Major changes are needed in agriculture and food consumption around the world if future generations are to be adequately fed, a major report warns. Farming must intensify sustainably, cut waste and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from farms, it says. The Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change spent more than a year assessing evidence from…
The next time you get a new smartphone or laptop and accidentally drop it, instead of getting permanent cracks or damages to its plastic casing, your gadget might “bleed” and then heal itself. Researchers at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg recently announced a new type of plastic they claim can mimic the human…
The world’s surging population is a big driver of environmental woes but the issue is complex and solutions are few, said experts at the Planet Under Pressure conference. Answers lie with educating women in poorer countries and widening access to contraception but also with reforming consumption patterns in rich economies, they say. Scientists taking part…
Increasing production and declining consumption of oil and gas have unexpectedly brought the United States markedly closer to a goal that has tantalized presidents since Richard Nixon: independence from foreign energy sources, a milestone that could reconfigure American foreign policy, the economy and more. In 2011, the country imported just 45 percent of the liquid…
While plenty of question marks still hang over the prospect of carbon capture and storage, MIT believes it’s ruled out one: the United States, it says, has enough capacity in its deep saline aquifers to store at least a century’s fossil fuel emissions. In the past, estimates of America’s capacity have ranged from enough to…
As the seas rise, so will the costs associated with them. The impact of climate change on oceans alone could cost $2 trillion by the end of the century, according to a report by the Stockholm Environment Institute in Sweden. That figure comes from a scenario in which Earth’s temperature rises 4 °C by 2100,…
Illegal logging generates $10-15 billion around the world, according to new analysis from the World Bank. Its report, Justice for Forests, says that most illegal logging operations are run by organized crime, and much of the profit goes to corrupt officials. The bank says that pursuing loggers through the criminal justice system has made a…
The dream of using hydrogen gas as a clean fuel, on a large scale, just got a little bit closer. Chemists have developed a new molecule that can drive chemical reactions to store and release hydrogen under mild temperatures and pressures. No harmful emissions are released when hydrogen is burned; only water and energy are…
A litany of food scares–and rules for organic produce–have pushed the industry to seek new solutions for food safety.
What if it is too late to save the climate by cutting greenhouse gas emissions? What if the amount of carbon dioxide already added to the atmosphere by human activity is so great that it is going to produce big temperature changes no matter what, with big shifts in rainfall and in ocean chemistry? Options…