A Baylor University researcher who has studied the Eastern Screech Owl for more than 40 years says an increase in the number of the owls that are red – known as “rufus” – is another sign of global warming.
Only a year old, this national alliance for nurses who study and teach about the connection between the environment and health is making a major impact.
First-person reports from the UN climate change summit, from a graduate student in forest ecology and an undergraduate in environmental anthropology at Michigan Technological University.
The Climate Change Conference produced a successfully green conference of an enormous magnitude. What can we take away from the UN’s success? The knowledge that if a large scale operation can be green, there is no reason that businesses can’t act similarly on a smaller scale.
Keeping Williams College on course to meet its sustainability goals is central to the work of the college's year-old Zilkha Center for Environmental Initiatives. It takes not only thinking big, but also thinking small. The center is charged with finding ways to incorporate principles of sustainability into campus life and to help the college in reducing its greenhouse gas emissions to 10 percent below 1990-91 levels by 2020.
Sustainability is more than a buzzword within Williams College dining services; it's an imperative. One of the most important ways the college achieves sustainability is by reducing food waste and minimizing resource consumption -- a goal that is written into the department's systems, policies, infrastructure, and building design.
On the front door of the Williams College dining services office -- a small grey clapboard house tucked in the middle of the school's campus in bucolic western Massachusetts -- staffers have placed a bumper sticker that reads "No Farms, No Food." It's a message the college takes to heart. Williams dining services prepares 885,690 meals annually, for its approximately 2000 students, in 4 dining halls, a faculty house, and a number of snack bars.
Which came first, the warmer temperatures or the clearer skies? Answers to that and similar "chicken or egg" type questions could have a significant impact on our understanding of both the climate system and manmade global warming.
Those seeking to understand and predict climate change can now use an additional tool to calculate carbon dioxide exchanges on land, according to a scientific journal article publishing this week.
Scientists who study the melting of Greenland’s glaciers are discovering that water flowing beneath the ice plays a much more complex role than they previously imagined.
Building materials that better retain heat in the winter, and reflect it in the summer; plumbing fixtures that save water; and facilities that encourage employees to bicycle to work. Environmentally-friendly features like these enable the new research building at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to be certified as a green structure.
This study analyzed the impact of experiential learning on students through a study of an agroecology course. Via a mixed-methods analysis, researchers determined that the course measurably impacted participating students. The research results are published in the latest issue of the Journal of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Education.
State assistance to improve energy efficiency of Maryland homes heated by natural gas would generate economic and environmental benefits over the next 10 years, including more than 80,000 new jobs, savings of hundreds of dollars in average heating bills and a nine percent reduction in residential carbon emissions, concludes a new University of Maryland study.
Exquisite new fish & water pendant designed exclusively for Institute for Ocean Conservation Science and modelled on Institute’s logo; 50% of net proceeds go to support Institute’s initiatives.
American Chemical Society (ACS), the world’s largest scientific society, and the ACS Green Chemistry Institute® have provided a few tips that can make your holidays more environmentally friendly.
Researchers’ theory: An increase in population size may mean sounds used in mate competition need not travel as far as before; acoustic information extracted from songs could be useful population monitoring tool
A good-news global warming story about a pine tree with a storied past promises that a back-to-the-future approach will provide economic opportunities and help prepare the southeastern U.S. for a changing climate.
Measures being proposed by the U.S. Climate Action Partnership to curb greenhouse gas emissions are unlikely to affect potential long-term economic growth in the United States, according to a study by RTI International.
The strong signature of an El Niño Pacific Ocean warming event showed up as the warmest November in 30 years — and not just by a little bit. November 2009 was a full 0.1 C (0.18 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than November 2005, the second warmest November in the 31-year satellite record.
The University of Maryland has more than 30 experts who can talk about scientific, technological, economic and policy aspects of climate change that are critical to discussions at the world climate summit in Copenhagen, Dec. 7-18. These include conference attendees, scientists shaping world & U.S. climate research, and a Nobel Prize winning economist.
The ocean plays a critical role in Earth’s climate system and will be among the topics discussed during the 15th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) taking place in Copenhagen from Dec. 7-18, 2009.
This year — for the first time — the climate meeting will feature an Oceans Day on December 14. Experts from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution are available for comment.
Expert faculty members at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) are available to discuss developments at the U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen.
Today the Environmental Protection Agency made final its determination that global warming pollution constitutes a public danger and is virtually certain to act boldly under its authority under the Clean Air Act. The news comes just as international climate talks begin in Copenhagen.
“I don’t see any chance that we can have enforceable national limits on greenhouse gas emissions,” says University of Maryland Nobel laureate, Thomas Schelling in a paper released as delegates meet in Copenhagen at a UN climate conference. “I know of no peacetime historical precedent for the kind of international cooperation that is going to be required.”
It was Bing Crosby who immortalized a white Christmas in his 1942 hit single, but these days more and more eco-conscious consumers are dreaming of a green Christmas instead. If you're looking for ways to reduce your carbon footprint this holiday season, consider these tips from Director of Sustainability Dedee DeLongpré Johnston.
You want to go for a run, but you don’t want to run in polluted air that might aggravate your asthma. University of California, San Diego computer scientists are creating a network of environmental sensors that will help you avoid air pollution hot spots that exist exactly when you are planning your route. The system will provide up-to-the-minute information on outdoor and indoor air quality, based on environmental information collected by hundreds, and eventually thousands, of sensors attached to the backpacks, purses, jackets and board shorts of San Diegans going about daily life.
Leaders of the world's nations will meet Dec. 7-16 in Copenhagen, Denmark, for talks as part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Indiana University experts comment on their prospects.
Biodiversity loss can increase infectious diseases in humans, University of Vermont, EPA, and other scientists show in a first-of-its-kind global study.
Going ‘green’ for the first time this Christmas? Climate change expert Clint Springer, Ph.D., of Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, suggests live trees are a great way to begin.
In a striking finding that raises new questions about carbon dioxide’s (CO2) impact on marine life, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) scientists report that some shell-building creatures—such as crabs, shrimp and lobsters—unexpectedly build more shell when exposed to ocean acidification caused by elevated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2).
The University of South Carolina, a leader in sustainability, announced its "Genesis 2015 Initiative," which will expand the use of alternative-fuel vehicles to its entire campus fleet within five years.
Millions of shark fins are sold annually to satisfy the demand for shark fin soup, a Chinese delicacy. Now, scientists using DNA tools have traced sharks’ fins from the Hong Kong market back to the sharks’ homes, and find that endangered populations are still being exploited. CITES will consider better protecting sharks from international trade, at its March meeting in Qatar.
As the world’s seawater becomes more acidic due to rising atmospheric carbon dioxide, some shelled marine creatures may actually become bigger and stronger, according to a new study.
Today, new studies published in The Lancet show that strategies to reduce greenhouse gases also benefit human health. The Lancet series highlights case studies on four climate change topics — household energy, transportation, electricity generation, and agricultural food production. Researchers say that cost savings realized from improving health will offset the cost of addressing climate change and, therefore, should be considered as part of all policy discussions related to climate change. Key researchers and public health officials gathered in the Unites States and Britain gathered together via satellite simulcast to unveil new research.
In the essay, “Where the Wild Things Were,” currently appearing in Foreign Affairs, Dr. Steven Sanderson, President and CEO of the Wildlife Conservation Society, asserts the world’s political institutions have failed the planet but “realism cannot turn into defeatism.”
Ithaca College will be represented by students, faculty, and alumni at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 15th Conference of the Parties (COP-15), being held Dec. 5–18 in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Climate change and environmental experts from the University of New Hampshire are available to discuss the critical and controversial issues that will be raised as global leaders meet Dec. 7-18, 2009, in Copenhagen for the United Nations Climate Change Conference.
Recent theories suggesting that half of fishes' food comes from from land-based ecosystems may not hold water. Experiments show that algae, not land-based matter, builds healthy and fertile aquatic organisms.
A recent study concluded that 50 million U.S. acres of cropland and pasture could be used for the production of perennial grasses, such as switchgrass, for biofuel feedstock. Economically viable production of a perennial grass monoculture from which substantial quantities of biomass are removed annually is expected to require nitrogen fertilizer.
Exposure shortly after birth to ambient metals from fuel oil combustion and particles from diesel emissions is associated with respiratory symptoms in young inner-city children, according to a new study by researchers at the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health (CCCEH) at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.
Children who are exposed to high levels of traffic-related pollution and high levels of indoor endotoxin early in life have six times the risk of developing persistent wheezing by age three than children exposed to low levels of traffic and indoor-related pollutants, according to new research from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine.
A University of Utah scientist argues that rising carbon dioxide emissions – the major cause of global warming – cannot be stabilized unless the world’s economy collapses or society builds the equivalent of one new nuclear power plant each day.
Would the world be better if people consumed less? In his new book, Treasures of the Earth, University of Vermont professor Saleem Ali says no. He argues that disavowing consumption of oil, gems, precious metals, and minerals won’t help in planning for a resource-scarce future.
Temple University’s Fox School of Business and other leading academic institutions have joined with global insurers in a survey sponsored by the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative that sheds new light on the industry’s approach to sustainability and climate risks.