EarthScape

The possibilities of renewable energy are on display as El Hierro, the smallest of Spain’s Canary Islands, is set to become the world’s first land mass to be fully energy self-sufficient, when an 11.5 megawatt wind farm goes online late next month.

Saying that bicycles can change the world might sound like an oversimplification of things, but when you start to break it down, it’s easy to see that the bicycle has an effect on a lot more than just how we get from point A to point B. Need proof for why bicycles are a good…

Operating a car without needing to visit a gas station is intriguing idea to many American drivers. After all, the pumps can be a painful place—gas prices have been on a roller coaster ride the past few years. But in the minds of many American, electric cars are nothing more than glorified golf cars incapable…

In a passionate call for change, Karl Falkenberg, European Commission Director-General for Environment calls for a closure of landfilling, as we know it. “Separate collection is very much at the heart of this circular economy – [but] we are coming to realize that separate collection is not enough,” said Falkenberg, the at a conference in…

Long-term water quality trends in Midwestern lakes yield good news in the form of little change in water clarity in the regions 3,000 lakes. But what makes this news unique is that the data to make this determination was collected by non-scientists and local residents from the area’s towns and villages.

The first map of detailed information on worldwide land cover collected using uniform international standards, the Global Land Cover-SHARE database, was released in March by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Experts say it will help to improve research into natural resources and monitor global environmental changes.

No one is more special that your own mother – especially on Mother’s Day. Celebrate your own mother and “Mother Nature” with one of these five great green gift ideas. These options offer a sustainable alternative to the chemical-laden flowers and mass-produced chocolates that dominate the market on Mother’s Day. 1. Buy eco-friendly flowers- Although…

Virunga National Park, classified as a World Heritage site sits amongst the Rwenzori Mountains on the eastern portion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). It spectacular features include its most well known residents, hippos and mountain gorillas. It is believed to have more biological diversity than any other protected area in Africa, no…

For the first time in the history of human exploration, scientists have found litter is now arriving before man himself. A 10-year large-scale seafloor survey off the European coast has found the widespread presence of bottles, plastic bags, fishing nets and other types of human litter at all sample locations, many previously unvisited. One researcher…

Evidence now indicates that acidity of West Coast continental shelf waters is dissolving the shells of tiny free-swimming marine snails, called pteropods, the major food source for pink salmon, mackerel and herring. Funded by NOAA, the study estimates the percentage of pteropods in this region with dissolving shells due to ocean acidification has doubled in…