As we reported last month, one of the biggest obstacles to sustainable fish farming is that raising big, popular carnivores such as salmon and tuna requires us to fish – and overfish – far down the food chain, in the ranks of smaller species like anchovies. Those are the little critters the bigger fish like to eat — and they …
Uncategorized
Document: 1600 Fukushima Workers Thought to Be Exposed to High Radiation
A newly released document says the Japanese government estimated in April that some 1600 workers will be exposed to high levels of radiation in the course of handling the reactor meltdowns at the stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant.
The figure was released in a document from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry …
How Meat and Dairy are Hiking Your Carbon Footprint
It’s tough enough dealing with all the hectoring we get about eating less salt, using bigger forks, and making sure that this or that food group makes up only this or that percentage of our diet. All that, however, is only when it’s the nutritionists talking. Things get even harder when the environmentalists enter the picture, with …
Why Indonesia Still Can’t Say No to Palm Oil
If you’re eating a food that came in a wrapper while reading this, you probably eating palm oil — at least there’s a 50/50 chance you are. About half the packaged food found in a supermarket contains palm oil, according to the World Wildlife Fund, and a lot of that product comes from the lush archipelago of Indonesia.
In 2007, I …
A New Report Counts Up Green Jobs—And They’re Not What You Think
Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart famously said the phrase in 1964: “I know it when I see it.” It, in this case, was obscenity, and Stewart was making a point about the trickiness of properly defining the term. How do you have an argument about pornography if you can’t quite say what it is?
For the past several years, …
It’s Really Hot—Everywhere
Temperatures in New York City today, where I live, breaching 90 F and feeling more like 100. And New York is not alone—this map from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows that nearly every corner of the country is suffering from unusual heat:
Pretty disgusting. And the bad news is that should climate models hold,
…
With Power Shortage Looming, Japan Hustles to Prove Nuclear Reactors Are Safe
Nobody likes a 40-year heat wave, but a 40-year heat wave in the midst of national drive to conserve energy seems particularly cruel. Last month, residents of Tokyo and other parts of Japan, where electricity is in short supply after March 11, endured highs of 95 degrees — and pangs of guilt when they reached to turn the …
Groundhog Day: An Oil Giant Spins a Spill
Credibility is a precious thing. Oil giant ExxonMobil did not have much to begin with, but it went even deeper into its scarce reserves in the past few days when a company pipeline spilled oil into a river that runs past the homes of about 6,500 people. Wednesday brought another blow: it turns out ExxonMobil needed almost an hour to …
Sticker Shock: What Extreme Weather Costs the U.S.
It’s not hard to imagine the damage weird weather inflicts on our planet. Hurricane Katrina, for example, obliterated coastal communities, wiped out businesses and left hundreds of dead bodies in its wake. Quantifying the cost of such a one-off (we hope) event is pretty easy too: Katrina left us with a bill of $81 billion, …
Meet the Beetles: Battling the Ash Borer Plague
The emerald ash borer is on the most-wanted list in Ulster County, New York. This jewel-green beetle’s appetite for the inner bark of ash trees has proven deadly for forests and cityscapes, leaving ash trees by the millions ravaged. In this video, TIME meets Foresters Jeff Rider and Michael Cullen, who are working to discover the …