A healthy planet? Top 10 environment articles in 2008

17:06 10 December 2008
For similar stories, visit the Climate Change Topic Guide
Climate change has continued to dominate environmental science in the past year. There are plenty of other issues out there, though, whether it's a surprise cause of diabetes, or the precious metals we leave behind in waste dumps.
NewScientist.com is now making free all in-depth articles from the past 12 months. In case you missed them, here are the top 10 best features on environmental science.
Climate change: The next ten years
Weather forecasts let us know to expect rain, wind, sunshine or snow in the next few days. Climate predictions tell us what's going to happen in the distant future. But what about between these extremes: will global warming affect our lives in the next few years?
Is the diabetes epidemic down to pollution?
Diabetes is on the rise, but exactly why remains a mystery. In recent years, researchers have identified a surprising link. The diseases turns up more frequently, it seems, in people who have been exposed to substances including dioxins, PCBs and DDT - a class of compounds known as persistent organic pollutants.
What is your dinner doing to the climate?
The food we eat generates twice as much greenhouse gas as the cars we drive. If we want to be good to the environment, it's not just cars we should be thinking about…
Save the climate by saving the forests
The cheapest way to reduce global carbon emissions is to stop deforestation, so why not pay developing countries to protect their rainforests? It's a great idea in theory, but in practice there's an unpalatable twist: the people who will benefit are not those who want to save trees, but the "bad guys" who want to destroy them.
The greening of Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley has had an epiphany. Buzzwords such as "Web 2.0" have been dropped in favour of phrases such as "clean tech". Could the world's most resilient, inventive culture deliver us from the worst of global warming? A group of entrepreneurs and venture capitalists is betting on it.
Is climate change causing an upsurge in US tornadoes?
Tornadoes struck early in 2008. Wisconsin and Washington were hit by rare January twisters. In early February, a storm system across the southern states spawned 84 tornadoes, the worst for 23 years. Is global warming to blame?
There's gold in them there landfills
If you want proof of the maxim "one man's trash is another man's treasure", look no further than your local waste dump. It turns out that 1 tonne of scrap from discarded PCs contains more gold than 16 tonnes of ore. Welcome to the strange world of landfill mining…
The ice age that never was
Ice ages take place on Earth with a regular rhythm, and a characteristic pattern is seen in methane and carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere. But starting 7000 years ago, CO2 and methane diverged from that pattern. Had they not done so, we would be heading for another ice age. So what happened? Were early humans to blame?
When crocodiles roamed the Arctic
The last great warming of Earth took place 250 million years ago. Then, the Antarctic was a land of almost subtropical forests, while the Arctic Ocean was a giant freshwater lake inhabited by crocodile-like reptiles. This "hothouse" period offers us new insights into our past and perhaps a glimpse of the future.
Bog barons: Indonesia's carbon catastrophe
Indonesian companies are draining and clear-felling peat bogs to build palm-oil plantations and provide Europe with biofuels. Yet ironically draining the peat will release 30 times as much CO2 as will be saved by replacing fossil fuels with biofuels.
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Peak Oil Is More Important, And Sooner
Sun Dec 14 14:52:36 GMT 2008 by Clifford J. Wirth, Ph. d.
Independent studies conclude that global crude oil production will now decline from 74 million barrels per day to 60 million barrels per day by 2015. During the same time, demand will increase. Oil supplies will be even tighter for the U.S. As oil producing nations consume more and more oil domestically they will export less and less. Because demand is high in China, India, the Middle East, and other oil producing nations, once global oil production begins to decline, demand will always be higher than supply. And since the U.S. Represents one fourth of global oil demand, whatever oil we conserve will be consumed elsewhere. Thus, conservation in the U.S. Will not slow oil depletion rates significantly.
Alternatives will not even begin to fill the gap. And most alternatives yield electric power, but we need liquid fuels for tractors/combines, 18 wheel trucks, trains, ships, and mining equipment. The independent scientists of the Energy Watch Group conclude in a 2007 report titled: ââ?¬Å?Peak Oil Could Trigger Meltdown of Society:ââ?¬—
"By 2020, and even more by 2030, global oil supply will be dramatically lower. This will create a supply gap which can hardly be closed by growing contributions from other fossil, nuclear or alternative energy sources in this time frame."
(long URL - click here)
With increasing costs for gasoline and diesel, along with declining taxes and declining gasoline tax revenues, states and local governments will eventually have to cut staff and curtail highway maintenance. Eventually, gasoline stations will close, and state and local highway workers won�t be able to get to work. We are facing the collapse of the highways that depend on diesel and gasoline powered trucks for bridge maintenance, culvert cleaning to avoid road washouts, snow plowing, and roadbed and surface repair. When the highways fail, so will the power grid, as highways carry the parts, large transformers, steel for pylons, and high tension cables from great distances. With the highways out, there will be no food coming from far away, and without the power grid virtually nothing modern works, including home heating, pumping of gasoline and diesel, airports, communications, and automated building systems.
This is documented in a free 48 page report that can be downloaded, website posted, distributed, and emailed:http://www.peakoilassociates.com/POAnalysis.html
I used to live in NH-USA, but moved to a sustainable place. Anyone interested in relocating to a nice, pretty, sustainable area with a good climate and good soil? Email: clifford dot wirth at yahoo dot com or give me a phone call which operates here as my old USA-NH number 603-668-4207. http://Http://survivingpeakoil.blogspot.com/
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Bob Barons
Mon Dec 15 09:54:00 GMT 2008 by Eliza Olson
I would like permission to attach teh article "Bog Barons: Indonesia's carbon catastrohe to our website http://www.burnsbog.org
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