environment

In 2007, the Arctic saw its lowest levels of sea ice coverage than any year in recorded history, and trends for 2009 indicate that we may be on our way to a new record low. The low summer coverage follows a winter that saw an unprecedented disappearance of thick, multiyear ice, which is more resistant to melting and forms a platform for the freezing of new ice. The recent release of over 1,000 satellite photos of the Arctic region that the Bush administration had kept classified also reveals an alarming rate of melt; as Josh Rosenau put it on Thoughts from Kansas, "Needless to say, it's a…

My most memorable encounter with the anti-animal research cadres was several years ago, when I was a graduate student, and the Animal Liberation Front snuck into our building one night and vandalized one of my colleague's labs; they destroyed data, stole some irreplaceable mutant lines, and walked away with most of the research animals, things like white mice and quail and other small furry lab-bred animals. In their noble humanitarianism, they later released them all just off of I-5, where all the baffled, frightened little beasties made the local red-tailed hawks very, very happy. It's the…

Doomsday in 2012? Please, I don't even have time for that. (Check out Ian O'Neill's work for a nail-in-the-coffin of those myths.) But there is a big milestone that we will reach right around 2012. Prior to the industrial revolution, the Earth's atmosphere was really ideal for supporting the wide diversity of life on the planet. Breaking it up into its physical, molecular contents, the atmosphere, weighing in at just over 5,100 trillion tonnes (5.1 x 1018 kilograms), was made up of the following elements (by mass, not volume): Nitrogen gas (N2): 3,890 trillion tonnes (around 75.5%), Oxygen…

Miriam Goldstein of the Oyster's Garter and Double X blogs (follow her on Twitter) is embarking on a sea-faring expedition! SEAPLEX is a Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego project studying plastics - yes, including the rubber duckies - accumulating in the oceans, specifically in the North Pacific Gyre. Miriam is leading the team of PhD students and volunteers who will be studying various aspects of the plastics in the sea and their environmental impact. Though the life at sea is hard and busy and they will not have much time (or access) to do so, they will try to keep us all…

tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books "How does one distinguish a truly civilized nation from an aggregation of barbarians? That is easy. A civilized country produces much good bird literature." --Edgar Kincaid The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is edited by me and published here for your information and…

The bluefin tuna is being grossly overfished, and is on its way to extinction. The reason? Fishermen can sell a single bluefin for $173,000. At first thought, you might feel like blaming the greedy fishermen (and I think there is some fault there), but here's an article that assigns the blame more appropriately: fault the rich assholes who regard paying an obscene price for a small bite to be part of the cachet of the fish. "People believe in their hearts that a piece of raw fish is worth $600. And one of the main reasons that it's worth $600 is because you can't afford it and I can't, but…

tags: Sylvia Earle, oceans, TEDTalks, conservation, streaming video Legendary ocean researcher Sylvia Earle shares astonishing images of the ocean -- and shocking stats about its rapid decline -- as she makes her TED Prize wish: that we will join her in protecting the vital blue heart of the planet. [18:16] TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes.

Carl Zimmer discovers that George Will is still lying about global warming. Also, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.

The National Pork Producers Council didn't like swine flu being called swine flu. Bad for business. So we now call it 2009 H1N1 or some such thing. It's totally swine-origin, but hey, if Lord Agribusiness doesn't like it, that's that. Same thing with antibiotic resistant bacteria, like methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus ("MRSA"; best source on the net Maryn McKenna's blog). The Pork Council doesn't want anyone to die of MRSA. They just don't want it associated with their product, even though a Dutch strain associated with pigs is now spreading in the US (and infecting people). Some…

A few months ago, I posted about a very innovative way of using Twitter in science - monitoring fish catch by commercial fishermen. The first phase of the study is now complete and the results are published in the journal Marine and Coastal Fisheries: Dynamics, Management, and Ecosystem Science 2009; 1: 143-154: Description and Initial Evaluation of a Text Message Based Reporting Method for Marine Recreational Anglers (PDF) by M. Scott Baker Jr. and Ian Oeschger. It is relatively short and easy to read, so I recommend you take a look. The next phase will continue with the program, with…

tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books "How does one distinguish a truly civilized nation from an aggregation of barbarians? That is easy. A civilized country produces much good bird literature." --Edgar Kincaid The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is edited by me and published here for your information and…

Sally-Christine Rodgers and Randy Repass do a TON for ocean conservation around the world, including supporting students and getting the right folks involved on the ground. They wrote this letter and asked a bunch of us bloggers to spread it around the Web: _______ We are both lifelong boaters. What we have learned from sailing across the Pacific over the past 6 years, and especially from scientists focused on marine conservation, is startling. Whether you spend time on the water or not, Ocean Acidification affects all of us and is something we believe you will want to know about. What…

Hawaii Looks to Space Tourism to Aid Recession Woes: According to the Honolulu Advertiser, the state would start by spending up to a million dollars developing a spaceport. But Hawaii isn't alone: The state is already facing heady competition from states including Florida, Okalahoma and New Mexico, all of which are moving into the space tourism market. Hawaii has one comparative advantage: it's further south. I recall that the increased velocity of the earth's rotation the closer you get to the equator means that you get some energy for lift-off for free. This is why the French launch their…

tags: TEDTalks, environment, cities, poverty, crime, underground economy, Stewart Brand, streaming video The man who helped usher in the environmental movement in the 1960s and '70s has been rethinking his positions on cities, nuclear power, genetic modification and geo-engineering. This talk at the US State Department is a foretaste of his major new book, sure to provoke widespread debate. You've GOT to watch the video of the train going through the poor part of town in Bankok -- it's amazing! [16:42] TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED…

tags: TEDTalks, plastic, recycling, Eastern Garbage Patch, North Pacific Gyre, Great Pacific Garbage Patch, albatross, Captain Charles Moore, streaming video Captain Charles Moore of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation first discovered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch -- an endless floating waste of plastic trash. Now he's drawing attention to the growing, choking problem of plastic debris in our seas. [7:20] TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18…

Back in the early 1990s I remember stories about the incredible reduction in size and volume of the Aral Sea. With the collapse of the Soviet Union the environmental disasters caused by state "planning" were exposed for all to see, and the command system of the USSR was as good at managing environmental resources as it was any other resource. But it fell off my radar until I saw this piece in ScienceDaily, Declining Aral Sea: Satellite Images Highlight Dramatic Retreat. It's rather mind-blogging that in 20 years a sea could disappear, but I guess its just a matter of basic water debits…

Greenpeace banner deployed on Mt. Rushmore. Image: S.J. Carrera / Greenpeace There have been few more passionate and prescient figures in the history of science than the Russian naturalist and political radical Peter Kropotkin. Upon the confirmation of his geological research that demonstrated an ancient ice sheet had once extended across the Russian landscape, this evolutionary theorist and gentle anarchist reported in 1894 that "we must accustom ourselves to the idea that climate, like everything else on the earth, is a changeable element." In his many books and articles he regularly…

When the controversial and talented physicist Edward Teller was doing a PhD. with the great Werner Heisenberg at the University of Leipzig, the question asked at the end of every group meeting that focused on a complex sequence of problems was "Wo ist der Witz?", supposed to be translated as "What is the point"? but more correctly translated as "What is the joke?". The joke part of it consisted of turning a wry eye at the world, donning the hat of the court jester who laughs even as the fire that he predicted would engulf the world rages on. The question about global warming that we ask is…

tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books "How does one distinguish a truly civilized nation from an aggregation of barbarians? That is easy. A civilized country produces much good bird literature." ~ Edgar Kincaid The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is edited by me and published here for your information and…

The Science Café for July (description below) will be held on July 21st at Tir Na Nog. This is the season when our utility bills begin to skyrocket. Our costly electric bills often bring into focus the high demand our community has for energy, as well as questions about where electricity will be coming from in the future as North Carolina's population grows. This will be the subject of our next cafe. We will be meeting Dr. David McNelis from UNC-Chapel Hill's Institute for the Environment. Dr. McNelis will give us information about options that we have for energy production in our…