ITHACA, N.Y. – No matter how you drill it, using natural gas as an energy source is a smart move in the battle against global climate change and a good transition step on the road toward low-carbon energy from wind, solar and nuclear power.
Tags: · Climate Change, Cornell University, fracking, global warming, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, methane emissions, natural gas
ITHACA, N.Y. – The dramatic melt-off of Arctic sea ice due to climate change is hitting closer to home than millions of Americans might think.That’s because melting Arctic sea ice can trigger a domino effect leading to increased odds of severe winter weather outbreaks in the Northern Hemisphere’s middle latitudes – think the “Snowmageddon” storm that hamstrung Washington, D.C., during February 2010.
Tags: · Arctic melting, Climate Change, Cornell University, severe winters, Weather
Groups protesting natural gas drilling have focused on the threat to water supplies. They point to the modern drilling or “fracking” methods, which shatter rock deep beneath the earth, opening fissures that threaten water stores; and they cite cases of wells being contaminated near fracking operations in Pennsylvania and Wyoming.
Now new research by three Cornell University scientists suggests that fracking could cause even more havoc with the atmosphere
Tags: · Cornell University, fracking, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, methane emissions, natural gas, natural gas as bridge fuel
Gotham City now has its own bee, one of 11 new bee species discovered by a Cornell University researcher collaborating with the American Museum of Natural History.
Tags: · American Museum of Natural History, Cornell University, Jason Gibbs, Lasioglossum gotham, New York City, York University
A Cornell review of natural gas extraction methods reveals that ‘fracking’ gas from the Marcellus Shale region of New York and Pennsylvania could release dangerous amounts of methane gas, causing more damage to the atmosphere per pound than even carbon dioxide.
Natural gas, which burns cleaner (producing less carbon dioxide) than gasoline, diesel fuel and coal has been touted as a greener “bridge fuel” that could power cars and replace coal in power plants. Tailpipe emissions from natural gas-powered vehicles emit few greenhouse gases.
But Cornell ecologist Robert Howarth warns that the natural gas extraction or drilling process releases dangerous amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas far more potent than carbon dioxide. The methane leakage is the worse when the gas is accessed by the hydraulic fracturing or ‘fracking’ methods that have become popular with the industry. Fracking is a way of teasing out deeply embedded gas deposits using high pressure water injections in wells that run both vertically and horizontally through shale deposits.
Tags: · Air Pollution, Cornell University, fracking natural gas, Greenhouse Gases, greenrightnow.com, Methane, methane released by natural gas extraction, Robert Howarth
This year is well on its way to becoming the hottest year the world has seen since scientists began record-keeping in 1880. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the rising worldwide temperatures are responsible for erratic weather – including severe droughts and heat waves.
What does this mean for your lawn and trees? Two experts from Cornell University have some advice that may surprise you.
Tags: · Cornell horticulture, Cornell University, Drought, lawn, Trees, water trees in summer heat, watering
Biochar has emerged over the last couple years as a ray of hope on the otherwise bleak horizon of the planet’s environmental future. It has been hailed as a possible solution to climate change, world hunger, and rural poverty — though doubts are being raised in some quarters.
Last year, some of the world’s most eminent biochar experts gathered for a biochar conference at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst to discuss this ancient technology that is getting a new look by scientists, governments and investors. To the packed audience, this promising technology sounded like a panacea for a whole host of problems. Biochar, the speakers said, could soak up large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere, supercharge soil fertility to feed the world’s hungry, promote jobs and economic opportunities for farmers, safely get rid of animal and plant waste, heat buildings greenly, and slash the kind of fertilizer use that is creating vast dead zones in coastal waters from nitrogen runoff.
Tags: · biochar, biochar conference, biochar in soil, biochar reducing carbon emissions, Carbon sequestration, Climate Change, Cornell University, enriching soil, International Biochar Initiative, Iowa State University, National Laboratory for Agriculture and The Environment, pyrolysis, Soil
Brown Pelicans at Raccoon Island show contact with oil. (Photo: Marc Dantzker, Cornell Lab of Ornithology).
Gulf-area biologists and researchers from Cornell University have discovered that birds on previously unaffected Raccoon Island have been newly oiled, apparently because of waves of crude driven in by winds from Hurricane Alex.
Tags: · BP oil spill, brown pelican, Cornell University, Lab of Ornithology, Marc Dantzker, oil damage, oiled birds, pelicans, Raccoon Island, rookery, terns
While tar balls, oil-covered birds and dying turtles are the prevailing images of the Gulf oil spill, at least one marine biologist believes the public many not fully grasp the scope of the disaster. “Birds, sea turtles, and dolphins get most of the press, but all marine organisms in the Gulf of Mexico are threatened by the catastrophic oil spill,” says Paula Mikkelsen, a visiting fellow in Cornell University’s department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and an associate director of the Cornell-affiliated Paleontological Research Institution. “Every habitat – from intertidal oyster bars and mangroves to deepwater sand plains — depends upon clean water to survive.”
Tags: · BP oil spilll, Cornell University, Gulf of Mexico, Gulf oil spill, Loop Current, Paleontological Research Institution, Paula Mikkelsen
By Shermakaye Bass
Green Right Now
Besides producing some of the most esteemed graduates in the world, Cornell University is cultivating
something altogether different: Compost. And it’s getting kudos for doing so.
Tags: · Compost, Cornell University, EPA Environmental Quality Award, Organic Waste, waste diversion
Barbara Kessler
Andrew Winston
Danielle Nierenberg
Anthony Swift