Stephan: More good news about a new technology; this one about the plastic crisis we have created.
Plastic pollution in the world’s oceans may have an impact of $ 2.5 billion, adversely affecting “almost all marine ecosystem services”, including areas such as fishing, recreation and heritage. But a breakthrough from researchers at Berkeley Lab may be the solution the planet needs for this eye-opening problem – recyclable plastic.
The study, published in Nature Chemistry, describes how the researchers could find a new way to assemble plastic and reuse them “to new materials of any color, shape or shape.”
“Most plastic materials were never made to be recycled,” says senior author Peter Christensen, a postdoctoral researcher at Berkeley Lab’s molecular foundry, in the statement. “But we have discovered a new way to assemble plastic that takes into account recycling from a molecular perspective.”
Plastic pollution in the world’s oceans may have $ 2.5 TRILLION IMPACT, STUDY SAYS
Known as poly (diketoenamine) or PDK, the new type of plastic material can help stop the tide of plastic as the PDK forms can be reversed via a simple acid bath, the researchers believe.
Poly (diketoenamine) s” clicks “together from a variety […]
1 Comment
David Grossman, - Popular Mechanics
Stephan: More good news about a technology with extraordinary implications for humanity.
Credit: Martin BernettI/AFP/Getty
Desalination—the process of removing the salt from salt water, making it safe for human consumption—is one of those ideas that seems to make perfect sense in theory. Being able to drink the waters of the ocean could solve countless problems across the globe: shortages, droughts, and even the chance to lower rising ocean levels.
The only problem? Desalination has a dark side known as brine, an environmentally harmful byproduct. A new approach from Columbia University, however, could radically change the limits of desalination.
The word “brine” commonly refers to the salty solution used during fermentation to keep foods fresh, like kimchi or sauerkraut. Industrial brine also involves salt, but is far more dangerous than its culinary cousin.
Industrial brine can have a salinity up to 10 times that of the ocean. It ruins soil, impairs vegetation’s ability to absorb nutrients, and is toxic to animals. Currently, desalination services across the globe Read the Full Article
Beverly Gologorsky, - truthout
Stephan: The American illness profit system is, or ought to be, a national scandal, with stories leading the news regularly until something is done. How can we possibly prepare for climate change with a healthcare system that is not about wellness but about profit? Look at what is going on in places like Houston, Puerto Rico, and Florida months or years after their major climatic events. Is that how you want to live?
Instead of the anti-democratic criminal and inept government we currently enjoy we need to clean house and elect men and woman committed to creating a responsible federal government that enacts universal healthcare based on wellbeing not profit. It is going to take time to do that. We need to start now. Nothing else is going to get us through. Why aren't we talking about this? Why aren't you talking about it? Why aren't we all talking about it?
On this extremely hot summer day, the ear-splitting siren screaming through New York’s streets is coming from the ambulance I’m in — on a gurney on my way to the ER. That only makes the siren, loud as it is, all the more alarming.
I fell. The pain, its location and intensity, suggests I’ve probably broken my hip.
The kind face of the emergency medical technician hovering above me asks questions softly and I confess that I’m in terrible pain. Other gentle hands are busy taking blood pressure and doing oxygen counts. These EMT workers, employees of the Fire Department, are good at what they do.
At the ER entrance, the gurney’s lifted out of the vehicle, wheels are dropped, and it’s rolled inside. Under a ceiling of bright white lights, it passes — and so I pass — one cubicle after another. I catch bits of voices, speaking in several languages.
My friend, who’s come with me to the ER, roots around in my purse for my insurance and then heads for the admissions office. Alone, I close my eyes to shut out the […]
No Comments
, - Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES)/science daily
Stephan: We are so awash in the Constitutional criminality of the Trump administration that this got little more than a mention in the mainstream media when it should have been the leading story.
Nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history — and the rate of species extinctions is accelerating, with grave impacts on people around the world now likely, warns a landmark new report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the summary of which was approved at the 7th session of the IPBES Plenary, meeting last week (29 April — 4 May) in Paris.
“The overwhelming evidence of the IPBES Global Assessment, from a wide range of different fields of knowledge, presents an ominous picture,” said IPBES Chair, Sir Robert Watson. “The health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever. We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.”
“The Report also tells us that it is not too late to make a difference, but only if we start now at every level from local to global,” he said. “Through ‘transformative change’, nature can still be conserved, restored and used sustainably — this is also key to meeting most other global goals. By transformative change, we mean a fundamental, system-wide reorganization across technological, economic and social […]
No Comments
Natasha Hakimi Zapata, Assistant Editor -
Stephan: The headline says everything.
Credit: David Geitgey Sierralupe
In the same week the United Nations released a shocking report showing that a million species are about to go extinct, in large part due to climate change, a YouGov-Cambridge Globalism Project survey added insult to injury. According to the global survey, the U.S.—the wealthiest country in the world—has the largest number of climate-change deniers among the world’s richest countries. Or, as The Guardian puts it, “The US is a hotbed of climate science denial.”
Perhaps it’s unsurprising that 13% of the U.S. population—about 42 million people—think the climate crisis has nothing to do with human activity, while another 5% believe climate change doesn’t exist when the country’s leader, and several high-ranking officials in his administration, consider it a Chinese hoax. The same leader pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Accord, is expanding offshore oil drilling, is leasing territory once designated part of national monuments to fossil fuel companies, is freezing car emissions standards—the alarming list goes on and on.
It’s not just Donald Trump’s fault, […]
No Comments
