Earth Wise

There have been ominous declines in many insect populations.  Chief among them have been declines in pollinators, which have severe consequences for our food supply.  There are multiple possible causes of these declines and undoubtedly several have been involved simultaneously. A new study on butterfly populations in the Midwest indicates that agricultural insecticides exerted the […]

There has been widespread concern that biodiversity is under siege and that we are in the beginnings of a sixth mass extinction in the long history of the Earth, this time caused by the actions of humanity.  There has been considerable debate about what can be done about it and solutions generally involve protecting large […]

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, snowfall is declining globally as temperatures warm because of human-caused climate change.  Less snow threatens to reinforce global warming, and to disrupt food, water, and livelihoods for billions of people.    According to new modeling by researchers from Protect Our Winters Australia and The Australian National University, the […]

Anyone who gets packages from Amazon is familiar with the plastic air pillows used to keep products safe in transit.  Amazon uses almost 15 billion of them a year in North America. Environmentalists have been urging Amazon and other vendors to cut down on the use of plastic packaging. The air-filled plastic pillows are made […]

As installations of utility-scale solar power continue to expand around the world, there is the issue of where to put them.  They do take up considerable amounts of space and, in many places, available land is at a premium. An alternative to taking up available land with solar panels is to deploy them on the […]

Last year, Consumer Reports published a story stating that a third of chocolate products contain potentially dangerous amounts of heavy metals, in particular lead and cadmium. Since it contains much more cacao, dark chocolate was singled out as the most worrisome product.  Needless to say, chocolate lovers found this report quite alarming. A new study […]

Ideas for potential technologies that could artificially cool the planet as a countermeasure against global warming have been considered radical and dangerous for a long time.  But as climate change continues to become increasingly apparent, ideas like solar geoengineering are gaining increasing attention. Most environmental organizations are at best skeptical about such ideas and oppose […]

Elephants are considered to be very smart creatures.  They have the largest brain of any land animal and have three times as many neurons as humans.  Of course, a lot of that brain hardware is needed to control those big elephant bodies, but elephants have also demonstrated impressive mental capabilities on many occasions. A new […]

Mother of pearl – also known as nacre – is a natural material found in certain seashells such as those of oysters and abalone.  On the microscopic level, it consists of hexagonal tablets of the hard mineral aragonite glued together by a soft biopolymer.  The aragonite gives nacre its strength, and the biopolymer adds flexibility […]

For the better part of a decade, conservationists have been trying to eliminate the use of gill nets by fishermen in the Gulf of California.  Species such as the corvina fish have been decimated by the use of this fishing gear.  The nets also trap other marine creatures, include the rare and elusive vaquita porpoise. […]