Actual statistics on ice melt have been released and gotten lost in news of the failure of the European ice-measuring satellite. In late September, the BBC reported that scientists are observing Arctic ice melting at an ever-faster rate:
They warn the shrinkage could lead to even faster melting in coming years.
“September 2005 will set a new [...]
37% of office workers leave their computers running overnight, costing companies thousands more in energy bills, placing more strain on limited environmental resources, and releasing more carbon dioxide into the air supply. The European Union is in the midst of passing legislation to curb energy waste from idle CPUs.
There has been confusion in the [...]
Violent weather systems and rising sea levels are not the only adverse effects of climbing global temperature. Marine life may be in jeopardy, as well. Carl Gustav Lundin, head of the marine branch of the World Conservation Union, noted that the world’s coral reefs have already diminished by 20%. Other reefs could essentially be [...]
The U.S. Government will begin tagging passports with RFID tags, 64kb chips that will store the name, nationality, and a digital picture of the carrier, among other things. The announcement was made following tremendous opposition: challengers feared a massive rise in “airwave” identity theft. Though the Bush administration has done much to bolster the security [...]
The majestic, peaceful Rocky Mountains, an iconic landscape in the American West, and tourist destination for skiers, hikers, and hunters alike, are in danger of losing much of their wildlife. Oil and natural gas drilling have been a part of the Rockies’ history for over fifty years, but some Wyoming residents are witnessing a dropoff [...]
Reading the same data mentioned on this site earlier via a story in Scientific American, the UK Independent notes an even more disturbing aspect of the data, informed in part by satellite imaging:
The Amazon rainforest is being destroyed twice as quickly as previously estimated, according to a satellite survey of the region.
Scientists have discovered [...]
The New York Times is publishing a series of stories called “The Big Melt,” about the effects of global warming on previously-frozen Arctic areas and the people who live in them. This week’s article discusses the thawing of the northwest coast of Russia due to climate change and to industrialization:
A push to develop the [...]
Scientific American reports on a recent study showing that industry’s efforts to “selectively” log the Brazilian rainforest is potentialy even more destructive than the clearcutting it is meant to replace:
A four-year, comprehensive survey of the Amazon Basin in Brazil reveals that selective logging–the practice of cutting down just one or two tree species in an [...]
The Wall Street Journal recently ran a story on the necessary qualifications needed to become an eco-friendly skyscraper. Many buildings are given the trendy label “green” simply by conforming to energy efficiency guidelines, regulations not nearly beneficial enough to warrant those buildings true conservationist status. The paperwork and certification fees may also delay, or even [...]
A new compilation was released three weeks ago (9/27/05) dealing with the influence of ecology on canonical writers and their critical readers. Editors Helen Reueiro Elam and Frances Ferguson present a compilation of essays, including a new addition from paragon Romanticist Geoffrey Hartman, in The Wordsworthian Enlightenment: Romantic Poetry and the Ecology of Reading. [...]