Snippets

Snippets of environmental news content from EarthFix and other trusted places. Curated by Toni Tabora-Roberts.

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Harvest Public Media visited the Fort Knox of our country's seeds.

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CIA backs $630,000 study into how to control global weather through geoengineering

This is the stuff of Will Smith-smith fueled action movies.

The power, reach and influence of the Central Intelligence Agency is a staple of conspiracy theories.

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If you've ever been curious about small space living, there's a new opportunity to try is out, even for just a night. The Caravan tiny house hotel -- the first of its kind in the U.S. -- has just opened in Portland, Ore. (Portlandia episode is surely forthcoming...)

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How punk rock science explains glacier melt

In the current issue of Rolling Stone, Jeff Goodell has a great report on why Jason Box's radical approach to climate science is changing our understanding of the unprecedented rate of glacier melt in Greenland.

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Fast forward to Year 2050, and assuming Prince George takes after his environmentalist grandfather, he'll be grappling with the reality of an increasingly uninhabitable planet for over half of the global population. Based on the most conservative predictions for business as usual - even if we meet all our emissions reduction pledges - we are heading for about 3 degree Celsius rise in global average temperatures by that time. Let's not even bother thinking about the impact of amplifying feedbacks that most climate models ignore.

In a different look on the new royal baby, Nafeez Ahmed imagines the world environment for a 30 year old Prince George in 2050. Will be need to be an eco-warrior?

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An orca nabbed this fisherman's salmon right off the line.

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Popular on EarthFix now

Klamath Basin Water Struggles Spread To Trinity River

Washington Enviro Groups Intend to Sue EPA Over Inadequate State Fish Consumption Rates

Field Notes: Of Mountain Goats And Alpine Frogs

Diarrhetic Shellfish Toxin Closes Beaches In South Puget Sound For First Time

Could Coal Exports Run Through Vancouver Port?

Report: Oregon’s CO2 Emissions Are Leveling Off

Wildlife Officials Move Ahead With Killing Barred Owls

Vanquishing Zombie Fishing Nets In Puget Sound

States' Status Update On Wolf-Elk Relationship: It's Complicated

Port of Vancouver Approves Biggest Oil-Train Project In NW

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This is not a doom and gloom story; it’s more of a cautionary tale. We do not live in a precipitation limited environment by any means. The shifts in precipitation will be expressed in streamflow, but we’re fortunate. We have water. But we might have to change our decisions in how we use that water, especially the timing.

Oregon State University Researcher Eric Sproles has just released a climate study that says rising temperatures will reduce the peak snowpack in the Cascades slopes east of Eugene, Ore. by more than fifty percent.

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Is Conservation Extinct?

An interesting examination of conservation as a practice.

A new look at preserving biodiversity

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Biofuel makers have discovered that algae can make a good butter substitute. Seriously?

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NOAA scientists are about to embark on a month-long expedition to study ocean acidification impacts on the U.S. West Coast. This video shares why this is such a big concern for the PNW's huge shellfish industry.

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The Tyee  For First Nations, Great Jobs in a Controversial Industry

Aboriginal jobs in the mining industry are a conundrum for native communities in Canada. An excerpt from The Tyee's article reveals the rub:

According to the audit, the average full-time salary for Aboriginal mine workers after BCAMTA training is $52,959. That's almost $20,000 more than the average Aboriginal wage in the province, and $8,000 more than the average entry-level wage in the mining industry.

But while mining has become a valuable source of employment, it's also a source of frustration and anger for Aboriginal people. First Nations bands and organizations across the province have publicly condemned the opening or expansion of mines like the New Prosperity Mine in the Cariboo region, the Huckleberry Mine near Houston, and the Red Chris Mine near Dease Lake.

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PNNL's graphic illustration of a simple math model that shows impacts of aerosol particles on clouds, a complex part of calculating climate change.

The simple model of aerosol effects on clouds and climate shows the complex, physically based relationships between emissions, aerosol concentrations, droplet concentrations, cloud reflectance, and the Earth’s energy balance.

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Emissions that contribute to climate change are leveling off in Oregon, according to a new report released Monday.

The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality has finished its tally of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions for 2010, which is the most recent year studied. The report shows the state’s emissions held steady since 2007, in spite of population growth.

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By midmorning, the smell of hot peanut oil dissipated and inside the tightly sealed laboratory known as Building 51F, a pink hamburger sizzled in a pan over a raging gas flame. Overhead, fans whirred, whisking caustic smoke up through a metallic esophagus of ductwork.

Woody Delp, 49, a longhaired engineer in glasses — the Willie Nelson of HVAC — supervised the green bean and hamburger experiments. He sat at a computer inside a kitchen simulator, rows upon rows of numeric data appearing on his screen, ticking off the constituents of the plume sucked up the flue. A seared hamburger patty, as he sees it, is just a reliable source for indoor pollution.

“I can claim Alice Waters’ influenced the recipe,” he said. “It’s all fresh and local.”

But Dr. Delp and his colleagues aren’t really interested in testing recipes. They are scientists at the Energy Department’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the morning’s experiment concerned another kitchen conundrum, a fight against physics: how to remove harmful contaminants caused by cooking.

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The Power of Poop?

Euphemistically known as waste-to-energy, the possibilities afforded by excrement are, well, excremental. David Waltner-Toews, a veterinarian, epidemiologist, scientist and author, wrote The Origin of Feces: What Excrement Tells Us About Evolution, Ecology, and a Sustainable Society, as well as other books about the intersection of humans and nature and its relationship to development. He recently outlined 10 ways that the use of such waste could do everything from promoting energy self-sufficiency to improving drinking water. 

Poop Power: 10 Ways Excrement Can Save the World http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/07/23/poop-power-10-ways-excrement-can-save-world-150525