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One graphic shows how much food, water, and energy Americans waste each year — and it’s disturbing

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The United States is a shockingly wasteful country.

To be fair, the same could be said for much of the developed world. But there’s no getting around the fact that less than 5% of the world’s population lives in America but uses about 18% of its energy, wasting a great deal of it in the process.

What's more, an estimated 1 in 3 children— and 1 in 6 Americans overall — are food-insecure. And yet almost half the food the US produces on farms goes to waste, much of it ending up in the trash.

To put these and other staggering problems into perspective, Tech Insider has tallied up the losses per average American. While it's difficult to separate supply-chain from household waste for some of these figures, it's arguable that complicity with a wasteful system is just the same.

TI_Graphics_how much a person wastes a month

SEE ALSO: Ignoring one simple step can make all of your efforts to recycle useless

MORE: A 20-year-old is planning a 62-mile floating wall to make the ocean 'self-cleaning'

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NOW WATCH: A horrifying river of trash is flowing through Beirut


Scientists have discovered a bacteria that can eat plastic

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recycling

We manufacture over 300m tonnes of plastics each year for use in everything from packaging to clothing.

Their resilience is great when you want a product to last. But once discarded, plastics linger in the environment, littering streets, fields and oceans alike.

Every corner of our planet has been blighted by our addiction to plastic.

But now we may have some help to clean up the mess in the form of bacteria that have been found slowly munching away on discarded bottles in the sludge of a recycling center.

Plastics are polymers, long thin molecules made of repeating (monomer) building blocks.

These are cross-linked to one another to build a durable, malleable mesh. Most plastics are made from carbon-based monomers, so in theory they are a good source of food for microorganisms.

But unlike natural polymers (such as cellulose in plants) plastics aren’t generally biodegradable.  Bacteria and fungi co-evolved with natural materials, all the while coming up with new biochemical methods to harness the resources from dead matter.

But plastics have only been around for about 70 years. So microorganisms simply haven’t had much time to evolve the necessary biochemical tool kit to latch onto the plastic fibers, break them up into the constituent parts and then utilize the resulting chemicals as a source of energy and carbon that they need to grow.

Enzyme innovation

Now a team at Kyoto University have, by rummaging around in piles of waste, found a plastic munching microbe. After five years of searching through 250 samples, they isolated a bacteria that could live on poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET), a common plastic used in bottles and clothing. They named the new species of bacteria Ideonella sakaiensis.

You may think this is the rerun of an old story, as plastic-eating microbes have already been touted as saviors of the planet. But there are several important differences here. First, previous reports were of tricky-to-cultivate fungi, where in this case the microbe is easily grown. The researchers more or less left the PET in a warm jar with the bacterial culture and some other nutrients, and a few weeks later all the plastic was gone.

image 20160310 26261 87xcj8

Second - and the real innovation - is that the team have identified the enzymes that Ideonella sakaiensis uses to breakdown the PET. All living things contain enzymes that they use to speed up necessary chemical reactions. Some enzymes help digest our food, dismantling it into useful building blocks. Without the necessary enzymes the body can’t access certain sources of food.

For example, people who are lactose intolerant don’t have the enzyme that breaks down the lactose sugar found in dairy produce. And no human can digest cellulose, while some microbes can. Ideonella sakaiensis seems to have evolved an efficient enzyme that the bacteria produces when it is in an environment that is rich in PET.

The Kyoto researchers identified the gene in the bacteria’s DNA that is responsible for the PET-digesting enzyme. They then were able to manufacture more of the enzyme and then demonstrate that PET could be broken down with the enzyme alone.

First real recycling

This opens a whole new approach to plastic recycling and decontamination. At present, most plastic bottles are not truly recycled. Instead they are melted and reformed into other hard plastic products. Packaging companies typically prefer freshly made “virgin” plastics that are created from chemical starting materials that are usually derived from oil.

The PET-digesting enzymes offer a way to truly recycle plastic. They could be added to vats of waste, breaking all the bottles or other plastic items down into into easy-to-handle chemicals. These could then be used to make fresh plastics, producing a true recycling system.

Manufactured enzymes are already used to great effect in a wide range of everyday items. Biological washing powders contain enzymes that digest fatty stains. The enzymes known as rennet that are used to harden cheese once came from calfs’ intestines but are now manufactured using genetically engineered bacteria. Maybe we can now use a similar manufacturing method to clean up our mess.

Mark Lorch, Senior Lecturer in Biological Chemistry, Associate Dean for Engagement, University of Hull. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

SEE ALSO: A 20-year-old is planning a 62-mile floating wall to make the ocean 'self-cleaning'

MORE: Here's why the US government suddenly banned a bunch of soaps, bodywashes, and toothpastes

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NOW WATCH: We Put A GoPro Through The Recycling Process

These huge, man-made waves will help scientists understand tsunamis

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Designed by scientists at Deltares, a lab in the Netherlands, these artifical waves can reach 15 feet. Scientists are using them to study the properties of waves in order to be able to predict how tsunamis and other natural disasters will behave in real-life scenarios.

Story by Jacob Shamsian and editing by Jeremy Dreyfuss

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These 5 countries are the worst environmental offenders

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A displaced Somali woman sits outside her temporary dwelling after fleeing famine in the Marka Lower Shebbele regions to the capital Mogadishu September 20, 2014.  REUTERS/Feisal Omar

Each year, Yale's Environmental Performance Index (EPI) ranks 180 countries based on how well they've fared at protecting human health and vulnerable ecosystems.

The EPI creates the index by giving each country a score out of 100 that's based on a number of specific metrics. The individual scores are averaged for each country to create the rankings.

The worst offending countries all share a few common traits. They are mostly impoverished and torn apart by conflict and have ongoing problems with drought and environmental degradation.

We've brought you the top five countries. Now, here are the five worst offenders from the 2016 report:

SEE ALSO: The 5 greenest countries in the world

DON'T MISS: NASA scientists take to Reddit to issue a dire warning

No. 180. Somalia: 27.66

Somalia was the lowest-scoring country on the EPI for a good reason: The country has been mired in a decades-long conflict. Warring factions, like the terrorist group Al Shabaab, are constantly jostling for control.

It ranks 168th in health impacts, 176th in water and sanitation, 100th in fisheries, and 179th in biodiversity and habitat protection.

The lack of firm authority has allowed piracy to flourish, and Somalia's unregulated fishery has decimated fish stocks along its coast. Many Somali also lack access to clean water and safe sanitation.



No. 179. Eritrea: 36.73

Eritrea narrowly beat Somalia to take the 179th spot. Sixty-six percent of Eritreans live below the poverty line, and the country suffers from droughts and rampant famine.

It ranks 160th in health impacts, 105th in air quality, 168th in water and sanitation, and 165th in biodiversity and habitat.

Conflict is also an ongoing problem in Eritrea, and its army is often involved in border skirmishes with neighboring Ethiopia and Djibouti.

But Eritrea is also rich in mineral resources, and the government hopes to build the economy through the mining sector.



No. 178. Madagascar: 37.10

Madagascar took the third-lowest spot. Similar to Somalia, Madagascar is largely undeveloped and is among the poorest countries in the world.

It ranks 178th on health impacts, 177th in water and sanitation, 130th in air quality, and 132nd in biodiversity and habitat.

Despite Madagascar's low rank, it scored 20th on agriculture, likely because most Malagasies farm through traditional methods.

Yet Madagascar is also one of the most biodiverse countries on the planet — claiming unique species found nowhere else — so protecting its environment from illegal logging operations is crucial. 



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Watch a terrifying 'tornado' of 20 million swarming bats

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Bracken Bats

When dusk falls, 20 million Mexican free-tailed bats swoop out of Bracken Cave near San Antonio, Texas.

After spending the winter in Mexico, the bats fly north to procreate. By August, the pups can fly and the colony size reaches its peak.

Each night, the Bracken bat colony can eat 200 tons of moths, according to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

Feel what it's like to stand at the cave's entrance in this awesome video from National Geographic:

Were you as excited as these US Forest Service staff members were? Not possible.

bat tornado caves texas usfws

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NOW WATCH: Something beautiful is happening in the driest part of America

Here's what America would look like under 25 feet of water

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Jefferson 25 feetSea levels are rising several times faster today than at any other point in roughly the last 3,000 years, according to new research.

Scientists project that if humans don't get control over greenhouse gas emission levels, then sea levels could rise by as much as 3-4 feet by the year 2100.

Sea levels rise because of melting glaciers and ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica as a result of warming temperatures. The ocean also expands as it warms.

Rising sea levels make coastal areas, particularly those with dense populations, much more vulnerable to heavy flooding.

Artist and researcher Nickolay Lamm, from StorageFront.com, previously created sea-level rise maps to show what major US monuments would look like over the next century if we continue on a business-as-usual track. Lamm used data provide by Climate Central to build his sea level maps.

The hypothetical scenes show icons, like the Statue of Liberty and the Washington Monument, and depict four levels of flooding at each landmark: 0 feet; 5 feet (possible in 100 to 300 years); 12 feet (possible by about 2300); and 25 feet (possible in the coming centuries):

READ MORE: Sea levels are rising faster than they have in 28 centuries — here's what could happen to New York City

SEE ALSO: Sea levels are rising way faster than they have in the past 2,800 years

Here's a map of New York City today. The white triangle is where the "camera" is positioned in the illustrations — toward Lower Manhattan. In the next slide, you'll see what this camera is looking at in real life.

Source: Nickolay Lamm/StorageFront.com; Data provided by Climate Central



Here's New York City today, from the perspective of the camera in the first map.

Source: Nickolay Lamm/StorageFront.com; Data provided by Climate Central



Here's that same map of New York City in about 100 years if sea level rises by 5 feet, represented by the blue shading.

Source: Nickolay Lamm/StorageFront.com; Data provided by Climate Central



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Hike the 2,000-mile trail that most people never finish

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Appalachian Trail

The Appalachian Trail, or AT, stretches more than 2,000 miles along the US East Coast.

The longest marked trail in the country runs from Georgia to Maine. It connects 14 states and passes through ridges and valleys of the Appalachian mountain range.

Parts of the AT are within a couple hours of driving for millions of Americans, but few have walked its full length.

Each year, thousands of people attempt to hike the entire AT. Only one in four succeeds. 

National Geographic explored the wooded footpath, traveling south to north, in a 50-minute documentary. You can take the adventure in our slideshow or watch the movie on Netflix.

The Appalachian Trail, better known as the AT, stretches about 2,175 miles along the eastern US.



It runs from Georgia to Maine, making it the longest marked trail in the country, and one of the longest in the world.



The trail cuts through 14 states along the way, including New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Inside Florida's intense 'Python Challenge,' which is trying to save one of America's most prized ecosystems

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Daniel Moniz Python Challenge

"That's a $1,000 snake," 22-year-old Daniel Moniz thought to himself as soon as he saw her.

Her being the 13-foot, 8.7-inch female Burmese python that would win him one of two top prizes at Florida's second "Python Challenge" last month.

By the end of the competition, Moniz took home $1,000 for the longest snake captured by an individual plus another $3,500 for bringing in 13 pythons total, the most of any single person.

The competition, created by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) to humanely capture and kill nonnative and invasive pythons, drew over 1,000 participants from 29 states to the Florida Everglades in February 2016. Often using their bare hands and pillowcases, participants wrestled and bagged 106 pythons, up from 68 in 2013, the last year the event took place.

As an invasive species — a plant, animal, or pathogen alien to an ecosystem whose introduction will likely cause harm, as the National Invasive Species Information Center defines it — pythons pose a formidable threat to Florida's ecosystems.

Since as early as the 1980s, the serpentine giants have encroached on the Everglades, a national park and World Heritage Site, and preyed on endangered species while competing with others.

'Multiple shots at once'

Born and raised in New Jersey, Moniz had never caught a python before traveling to Florida for this year's challenge.

"I thought, 'Hey, why not go?'" he told Business Insider with a chuckle. "I knew it would be fun. I didn't expect to win."

Worried about her son's safety, Moniz's mother asked his father to attend the competition with him. And it was Dad who initially spotted the "monster," as Moniz described his first-prize capture. The two had biked nearly 18 miles on a trail through the Everglades, when, suddenly, Moniz's father started veering and nearly pushed Moniz off the path.

"I'm like, 'What are you doing, Dad?' Then, I saw the snake." he said.

Daniel Moniz Python ChallengeMoniz tried to grab the nearly 14-foot female python behind the head, but she pulled him into the water off the side of the trail. In the process of the capture, Moniz was bitten in the face, neck, and arm, which felt like "getting multiple shots at once." While Burmese pythons aren't venomous, they have numerous tiny, sharp teeth.

Shockingly, Moniz' python wasn't the largest captured during the month-long challenge. Team members Bill Booth, Duane Clark, Dusty Crum, and Craig Nicks, also known as The Cypress Boys, caught a 15-footer, just one of the 33 pythons they claimed.

The team took home a $3,000 prize for the largest python as well as $5,000, which went to the team that caught the most pythons.

The size and prevalence of these interlopers highlights the need for the competition as its most basic level: Curtailing python population growth in the Everglades.

America's largest subtropical wilderness

As the largest subtropical wilderness in the US, the Everglades National Park provides protected habitats for an array of marine and land animals, many of them endangered species like the manatee, American crocodile, and Florida panther.

The area is also strikingly similar, with regard to temperature and water and food sources, to the native habitat of Burmese pythons, which stretches from India to lower China and throughout the Malay Peninsula, according to FWC spokesperson Carli Segelson.

Although no reliable numbers exist, experts estimate that roughly tens of thousands of Burmese pythons roam the wilds of Florida. They prey upon small and medium reptiles, mammals, and birds as well as compete with other native predators for these food sources. Most notably, pythons feed on the Key Largo woodrat, an endangered species.

And other than humans and alligators, pythons have few predators in the area.

"Whenever you have one species that's not part of the ecosystem, that could throw the whole system out of whack," Segelson told Business Insider. "Looking at the food chain, every animal has its role, and while it's hard to quantify the damage ... it can have very bad consequences for the future."

Python Challenge

Pythons also pose a threat to humans, although they rarely attack unprovoked, as Segelson made clear.

In one of the most recent instances, a family's pet python escaped its terrarium and invaded a 2-year-old girl's crib in Sumter County in 2009. The mother's boyfriend (who, along with the mother, had previously admitted to drug use) found the toddler dead the next morning.

In 2011, ajury found the mother and her boyfriend guilty of third-degree murder, manslaughter, and child abuse.

In 2010, likely propelled in part by the girl's death, the FWC labeled the Burmese python a "conditional" species, meaning the snake can't be acquired for personal use. In 2012, pythons were raised to an "injurious" species. Now they can't be transported from state-to-state without a federal permit.

The python's invasion of the Everglades may, in fact, have begun with its allure as an exotic pet. Unable to care for the snakes — which can grow as large as 22-feet and weigh as much as 200 pounds— owners may have released them into the wild in Florida as early as 1979, Segelson speculates.

"Which is illegal and obviously a bad thing to do not only for the environment but for the animal who is used to being cared for," she added.

As another theory goes, 1992's Hurricane Andrew destroyed a Florida facility used to breed pythons for the exotic-pet trade. Naturally, the snakes escaped and started procreating in the wild.

Recognizing the 'frailty of the earth'

Despite the sense of adventure needed to capture a 13-plus-foot snake, these crucial conservation issues drew Moniz to the competition.

"You get a lot of people who want to catch a python with their bare hands because they think it's cool, but then about half of people want to help the Everglades and realize pythons are threatening the entire ecosystem there," he explained. "I think it's important to recognize the frailty of the earth and the havoc invasive species can wreak on it."

Daniel Moniz Python Challenge gif

Depending on the specific regulations, some places allow participants to kill the pythons themselves, while "drop-off areas," where participants can bring live, bagged pythons, were established elsewhere.

From there, the FWC, in partnership with the University of Florida, humanely kills the pythons and conducts necropsies.

The event does have its skeptics, as Time magazine's Brad Tuttle pointed out.

The Miami New Timesdescribed the first Python Challenge in 2013 as “an idea straight out of the hormone-addled mind of a 14-year-old who plays too many first-person shooters.”

To participate in the challenge this year, however, participants were required to complete online training through the FWC and score at least an 80% on a quiz at the end.

Aside from looking "cool," as Moniz described, participants might want to make some quick cash, too. One man, part of a father-daughter duo who competed in 2013, told the New Times: "I wanna make some money, man." His 18-year-old daughter gave a different reason: She wanted to see herself on Netflix.

"I didn't do it for the money," Moniz said. "But that part wasn't terrible."

Check out some photos from this year's Python Challenge below.

Some members of the team winner "Cypress Boys" flank individual winner Daniel Moniz. The Cypress Boys received $8,000 total for capturing the most pythons, 33, as well as the largest at 15-feet. Moniz won $4,500 total for bagging a nearly 14-footer in addition to 12 others.



The winners also received engraved knives, like the one Moniz holds below.



In certain cases, participants are allowed to keep the skins of the pythons they captured. They could then sell them to interested vendors, who also sold products at the event.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

February shattered global temperature records by an unsettling amount

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drought

February smashed a century of global temperature records by “stunning” margin, according to data released by Nasa.

The unprecedented leap led scientists, usually wary of highlighting a single month’s temperature, to label the new record a “shocker” and warn of a “climate emergency”.

The Nasa data shows the average global surface temperature in February was 1.35C warmer than the average temperature for the month between 1951-1980, a far bigger margin than ever seen before.

The previous record, set just one month earlier in January, was 1.15C above the long-term average for that month.

“Nasa dropped a bombshell of a climate report,” said Jeff Masters and Bob Henson, who analyzed the data on the Weather Underground website.

“February dispensed with the one-month-old record by a full 0.21C – an extraordinary margin to beat a monthly world temperature record by.”

“This result is a true shocker, and yet another reminder of the incessant long-term rise in global temperature resulting from human-produced greenhouse gases,” said Masters and Henson.

“We are now hurtling at a frightening pace toward the globally agreed maximum of 2C warming over pre-industrial levels.”

amaps copy

The UN climate summit in Paris in December confirmed 2C as the danger limit for global warming which should not be passed. But it also agreed agreed to “pursue efforts” to limit warming to 1.5C, a target now looking highly optimistic.

Climate change is usually assessed over years and decades, and 2015 shattered the record set in 2014 for the hottest year seen, in data stretching back to 1850. The UK Met Office also expects 2016 to set a new record, meaning the global temperature record will have been broken for three years in a row.

One of the world’s three key temperature records is kept by Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (Giss) and its director Prof Gavin Schmidt reacted to the February Giss temperature measurements with a simple “wow”. He tweeted:

“We are in a kind of climate emergency now,” said Prof Stefan Rahmstorf, from the Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research in Germany. He told Fairfax Media: “This is really quite stunning ... it’s completely unprecedented.”

“This is a very worrying result,” said Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the London School of Economics, noting that each of the last five months globally have been hotter than any month preceding them.

“These results suggest that we may be even closer than we realized to breaching the [2C] limit. We have used up all of our room for manoeuvre. If we delay any longer strong cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, it looks like global mean surface temperature is likely to exceed the level beyond which the impacts of climate change are likely to be very dangerous.”

A major El Niño event, the biggest since 1998, is boosting global temperatures, but scientists are agreed that global warming driven by humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions is by far the largest factor in the astonishing run of temperature records.

Prof Adam Scaife, at the UK Met Office, said the very low levels of Arctic ice were also helping to raise temperatures: “There has been record low ice in the Arctic for two months running and that releases a lot of heat.” He said the Met Office had forecast a record-breaking 2016 in December: “It is not as if you can’t see these things coming.”

Ed Hawkins, a climate scientist at the University of Reading, UK, said: “It is a pretty big jump between January and February, although this data from Nasa is only the first set of global temperature data. We will need to see what the figures from NOAA and the Met Office say. It is in line with our expectations that due to the continuing effect of greenhouse gas emissions, combined with the effects of El Niño on top, 2016 is likely to beat 2015 as the warmest year on record.”

The record for an annual increase of atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, was also demolished in 2015.

Fossil fuel-burning and the strong El Niño pushed CO2 levels up by 3.05 parts per million (ppm) to 402.6 ppm compared to 2014. “CO2 levels are increasing faster than they have in hundreds of thousands of years,” said Pieter Tans, lead scientist at Noaa’s Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network. “It’s explosive compared to natural processes.”

This article originally appeared on guardian.co.uk.

SEE ALSO: What it's like inside the doomsday vault that stores every known crop on the planet

MORE: Sea levels are rising faster than they have in 28 centuries — and it spells a worrisome reality for New York City

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Animated map shows what the US would look like if all the Earth's ice melted

Amy Poehler has nothing on the water-guzzling 'Wet Prince' of Los Angeles

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amy poehler getty

California is well into its fourth year of drought, which experts say is the worst the state has seen in 1,200 years.

But many residents haven't changed their water usage in response to the crisis.

The situation so bad, and state government fines to cities so steep, that some municipalities have resorted to shaming customers who flagrantly waste water.

Actress and comedian Amy Poehler is the latest high-profile resident outed by the city of Beverly Hills, according to Matt Stevens at the Los Angeles Times.

Poehler's home in Beverly Hills allegedly used about 170,000 gallons from May 14 through July 14, 2015 — roughly 12,000 gallons per day. The average LA resident, meanwhile, uses about 196 gallons daily.

But if you think Poehler's reported water use is bad, prepare yourself.

Someone in Bel Air, the exclusive West LA neighborhood that's been home to celebrities from Kim Kardashian and Kanye West to Madonna and Adam Sandler, used close to 12 million gallons of water in a single year, according to the Center for Investigative Reporting.

That's 30,000 gallons of water each day, or enough water for roughly 90 regular-sized homes.

It's also the equivalent of flushing 400 toilets every hour, running two showers constantly, and having enough left over to water the lawn, according to The New York Times.

Los Angeles hasn't revealed the identity of the person who's being called the "Wet Prince of Bel Air"— the San Diego Union-Tribune reports "drought posses" have searched in vain for the user — but estimates from CIR put their total water bill, measured for the year ending April 1, 2015, at roughly $90,000.

To put that in perspective, the average household in the region forks over about $780 a year, Gary Breaux, chief financial officer of the region's water district, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, recently told CNBC.

By a rough estimate (and not taking into base fees), the Wet Prince, then, is using 115 times the normal amount.

Why some excessive use is a problem for everyone

California drought

As the NYTimes points out, the burden of excessive water use is not being borne equally in California.

In fact, the only reason the city, which has mandated a cutback in water use of 16%, is meeting its goals is thanks to some households that are actually conserving. Meanwhile, the city's top water users — many of whom own property with multiple pools, vast, lush lawns, and decorative fountains and waterfalls — face no fines.

This is all possible because of the state's complex approach to water. California has mandated that all districts cut back water use by "up to 36%," but it oversees 400 separate water districts. And each one gets to come up with its own water-conservation regulations.

Some utilities are slamming users that go over their monthly water allotment with "drought surcharges" which can reach hundreds of dollars, according to the NYTimes.

Others — like the one that oversees the Wet Prince — are doing nothing, and it remains to be seen if publicly shaming Poehler and other affluent water users actually works.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: A devastating look at the California drought

The Obama administration just made a major reversal on its drilling policy

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U.S. President Barack Obama delivers a speech after touring Saft America Advanced Batteries Plant in Jacksonville, Florida February 26, 2016. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

In a major reversal, the Obama administration says it will not allow oil drilling in the Atlantic Ocean.

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell made the announcement Tuesday on Twitter, declaring that the administration's next five-year offshore drilling plan "protects the Atlantic for future generations."

The announcement reverses a proposal made last year in which the administration floated a plan that would have opened up a broad swath of the Atlantic Coast to drilling. The January 2015 proposal would have opened up sites more than 50 miles off Virginia, North and South Carolina and Georgia to oil drilling no earlier than 2021.

The Interior Department said the latest decision responds to strong local opposition and conflicts with competing commercial and military ocean uses.

SEE ALSO: This country has oil prices set at $67 per barrel

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NOW WATCH: Why you should never throw away these bags again

The world's oldest message in a bottle spent 108 years at sea for a critical science experiment

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dabf568a 8e7b 4b40 88b2 04524eee9a11

The world's oldest message in a bottle was actually one of more than 1,000 identical bottles that helped shape our understanding of ocean currents.

Last August, retired post office worker Marianne Winkley discovered a mysterious bottle with a message inside on the shores of Amrum — an island in the German North Sea.

Rumors began circulating that Winkley had found the world's oldest message in a bottle, and on March 14 of this year, the official judge — the Guinness World Records — confirmed everyone's suspicions:

"After a careful review of the historic evidence, Guinness World Records has just confirmed that a mysterious postcard found on the shores of Amrum Island, Germany is the Oldest message in a bottle ever," Guinness World Records stated on their website.

The bottle is actually part of a science experiment conducted by British marine biologist George Parker Bidder III.

At the turn of the 20th century, before the age of satellites, GPS, and water-proof electronic trackers, Bidder released 1,020 bottles off the eastern shores of England to see which direction the bottles would travel.

Inside each bottle were clear instructions to break the bottle along with a postcard requesting that whoever discovered it describe where they found it and to return the postcard to the Marine Biological Association (MBA).

e53aa97e a128 4ab4 b6db 678d8b3693aa

More than half of the bottles were collected after the first few months, most of them by sailors, and Bidder was able to prove, for the first time, that the North Sea current flowed from east to west.

When Winkley discovered one of these bottles 108 years later, 310 miles away from the UK, she did exactly what the sailors had done: She completed the postcard and mailed it to the MBA.

While she's a little late to contribute to Bidder's scientific investigations, she can now officially say that she holds the Guinness World Record for discovering the world's oldest message in a bottle.

READ MORE: Astronomers discovered unexpected activity on a giant asteroid that could point to something huge

SEE ALSO: One of the world's foremost experts on crime reveals 7 telltale signs when someone is trying to con you

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NOW WATCH: Scientists discovered a potentially life-threatening side effect when you mix these two common medications

17 images showing how countries facing dire water shortages across the globe get this vital resource

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Water, Countries

Many countries throughout the world live without access to safe, clean water. Safe water is crucial to one's health — without it, people are more at risk to infectious diseases and even premature death. More than 840,000 people die every year from water-related illnesses. 

By 2025, it's estimated that a staggering 1.8 billion people will live in areas facing water shortage, according to National Geographic. 

Getting any kind of access to water is difficult for many countries — women living near the Sahara desert in Africa and in some parts of southern Asia have to walk an average of 3.7 miles to collect clean water. With World Water Day coming up on March 22, it is important that people are aware of the struggles countries are facing just to have clean, drinkable water. Here are some images showing how people around the world collect their water: 

SEE ALSO: Here's how long a person can survive without water

The southern Gaza Strip in Palestine has been going through a water crisis since 2014 due to Israeli bombs damaging the area's water. People now depend on the purification plants for drinking water, since more than three-fourths of the water pipelines were damaged.



In Sanaa, Yemen, women have to walk long distances to collect water for their families. Yemen's main source of water is water tanks — which are rapidly increasing in prices — causing the country to be low on water.



People in Caracas, Venezuela get their water from a spring next to the Avila mountain.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

People around the world will turn off the lights at 8:30 p.m. tonight — here’s why

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Earth Hour Bangkok

At 8:30 p.m. (local time), the world is going to turn off the lights for an hour.

The reason? It's Earth Hour

This year, Earth Hour aims to capitalize on the excitement generated by the historic climate talks in Paris this past November.

"Earth Hour reminds us that while people are on the front line of climate change, they are also our first line of defense. Our actions today, as individuals and the global community, have the power to transform what the world will look like for generations to come," Siddarth Das, Earth Hour's Global executive director, said in a statement via  Reuters

Tokyo Earth Hour

Earth Hour is an ongoing campaign started by the World Wildlife Federation to raise awareness for climate change issues around the world.

The first Earth Hour was held in 2007 in Sydney, Australia. Since then, it has exploded across the world. In 2015, 172 countries participated by shutting the lights for a full hour.

Already, cities around the world are unplugging as the clock strikes 8:30 p.m. local time:

The beautiful At-Taqwa mosque in Balikpapan, Indonesia, powers down for #EarthHour 2016! #iniaksiku Photo by @wwf_id

A photo posted by Earth Hour (@earthhourofficial) on Mar 19, 2016 at 7:28am PDT on

 

 

 And here you can see the highlights from 2015:

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The last big storm of the winter is coming — here are the towns that could get creamed

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It's not looking like the first day of spring in Boston.

A big storm is headed for New England on Sunday evening, with 5 inches to 8 inches of snow expected to slam Boston late that evening and into Monday morning.

Here's an image of the official snow forecast (in inches) for the Northeast between Sunday and Monday. As you can see, some areas south of Boston, including Providence, Rhode Island; and Plympton, Massachusetts; are expected to get between 9 inches and 12 inches of powder, according to the National Weather Service.

Boston itself is expected to see about 7 inches of snow:

StormTotalSnowWeb1

Forecasters expect most of the snow to fall between 6:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. Sunday night, but they say it'll likely keep falling through Monday morning.

"A mixture of rain and snow is expected to change to all snow this evening and continue into Monday morning over portions of the Northeast and southern New England," according to a weather alert posted by the National Weather Service on Sunday morning. "Heavy snow is expected from eastern Long Island to Boston including Cape Cod and Rhode Island."

The forecasts are based largely on three different weather-prediction models, which meteorologists use to get a better idea of what's coming:

  • The North American Mesoscale model (NAM): This model, which successfully predicted the late January blizzard, is run four times a day, provides forecasts as far out as 3.5 days, and reportedly provides finer detail than other operational models.
  • The Global Forecast System model (GFS): Run four times a day in two parts, forecasts weather up to 16 days in advance, but with decreasing accuracy over time.
  • The Rapid Precision Mesoscale model (RPM): Produces forecasts as far out as 24 hours with updates every three hours in the US and every six hours outside the US.

For this storm, the models differ slightly in their predictions, but most tell the Northeast to expect anything from heavy rain to some snow.

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The 10 cities with the worst air pollution in the world have air that's up to 15 times dirtier than what is considered healthy

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India pollution

Last week, the World Health Organization reported that an estimated 8.2 million deaths a year are linked to air pollution. 

And that number is on the rise.

The most harmful pollutant to human health is called PM 2.5, short for particle matter that's less than 2.5 microns in diameter. It's found in soot, smoke, and dust and lodges in the lungs causing long-term health problems like asthma and chronic lung disease.

PM 2.5 starts to become a health problem when there is more than 35.5 micrograms of PM 2.5 per cubic meter (written like 35.5 µg/m3) of air, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. But WHO recommends that PM 2.5 shouldn't even exceed 10 µg/m3.

The most polluted cities on Earth have anywhere from nine to 15 times that amount — based on information from the WHO — and you might be surprised which make the top 10 list. Check them out:

 

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10. Lucknow, India - 96 µg/m3 of PM 2.5

Lucknow, a city in northern India, starts off the top 10 cities with the worst air pollution levels list. It still significantly has a high average air pollution level that falls into the "unhealthy" category. Vehicle emissions are a major factor in Lucknow's air pollution problem.



9. Ahmedabad, India - 100 µg/m3 of PM 2.5

India's western city Ahmedabad gets its air pollution in part from the major construction happening in the city.



8. Khorramabad, Iran - 102 µg/m3 of PM 2.5

Khorramabad, a city in western Iran, had the country's highest air pollution levels. One of the most populous cities in Iran, Khorramabad is an agriculture hub, which likely contributes to its air pollution problems.  



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Caribbean nations are trying to make styrofoam illegal

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styrofoam cup

Sick and tired of seeing their white sand beaches tainted by garbage, Caribbean nations are at the vanguard of international efforts to eliminate plastic waste.

On April 1, a ban on Styrofoam products will come into force in Guyana. The small island nation of Dominica is working on banning Styrofoam this year, too. And Antigua and Barbuda is hoping to phase out plastic bags by July.

"It is a progressive program that we are on," Antigua and Barbuda Health Minister Molwyn Joseph told teleSUR. "We want to clean up this environment. We want to encourage people to use biodegradable materials for storage and as containers for food and drinks."

The efforts are small in relative terms — the total population of the three island countries is around 900,000 — but they might help curb the 8 million tons of plastic that are estimated to leak into the ocean annually, according to a recent Ellen MacArthur Foundation report. Plastic doesn't decompose quickly (Styrofoam can take more than 500 years to breakdown), which means around 150 million tons of plastic are floating in the oceans, the report said.

"Like a stranglehold, Styrofoam latches itself around the neck of the environment, shortening its breath and its cries going fainter with each passing day," said a Guyanese Environmental Protection statement issued in January.

Experts lauded the island nations' efforts, but also warned that they don't rush headlong into banning plastics without considering the host of issues that often accompany the move.

"Every time we reduce an uninvited guest to the environment, it's a good thing," said Christopher Reddy, a marine chemist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. "But you have to balance that with the alternatives — whether they are better or not — and the reality of whether or not we are going to make difference."

Ocean PlasticReddy was especially skeptical of Guyana's attempt to shift to biodegradable materials to replace Styrofoam, including bagasse paper, which is made from sugar cane fiber. Some biodegradable materials take decades to decompose or they might breakdown only under certain conditions, like warm temperatures, he said.

"There is a difference between whether it can biodegrade and whether it will biodegrade," Reddy said. "The difference is huge."

Still, he admitted that Caribbean countries were correct to try to cut plastic from their economy and waste streams.

"Certainly just reducing their usage is a good idea," Reddy said. "These island nations have to have clean beaches."

It's not clear if Caribbean governments have the wherewithal to enforce their bans, however.

Leaders in Haiti, where the state holds a tenuous grasp on authority, twice passed plastic bans a few years ago. But they have yet to make a dent on the plastic pollution that is piling up in the impoverished country.

"Garbage — organic, plastic, construction materials, everything — strewn by the side of the road," wrote activist Barbara Rhine recently in Counterpunch after visiting Haiti. "No way of handling refuse in a healthy manner — there seems to me to be no effective government at all right now in Haiti."

plastic oceanGuyana instituted its ban on January 1. But opposition from restaurants, importers, and others businesses convinced the government to postpone the ban until April as they used up their inventories of plastic containers. The country is considering lowering tariffs on materials that businesses might import to replace Styrofoam to lessen their costs.

Biodegradable alternatives cost more because of a government import tax, claimed restaurateurs in Guyana, who said they would try to follow the ban, but didn't want to go out of business.

"What is the government willing to give in exchange?" Francis Bristol, a deli owner in Georgetown, told the Guyana Chronicle. "If you are going to take something from the people, you must be able to give something in return, and for me the answer is a waiver on the taxes."

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Winter Storm Selene is coming — here's where it will probably strike

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The first week of spring is here, but don't break out your shorts yet — a storm is coming.

According to The Weather Channel, Winter Storm Selene is gathering up strength in the Rockies, and it's set to track eastward over the next week. The Midwest, New England, and New York state are all predicted to be affected.

Already, the storm is dumping snow in the Rockies, with over a foot expected in Utah, Montana, Wyoming, on Tuesday. Forecasters are also expecting up to a foot of accumulation over the Great Lakes in the coming days. In the graphic below, you can see Selene over the Rockies. Yellow arrows show the storm's expected path eastward throughout the week:

Winter Storm Selene

Meteorologists expect Selene to dump a mixture of snow and rain over the Midwest by Wednesday, and it's possible that upstate New York and New England will be affected as early as Wednesday night.

On Thursday morning, forecasters are expecting a wintry mix over New York state and northern New England continuing through Friday, with up to 6 inches of accumulation possible.

While the storm should dissipate by the time it hits the east, it's possible that northern Maine will still receive a foot of snow by Friday.

Here's the Weather Channel's Thursday forecast:

Winter Storm Selene

As the storm continues, meteorologists should be able to predict with more certainty where snowfall will occur.

In the meantime, don't put away your shovels just yet.

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The wine industry is preparing for a major change

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pouring drinking white wine

Wine grapes are one of the most valuable horticultural crops in the world, a globally important industry with commercial vineyards on six continents and all 50 U.S. states. Like many crops, these vineyards, and their grapes, are extremely sensitive to temperature and rainfall during the growing season.

Climate and weather can affect the timing of harvest, the amount of fruit produced and even the ultimate quality of the wine. And with warming from human greenhouse gas emissions already manifesting in many regions, there are concerns about how climate change will affect wine-making and the wine industry in the coming decades.

My colleague Elizabeth Wolkovich of Harvard University and I analyzed 400 years (1600-2007) of data from France and Switzerland to show that climate change is already affecting wine grape harvests. These data are drawn from different historical sources and provide an unparalleled opportunity to look at recent changes compared to a time before the human climate change signal emerged.

Our analysis showed that wine harvests are happening earlier, which has historically been a harbinger of high-quality wines. But we also found that changing local weather conditions could make it harder to determine when to expect high-quality wines, and that higher temperatures could force wine growers to use different grape varieties.

Centuries of harvest dates

We examined the historical records of harvest dates from many famous wine regions in France, including Bordeaux, Burgundy and the Loire Valley. Then we used reconstructions of climate – temperature, rainfall, soil moisture – from other historical documents and growth patterns in tree rings from the region.

We first noticed a remarkable shift in recent decades toward earlier wine grape harvests. Since 1981, harvests are occurring about 10 days earlier than the average for the last 400 years, with only two years since 1981 occurring late.

This trend toward earlier harvests is caused by recent warming that can be mostly attributed to human emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels. Warmer summers mean that the grapes mature and ripen more quickly, translating to harvests that must happen earlier.

Importantly, our analysis also revealed that the way climate is affecting harvests has also been changing.

The temperature during the growing season is the single most important driver of fruit ripening, and thus when the harvest begins. But before 1981, you also needed a drought (low rainfall and soil moisture) to get a summer hot enough to cause an early harvest.

If the summer is rainy and the soils are wet, energy absorbed at the surface is mostly used to evaporate water. The process of evaporation takes up heat from the surface and keeps the soils and air near the surface relatively cool.

In contrast, during a drought the soils are dry and the heat from the atmosphere reduces moisture at the surface. Very little evaporation can occur, and the excess heat instead goes into warming up the soils and the air. Dry summers therefore mean hot summers, making it much easier to reach the critical heat thresholds needed for an early ripening and harvest. It’s these conditions that have historically led to higher-quality wines.

Since 1980, however, climate change has made the last several decades significantly warmer in many regions of the world, including Western Europe. This extra heat and warming now means that summers in France and Western Europe can get hot enough to cause an early harvest even without drought conditions.

This shift can be very consequential to wine-growing and wine quality. Early harvests in recent decades no longer mean warm and dry; they can also mean warm and wet. Harvest timing has, effectively, been disconnected from moisture, thanks to global warming.

Heat threshold

What does this change to local conditions mean for the wine industry?

Traditionally, in regions like France, early harvests have meant better wines. (In our study, we used rankings from a book that rated French wines in order to control for factors like age since bottling.) But because of the close connection between drought and early harvests, this has meant that higher-quality wines have also been associated with hot and dry summers. Now that early harvests can be wet or dry, drought is no longer a good predictor of wine quality.

Still, thanks in part to these warming-induced trends toward earlier harvests in recent decades, there has also been an overall trend toward increased wine quality, despite the change in drought effects. And we expect, with continued future warming from climate change, for harvest dates to continue advancing.

There is likely a limit, however, to how much earlier the fruit can mature and the harvest occur and still have this translate to higher-quality wines.

The harvest in 2003 provides a clear example of this. A record-breaking heat wave during this summer caused the earliest harvest in our 400-year record, about one month earlier than average.

But despite such an exceptionally early harvest, this year did not produce especially exceptional wines. With climate change expected to make events like the summer of 2003 – with very early harvest times compared to the historical record – more likely, this extreme year may be a good example of where the region is headed.

As temperatures rise, it suggests there may be some kind of threshold beyond which the continuing advancement of harvest dates is not going to help yield high-quality vintages.

Certainly, the science of viticulture and wine-making involves much more than the weather and climate, and our results do not forecast an inevitable future in which we are doomed to drinking inferior wines.

Wine production and quality depend on many factors, human and natural, including soils, topography, climate and the skill of the wine maker and vineyard manager.

But our results demonstrate that climate change is already affecting harvests, and that previous patterns – with droughts signaling early harvests and high-quality wines – have begun to change in the face of global warming.

What can viticulture actually do about this? Wine growers will need to consider changing their practices to a world that is rapidly moving to a place where the old climate rules may no longer apply.

The Conversation

Benjamin I. Cook, Climate Scientist, Columbia University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Here's what SeaWorld's striking decision to end its orca breeding program means for other exhibits

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seaworld orca trainer

When SeaWorld announced it would stop breeding orcas and begin to phase out “theatrical performances” using the animals, the news appeared to mark a significant change in ideas about animals and captivity.

Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), and Joel Manby, CEO of SeaWorld, promoted their new partnership in interviews.

After a long history of mutual recrimination, the two organizations say they’ll work together to provide needed support for wild marine creatures in distress and to improve the circumstances of currently captive orcas in the U.S. As SeaWorld’s Manby put it:

It’s clear to me that society is shifting. People’s view to have these beautiful, majestic animals under human care – people are more and more uncomfortable with that. And no matter what side you are on this issue, it’s clear that that’s shifting, and we need to shift with that.

If there is indeed a shift going on, it seems to be more in the rhetoric of the animal exhibition industries than in public comfort (or discomfort) with seeing large animals in captivity.

Changing with the times

For anyone interested in the history of exhibiting exotic animals, the news that people’s expectations have changed and that zoological gardens, aquariums and circuses are responsive to those changes can’t help but illicit a little cynicism.

The SeaWorld/HSUS announcement echoes news from last year that Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus decided to phase out elephant performances and retire the animals to a state-of-the-art sanctuary. In both cases, the companies were clearly facing growing public criticism damaging their bottom lines. They appear to have made business decisions to protect their brands and refocus the public’s attention on what they describe as more critical core missions.

At the same time, both announcements were framed as having resulted from the recognition that the times have changed — “that society is shifting” — and that change is making circumstances better for animals in captivity. This claim reaches far beyond charismatic whales and elephants and is deployed for all kinds of new policies and exhibits.

Later this month, for example, the London Zoo will open its “breath-taking” newest exhibit, “Land of the Lions,” featuring “thrilling, immersive Indian-themed areas to explore — including a train station, crumbling temple clearing, high street and guard hut.” The exhibit is described as an “interactive adventure,” through which visitors will “get closer than ever before to mighty Asiatic lions.”

As remarkable as this exhibit sounds, a video of the queen officially opening the exhibit shows a fairly unsurprising couple of female lions “activated” by having food dispersed in a relatively small exhibit with wire fencing.

But the times have been changing for a while

Young children get a close-up view of an Orca killer whale during a visit to the animal theme park SeaWorld in San Diego, California March 19, 2014   REUTERS/Mike Blake

I’m not sure whether the queen felt transported to India in visiting this exhibit. What is clear, though, is that the zoo wants us to believe that this exhibit is something entirely novel. This sort of claim is very old, indeed.

Even in 1869, for example, almost 150 years ago, an editorial appeared in the Daily News of London describing a proposed new lion house for this same zoo. Pointing to a history of “dismal menagerie cages,“ the article heralded a new vision of “displaying lions and tigers, in what may be called by comparison a state of nature" and the public can look forward to seeing “lions at play, free as their own jungle home; tigers crouching, springing, gamboling, with as little restraint as the low plains of their native India.”

Ever since public zoos began to be built in the 19th century, there’s been a consistent rhetorical pattern behind any proposed new zoo or aquarium or exhibit.

The argument typically runs something like this: whereas in the past our exhibits have been disappointing, uninspiring and small, our new exhibit will finally make it seem like the animals are not in captivity. As importantly, the animals themselves will also finally be happy.

Unfortunately, almost all of these new exhibits turn out to be somehow less than was envisioned, less than was hoped…simply less.

This is not to say that exhibits haven’t in fact gotten better. Exhibited animals are in general better cared for and healthier in all ways than they used to be.

Each generation of exhibits does tend to improve on what came before; elephant exhibits being built at the more ambitious zoos of today, like the Oregon Zoo’s “Elephant Lands,” for example, have typically radically improved the conditions for the animals, keepers and the visiting public. And these changes have been pushed by public concerns along with the ambitions of designers and directors to provide better circumstances for the animals.

But all that doesn’t alter the fact of captivity. And that fact will, as best as I can tell, continue to undermine whatever rhetorical gestures may be made declaring a new day for animals and people.

The Conversation

Nigel Rothfels, Director of the Office of Undergraduate Research, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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