There are five trillion pieces of plastic in the world’s oceans, weighing a total of 268,000 tonnes. That’s according to a paper by an international team of scientists who took a substantial amount of data collected across the globe and merged it with ocean circulation models to come up with the staggering figure. That sounds like…
Disturbing Pictures From The Worst Oil Spill In Israel’s History
On Dec. 3, an oil pipeline in southern Israel ruptured, leaking nearly five million liters of crude into a nature reserve. The spill is one the worst environmental disasters in Israel’s history. The area affected by the spill is between Eilat and the Evrona Nature Reserve, in the south of Israel. The oil pipeline…
Climate hope amid melting ice, rising temps
By Ilissa Ocko (This post originally appeared on EDF Voices) An ice berg drifts off a West Antarctica glacier — Courtesy NASA As 2014 draws to a close, two recent developments show that global temperatures are rising at an alarming rate. The world, it seems, is on a run-away train – and yet, we have more…
Scientists Calculated The Insane Amount Of Plastic Floating In The World’s Oceans For The First Time
Nearly 269,000 tons of plastic pollution may be floating in the world’s oceans, according to a global study. Micro-plastic pollution is found in varying concentrations throughout the oceans, but estimates of the global abundance and weight of floating plastics, both micro and macro-plastic, lack sufficient data. This the first study to look at plastics…
Our Forests Aren’t Fuel
Peter Lehner, Executive Director, New York City As an admitted arborophile, I’m happy to see that tree-planting crews from the New York City Parks Department are kicking their efforts into high gear as winter approaches, planting saplings that can turn barren urban streets into cool, leafy corridors. Intuitively, we all know that trees are transformative….
Chinese ‘Cancer Village’ Caused By Toxic Industrial Landfill
Chinese authorities have begun investigating a shocking case of industrial pollution in central China’s Hunan province, in which runoff from an aluminium plant’s illegal landfill allegedly gave at least 10 local villagers cancer. Pollution from the plant, operated by the Changsha-based aluminium products manufacturer Chuangyuan Aluminium Co Ltd., had made parts of the remote…
5 reasons EPA is right about tougher smog standards
By Elena Craft, PhD (This post originally appeared on EDF Voices) image by Robert S. Donovan The Environmental Protection Agency last week released much-awaited, tighter standards for smog pollution, common-sense protections that will save lives and safeguard human health from one of the nation’s most ubiquitous air pollutants – ozone. As expected, it took but a few hours before…