Monday bummer blogging

Damn, one of the more promising ideas, biochar, seems to be a little less promising than hoped:

... a new study ... suggests that these supposed benefits of biochar may be somewhat overstated.

... They found that when charcoal was mixed into humus ... charcoal caused greatly increased losses of native soil organic matter, and soil carbon ... Much of this lost soil carbon would be released as carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. Therefore, while it is true that charcoal represents a long term sink of carbon because of its persistence, this effect is at least partially offset by the capacity of charcoal to greatly promote the loss of that carbon already present in the soil.

Oh, and you know that thing Al Gore talked about, where birds would emerge from their eggs only to find that their usual food had already peaked and declined because the changing climate had disconnected formerly co-evolved species? Well, caribou go next:

Spain experiencing severe drought due to climate change

Warming-driven desertification is spreading. Australia has gotten the most attention, but Spain is also turning into a desert. As Time reported:

Spain is in the grip of its worst drought in a century as a result of climate change -- this year's total rainfall, for example, has been 40 percent lower than average for the equivalent period, and the country's reservoirs are, on average, only 30 percent full. The reservoirs serving Barcelona are only 20 percent full, and without significant rainfall, supplies of drinking water will likely run dry by October.

Why Paul Roberts’ End of Food deserves to be digested

In the Middle East, water-poor nations are using petrol profits to buy farmland in economically depressed countries like Pakistan and...

Umbra on wedding registries again

Hi Umbra, I’m getting married in August, and I’ve registered on Heifer International, but am looking for other ways to...

Implications of the study linking childhood lead exposure and adult criminality

A study just published in the journal PLoS Medicine (and written up in the L.A. Times) suggests a link between childhood lead exposure and adult arrests for violent crimes. Studying 250 adults for whom they had prenatal and childhood blood lead level measurements, University of Cincinnati researchers found that each 5-microgram-per-deciliter increase in blood lead levels at age 6 was associated with a nearly 50 percent increased risk of arrest as a young adult (the risk ratio was 1.48).

The good news is that overall, U.S. children's blood lead levels have dropped dramatically since manufacturers started phasing lead out of paint and gasoline in the mid-1970s. The bad news is that 40 percent of the nation's housing still contains lead-based paint, and hundreds of thousands of children still have blood lead levels associated with neurological problems.

When we as a society consider whether to regulate hazardous substances, we need to remember that allowing their continued use can have severe consequences. The lead saga demonstrates that even when environmental and health advocates succeed in getting hazardous substances out of consumer products, the damage can be extremely costly and long-lasting.

Hansen marks 20th anniversary of landmark testimony to Congress with renewed call to action

James Hansen. Photo: nasa.gov It was a sweltering June 23 in Washington, D.C., when climatologist James Hansen, head of NASA’s...

WV Supreme Court chief justice and friend to dirty coal loses reelection bid

Remember Spike Maynard? He was the chief justice of the West Virginia Supreme Court, the one caught canoodling around the...

Gallup shows Americans making smart choices to break the gas habit.

It took soaring fuel prices for old habits to shift. But they're shifting alright. Just take a look at these poll results -- Gallup finds that big numbers of Americans are making changes in their daily lives to deal with higher gas prices. Here's a snapshot:

World Bank finally releases ‘secret’ report on biofuels and the food crisis

Remember a few weeks ago, when The Guardian leaked word of a “secret” World Bank report that essentially blames U.S....