Earth Wise

There is a tendency to think of the changes in the energy industry as a pitched battle between fossil fuel companies and renewable energy.  There is some truth to this, but only to a certain extent.   The multi-trillion-dollar fossil fuel industry is made up of businesses dedicated to growth and increased profits.  And like businesses […]

Climate change is poised to transform life on Earth as we know it.  The higher temperatures, the rising seas, the more frequent floods and droughts, among the countless other consequences associated with climate change, threaten to do irreversible damage to the world in the coming decades. A lesser known consequence of climate change is the […]

The methanol economy is an idea that was promoted by the late Nobel-prize-winning chemist George Olah since the 1990s.  The idea is to replace fossil fuels with methanol for energy storage, ground transportation fuel, and raw material for hydrocarbon-based products.   Methanol is the simplest alcohol and can be produced from a wide variety of sources […]

Plastics clogging up our landfills and polluting our oceans are a scourge of modern life and we struggle with ways to combat this growing problem.  The biggest issue is that most plastics are simply not biodegradable.   Polyethylene, the common plastic found in shopping bags and numerous other products, takes between 100 and 400 years to […]

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is the global authority for determining species’ vulnerability in the face of threats such as habitat loss and climate change. How widely a species can be found – its geographic range – is a key indicator used by the IUCN to assign an appropriate conservation status. A […]

It seems like something out of a science fiction movie, but a nearly silent train that glides along its tracks emitting nothing but water is a reality.   In March, Germany conducted successful tests of the world’s first “Hydrail,” which is a hydrogen-powered, zero-emission train. The Hydrail is 60% less noisy than a traditional diesel train […]

The seven northeastern U.S. states that make up the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative have all set ambitious emissions reduction goals and renewable energy targets that will be difficult to meet.   For example, New York has the goal of getting 50% of its electricity from renewable sources by the year 2030. Reaching this goal could be […]

Invasive species have been a problem for quite some time.  Over the years, we have grappled with – among other things – invasive plants from Japan, zebra mussels from eastern Europe, and Asian fungus that kills off ash trees in our forests. Recently, an international team of scientists from four continents has looked at how […]

A South African court recently overturned a national ban on the trade of rhinoceros horns – a decision that was celebrated by the country’s commercial rhino breeders but slammed by animal preservation groups.  A moratorium on rhino horn trade had been in effect in South Africa since 2009.  According to the New York Times, South […]

The Amazon rainforest is the biggest in the world, larger than the next two biggest combined.  It covers over 3 million square miles, roughly the size of the lower 48 states.  For this reason, it functions as a critical sink for carbon in the atmosphere. Human activity has removed more than 10% of the vegetation […]