Climate change’s impact on groundwater could leave ‘environmental timebomb’, Daisy Dunne, Carbon Brief, 21 January 2019 Over the next 100 years, the full impact that climate change is having on groundwater resources will become apparent in half of the world’s aquifers, a study concludes. The findings come from the first assessment of how long it could take groundwater to react …
Glacier loss putting water supply for hundreds of millions at risk
Across the Tibetan Plateau and in the Himalayan and Karakoram ranges, the glaciers number in the thousands and the people who rely on them in the hundreds of millions, along rivers like the Indus in Pakistan, the Ganges and Brahmaputra in India, the Yellow and Yangtze in China and the Mekong in Southeast Asia. Eventually these rivers will be affected …
Water: ban all fracking; create a national water trust fund, ensure restrictions on facilities upstream of tribal waters; enact a ban on concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs); transition to 100% renewable energy by 2035; make states put forth voter referendums on possible sales or leases of publicly owned water or sewer system to for-profit corporations
Among the groups’ recommendations are for the U.S. authorities to ban all fracking; create a national water trust fund, ensure restrictions on facilities upstream of tribal waters; enact a ban on concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs); transition to 100 percent renewable energy by 2035; make states put forth voter referendums on possible sales or leases of publicly owned water or …
Biomimicry: New Platform Adapting Natural Processes Lets Surfaces Self-Clean
Aruga Technologies, a Pennsylvania start-up, has developed a technology platform that allows surfaces to self-wipe and remain continuously clean throughout contact with depositing fluids. The technology is inspired by how some natural surfaces, such as arteries, dolphin skin, and mussel use dynamic surface wrinkles to renew. Mimicking this phenomenon in synthetic surfaces decreases fouling and results in an optimized and …
Colorado program is helping farmers harness hydropower to lower costs and save time.
Wednesday, August 22, 2018, Yale360 In May of 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act into law. It allowed any American, including freed slaves, to head west and claim up to 160 acres of federal land – for free. The only hitch was that the settlers had to build a home and farm the land within five years – …
Advice for ‘smart cities’ includes social equity, grid modernization and garbage
Former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said any smart city plan needs to start with a modern electrical grid. Then the apps and gadgets can follow. By Benjamin Freed, 26 July 2018 on Statescoop.com Any local government that wants to become a “smart city” needs to ignore the buzzwords and identify the projects that actually improve its constituents’ lives. That was the advice …
Sinking land, poisoned water: the dark side of California’s mega farms
The floor of the Central Valley is slumping, and there is arsenic in the tap water. Now it seems the two problems are connected. By Alissa Greenberg in Lanare, California, for The Guardian, Wed 18 Jul 2018 Farm fields along the path of the California aqueduct in the Central Valley, a region that produces a quarter of the nation’s food. Photograph: Lucy Nicholson/Reuters …
‘Nothing to worry about. The water is fine’: how Flint poisoned its people
When the people of Flint, Michigan, complained that their tap water smelled bad and made children sick, it took officials 18 months to accept there was a problem. By Anna Clark in The Guardian, July 2018 On a hot day in the summer of 2014, in the Civic Park neighbourhood where Pastor R Sherman McCathern preached in Flint, Michigan, water rushed out of …
Drought is most significant category of natural disaster. 5 billion could have poor access to water by 2050. 200,000 Indians die each year due to lack of water access & demand will be twice as much as supply in next 12 years
5 Billion People Could Have Poor Access to Water by 2050, UN Warns: Today, an estimated 3.6 billion people—nearly half the global population—already live in areas that are potentially water-scarce at least one month per year, and could increase to some 4.8 to 5.7 billion by 2050. “The population currently affected by land degradation/desertification and drought is estimated at 1.8 billion people, making this …
Clothing from Ag fibers + Urban Gardening 101: How to Deal With Contaminated Soil
By Brian Barth, Modern Farmer, on EcoWatch Urban soils are particularly prone to contamination. Fifty years ago, your yard could have belonged to a farmer, who, perhaps not knowing any better, disposed of old bottles of anti-freeze or contaminated diesel in a hole out behind the tractor garage. Or perhaps the remains of a fallen down outbuilding, long ago coated …