The Seabin marine waste collector shows how often the simplest solutions are the most effective. The rubbish collector, designed to float in marinas, inland waterways, residential lakes and harbors, collects floating debris and liquids by sucking water from the surface and letting if flow out through the bottom of the structure, trapping waste in a filter bag. The inventors have […]
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Aerosols, tiny solid and liquid particles suspended in the atmosphere, impact the environment by affecting air quality and alter the Earth’s radiative balance by either scattering or absorbing sunlight to varying degrees. What impact does climate change, induced by greenhouse gases (GHGs), have on the aerosol “burden”–the total mass of aerosols in a vertical column of air? Past research done […]
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The key to helping animals evolve quickly in response to climate change could actually be their predators, according to a new UBC study. The study is one of the first to show that species interactions, meaning the way species interact with each other in an ecosystem, like in a predator-prey relationship, is important to understanding how animals will respond to […]
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When communities like San Francisco and Seattle began banning plastic bags, said Ramesh Ponnuru, it seemed like a public-spirited thing to do. But’ benign-seeming laws often have unintended consequences— and the plastic-bag ban is now producing a sickening result. The reusable shopping bags that people now use to bring groceries home turn out to be breeding grounds for bacteria carried […]
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It seemed like a good idea at the time. In 1972, Broward County, Fla., organized more than 100 boats to dump an estimated 700,000 tires into the Atlantic Ocean in hopes of sparking the growth of an artificial reef. Ultimately corals never grew on the bundles of tires, and over time the bundles became loose, causing damage to nearby natural […]
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2013 – Colorado River Delta, Mexico: Water began flowing in the Mexican part of the Colorado River for the first time in decades. Dams, including the Hoover Dam and the Morelos Dam, usually keep most of the river’s water in the U.S. and divert some to Tijuana and surrounding farmland. The joint U.S.- Mexican International Boundary and Water Commission authorized […]
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It’s been five years since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 and releasing a torrent of petroleum into the sea. But despite a massive, multibillion-dollar cleanup effort, the effects of the largest marine oil spill in U.S. history may linger for decades. BP (British Petroleum), which operated the rig, has already paid […]
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How Climate Change Could Affect Our Diet Climate change and a shopping list? At first glance, it seems just a wrong correlation. Well, it is not! Climate change is already affecting our present and it will heavily influence our future. The extreme weather conditions brought by climate change are progressively increasing the risk of drought, floods, heat waves and wildfires, […]
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Before the Flood, directed by Fisher Stevens, is a documentary that captures a three year personal journey of the Academy Award-winning actor and U.N. Messenger of Peace Leonardo DiCaprio. What was Leonardo Dicaprio’s Mission in Before the Flood? His mission was to explore the level of destruction climate change has caused around the world, and to sensitise the world’s nations […]
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