Gas fracking: can we safely squeeze the rocks?
Hydrological fracturing techniques have made accessible vast unconventional gas reserves. However, observed impacts on the environment and human health raise legitimate public concerns.
Growing Greenhouse Gas Emissions Due to Meat Production
Both intensive (industrial) and non-intensive (traditional) forms of meat production result in the release of greenhouse gases (GHGs). As meat supply and consumption increase around the world, more sustainable food systems must be encouraged.
One Planet, How Many People? A Review of Earth's Carrying Capacity
It is estimated that global population reached seven billion in late 2011 or early 2012. As global population has doubled since the 1960s, per capita GDP has grown to more than ten times what it was then. The human impact has grown to such a scale that it has become a major geophysical ...
The end to cheap oil: a threat to food security and an incentive to reduce fossil fuels in agriculture
Fossil fuels are essential for modern, mechanized agricultural production systems. Petroleum products are used directly to power tractors, machinery and irrigation, and to transport, transform and package agricultural products. They are also used indirectly to manufacture f...
The Drying of Iran's Lake Urmia and its Environmental Consequences
Lake Urmia, in the northwestern corner of Iran, is one of the largest permanent hypersaline lakes in the world and the largest lake in the Middle East. A combination of drought and increased water diversion for irrigated agriculture within the lake&rspuo;s watershed has decreased the once 100 kmē la...
A Glass Half Empty: Regions at Risk Due to Groundwater Depletion
Almost half the global population uses groundwater for their drinking water and an increasing proportion of agriculture relies on groundwater. Regional scarcity is becoming a serious and growing problem, as rapidly growing populations rely on regional water supplies which are being depleted, degrade...
Oil palm plantations: threats and opportunities for tropical ecosystems
An international commodity used for food, household and industrial purposes, oil palm is cultivated on approximately 15 million ha worldwide. As global demand for palm oil is expected to double by 2020, researchers have broadly studied the varying environmental ...
The Decommissioning of Nuclear Reactors and Related Environmental Consequences
A few decades ago, it was said that the debate on nuclear power had "reached an intensity unprecedented in the history of technology controversies" (Kitschelt 1986). However, the controversy over nuclear power has resurfaced today with a similar gravity. Advocates point to nuclear power as...
The Rush for Land and Its Potential Environmental Consequence
To feed a global population of 9.3 billion by 2050 (2.4 billion more than today, UNPD 2011) FAO estimates that global food demand will increase by 70 per cent (FAO 2009). Net investment in agriculture needs to exceed US$83 billion per year (50 per cent above current levels) to meet future demand (FA...
One Small Planet, Seven Billion People by Years End and 10.1 Billion by Centurys End
The two most widely cited estimates of global population project that Earth will be home to seven billion people sometime in late 2011 or early 2012 (US Census Bureau 2011, UNPD 2011a). The most recent billion was added in about 13 years; it took 12 years for the billion before that; 13 years for th...
Athabasca Oil Sands, Require Massive Investments and Energy and Produce Massive Amounts of Oil and CO2 - Alberta, Canada
The Athabasca Oil Sands region of Alberta, Canada forms the second-largest deposit of recoverable oil in the world after Saudi Arabia (Whitfield and others 2010). The energy and environmental costs of extracting oil from oil sands have made their development very controversial. The oil sands industr...
Green Economy Vulnerable to Rare Earth Minerals Shortages
Rare earth elements (REE) include the 17 elements on the periodic table of chemical elements. Industrial demand for these elements is small in terms of volume, but they are essential for a wide and growing array of green technology and security uses. REEs are important parts of defense technologies ...
Amazonian Deforestation Slowing but May Already be at a Tipping Point Mato Grosso, Brazil
At the beginning of the 20th century, roughly 80 percent of the 5 million km2 "Legal Amazon" region of Brazil was forested (Kirby and others 2006). Highways built in the 1950s and 1960s, along with government incentives for colonization and development, created a boom in the conversion of ...
Greening Cement Production has a Big Role to Play in Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Next to water, concrete is the second-most consumed substance on earth; on average, each person uses nearly three tonnes a year. Portland cement, the major component of concrete, is used to bind the materials that make up concrete. The concrete industry uses about 1.6 billion tonnes of portland ceme...
Carp Aquaculture Overwhelms Lake Kolleru Andhra Pradesh, India
Lake Kolleru Wildlife Sanctuary, a vast shallow wetland habitat, is the sole Ramsar-designated wetland in Andhra Pradesh, India (Ramsar 2002, FAO 2006). It serves as a natural flood-balancing reservoir between the deltas of the Krishna and Godavari Rivers (Nagabhatla and others 2009) and is a source...
Ancient Water is Used to Irrigate a Desert Murzuq Basin, Libya
Libya relies on groundwater to meet 95 per cent of its water requirements; it is primarily "fossil water" from non-recharging aquifers such as the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System, the North-Western Sahara Aquifer System and the Murzuq Basin Aquifer System (Alker 2008). In the 1960s, the di...
Only Scraps of the South American Atlantic Forest Remain Eastern Paraguay
Prior to the mid-20th century, an extensive subtropical rain forest covered much of the Brazilian coastal plain, eastern Paraguay and part of northern Argentina. The forest supported over 20 000 plant species, many of them endemic, as well as a diverse array of fauna. Beginning with selective loggin...
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