By Valerie Nikolas, Jan. 14, 2019 – Glaciers in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres are rapidly retreating in sync, a trend unique to the accelerating pace of warming in which the Earth is currently caught. Researchers such as University of Maine geologist Noel Potter, who studies glacial retreat in New Zealand, observe this trend with increasing frequency.…
Safety requirements for Antarctic climate scientists can take your wisdom teeth
By Stephanie Fox, Jan. 12, 2019– What do Antarctic climate scientists and Nordic Vikings have in common? More than you’d think. After being cast out of Iceland for murdering his neighbor, Erik the Red, the notorious Viking who walked the Earth around 985 A.D., braved the unforgiving seas in search of a new home. That’s…
ANTARCTIC ICE RESEARCH SHEDS LIGHT ON PAST TO HELP PREDICT WHERE CLIMATE CHANGE IS HEADING
By Hannah Magnuson, Dec. 20, 2018 – Tiny bubbles of gas trapped in glacial ice are giving scientists clues about Earth’s sea level 125,000 years ago. The gas bubbles serve as bite-sized samples of ancient atmosphere for researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego. They traveled to the…
U.S. GREEN ENERGY POLICY COULD REAP RESULTS – GERMANY SHOWS THE PROMISE
By Jillian Melero, Dec. 16, 2018 – Tapping into wind and solar and other green energy technologies, the U.S. can produce 80 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2050, compared to 17 percent produced in 2017. That’s the conclusion of a study conducted by the Department of Energy. And the transition is a necessary step…
WHAT CAN WE DO TO SLOW CLIMATE CHANGE?
By Karyn Simpson, Dec. 20, 2018 – Columbia University Geology Professor Wally Broecker, the pioneering grandfather of climate science, laid it on the line. The two ways we know of to bring down civilization are nuclear bombs or carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels, the driving force of climate change, he said this fall during…
SCIENTISTS INVESTIGATE HOW THE “OCEAN PUMP” IS SLOWING GLOBAL WARMING
By Karyn Simpson, Dec. 16, 2018 – Scientists are taking a serious look at ocean biological systems that temper carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and trap them in the ocean depths, a way to slow global warming and put off the 2° C (3.6° F) tipping point in temperature rise that would trigger disastrous…
COMED’S GREEN ENERGY INNOVATION PARTNERING WITH HISTORIC BRONZEVILLE
by Jillian Melero, Dec. 19, 2018 – Bronzeville, the South Side home of Chicago’s Black Renaissance and the birthplace of Black History Month, hopes to launch its next Golden Age with support from a smart microgrid being installed by utility ComEd. The microgrid will tap green energy to help power the community. Once completed in…
HOW MUCH CARBON DIOXIDE CAN WE LOCK IN THE DEEP OCEANS?
Aaron Dorman, Dec. 16, 2018 – Natural ocean biology can help remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by trapping it in surface algae that sinks to the bottom of the sea. That’s the focus of research by two Columbia University scientists. These studies concluded that iron fertilization of the oceans surrounding Antarctica had occurred in…
SCIENTISTS SEARCH ANCIENT ICE FOR CLUES AS GREENLAND ICE MELT RAPIDLY INCREASES
By Jillian Melero, Dec. 16, 2018 – The Greenland ice sheet is more than three times the size of Texas, 2 miles deep at its thickest point. And it’s melting. Not only is it melting, but it’s melting at a rate not seen in 400 years, according to a paper published in Geophysical Research Letters in…
CLIMATE SCIENTISTS PURSUE CRITICAL RESEARCH AS THE PACE OF SEA LEVEL RISE, EXTREME WEATHER ACCELERATE
By Hannah Magnuson, Dec. 16, 2018 – Climate scientists veterans Richard Alley, Wally Broecker and George Denton have witnessed immense changes during their decades-spanning careers. They’re buoyed by scientific advances, but also see critical mitigation needs amid public apathy – and a policy gridlock. Despite political stagnation, the scientists persist with pioneering research to map…
ADDRESS CLIMATE CHANGE TO REAP ECONOMIC BOON BY 2030, SCIENTISTS AND ECONOMISTS SAY
By Jillian Melero, Nov. 15, 2018 – Climate change is rapidly taking the world as we know it into uncharted territory. What we do next and how quickly we do it can shape the degree to which changes are catastrophic – with an escalation in wildfires, drought, flooding, food shortages, and severe storms – or…
RESEARCHERS AGREE – TAXING CARBON EMISSIONS OFFERS A SOLUTION TO CLIMATE CHANGE
By Valerie Nikolas, Nov. 13, 2018 – “We have to put a price on carbon,” Columbia University scientist Wallace Broecker, the geoclimatologist who coined the phrase “global warming” in a 1975 study, said at the Comer Climate Conference held in southwestern Wisconsin in early October. The latest United Nations’ climate change report and the Nobel…
SOME ICE SHEET EXPANSION COULD BE CAUSED BY WARMING TEMPERATURES
By Stephanie Fox, Nov. 1, 2018 – Antarctic ice sheets anchored on land show evidence of expanding even as atmospheric and oceanic warming accelerates, according to research conducted by an undergraduate scientist. The data shows that the expansion of alpine glaciers, or tall glaciers found within bowl-shaped hollows on mountains, may have been occurring for…
“LAKE MAFIA” GETS TOUGH ON CLIMATE CHANGE
By Aaron Dorman, Oct. 31, 2018 – An alpine forest turns into a desert within a mere 16,000 years – the geologic equivalent of a blink of an eye. The transformation is just one climate mystery waiting to be solved. Wondering what drives local rainfall? Curious about tipping points for the entire global weather system?…
CHICAGO SAFFRON COMPANY SPICES UP LOCAL ECONOMY IN RURAL AFGHANISTAN
Maddie Burakoff and Nefertari Bilal – When Keith Alaniz was serving in the U.S. military in Afghanistan, he noticed a challenge for local farmers. Though they were turning around great products, he said, there was no way for them to reach buyers beyond the local markets. Then Alaniz met Haji Yosef, a farmer who would…
SUSTAINABILITY MAKES GOOD NEIGHBORS AND GOOD CENTS
By Jessica Mordacq and Izzabelle Murillo Video by HyoJung Kim Medill Reports, April 10, 2018 – Plant Chicago, a nonprofit housed in a former meat processing warehouse now called The Plant, facilitates a local circular economy involving several niche businesses. This circular economy means waste from one business becomes resources for another. The Plant, located in…
THE PLANT SPEARHEADS EDUCATION AND ECOLOGY AS COMMUNITY COLLABORATIONS
By Laura Zomosa – “You have reached Sawyer Elementary School. Para español, oprima número dos.” Sidney Sawyer Elementary School sits nestled between Brighton Park and Gage Park, just outside of the Back of the Yards neighborhood on the South Side. On an unseasonably warm Tuesday in March, students from Laura Gluckman’s sixth grade science class took a field…
AQUAPONICS AT PLANT CHICAGO: URBAN FARMING AND A CIRCULAR ECONOMY
By Grace Wade and Lauren Bell – It is an unassuming brick building located in the Back of the Yards, a South Side neighborhood that once housed the Union Stockyards. But a massive mural of gardeners, produce and farm animals painted on the side of the brick building hints at something more than an abandoned…
SACRED SERVE: A CONSCIOUS CREAMERY IN A COLLABORATIVE COMMUNITY
Text by Elizabeth Guthrie, Video by HyoJung Kim Medill Reports, April 9, 2018 Sacred Serve calls itself a “conscious creamery,” producing vegan gelato in delicious flavors such as Salted Coconut Caramel and Matcha Mint Chip with organic and non-GMO ingredients. Tucked away in the Back of the Yards, a neighborhood still named for the long-gone Union…
PLANT CHICAGO MUSEUM PRESERVES STOCKYARDS’ GRITTY LEGACY AMID A HIVE OF GREEN BUSINESSES
By Leah Dunlevy- Chicago’s Back of the Yards neighborhood is drawing in an influx of green businesses through Plant Chicago. The local nonprofit enterprise has created an environmentally sustainable business model with company partners that recycle wastes from one operation as resources for another in a vintage warehouse, itself recycled into The Plant. Plant Chicago and a…
A POST-INDUSTRIAL VISION BRINGS NEW BUSINESSES TO BACK OF THE YARDS
By Molly Glick April 9,2018 – Jim Gonksa left his home in Chicago’s Back of the Yards over 45 years ago when his father’s meatpacking job relocated to Bradley, Illinois, where land and rents were more affordable. Today, the majority of the neighborhood’s once-thriving meat processing plants have disappeared. The former Peer Foods factory site on…
FOUR LETTER WORD COFFEE: REVOLUTIONIZING THE ‘CLEAN’ CUP
By Nadine Daher and Jennimai Nguyen Four Letter Word, the coffee company based at The Plant in a refurbished meat packing warehouse, brews up exotic flavor, cleanliness and minimalism with whole new meaning. Their distribution coffee bags are simple — nothing on them but the name of the coffee beans’ country of origin, while the company logo…
THE PLANT HELPS REVITALIZE CHICAGO’S BACK OF THE YARDS NEIGHBORHOOD
By Kira Fahmy, Luodan Rojas and Alex Schwartz. Photos by Alex Schwartz. The room is a wide open space; the brick walls are mostly bare except for several clusters of pictures and informational placards. This could be any refurbished industrial warehouse, but for the telltale metal rails that run along the ceiling. They are a reminder…
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