Story Archives of 'environment'

There are few pleasures in life like being met at the door by your loyal dog, panting and eager to greet you. Or relaxing with a good book while a cat purrs on your lap. Our furry little friends bring happiness into our lives, but they also eat – a lot.

Some in the eco-minded set, ever vigilant about identifying the drags on the planet’s resources, are now setting their sites on household pets. Yes, like it or not, good old Fido and Fluffy are huge energy hogs. According to some estimates, the energy needed to grow food to feed a medium-sized dog is more than the energy used by two Toyota Land Cruisers.

Reporter Kate Ravilious investigated the ecological pawprints of our companion animals for New Scientist magazine, and joins us with what she dug up as part of our "next green thing" series.

New Scientist: How green is your pet?

(Photo by Sephiroty Fiesta via Flickr/Creative Commons)

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)