Environment

For many, the sky isn’t dark anymore

I already wrote a few articles on dark skies and light pollution. It seems the phenomenon is even worse as one can see with the image on left (courtesy of Stellarium, a great astronomy freeware) This also has an important impact on greenhouse gases emissions. In Australia alone, public lightning is responsible for 1.15 million …

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The Census of Marine Life

After no less than ten years of exploration all around the world ( with no less than 2,700 scientists, 80+ nations, 540 expeditions) the Census Of Marine Life is finally out. And the findings are more than interesting. The wealth of the planet Ocean is astonishing as it is estimated there are over a million …

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The hole in the ozone layer starts diminishing

According to the UNEP : ” International efforts to protect the ozone layer are a success and have stopped additional ozone losses and contributed to mitigating the greenhouse effect.” I believe we should capitalize on the success governments around the world achieved in 1987. We should do something for the 25th anniversary and go further …

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An awful situation in Pakistan

It seems that Pakistan is a victim of what I called global weirding earlier this month. Indeed, to the Financial Times the country is suffering from both massive floods and dramatic droughts. To many news sources up to 20 million people have been affected by the floods. To the local government quoted by the United …

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UN launches the Decade for Deserts

The United Nations are launching the Decade for Deserts and the Fight against Desertification, an effort to improve the protection and management of the world’s drylands, home to over two billion people. Drylands take up 41 percent of the land surface and are threatened by multiple factors such as soil degradation, climate change and unsustainable …

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Coming soon to the Antartic : a garbage patch

I previously wrote that both the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans are massively polluted by plastic. The same plastic, so convenient and so ubiquituous that it is becoming a curse of our time. Now to Discovery News : Much of the global ocean remains uncharted in terms of pollution, (…). And now even the most remote, …

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Siemens’ European Green City Index

Europe is often considered at the forefront of the environmental scene as the EU keeps working on energy efficiency, renewables, biodiversity and other related issues. However not all countries are equal and so are their capital cities. Siemens published a study – the European Green City Index – which “measures and rates the environmental performance …

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A huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico

Isn’t life ironic ? A mere weeks after President Obama decided to embrace offshore drilling, the United States are facing one of the biggest – if not the biggest – oil spill in their history. After the explosion of  the BP drilling rig in the gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana the equivalent of hundred thousands …

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Atlantic’s garbage patch

I previously wrote here that plastic may be a curse of our time because of the millions of tonnes of these materials polluting the Pacific Ocean. Now comes its equivalent in the North Atlantic Ocean. To the National Geographic : “The newly described garbage patch sits hundreds of miles off the North American coast. Although …

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Desertification spreads faster and faster

One of the many worrying consequences of climate change and global warming is desertification. To an expert it is currently spreading like cancer in the Middle East and in NorthAfrica. Indeed, to data provided by The United Nations Development Programme’s 2009 Arab Human Development Report desertification is threatening 2.8 million square kilometers of land in …

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