News

Share


THREE WAYS NANOMATERIALS COULD HELP COMBAT CLIMATE CHANGE AND PREVENT POLLUTION

Researchers are looking to tiny materials to clean up air, water and land

CLICK TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE

PUBLISHED BY ENSIA.COM

August 18, 2017 — The list of environmental problems that the world faces may be huge, but some strategies for solving them are remarkably small. First explored for applications in microscopy and computing, nanomaterials — materials made up of units that are each thousands of times smaller than the thickness of a human hair — are emerging as useful for tackling threats to our planet’s well-being.

Scientists across the globe are developing nanomaterials that can efficiently use carbon dioxide from the air, capture toxic pollutants from water and degrade solid waste into useful products.


Climate change will stir 'unimaginable' refugee crisis, says military

Unchecked global warming is greatest threat to 21st-century security where mass migration could be ‘new normal’, say senior military

The Guardian / December 1, 2016

CLICK TO READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Climate change is set to cause a refugee crisis of “unimaginable scale”, according to senior military figures, who warn that global warming is the greatest security threat of the 21st century and that mass migration will become the “new normal”.

The generals said the impacts of climate change were already factors in the conflicts driving a current crisis of migration into Europe, having been linked to the Arab Spring, the war in Syria and the Boko Haram terrorist insurgency.

Military leaders have long warned that global warming could multiply and accelerate security threats around the world by provoking conflicts and migration. They are now warning that immediate action is required.


Arctic ice melt could trigger uncontrollable climate change at global level

Scientists warn increasingly rapid melting could trigger polar ‘tipping points’ with catastrophic consequences felt as far away as the Indian Ocean

The Guardian / November 25, 2016

CLICK TO READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Arctic scientists have warned that the increasingly rapid melting of the ice cap risks triggering 19 “tipping points” in the region that could have catastrophic consequences around the globe.

The Arctic Resilience Report found that the effects of Arctic warming could be felt as far away as the Indian Ocean, in a stark warning that changes in the region could cause uncontrollable climate change at a global level.

Temperatures in the Arctic are currently about 20C above what would be expected for the time of year, which scientists describe as “off the charts”. Sea ice is at the lowest extent ever recorded for the time of year.


The North Pole is an insane 36 degrees warmer than normal as winter descends

The Washington Post

By Chris Mooney and Jason Samenow–November 17, 2016 

CLICK TO READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Political people in the United States are watching the chaos in Washington in the moment. But some people in the science community are watching the chaos somewhere else — the Arctic.

It’s polar night there now — the sun isn’t rising in much of the Arctic. That’s when the Arctic is supposed to get super-cold, when the sea ice that covers the vast Arctic Ocean is supposed to grow and thicken. But in fall of 2016 — which has been a zany year for the region, with multiple records set for low levels of monthly sea ice — something is totally off. The Arctic is super-hot, even as a vast area of cold polar air has been displaced over Siberia.


July 2016 was world's hottest month since records began, says Nasa

The Guardian, Michael Slezak, 15 August 2015

CLICK TO READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Last month was the hottest month in recorded history, beating the record set just 12 months before and continuing the long string of monthly records, according to the latest Nasa data.  The past nine months have set temperature records for their respective months and the trend continued this month to make 10 in a row, according to Nasa. July broke the absolute record for hottest month since records began in 1880. 


The Anthropocene Is Here: Humanity Has Pushed Earth Into a New Epoch: The epoch is thought to have begun in the 1950s, when human activity set global systems on a different trajectory

by Deirdre Fulton, staff writer, 29 August 2016

Common Dreams

CLICK HERE TO READ ENTIRE STORY

The Anthropocene Epoch has begun, according to a group of experts assembled at the International Geological Congress in Cape Town, South Africa this week. 

After seven years of deliberation, members of an international working group votedunanimously on Monday to acknowledge that the Anthropocene—a geologic time interval so-dubbed by chemists Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer in 2000—is real.  

The epoch is thought to have begun in the 1950s, when human activity, namely rapid industrialization and nuclear activity, set global systems on a different trajectory. And there's evidence in the geographic record. Indeed, scientists say that nuclear bomb testing, industrial agriculture, human-caused global warming, and the proliferation of plastic across the globe have so profoundly altered the planet that it is time to declare the 11,700-year Holocene over. 


Climate change 'significant and direct' threat to U.S. military: reports

By Idrees Ali   /   REUTERS

GLOBAL ENERGY NEWS | Wed Sep 14, 2016 

CLICK TO READ ENTIRE STORY

The effects of climate change endanger U.S. military operations and could increase the danger of international conflict, according to three new documents endorsed by retired top U.S. military officers and former national security officials.

"There are few easy answers, but one thing is clear: the current trajectory of climatic change presents a strategically-significant risk to U.S. national security, and inaction is not a viable option," said a statement published on Wednesday by the Center for Climate and Security, a Washington-based think tank.


What the ‘sixth extinction’ will look like in the oceans: The largest species die off first

By Chris Mooney September 14, 2016  at 2:37 PM

The Washington Post

CLICK TO READ THE ENTIRE STORY

We mostly can’t see it around us, and too few of us seem to care — but nonetheless, scientists are increasingly convinced that the world is barreling towards what has been called a “sixth mass extinction” event. Simply put, species are going extinct at a rate that far exceeds what you would expect to see naturally, as a result of a major perturbation to the system.

In this case, the perturbation is us — rather than, say, an asteroid. As such, you might expect to see some patterns to extinctions that reflect our particular way of causing ecological destruction. And indeed, a new study published Wednesday in Science magazine confirms this. For the world’s oceans, it finds, threats of extinction aren’t apportioned equally among all species — rather, the larger ones, in terms of body size and mass, are uniquely imperiled right now.


Toxic Slime Spreads Across Oceans as Climate Disruption Continues

Monday, 12 September 2016 00:00

By Dahr Jamail, Truthout | News Analysis

CLICK TO READ ENTIRE STORY

It is August 30. I'm in Anchorage, Alaska, and it's hot. Very hot. In fact, it's the fourth straight day of record high temperatures, amidst a year that has seen record high temperatures becoming normalized across the entire state. Two days ago, this city (the most populous in Alaska) saw a record high temperature of 78 degrees, which beat the previous record by a whopping seven degrees. Last night, I returned here from a trip with the US Geological Survey (USGS), during which we measured the Gulkana Glacier in the Eastern Alaska Range. Almost needless to say, the glacier, like thousands across this northernmost state, is melting rapidly and is in full retreat.


Climate Model Predicts West Antarctic Ice Sheet Could Melt Rapidly

For half a century, climate scientists have seen the West Antarctic ice sheet, a remnant of the last ice age, as a sword of Damocles hanging over human civilization. The great ice sheet, larger than Mexico, is thought to be potentially vulnerable to disintegration from a relatively small amount of global warming, and capable of raising the sea level by 12 feet or more should it break up. But researchers long assumed the worst effects would take hundreds — if not thousands — of years to occur. Now, new research suggests the disaster scenario could play out much sooner.


Human destroying the biosphere at shocking pace; tipping point death spiral to arrive in mere decades

Sunday, January 17, 2016 by: L.J. Devon, Staff Writer, Natural News
Tags: planetary extinctionbiosphereenvironmental destruction

CLICK TO READ ENTIRE STORY

(NaturalNews) Has man's relationship with Earth and all her natural resources fallen out of balance? There are sustainable paths toward abundance on Earth, but has modern man sabotaged this quest by reaching for more power, by falling under the spell of greed? In a society where attaining more physical stuff and gaining more power is sought after, there will never be enough, and there will always be suffering. In a society where love is a sign of weakness and war machines are a sign of power, there will always be grief, strife and hatred.