Earth Wise

Getting people to recycle isn’t always easy.  The bottled beverages we buy at the supermarket often require a small deposit that we can get back by recycling the bottle, but often, we just don’t. Researchers from the University of British Columbia tested the idea of giving people returning bottles a small chance of winning a […]

Ultra-pure water is essential for multiple industries, for example semiconductors, batteries, and pharmaceuticals, as well as food and beverage companies.  Such water is produced by various processes including desalination plants that use reverse osmosis.  The byproduct of the processing is industrial brine:  salty wastewater. The brine produced by desalination is generally dumped into the ocean […]

Planting lots of trees is one of many strategies being pursued to combat climate change. Forests absorb carbon dioxide, provide shade, and help regulate temperatures. They also support biodiversity and improve air and water quality. According to a new study by researchers from the University of California – Riverside, restoring forests to their pre-industrial extent […]

The idea of using hydrogen as a fuel or an energy source has been around for a long time.  Hydrogen is the most common element in the universe, but most of it is locked up in various chemical compounds, such as water.  Hydrogen is a clean fuel; burning it or using it to generate electricity […]

Worldwide, people are producing more food than ever, but most of that production is concentrated into only a handful of places.  For example, fully one third of the world’s wheat and barley exports come from Ukraine and Russia.  Across the globe, several major crop-growing regions, including some in the United States, are heading towards sharp […]

The majority of us spend about 80% of our time indoors.   The quality of the air that we breathe depends on the age and type of building we occupy along with any sources of indoor pollution that may exist and, ultimately, the quality of the air outdoors.  The HVAC used to heat, ventilate, and cool […]

More than 30% of the world’s food is lost after it has been harvested.  That’s enough to feed more than a billion people.  Much of that loss is fruits and vegetables that go bad before they can be eaten. Refrigeration is the most common way to preserve foods, but the energy and infrastructure required is […]

Nuclear power has been around since the 1950s, but it has fallen out of favor in recent decades, in part due to a couple of traumatic disasters at nuclear power plants.  In fact, only two new nuclear power plants have been built in the US in the past 30 years, and they took a very […]

As global temperatures continue to rise and ecosystems shift, animals are left with limited options. They must either adjust to the changing conditions in their habitats or relocate to cooler environments. For many species, neither choice is easy – or sometimes even possible. Ecologists had long assumed birds were among the most adaptable species in […]

Sea Urchins are real troublemakers.  On the West Coast, the sea urchin population exploded when the sunflower sea stars that eat them were decimated by a wasting disease.  Urchins devour kelp and they ate up 96% of the region’s kelp forests.  Kelp forests serve as shelter and food for a vast array of marine life […]