Air & Water Quality

Articles

Geology Futures

The geology of cities — built out of stuff mined from the ground. That’s where all cities will end up, broken down and fossilized. The GPM speaks with a geologist who gazes into the future. Some human-made molecules won’t break down either. Forever chemicals, they’re called, and they’re everywhere. In non-stick cookware, cosmetics and clothing. They last forever, and they’re toxic. On a happier note — the human microbiome. All those bacteria living on us and in us, delivering crucial services. Nothing more amazing than the bacteria in the gut of a pregnant woman, steering healthy fetal development.


Lake Chad Drying Up

Six out of nine planetary systems key to the survival of the human species are under threat. Is Earth still a safe operating space for human beings? And, a mega-engineering project to save an endangered African lake — on the drawing board, and very worrisome.


Planetary Boundaries Breached

Six out of nine planetary systems key to the survival of the human species have been compromised, breaching the estimated boundaries of Earth system stability and resilience and pushing it “well outside of the safe operating space for humanity.” The GPM spoke with Katherine Richardson, lead author of “Earth beyond six of nine planetary boundaries.”


Poisonous Legacies

Uranium mining in Niger: a filthy, toxic business. Fifty years after the end of America’s war on Vietnam, traces of US chemical weapons linger. And, the Anthropocene. A geologist talks about humanity’s transformation of Planet Earth.



Green Planet Monitor Podcast

Young Israelis who refuse to serve in the military. And, as climate catastrophe sweeps the planet, in the Swedish city, Goteborg, engineers and students are designing the sort of building where people can live – comfortably — without squandering Earth’s limited resources, or polluting its atmosphere


Adapting to Climate Change Under Water Apartheid

Climate change is a human rights issue. Nowhere is this clearer than in Israeli-occupied/colonized Palestine, where land and natural resources required for climate adaptation are controlled by Israel, and systematically denied to Palestinians. Of all these resources, none are more vital than water.









Ninth Transmission

http://media.blubrry.com/thegreenbluesshow/dl.dropbox.com/u/314577/Warm%20Wet%20Planet/Warming.mp3

One of Earth’s tens of millions of species has been mining colossal volumes of organic matter buried for ages, and burning the stuff for fuel — raising the surface temperature of their planet to a level higher than any time in the past.