CleanTechnica

When it comes to environmental news, doom and gloom often rules the day. And it’s easy to get discouraged. But scientists from Yale University say most polluted ecosystems can recover in as little as 5 or 10 years.

The study means it’s not too late to turn things around if societies commit to cleanup, restoration and sustainability, according to Yale’s analysis of 240 independent studies. The findings appear in this month’s issue of the peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE.
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Experts call energy efficiency the low-hanging fruit, because it’s cheaper to cut power use than create new energy from fossil fuels like coal.

But our creature comforts — like iPods, cell phones, PCs and plasma TVs — are sucking the life out of advances in energy efficiency around the world, the International Energy Agency says.

In other words, too much fruit is rotting on the vine.

The IEA says in a new “Gigawatts and Gadgets” report that electricity consumption from power-hungry electronics could cause household energy use to triple by 2030. That means increased greenhouse gases from electric generation, and increased electric bills for creating that power. Read the rest of this entry »

A new way to treat wood has trees back in the limelight: a hardwood’s reliability that even a rain forest mahogany tree can love.

The above picture is of the world’s first heavy traffic road bridge made from Accoya® wood. The bridge, located in Sneek in the Netherlands, is “the first wooden bridge in the world that can support the heaviest load class of 60 tons”.  At this week’s Wall Street Green Trading Summit, a panel on forestation introduced a new way of thinking about how to deal with destruction of the rain forest.

>> More from the recent Wall Street Green Trading Summit:   Opening, Carbon Markets, Weird Investments and Solar Panels for All.

I think we can all agree that planting trees is a good way to go environmentally green (they capture carbon like crazy), but lets take a look at that other green for a moment: the green of cash.  Forestation can turn a profit quickly, given that it is one of the few industries in the United States that we know for sure will be cross marketable as a carbon offset industry.  Read the rest of this entry »

Irish scientists have discovered that adding just a small amount of fish oil to the diet of cattle can vastly reduce the amount of methane produced by, ahem…cow farts.

Climate scientists have long known that, pound for pound, methane is 20 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at trapping the suns rays, making it a highly potent greenhouse gas. An incredible 900 billion tonnes of the noxious fumes are produced each year by methanogen bacteria that live in the digestive systems of ruminants such as cattle, sheep and goats.

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Energy efficiency initiatives that reduce electricity and gas usage could save consumers and businesses up to $168 billion, says the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE). The report comes on the heels of the Campaign for an Energy-Efficient America: a group of business leaders, industry groups, and environmental advocates calling on Congress to enact a federal energy efficiency target.

“Energy efficiency is one of the most effective ways to address our nation’s energy and climate challenges while creating jobs and saving Americans money,” stated Steven Nadel, Executive Director of ACEEE. “In these difficult economic times, investment in energy efficiency makes more sense than ever and should be a top priority for our nation’s leaders.” Read the rest of this entry »

If you don’t know what DARPA is, you will soon.  The Defense Advanced Research Group invented the internet back in 1969, and now it has set its sights on geoengineering a cure for global warming.  What does that mean? For one thing, it means that a communications network originally designed for national defense somehow morphed into Perez Hilton, D-Listed, and TMZ.  For another — well, now that DARPA has put algae-fuel and bioplastic plastic fuel on its A-list, let’s hope that so-called clean coal project gets the D-listed treatment.

h/t to sciencemag via talking points memo.

Image: ugenro on flickr.

A Taurus XL rocket carrying a satellite intended to be using for monitoring carbon dioxide levels plunged back to Earth several minutes after taking off.

A covering for the satellite failed to release, and the rocket could not maintain its intended course with the extra weight. The satellite went down with the rocket in the ocean near Antarctica. It was designed as a remote orbiting carbon observatory that would revolve around the earth at a height of 400 miles.

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I’ve always thought that we need to deal with problems here on Earth before exploring other planets, and it looks like NASA at least partially agrees with me. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration NOAA-N Prime spacecraft lifted off at 2:22 a.m. PST today aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket from NASA’s Space Launch Complex 2. NOAA-N Prime will monitor environmental events around the world—including fires, crop productivity, and methane air pollution levels.
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