CLIMATE NEWS
This unprecedented kill reveals why we need to keep rivers resilient
The Massive Yellowstone Fish Die-Off: A Glimpse Into Our Climate Future?
The Massive Yellowstone Fish Die-Off: A Glimpse Into Our Climate Future?
It was the kind of clear late-August day that anglers live for. Yet at the Yellowstone River near Livingston, Montana, not a single oar boat or even a fishing line broke the river’s calm surface. All was still, save for an osprey scavenging the corpses of pale, shimmering whitefish along the gravelly shoreline. A light breeze carried the sweetish smell of aquatic decay.
Earlier this month, the Yellowstone River made national headlines with the news of an unprecedented fish die-off in its usually healthy waters. Starting in mid-August, biologists counted 4,000 dead whitefish floating on the Yellowstone or washed ashore, but they estimate that the true number is in the tens of thousands. As if that wasn’t enough, they’ve recently spotted rainbow trout and Yellowstone cutthroat trout—both economically important species—go belly-up as well.
The Smithsonian
The War On Cash
The banks, credit card companies and big businesses have declared a war on cash. Sweden is going to go cashless. Death of cash means the rise of something else, which may be detrimental to society.
Water As A Commons
Every day, 2 million tons of sewage and industrial and agricultural waste are discharged into the world’s water, the equivalent of the weight of the entire human population of more than 7 billion people. The amount of wastewater produced annually is about six times more water than exists in all the rivers of the world.
Zika Is Just the First Front in the 21st-Century Biowar
The new era of synthetic biology could make the dangers of the atomic age seem quaint. By the turn of the next century, most scientists believe biological technologies will introduce the most wrenching changes in our daily lives. These technologies will include human and animal life extension, crop and livestock genetic manipulation, and human performance enhancement, which together will begin changing the very nature of what it means to be human.
Three mini-farms are sowing the seeds of global food security
Tiny, biointensive operations show smallholder farmers from around the world how they can grow far more food than conventional approaches. biointensive farms use up to 75% less land, up to 100% less fertilizer, up to 8% less water and up to 99% less energy to produce a given amount of food than conventional farming.
