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Earth Wise

A look at our changing environment.

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2:00

Lithium in Arkansas

Earth Wise ·

2024/11/28

Lithium is the critical raw material in the batteries that power electric cars as well as cell phones, computers, and other gadgets. The stuff has been nicknamed “white gold” for good reason. Chile and Australia are the world’s largest producers of the metal, which is mostly extracted from brine in evaporation ponds. The majority of […]

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Carbon levies for shipping

Earth Wise ·

2024/11/27

The global shipping industry is responsible for 90 percent of world trade. The ships crossing the world’s oceans emit nearly 3% of the global greenhouse gas emissions caused by human activity that are contributing to climate change. Among the effects of climate change are sea level rise, which is threatening the very existence of small […]

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2:00

PFAS and groundwater

Earth Wise ·

2024/11/26

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl chemicals, more commonly known as PFAS, are a family of human-made chemicals that have been manufactured and used in a variety of industries since the 1940s. They provide water-resistance, oil-resistance, dirt-resistance, and corrosion-resistance to a wide range of products, including food wrappers and packaging, clothing, dental floss, nonstick cookware, textiles, and electronics. […]

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Extreme geothermal power

Earth Wise ·

2024/11/25

Krafla is one of the most explosive volcanoes in Iceland, which is home to many active volcanoes, including one recently in the news near Reykjavik that hadn’t erupted for 800 years . Krafla is the site of the Krafla Magma Testbed, which may end up being for geoscientists what the Large Hadron Collider has been […]

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2:00

A sustainable and climate-friendly food

Earth Wise ·

2024/11/22

Researchers predict that climate change will negatively impact the yield and nutritional quality of most staple food crops, including rice, corn, and soybeans, due to factors like extreme weather events, rising temperatures, and altered precipitation patterns, potentially leading to reduced food security globally. As a result, many experts contend that alternative food sources – like […]

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Forest crimes

Earth Wise ·

2024/11/20

Wildlife trafficking is the world’s fourth largest form of organized crime, behind only drug trafficking, counterfeiting, and human trafficking. When we hear about wildlife trafficking, we think of elephant ivory, rhino horns, tiger parts, and the like. But so-called forest crimes, which includes poaching protected trees and illegal logging added up to somewhere between $30 […]

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2:00

Generations Z and Alpha and climate change

Earth Wise ·

2024/11/19

People’s views and level of concern about climate change tend to vary according to age, political affiliation, and other demographic categories. But one clear trend is that young people are overwhelmingly concerned about climate change. Given that they will ultimately suffer from its effects far more than older generations, this is not really surprising. A […]

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New approaches to nuclear power

Earth Wise ·

2024/11/18

The US is the world’s largest user of nuclear power. Its 94 reactors supply nearly 19% of the country’s electricity. But the number of U.S. reactors has steadily fallen over the past 30 years and new nuclear power plants are a real rarity. The reasons are a combination of perceived dangers following several nuclear accidents […]

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The bloated carbon footprint of LNG

Earth Wise ·

2024/11/15

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the United States is the world’s largest producer of natural gas. In fact, natural gas supplies approximately one third of the United States’ primary energy consumption, most of which is used to heat buildings and to generate electricity. While most natural gas is delivered in its gaseous form […]

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South American drought

Earth Wise ·

2024/11/13

Vast areas of South America have been gripped in drought conditions for months. Rivers in the Amazon basin fell to record-low levels in October. The drought has amplified wildfires, parched crops, disrupted transportation networks, and interrupted hydroelectric power generation in parts of Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. The drought is related to the […]

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Shrinking polar ice

Earth Wise ·

2024/11/12

Arctic sea ice has shrunk to near-historic lows during this Northern Hemisphere summer. The minimum extent for the year occurred on September 11th. Ice cover in the Arctic Ocean has been shrinking and thinning for more than 40 years. The amount of frozen seawater in the Arctic goes up and down during the year as […]

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2:00

How much energy storage is needed?

Earth Wise ·

2024/11/11

Energy storage is a critical aspect of modern energy systems as they move towards heavy dependence on renewable sources such as solar and wind that don’t produce energy at the same rate all the time. Excess energy generated by solar power needs to be stored for when the sun isn’t shining; excess wind energy needs […]

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2:00

Progress towards electric school buses

Earth Wise ·

2024/11/08

The U.S. has nearly half a million school buses providing daily transportation for about 20 million students. Most of these buses are powered by diesel engines which not only dump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere but also fill kids’ lungs with harmful fumes. Thanks to various federal and state incentive programs, this situation is starting […]

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Solar-powered desalination

Earth Wise ·

2024/11/07

People in remote, low-income regions far from the ocean often need to meet their water needs from groundwater and groundwater is becoming increasingly saline due to climate change. Desalination of brackish groundwater is a huge and largely untapped source of drinking water, but there are challenges in making the process efficient and reliable. Engineers at […]

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Ocean geoengineering

Earth Wise ·

2024/10/24

As greenhouse gas emissions continue to be dangerously large and the perils of climate change are increasingly apparent, the world is increasingly exploring ways to deliberately intervene in climate systems. A number of these ideas involve introducing substances into the atmosphere, but there are also ways to tinker with the oceans. The oceans naturally absorb […]

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Rainfall and sea turtles

Earth Wise ·

2024/10/04

There are seven species of sea turtles that inhabit the world’s oceans. Six of the seven sea turtle species – all of them except the flatback – are present in U.S. waters, and are listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act. Sea turtles, which have been around for more than 100 million […]

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Last chance tourism

Earth Wise ·

2024/10/03

Glaciers around the world are shrinking or disappearing. Melting glaciers and ice sheets are the biggest contributors to global sea level rise and ice loss rates are continuing to increase. Even if the world somehow manages to meet the climate goal of limiting warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, the world will still […]

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2:00

Ecofriendly Glass

Earth Wise ·

2024/10/02

Glass has been used for thousands of years to make everything from windows to bottles to microscope slides. For all that time, most glass has been in the form of soda lime silicate glass, which is made by melting quartz sand with carbon-based ingredients – soda ash and limestone – at high melting temperatures of […]

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2:00

Food, timber, and climate change

Earth Wise ·

2024/10/01

The sights of coffee plantations in California and vineyards in Britain are becoming more common as the climate changes. But behind what sounds like a success story is a sobering one: climate change is shifting the regions suitable for growing food all around the world. According to a new study by researchers from the University […]

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Solar farms and pollinators

Earth Wise ·

2024/09/30

Two important environmental challenges are finding some literal common ground: the need to reduce carbon emissions and the fight to stave off global biodiversity collapse. Both issues can be addressed at solar farms. Solar energy is an important weapon in the battle against climate change. But utility-scale solar farms take up large amounts of land. […]

en-US

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Earth Wise

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