Good News Notes: “Americans aren’t the biggest wine sippers in the world — imbibing a mere 3.2 gallons per person in 2020 versus the 16 gallons guzzled by Portuguese residents, according to estimates from the industry’s primary source of stats. But the habit still translates into a whole lot of single-use bottles: About 4.3 billion of…
Tag: carbon dioxide
This NASA-inspired technology converts carbon dioxide into food.
Good News Notes: “NASA asked the same question in the 1960s. And the challenge of feeding a year-long space mission led to a remarkable discovery: when astronauts exhale, the carbon dioxide in their breath can be captured by a special class of microbes – and potentially turned into nutrients. Now an American company has taken…
NASA is learning how to farm on Mars and the moon
Good News Notes: “Whether from continent to continent or coast to coast, people have always made their big moves together with plants. Traveling away from Earth would be no different. Our success on other worlds will rest, in part, on the supple stems of plants. “Plants are things that we take with us as explorers,”…
Inventor creates new material that can keep buildings cool without air conditioning
Good News Notes: “A Boston professor created an invention that reflects the heat off of rooftops and even sucks the heat out of homes and buildings — and the real kicker is that it is 100 percent recyclable. Yi Zheng, associate professor of mechanical and industrial engineering at Northeastern University, created “cooling paper” so that…
Ex-Reddit CEO raises $30M to offer ‘reforestation in a box’
Good News Notes: “Over the past 4.5 billion years (give or take a few hundred million), the Earth has cultivated many perfect examples of circular economy principles — including the natural patterns through which water is withdrawn from rivers, springs, streams, lakes (and so forth) through evaporation and returned through rainfalls both gentle and stormy. …
Carbon-capture tech removes CO2 from the ocean by making seashells
Good News Notes: “Even as renewable energy and zero-emissions transportation scale up and the rest of the global economy slowly decarbonizes, it’s likely that the world will still need to suck an enormous amount of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to tackle climate change—10 billion metric tons per year by the middle of the…
This start-up has developed a way for businesses to quickly compost food waste
Good News Notes: “When food waste goes to landfill it releases methane, a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon dioxide. One way to make sure your leftovers aren’t left to rot like this is to put them to use by turning them into compost. Properly composting food waste can significantlyreduce the amount of methane it…
We found methane-eating bacteria living in a common Australian tree. It could be a game changer for curbing greenhouse gases
Good News Notes: “Trees are the Earth’s lungs – it’s well understood they drawdown and lock up vast amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But emerging research is showing trees can also emit methane, and it’s currently unknown just how much. This could be a major problem, given methane is a greenhouse gas about…
Making Cleaner, Greener, Biodegradable Plastics From Waste Fish Parts
Good News Notes: “Polyurethanes, a type of plastic, are nearly everywhere — in shoes, clothes, refrigerators, and construction materials. But these highly versatile materials can have a major downside. Derived from crude oil, toxic to synthesize, and slow to break down, conventional polyurethanes are not environmentally friendly. Today, researchers discuss devising what they say should…
More EVs by 2050 could save thousands of lives, American Lung Association finds
Good News Notes: “America has a pollution problem, especially when it comes to how we get around. From our semi-trucks to trains to school buses to personal cars, we’re emitting too much carbon dioxide. And it’s costing us our health, environment, money, and lives. The American Lung Association released its “‘Road to Clean Air‘ report…