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Archives
Bethlehem Residents Have Higher Rate of Cancer
By Amy Quinton on Wednesday, October 28, 2009.Residents of Bethlehem have a higher than expected rate of both pancreatic and breast cancer.
That’s the finding of a New Hampshire Health and Human Services Department report released Tuesday.
The study was a follow-up on cancer rates in Bethlehem, and included eight surrounding towns.
But as New Hampshire Public Radio’s Amy Quinton reports, the report could not find a common factor that would explain the increase.
Building Artificial Trees
By Virginia Prescott on Monday, October 26, 2009.Think back to elementary school science and good old photosynthesis - when plants turn the energy from the sun into sugars and suck up carbon dioxide in the process.
Now scientists are trying to isolate that last step. In this case, using artificial trees made out of synthetic resin instead of leafy green plants. It’s called air-capture technology and researchers say it’s one of the more practical geoengineering ideas being developed to combat climate change.
As part of our next green thing series, we’re joined by David Biello, associate editor at Scientific American who wrote about air capture technology for Yale Environment 360.
Yale Environment 360: Pulling CO2 from the Air: Promising Idea, Big Price Tag
San Diego Union-Tribune: Scientists envision trees – real or fake – extracting excess CO² from air
CNN: 'Synthetic tree' claims to catch carbon in the air
(Photo courtesy of The Breakthrough Institute)
Are we ingesting too much molybdenum?
By EarthTalk on Sunday, October 25, 2009.
EarthTalk®
From the Editors of E/The Environmental Magazine
Do discarded cigarettes affect the environment?
By EarthTalk on Sunday, October 25, 2009.
EarthTalk®
From the Editors of E/The Environmental Magazine
Bethlehem Landfill Operators Find Pollution Leaks
By Amy Quinton on Wednesday, October 21, 2009.The owners and operators of the Bethlehem landfill say they have discovered pollution leaking in the system.
The D-E-S denied North Country Environmental Services, a subsidiary of Casella Waste, a permit to expand last December in part because of groundwater contamination.
North Country Environmental Services took the state to court over the issue.
As New Hampshire Public Radio’s Amy Quinton reports, the case has now been put on hold.
Ninety Days of Trash
By Virginia Prescott on Wednesday, October 21, 2009.Yesterday was garbage day in Concord, New Hampshire. People gathered their purple pay-as-you-throw bags filled with food wrappers, kitty litter, and paper towels and set them on the curb. By the time they got home from work, a garbage truck had whisked those bags away and trucked them to one of the nearly three thousand landfills in North America.
I recycle, I have a compost pile, and I’m admittedly a little neurotic about minimizing trash, so most weeks i don’t give my garbage a second thought. But if Canadian filmmaker Andrew Nisker saw my weekly output, he might put me up to a challenge: to collect and store all of my garbage for three months.
Nisker found a family who was willing to pile up ninety days worth of waste in their garage. He filmed the entire pungent ordeal in order to illustrate just how much trash one family can produce. Then he connected the dots between that mound of garbage and the pollution that clogs landfills and waterways around the world.
Andrew Nisker joins us for our Garbage! The Revolution Starts at Home at the Brooks Memorial Library in Brattleboro, Vermont.
(Photo by Charley Lhasa via Flickr/Creative Commons)
What are the eco-benefits of boxed wine over bottled?
By EarthTalk on Sunday, October 18, 2009.
EarthTalk®
From the Editors of E/The Environmental Magazine
How are heating, cooling and electricity produced by geothermal energy?
By EarthTalk on Sunday, October 18, 2009.
EarthTalk®
From the Editors of E/The Environmental Magazine
Dear EarthTalk: How are heating, cooling and electricity produced by geothermal energy? I don’t understand how it works. - Delano Stewart, Wyandanch, NY
Estuaries Face Serious Environmental Threats
By Amy Quinton on Friday, October 16, 2009.A new study shows that New Hampshire’s estuaries are facing serious environmental threats. The Piscataqua Region Estuaries Partnership recently released its State of the Estuaries report.
New Hampshire Public Radio’s Amy Quinton has more.
Water: Facts and Predictions
By Virginia Prescott on Tuesday, October 13, 2009.
Water is quickly becoming the most critical natural resource of this century. Not oil, not gold, but water. In some parts of the world, water seems so plentiful that people don’t think twice about running the tap. Outside of our kitchens, the picture is more dramatic.
Yesterday, the World Bank reported that water will become dangerously scarce in the Middle East within decades unless it is radically better managed. In the world’s driest regions, “per capita water availability is predicted to halve by 2050 even without the effects of climate change.” Previous World Bank reports underscore the current severity: 80 countries now have water shortages that threaten health, economies, and increasingly, geopolitics.
Dr. David Howell is professor emeritus at Stanford University and a former geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. We’re also joined by Susan Marks, journalist and author of the new book Aqua Shock: The Water Crisis in America.
(Photo by Renata Virzintaite via Flickr/Creative Commons)
