SKCEA.ORG » Environmental Issues

Charting a new environmental course in China

admin — Wed, 23 May 2012 19:08:25 +0000

Founded in 1951, The Nature Conservancy (TNC) works in more than 30 countries and has projects in all 50 of the United States. The Conservancy has over one million members, and has protected more than 119 million acres of wild-lands and 5,000 miles of rivers worldwide. TNC has taken an active interest in China, the world’s most populated nation, and in many important ways, a critical center of global development. The following is an interview with multiple directors of The Nature Conservancy’s China Program. Mongabay: Please tell our readers about the background and history of The Nature Conservancy’s (TNC) work in China. Zhang Shuang, Director of TNC China Program: Though TNC is a big international organization, we started small in China, in the critically important Northwest corner of the province of Yunnan. We were invited by the Yunnan provincial government to help them complete a regional conservation plan. That was in 1998. We still operate a number of projects in Yunnan but now have also expanded site work into Sichuan, Inner Mongolia, and the Yangtze River Basin. While the opportunities and need for addressing environmental challenges in China are enormous, we still try to focus our work on select areas, where we can really have an impact. This includes addressing climate change (through restoring forests and creating adaptation strategies), introducing new models of protected areas while strengthening existing conservation landscapes, and minimizing the impact of hydropower and other development in the Yangtze River Basin, China’s heartland.

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Charting a new environmental course in China

Study links fungi to early vascular plants

admin — Wed, 23 May 2012 19:08:23 +0000

Cooperating with fungi didn’t just help the earliest plants spread across a barren, rocky landscape; it also played a decisive role in the rise of more complex plants with roots and leaves that make up most of today’s flora. That’s the conclusion of a recent study, which used experiments on closely-related plants that are still around today to investigate how major environmental changes around 400 million years ago gave more complex new ‘vascular’ arrivals the edge over older, simpler ‘non-vascular’ plants like liverworts. A sudden plunge in atmospheric CO2 made these simpler plants’ cooperative fungal networks far less capable of supplying them with enough nutrients to grow, compared to a corresponding improvement for their vascular rivals. Adding to the problem, the upstarts were starting to outcompete them for light.

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Study links fungi to early vascular plants

G8 Leaders Agree to Act on Climate, Air Pollution

admin — Wed, 23 May 2012 19:08:22 +0000

At the Camp David meeting last week, G8 leaders agreed to act on climate change and air pollution by focusing on methane, black carbon (soot), and hydroflurocarbons (HFCs).

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G8 Leaders Agree to Act on Climate, Air Pollution

Leaf ’stamp’ could detect crop diseases

admin — Wed, 23 May 2012 19:08:21 +0000

Crop diseases could be detected earlier and more easily if a new method that stamps a leaf with a color-changing biosensor is successful. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation awarded US$100,000 to Hideaki Tsutsui of the University of California, Riverside, earlier this month (9 May) to develop the early warning system for crop diseases.

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Leaf ’stamp’ could detect crop diseases

The Domino’s effect: The pizza giant refuses to phase out inhumane pork

admin — Wed, 23 May 2012 11:06:33 +0000

By Twilight

Who’s really hurting Aspen’s environment — jet-setters or immigrant workers?

admin — Wed, 23 May 2012 10:59:30 +0000

By David Naguib

Chemical weapon and radiation fear at Scottish RAF base

admin — Tue, 22 May 2012 20:50:19 +0000

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) may have sold off land contaminated with chemical weapons and radioactive material buried at an RAF base in North-East Scotland, according to reports. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) is already investigating radioactive contamination at RAF Kinloss, believed to be from Second World War aircraft coated in radium and buried at the site.

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Chemical weapon and radiation fear at Scottish RAF base

The Complete Electric Car with Charging Station

admin — Tue, 22 May 2012 20:50:18 +0000

One of the problems with an all electric car is charging them. As opposed to gasoline stations, there are far fewer opportunities to charge electric vehicles. Shai Agassi hopes Israel is ready to embrace the efficiency and economics of electric cars. His company Better Place rolled out four electric car charging stations in northern Israel. It is planned to quickly grow this network so that every place in Israel be within range of one of their network stations. This is intended to eliminate, the range anxiety which frightens some consumers out of considering electric cars. Better Place contracted with French automaker Renault to produce a customized version of their Fluence electric car.

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The Complete Electric Car with Charging Station

High Concentrations of Toxic Mercury in the Arctic from Circumpolar Rivers

admin — Tue, 22 May 2012 20:50:15 +0000

Environmental scientists have known that high levels of the toxic element, mercury, have been accumulating in the Arctic Ocean for some time. It was believed to be mostly caused by atmospheric sources stemming from the combustion of coal. However, a new study from the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the Harvard School of Public Health has found that the great majority of Arctic mercury arrives via circumpolar rivers. Some of the largest rivers in the world flow north into the Arctic in Eurasia and North America.

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High Concentrations of Toxic Mercury in the Arctic from Circumpolar Rivers

Toward a future that makes sense

admin — Tue, 22 May 2012 11:09:27 +0000

By David

Against the grain: Fracking companies mine rural Wisconsin for sand

admin — Mon, 21 May 2012 21:00:15 +0000

By Ellen

Politicians, advocates make an 11th-hour push for a better farm bill

admin — Mon, 21 May 2012 20:01:02 +0000

By Twilight

Let’s end polluter welfare

admin — Mon, 21 May 2012 19:04:27 +0000

By Sen. Bernie

Happy, Happy Parents!

admin — Mon, 21 May 2012 17:03:02 +0000

Raising a family can be a difficult matter. But does it make one happy or miserable? Of course part of the answer is that it depends… Contrary to some scholarship and popular belief, parents experience greater levels of happiness and meaning in life than people without children, according to researchers from the University of California, Riverside, the University of British Columbia and Stanford University. Parents also are happier during the day when they are caring for their children than during their other daily activities, the researchers found in a series of studies conducted in the United States and Canada.

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Happy, Happy Parents!

Charcoal for African Cookstoves, What’s the Story?

admin — Mon, 21 May 2012 17:03:00 +0000

You may have seen pictures of women in Africa cooking their daily meals on a small cookstove. These cooking implements look remarkably similar to the portable charcoal grills an American family might bring to the beach for an afternoon of grilling hot dogs and hamburgers. Imagine using one of these at your kitchen table to prepare nearly every meal of your life. In Mozambique (a coastal nation in Southwest Africa, just north of South Africa), the average lifespan is 47 years, the average income is $1 per day – minimum wage is a little more than double that, but high unemployment cuts the average in half. Charcoal is the cooking element of choice. Among market shoppers and sellers we met, charcoal was deemed to be the best cooking option because it is easily available and “not dangerous.”

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Charcoal for African Cookstoves, What’s the Story?

Ask Umbra: What can I do with old CD cases?

admin — Mon, 21 May 2012 10:40:11 +0000

By Ask

EPA: Protect Yourself from the Sun this Summer!

admin — Sun, 20 May 2012 14:42:07 +0000

The warming temperatures will bring many people out into the sun to get a little color on their skins. The sun, while being the source of all life on Earth, is also quite lethal if exposed for too long. As summer approaches, it is good to remember a few things about protecting your skin from the great ball of fire in the sky. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has teamed up with the National Council on Skin Cancer Prevention, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and National Park Service (NPS) in a joint effort to spread the word. They have designated the Friday before Memorial Day as “Don’t Fry Day” to highlight the important message.

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EPA: Protect Yourself from the Sun this Summer!

Americans still support environmental protection, thank you

admin — Sat, 19 May 2012 05:08:49 +0000

By Ruy

Tropic Atmospheric Circulation

admin — Fri, 18 May 2012 23:15:55 +0000

An University of California – Riverside led team has identified black carbon and tropospheric ozone as the most likely drivers of large-scale atmospheric circulation change in the Northern Hemisphere tropics zone. While stratospheric ozone depletion has already been shown to be the primary driver of the expansion of the tropics in the Southern Hemisphere, the researchers are the first to report that black carbon and tropospheric ozone are the most likely primary drivers of the tropical expansion observed in the Northern Hemisphere.

Peabody Coal pays U.S. taxpayers $1.11 per ton of coal, sells it to China for $123

admin — Fri, 18 May 2012 20:11:30 +0000

By David