Category Archives: Environment

Unraveling Complexity of Haiti Quake Reveals Hidden Faults and Future Hazards

The January 2010 M7.0 earthquake that devastated Haiti’s economy and caused over 200,000 casualties also resulted in significant uplift of the ground surface along Haiti’s coastline, and involved slip on multiple faults, according to a study published online in Nature Geoscience. (more…)

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U of T Researchers Explore Charcoal’s Potential to Reverse Climate Change

It’s black, it’s gritty, it’s essential for barbecues—and it just might save the world from global warming.

Biochar, a kind of charcoal that is rich in carbon, traps CO2 from the atmosphere and can store it in soils for hundreds to thousands of years, says Professor Nathan Basiliko, a soil scientist at U of T Mississauga’s Department of Geography. Now, Basiliko and colleagues in the Faculty of Forestry are poised to demonstrate that wood waste from Ontario’s forest industry could be used to produce energy and biochar, making the wood a truly carbon-negative biofuel. (more…)

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Berkeley Lab Awarded $12.5 Million to Lead a U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has been chosen to lead a consortium for a U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center on Building Energy Efficiency. The Center will develop technologies for low-energy residential and commercial buildings, as well as work on commercialization of those technologies and research how human behavior affects building energy use. (more…)

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Too Much of a Good Thing: Human Activities Overload Ecosystems with Nitrogen

Resulting ecological damage is serious, but could be reduced by wider use of more sustainable, time-honored practices

Humans are overloading ecosystems with nitrogen through the burning of fossil fuels and an increase in nitrogen-producing industrial and agricultural activities, according to a new study. While nitrogen is an element that is essential to life, it is an environmental scourge at high levels. (more…)

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Berkeley Lab Creates New Energy Model for Chinese Cities

To tally the energy consumption of a city, the usual method is to add up all the energy used by residents—when they drive their car or turn on the air-conditioning—plus all the energy consumed by commercial buildings and industries in their day-to-day operations. But how should one account for the energy that went into building the office park where people work or paving the roads that people drive? And what about the energy required to make the clothes they are wearing? (more…)

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The Root Impact of Climate Change

COLUMBIA, Mo. — When people discuss climate change, they usually think of impacts above ground, such as atmospheric changes, rising ocean levels, or melting glaciers. Less attention is paid to the effects right under their feet. Now, with the help of a $1.2 million grant from the federal Plant Feedstock Genomics for Bioenergy program, University of Missouri researchers are peering underground to see how climate change affects plant roots.

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New Study Indicates Higher than Predicted Human Exposure to the Toxic Chemical Bisphenol A or BPA

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Researchers have discovered that women, female monkeys and female mice have major similarities when it comes to how bisphenol A (BPA) is metabolized, and they have renewed their call for governmental regulation when it comes to the estrogen-like chemical found in many everyday products.

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