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Say it ain’t so…
But it is. And it purely horrifies me. I’m at the age of inescapable awareness that my brain no longer functions as it once did. If you’re not there yet, friends, just wait a minute or two. And make your home as plastic free as possible! Because the microplastics in your home and workplace are…
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Don’t. Just don’t.
Balloons are so pretty. So festive. And when filled with helium, they float off into the heavens. So lovely. So free. Or so it seems. But it really is true that what goes up, must come down. And when balloons come down they are deadly. Incredibly deadly. Ugly deadly. Recent research by the Ocean Conservation…
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Paying for Climate Change
We’re all going to. Some more than others. Right now, extreme heat in West Africa is damaging crops, leaving farmers and their families with greatly reduced income. Climate researchers with World Weather Attribution estimate the high temperatures were 10 times more likely due to human-caused climate change. And how will that affect you and me?…
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Myco-miracle?!
I learned a new word today: “mycoremediation.” The prefix, “myco,” refers to mycology, the study of mushrooms. “Remediation,” of course, means to provide a remedy, to make right. As a naturalist, I have long understood that mushrooms are essential recyclers in nature. Rotting tree trunks covered with mushrooms, the multitude of fungi in leaf litter,…
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When Recycling Makes Products Better!
Batteries: We can’t live without them but we know they are environmentally problematic. Korean researchers are working on that! And with some success. One of the big problems with the kind of batteries it takes to run a car, or a computer, for that matter, is that they require expensive metals–lithium, cobalt, nickel–that in turn…
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Good News… & Bad
First the good: Clean energy gets better and more economically viable every day. China has built the newest, biggest, most adaptable wind turbine ever. It was recently tested by typhoon strength winds and not only did not fail, but generated more power in a shorter period of time than ever before. According to South China…
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Let the grass grow!
I have often wondered how the early humans got the idea to strip seeds off of grass and make something to eat from them. I suppose hunger was a driving force! Whatever moved them to do it, I imagine it took awhile to get from grass seeds to bread, but here we are. And I’m…
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Let there be trees!
What is tiny, biodegradable, and can plant a tree anywhere without turning over even a single shovel-full of dirt? Meet the “Erodium copy” robot! It’s a tech solution that just might save the planet. It is made of wood and can be dropped from the air. It coils and uncoils to drive its payload of…
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It couldn’t happen to a more deserving product!
“Paper or plastic?” It’s a familiar query but it might soon be gone. Increasingly, stores are going all paper, and that’s a very good thing. Of course, plastic bags can be reused–and every one that ends up in my home gets re-used, sometimes more than once. But we all know the problems with plastic grocery…
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The Canary in the Climate Change Coal Mine…
Twenty insurance companies have either gone insolvent or pulled out of Louisiana in recent years due to ‘high climate risk’ (ABC News, July 2023). California and Florida are also losing insurance companies at a concerning rate. “Insurance companies are the canary in the coal mine” of climate change, says Andrew Dressler, writing for the The…
Care of Creation 