Tag: earth
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Earth Optimism in Times of Despair
Earth Optimism is a movement focused on the successes of people around the world to tackle a wide variety of environmental issues. It was started in 2017, a few years after the Ocean Optimism twitter campaign, by coral reef biologist Nancy Knowlton. Earth optimism has paved the way for people to be optimistic about other…
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Understanding Your Local Air Quality
These days, air quality information is so prevalent that it can be viewed alongside the daily weather on a phone or television. Satellite data can be accessed through the internet to evaluate air quality on a broader scale regardless of where one is on the globe. One thing that stands in the way, other than…
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Wetlands Stop Emitting Methane When Water Level Is Too High – But Is That a Good Thing?
High water levels result in higher wetland methane emissions for a couple reasons. First, more water on the wetland surface creates the ideal oxygen-deprived conditions for microbial growth down in the soil. Methanogenic microbes ramp up the process of methanogenesis, producing methane to send up through the water as diffuse gas. Second, wetland plants continue…
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Spooky Season
It’s that time of year when creepy pumpkins adorn porch steps, kids jump into piles of crispy leaves, and witches brew hard cider. It is what some like to call the “spooky season”. In the Northern Hemisphere, spooky season (i.e., meteorological fall) lasts from the first day of September to the last day of November.…
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Enchanted with Chanterelle
Something I love about Georgia is that tens of mushrooms emerge from the mossy soil below the trees in shaded backyards like gumdrops in Candyland. Within a few days of swelling to an enormous size, they shrivel up and disappear into the earth, leaving each passerby the unique chance to harvest, photograph, or simply just…
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How to Save the World
When involved in a discussion about global climate change, have you ever heard someone declare “Small changes won’t do anything. We need fundamental systematic change!” Or how about, “The public should not be held responsible. [Insert hypothetically guilty party like industry, gov’t] needs to be accountable!” Statements like these are discouraging and not always true.…
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What the Flux
Climate change and world record atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations are not new topics in mainstream media. An ample source of information on the planet’s current and future conditions is at our fingertips, but a resounding question from curious minds and climate-change deniers alike is: How do we know the climate is changing? We might have a…
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Oh, the Places I Go
Living in a city situated between two scenic lakes, I had to wonder why my drinking water wasn’t coming from either one of them. Madison, Wisconsin gets its drinking water from a sandstone aquifer that sits 90 to 95 feet below the ground’s surface according to Madison Water Utility. Twenty-two wells and many more pipes…
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Outdoor Adventures
Once upon a time I was adventurous. In elementary school, I wanted to do more with my summer break than doing mandatory reading and hiding out to escape chores. I picked out a book from the library on fun things to do during my time off and tried them all out, from running a lemonade…
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Sustainability Month
I hope everyone was able to get outside this past Sunday to celebrate the holiday. Remember, environmental awareness doesn’t have to end with Earth Day! Keep the environmental vibes alive into the month of April, the Sustainability Month.
definearth 