Terra et Natura

    You've probably heard the old adage, "April showers bring May flowers." Well, it's April, and some of you may not have seen the rain yet, and some of you may have already seen more than enough, but either way, there's no debating that it is one of the most important things that happens on our planet. Water is, of course, essential for all life on Earth, and it is for this reason that rain has always been associated with the bringing or renewal of life. Whether filling our streams and lakes or watering our crops, ancient man saw rain as a gift from the gods. And who hasn't felt after warm spring rain that the world is not somehow renewed? After all, what can be more clean or pure than the water that's falling from the sky? Well, it turns out... a lot.     The unfortunate fact is that we may have already, possibly permanently, contaminated the world's rainwater with toxic "forever chemicals." These chemicals, known as PFAS, or per- and pol...

     Ok, so in Part 1, I focused a lot on ground transportation and electrification; unfortunately, despite the promise of battery and fuel cell electric vehicles, these technologies will likely not be able to get us where we need to be to make all of our transportation carbon neutral. This is especially true when one considers how rapidly we need to reduce our emissions to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. The answer to fueling aircraft, container ships, and the millions of ICE cars and trucks that are currently on our roads (there are an estimated 1.3 billion worldwide) is to make fuel right out of the air. If this seems silly, hang with me for a bit. We really can make fuels like gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel right out of the air. These fuels are all made of hydrocarbons. All that is needed to produce them is hydrogen, carbon, and some chemistry. Better yet, these synthetically produced fuels are drop-in, meaning no modifications to current internal combustio...

     So for my first climate change-related post, I didn't want to rehash the arguments for human-caused climate change. My guess is that if you are reading this, you are already well informed on that subject. The evidence that our huge and continued release of CO2 and other "greenhouse gases" are warming the planet has been confirmed by multiple disciplines based upon principles of chemistry and physics that we have understood for well over 100 years. The much more important subject is: what the hell are we going to do about it? As we've seen the climate warm and weather extremes get even more batshit crazy, it's becoming clear that we'd better hurry up. I'm pretty sure Canada isn't looking to get its own tornado alley or the Midwest its very own desert.   That said, what are our biggest  problems? According to the EPA, the big 3 in the U.S. are transportation, electrical generation, and industry, in that order. Since transportation is the largest se...

       One of the most pressing issues facing Earth's biodiversity is the devastating losses seen among the world's amphibians. While there are many threats, including pollution, the pet trade, and habitat loss. The most devastating has been the spread of disease.  "The most deadly of these has been an introduced fungal pathogen, a type of chytrid fungus, called Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, or Bd for short. After years of unexplained amphibian die-offs, Bd was eventually discovered by researchers in 1998. It has been responsible for many of the devastating declines in amphibian populations around the world, especially in South America, Central America, and Australia. This highly contagious fungus infects the keratinized portions of amphibian skin. The resulting disease, called chytridiomycosis, thickens and hardens the epidermis of the infected animal, eventually shutting down the transport of oxygen and water through the skin and killing its victims. Bd is t...

  It's no secret that humans have doomed many species to extinction and the threat to many more still exists. The wolves of the Falkland Islands are just one of dozens of species I highlight in Extinction in a Human World. Here is an excerpt from my book on these unique canines that unfortunately are now lost forever.  Image:    George R. Waterhouse/Biodiversity Heritage Library Falkland Islands Wolf (Dusicyon australis) The story of the wolves of the Falkland Islands is one of mystery, a mystery that perplexed not only Charles Darwin when he visited the islands in 1833 and again in 1834, but also generations of naturalists since. Confused by what process would allow the Falkland Island wolves to colonize these islands but not a single other terrestrial mammal. Just how did a mammal of this size, probably as large as 20 kg (44 lbs), make it to islands isolated some 480 km (300 miles) east of the mainland of Patagonia? Numerous theories were proposed over the years. S...

Welcome to the Earth and Nature blog! I've been kicking around the idea of starting this blog for sometime. I've spent a lot of my time over the last two years working on a book about species extinction and our role in the loss of Earth's biodiversity (if you want to check that out its called Extinction in a Human World , its available on Amazon). Naturally in my research I came upon an incredible amount of information regarding a wide range of environmental issues, current and historical. Not only was this way more information than a single book could contain, but I found that new information comes available so often, that any book is almost out of date the moment it is published. So this blog is an attempt to share that information. There is really no topic relating to nature, environmental science, etc. that I consider off limits, so there will be a wide variety of posts covering a wide range of topics relating to the environment and the threats to it. Hopefully many tha...