Portland teen discovers cost-effective way to turn salt water in. A Portland teen is turning heads across the country all because of a science experiment that began in his high school classroom. Companies like Intel and universities like MIT are now invested in his findings. With certainty you'll want to remember his name. "My name is Chaitanya Karamchedu, but you can call me Chai," said the Jesuit High School Senior. Karamchedu has big plans of changing the world. "1 in 8 people do not have access to clean water, it's a crying issue that needs to be addressed," said Karamchedu. He made up his mind to address the matter himself. "The best access for water is the sea, so 70 percent of the planet is covered in water and almost all of that is the ocean, but the problem is that's salt water," said Karamchedu. Isolating drinkable water from the ocean is a problem that's stumped scientists for years.
"Scientists looked at desalination, but it's all still inaccessible to places and it would cost too much to implement on a large scale," Karamchedu added. Rooftop hydroponic systems in cities produce vegetables that are cheaper and healthier than rural farms — Quartz. On a 1,600-square-foot-rooftop in Guangzhou, China, 14 hydroponic tanks produce hundreds of pounds of vegetables a year, with a potential profit of over $6,000 annually—almost twice the 2015 annual minimum wage in the city, which has one of the highest monthly minimum wages in the country. The hydroponic tanks are part of study that shows residents and developers in Guangzhou that their rooftop space might be worth some green.
A paper published this past July the journal Agronomy for Sustainable Development reports that growing leafy greens in rooftop hydroponic systems can not only produce a steady supply of vegetables—it can also be cheaper than buying store-bought alternatives. It’s one of the first studies outlining a comprehensive business model for hydroponic rooftop farming, a method cropping up in the US, the European Union, and Canada. New York-based Gotham Greens and Montreal-based Lufa Farms are two examples of what these plant-topped buildings would look like. Global temperature increase from 1880 to 2015. Atlantic wave biggest ever recorded by buoy. Image copyright Getty Images The highest-ever wave detected by a buoy has been recorded in the North Atlantic ocean.
The 19-metre (62.3ft) wave happened between Iceland and the United Kingdom, off the Outer Hebrides, the World Meteorological Organization said. It was created in the aftermath of a very strong cold front with 43.8 knot (50.4mph) winds on 4 February 2013. The WMO, which released the data, said the previous record was 18.275 metres (59.96ft) in December 2007. That wave was also in the North Atlantic. It is not the biggest-ever recorded wave, however. In 2002 a ship spotted a 29-metre (95 ft) North Atlantic wave. The buoy is part of the UK Met Office's network of Marine Automatic Weather Stations.
The buoys complement ship-based measurements and satellite observations, which monitor the oceans and forecast meteorological hazards on the high seas. In winter, wind circulation and pressure systems cause extratropical storms, sometimes known as bombs, the WMO said. Solar-powered desalination cuts energy costs by 90% As 2.4 billion people face severe water shortages in the world, desalination and water-purification technologies are in hot demand – many of them invented in Israel, considered the world leader in desalination. The most common method of reverse osmosis using membranes is costly, energy-intensive, high-maintenance and environmentally problematic. It is best suited to mega-scale plants built on large tracts of high-value land near the ocean or sea and consumes enormous amount of electricity generated from fossil fuels.
Then, the treated water has to be piped great distances to farms, industries and households. Israeli startup TSD (Tethys Solar Desalination) plans to revolutionize the process with a low-cost, off-grid, scalable and environmentally friendly module technology using only the power of the sun – no fossil fuels and no carbon dioxide emissions. TSD plans to have its first pilot site up and running in Israel by mid-2017, followed by possible pilots abroad.
Prof. Want to Slow Climate Change? Stop Having Babies, Bioethicist Travis Rieder Says. Carbon dioxide doesn't kill climates; people do. And the world would be better off with fewer of them. That's a glib summary of a serious and seriously provocative book by Travis Rieder, a moral philosophy professor and bioethicist at Johns Hopkins University. When economists write about climate change, they'll often bring up something called the Kaya identity—basically a multiplication problem (not an espionage novel) that helps economists estimate how much carbon dioxide may be heading into the atmosphere. The Kaya identity says the pace of climate pollution is more or less the product four things: How carbon-heavy fuels areHow much energy the economy needs to produce GDPGDP per capitaPopulation After years of policymakers' yammering about carbon-light or carbon-free this-or-that, Rieder basically zeroes in on the fact nobody wants to acknowledge: The number of people in the world—particularly in affluent countries—is literally a part of the equation.
Q: So. You have two tracks. The Most Intelligent Bird On The Planet : Crow Talks Full Documentary. 90 companies are to blame for most climate change. Last month, geographer Richard Heede received a subpoena from Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX), chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. Smith, a climate change doubter, became concerned when the attorneys general of several states launched investigations into whether ExxonMobil had committed fraud by sowing doubts about climate change even as its own scientists knew it was taking place. The congressman suspected a conspiracy between the attorneys general and environmental advocates, and he wanted to see all the communications among them.
Predictably, his targets included advocacy organizations such as Greenpeace, 350.org, and the Union of Concerned Scientists. They also included Heede, who works on his own aboard a rented houseboat on San Francisco Bay in California. Heede is less well known than his fellow recipients, but his work is no less threatening to the fossil fuel industry.
Cumulative Emissions Overview (million metric tons of CO2) Neonic pesticide link to long-term wild bee decline. Image copyright Steven Falk The large-scale, long-term decline in wild bees across England has been linked to the use of neonicotinoid insecticides by a new study. Over 18 years, researchers analysed bees who forage heavily on oilseed rape, a crop widely treated with "neonics". The scientists attribute half of the total decline in wild bees to the use of these chemicals. Industry sources say the study shows an association, not a cause and effect. Weighing the evidence In recent years, several studies, conducted in the lab and in the field, have identified a negative effect on honey bees and bumble bees from the use of neonics.
But few researchers have looked at the long term impacts of these substances. This new paper examined the impacts on populations of 62 species of wild bees across England over the period from 1994-2011. They were able to compare the locations of these bees and their changing populations with growing patterns of oilseed rape across England over 18 years. Climate models are accurately predicting ocean and global warming | John Abra... For those of us who are concerned about global warming, two of the most critical questions we ask are, “how fast is the Earth warming?”
And “how much will it warm in the future?”. The first question can be answered in a number of ways. For instance, we can actually measure the rate of energy increase in the Earth’s system (primarily through measuring changing ocean temperatures). Alternatively, we can measure changes in the net inflow of heat at the top of the atmosphere using satellites.
We can also measure the rate of sea-level rise to get an estimate of the warming rate. Since much of sea-level rise is caused by thermal expansion of water, knowledge of the water-level rise allows us to deduce the warming rate. Many studies use combinations of these study methods to attain estimates and typically the estimates are that the planet is warming at a rate of perhaps 0.5 to 1 Watt per square meter of Earth’s surface area. What about the next question – how did the models do? India Man Plants Forest Bigger Than Central Park to Save His Island. India Has Planted Nearly 50 Million Trees In 24 Hours. The smoggy cities of India are suddenly looking a lot greener, with just under 50 million trees having been planted in India in a record-breaking attempt to raise awareness of conservation. The event took place on Monday in Uttar Pradesh, one of India’s most populous states found in the north of the country.
More than 800,000 people from all walks of life, ranging from students and housewives to government officials, planted 49.3 million tree saplings in just 24 hours. The saplings included 80 different species of trees were from 950 different nurseries around the state. Pakistan previously held the record, after planting 847,275 trees in 2013, but India’s attempt earlier this week has already been certified by the Guinness Book Committee as the new title-holder.
This mass-planting event is to raise awareness of the government's colossal nation-wide plan to make India green again. A typical scene in Ahmedabad, India on February 6, 2015. Kunal Mehta/Shutterstock. Eco-Cooler | Grey Dhaka unveils world’s first zero-electricity air cooler made from plastic bottles. I made a dorm legal AC unit for next semester! 700 year-old fertile soil technique could mitigate climate change and revolutionise farming across Africa : Press release archive : News and events. Photo credit: Victoria Frauisn A farming technique practised for centuries by villagers in West Africa, which converts nutrient-poor rainforest soil into fertile farmland, could be the answer to mitigating climate change and revolutionising farming across Africa. A global study, led by the University of Sussex, which included anthropologists and soil scientists from Cornell, Accra, and Aarhus Universities and the Institute of Development Studies has for the first-time identified and analysed rich fertile soils found in Liberia and Ghana.
They discovered that the ancient West African method of adding charcoal and kitchen waste to highly weathered, nutrient poor, tropical soils can transform the land into enduringly fertile, carbon-rich black soils that the researchers dub ‘African Dark Earths’. Similar soils created by Amazonian people in pre-Columbian eras have recently been discovered in South America – but the techniques people used to create these soils are unknown. It's the end of the fossil fuel era as we know it. Contrary to what the fossil fuel industry may want you to believe, the transformation of the world's energy supply to clean energy sources is well underway, according to a new report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF).
The "New Energy Outlook" report, released Monday, finds that at least $11.4 trillion will be invested in new power-generating capacity over the next 25 years, and 60 percent of that will fund wind and solar power. According to the report, we'll reach a tipping point in 2027, when new wind and solar power actually become cheaper than running existing coal and gas generators in much of the world. This will cause an acceleration in the deployment of clean energy technologies. According to the report, new wind and solar may become cheaper than running existing coal and gas generators by 2027. To meet that goal, an additional $5.3 trillion in new clean energy investment worldwide would be needed during the next 25 years. The BNEF report contains several key predictions. World’s Biggest Indoor Vertical Farm Near NYC to Use 95% Less Water.
AeroFarms is on track to produce 2 million pounds of food per year in its 70,000-square-foot facility in Newark, under construction less than an hour outside of Manhattan. Their efficient operation, based on previous experience at similar but smaller facilities, can accomplish this astonishing output “while using 95% less water than field farmed-food and with yields 75 times higher per square foot annually.” This new facility is comparable in efficiency to what is currently the world’s largest vertical farm in Japan, but nearly three times the size. Staggering its crops is part of the success behind AeroFarm’s strategy at their new and existing locations – at a given facility they are able to switch between 22 crops per year.
Their all-season growth works with specialized LED lights and climate controls all without the need for sunlight or soil. “We use aeroponics to mist the roots of our greens with nutrients, water, and oxygen.,” explains AeroFarms.