Earth Wise

Different brands of electric cars have required different charging connections. There has been no standard connector for charging.  But now, as the transition to electric vehicles is accelerating, there is the North American Charging Standard, which within in the next couple of years, will be common to pretty much any new electric vehicle on the […]

Forests are one of the most iconic symbols of the power and diversity of nature but beyond that, their thick vegetation is crucial to the stability and balance of the Earth’s climate.  This is because the photosynthesis that powers the growth of plants removes carbon dioxide from the air.  Cutting down forests – especially the […]

All sorts of weather records were set in 2023 and pretty much none of them were good news.  Among the most painful was that the U.S. suffered a record 25 weather- and climate-related disasters that caused more than a billion dollars in damage. The increasing accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has increased the […]

Superstorm Sandy in 2012 flooded 17% of New York City and caused $19 billion in damage.  In its aftermath, plans emerged to create floodwalls, raised elevations, high-capacity drainage, and other infrastructure to protect the city from future Sandy-like events. Like all large infrastructure projects in densely populated places, the remaking of New York’s shoreline has […]

Present in animal manure and synthetic fertilizers, nitrogen is an essential nutrient for plant growth and is a critical input to enhance agricultural productivity on farms around the world.  But excessive and inefficient use of this nutrient is widespread.  In fact, up to 80% of it leaks into the environment, mostly in various polluting forms […]

2023 was the warmest year in the 174 years of global temperature record-keeping.  According to some analyses, it may have been the warmest year in the past 125,000 years. There were incredible heatwaves in Arizona and Argentina.  There were relentless wildfires across Canada.  The wintertime ice coverage in the seas surrounding Antarctica was at unprecedented […]

Goldfish are just about the easiest pets to keep.  A species of carp native to East Asia, they have been bred to look pretty and are generally little more than home décor.  We keep them in little glass bowls and feed them mysterious flakes out of a container.  With these confined quarters and meager meals, […]

The Paris Climate Agreement has a goal of limiting global warming to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.  How do we know if we are succeeding and, more importantly, how would we know if we have failed? This may seem like something fairly obvious, but it isn’t.  Global temperatures are definitely creeping upward.  […]

The aviation industry wants to slash its greenhouse gas emissions.  One proposed strategy is to replace ordinary jet fuel with ethanol.  Ethanol in this country mostly comes from corn.  The airlines are enthusiastic about the idea; corn farmers are enthusiastic about the idea.  Ethanol suppliers are obviously enthusiastic about it.  But is it a good […]

Electric vehicles have historically been more expensive than their gas-powered counterparts primarily because of the cost of the batteries that power them.  Today’s EV battery packs range in size from about 40 kWh to as much as 200 kWh, where kWh measure the amount of energy stored in pack. The batteries in EVs are lithium-ion […]