Environment

Most people think of composting as a very "green" thing to do, but few realize that composting actually generates a significant amount of the potent greenhouse gases (GHG), methane and nitrous oxide.  In the past, land-filling would have been a worse alternative, but under current landfill regulations, requirements to exclude water minimizes the breakdown of organic matter and requirements to capture and burn methane mean that even that option has a better carbon footprint than composting (thanks to Fred Krieger for pointing out this advance in the landfill arena).   …

This is not a rainforest! A story wherein I reveal resistant and deliberate ignorance. This is not a rainforest! I was told in a bar at Mabu Thermas and Resort, Foz do Iguazu, Brazil. 'This' referred to the National Park Iguazu wherein the resort we stayed at was situated. Admittedly that last sentence could lead you to believe I was enjoying an exotic vacation. I was not. I was attending the Group of Earth observations (GEO) annual plenary and a long series of other meetings. So after one of the never ending days of official and non-official meetings we finally gathered in the bar for…

Soil organic matter makes up the bulk of terrestrially bound carbon in our biosphere. Those compounds play an important role, not only for soil fertility and agricultural yields but also for controlling the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Climatic change can therefore be slowed down or accelerated according to our management of soil resources. A new study sheds some light on the process.  The remains of dead bacteria have far greater meaning for soils than previously assumed,  around 40 percent of microbial biomass is converted to organic soil components, say…

Smoke from Arctic wildfires have been drifting over the Greenland ice sheet, tarnishing the ice with soot and making it more likely to melt under the sun, according to satellite observations. NASA's Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) satellite captured smoke from Arctic fires billowing out over Greenland during the summer of 2012. Researchers have long been concerned with how the Greenland landscape is losing its sparkly reflective quality as temperatures rise. The surface is darkening as ice melts away, and, since dark surfaces are less…

Rain in Southern Arizona is usually scarce - but on November 29th, 25 miles north of Tucson, the soil was soaked. Spouting from a network of pipes, thousands of gallons of water drizzled down onto the world's only and largest man-made experimental watershed, recently completed at the University of Arizona's Biosphere 2.  You can read articles from original Biosphere 2 scientist Jane Poynter here. Six-hundred tons of ground-up volcanic rocks blanket a giant steel tub resting at an incline to form an artificial hill slope. Three identical such hill slopes, each measuring 100 feet long and…

Erosion can bury carbon in the soil, acting as a carbon sin but a new study has found that part of that sink is only temporary. The researchers estimated that roughly half of the carbon buried in soil by erosion will be re-released into the atmosphere within about 500 years. Their model estimates that climate change could speed the rate of decomposition, aiding the release of the buried carbon. As a case study, the researchers used radiocarbon and optical dating to calculate the amount of carbon emissions captured in soils and released to the atmosphere during the past 6,000 years along the…

Perhaps China could use some genetically modified food.  Otherwise, meeting the food demands of 22 percent of the world's population while maintaining their over-reliance on nitrogen-based fertilizer will continue to dramatically increase their emissions of nitrous oxide (N2O) – the most potent greenhouse gas.  Decades ago, America was also over-fertilized but agricultural science has gotten much smarter and American farmers have dematerialized so they are producing food far more efficiently.  A study in Environmental Research Letters claims that a 60 percent…

With Halloween just around the corner, storefronts, lawn ornaments, and general décor have adjusted to reflect our temporary obsession with creepy-crawlies, scary monsters, and death.  The latter topic is something that we – college and graduate students generally in the prime of our lives – rarely think about. Then, last weekend, while standing at the counter of a BBQ joint, I encountered a particularly graphic rendition of a severed hand. Since I’m a relatively recent convert to vegetarianism, I appreciated the appetite killer, and, much later, the musings it engendered about the fate…

When visitors arrive at Edmonton International Airport in Alberta, Canada, they are greeted by a 1,440 square foot living wall; a “green wall” arranged like a modern art canvas with 8,000 plants encompassing 32 different species. “It is the largest living wall inside any building in the world,” says Patrick Poiraud, design consultant and principal with Green Over Grey, the designers behind the installation. Green walls provide an injection of nature that promotes relaxation and (in the case of hospitals) healing. But green walls also serve a vital role in protecting and insulating buildings,…

Which do you love more, organic food or green energy?  Because you may have to choose. Oregon is the site of a conflict between food and energy, though it is a state that claims it loves both - but the people who love each primarily do so because it makes them money. You really can't love both anyway, because environmental activists are in a never-ending war against the bulk of society and its bad habits, and also in a war with each other.  They not only love Gaia more than you do, they love Gaia more than other environmentalists. Willamette Valley, which surrounds the …