Archive for September 3rd, 2015

Marine Waste: Cleanser Release 100,000 Micro-Beads

Nature World News: We've heard about plastic "microbeads" from cosmetics and pastes getting into streams and the ocean. In June 2014, Illinois became the first state to begin the process of banning the tiny beads, and some legislators are asking for a federal ban in the U.S. Other countries are discussing the beads too, as a recent study by researchers at the U.K.'s Plymouth University shows. That study found that a single use of a bead-containing product--which include hand cleansers, soaps, toothpaste, shaving cream,...

Study: Overlapping Droughts, Heat Waves Are Increasingly Common

Christian Science Monitor: Across much of the United States, regional droughts and heatwaves are appearing simultaneously more frequently, imposing more-extreme conditions than either would deliver separately, according to a new study. California's four-year drought is a case in point, says Amir AghaKouchak, a civil engineer at the University of California at Irvine and the new study's senior author. Looking only at 2014 and using precipitation as the indicator, "it is a serious drought, but it is not that extreme," he says....

Bill Nye Depressed by Tar Sands’ ‘Extraordinary Exploitation’ of Environment

EcoWatch: Bill Nye recently took a trip north to the Alberta tar sands while filming his new science documentary and he did not mince words about the state of Canada`s crude oil reservoir. Thank you @BillNye & National Geographic for coming to see the #tarsands & its impacts and talk about #climatechange pic.twitter.com/2jjuzabsAm -- Melina LM (@Melina_MLM) September 2, 2015 “Producing all this oil that’s producing all this carbon dioxide, that’s not good from a global stand point,” the children`s...

Watch Western Wildfires Burn After Years Drought

National Geographic: Visiting Alaska on Tuesday to highlight the dangers of climate change, President Barack Obama summoned up powerful images of the hundreds of wildfires that have burned across the state this summer: "More than five million acres in Alaska have already been scorched by fire this year-that's an area about the size of Massachusetts." The Alaska megafires have helped make this an unprecedented wildfire season. Fires raging across the American West have set records for size and property damage, badly...

Earth has 3 trillion trees. But is that enough?

Monitor: When faced with deforestation statistics that seem daunting, the fact that there are 422 trees per person on Earth sounds a bit more reassuring. But is it? On Wednesday, researchers published the most comprehensive assessment of global tree populations ever conducted, revealing findings that blew previous estimates out of the water. Prior to the Yale-led study, Earth was believed to be home to 400 billion trees, but the new estimate is nearly eight times higher – 3.04 trillion. Researchers arrived...

Droughts and Heat Waves Are Occurring Together

Clapway: Stories of extended droughts and heat waves have repeatedly been making news headlines. According to scientists, these climatic weather fluctuations are occurring much more frequently, further shedding light on the potentially devastating effects of climate change. To make matters even worse, a study, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, now reports that these extremes are also more likely to occur together. Droughts and Heat Waves: The Troublesome Duo As...