one small clutch of eggs each year by digging in a suitable patch of sandy soil.  As a result, breeding females are at a premium for the welfare of the […]

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, built into a hillside in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard far above the Arctic Circle, is often described as humanity’s last hope against extinction after some global crisis.  While there are more than 1,700 gene banks around the world that keep collections of seeds, all of them are vulnerable to […]

The transition to sustainable energy sources faces many challenges.  One important one is to make those sources as reliable as conventional energy systems.  For technologies like solar and wind power, which can’t operate around the clock, an enabling element is effective energy storage.   Energy storage is critical for both the electricity grid and for transportation. […]

The end of 2013 marked the first occasional observations of carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere of 400 parts per million.  There is nothing magical about that value, but we do tend to focus on round numbers. It was considered a painful milestone because throughout most of human history, CO2 levels hovered around 280 parts per […]

With summer comes mosquitoes and our desire to keep them away from us.  The most common repellents are based on the chemical DEET, which unfortunately has been found to have several health and safety problems.   Up to 15% of DEET is absorbed through the skin directly into the bloodstream.  Diethyl-meta-toluamide, the chemical name for DEET, […]

UPS recently announced a demonstration project that will put a prototype electric truck powered by a hydrogen fuel cell through the delivery company’s challenging paces.   Fuel cells have been used in some commercial vehicles to power auxiliary systems, but this is the first time that they will be used to propel a vehicle. The prototype […]

So far, it has been a big year for the U.S. wind industry, which experienced its fastest first-quarter growth since 2009.  In total, about 2,000 megawatts of new capacity was installed, enough to power about 500,000 homes.   With this addition, wind now produces 5 1/2% of the country’s electricity. 908 utility-scale wind turbines were erected […]

The soils that encircle the northern reaches of the Arctic are a vast repository for carbon in the form of undecayed organic matter from dead vegetation.  The enormous amount of material trapped in the permafrost contains enough carbon to double the current amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere. Each Arctic summer, the upper […]

Biofuels are considered to be a sustainable alternative to fossil fuels.  However, they are generally more expensive than competing fossil fuels.   Government subsidies, such as we have for ethanol in this country, have been necessary to make biofuels competitive in the marketplace. One way to make biofuels more cost-competitive would be to sell products made […]

The population of black bears in southern New York has grown and expanded its range over the past 20 years, which has led to increased encounters with people.   Until recently, a detailed knowledge of bear populations in the state has been lacking. A new study by Cornell University, published last March in the Journal of […]