Green plex Environmental Blog

By Jonathan Vigliotti Two of Hawaii's largest volcanoes are erupting simultaneously. Hawaii's Mauna Loa, the world's largest active volcano,  erupted for the first time  in decades on Sunday night. Nearby, Kilauea is also erupting — both on the archipelago's Big Island. Dual eruptions haven't been seen  since 1984 . "This is a rare time where we have two eruptions happening simultaneously," Jessica Ferracane, a spokesperson for Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, told CBS News. "To the people of Hawaii, this is a very sacred event that we are watching."  The  Kilauea volcano , which is smaller and more active than Mauna Loa, had been erupting since 1983, and in 2018, its lava flows destroyed hundreds of homes on the island. Recently, its eruption activity has been confined to the crater, according to the  U.S. Geological Survey. Scientists say two new lava flows formed Tuesday on Mauna Loa, which last erupted in 1984. The Hawaii Emergency Management ...

  BY CARLY CASSELLA For something as chaotic as the wind, meteorologists tend to have a pretty good grip on the kinds of circulating air patterns we might expect to see whipping up storms around the globe. One, it seems, has until now slipped under the radar. In an effort to better understand contrasts in ocean temperature in the Indian Ocean, scientists have uncovered a new kind of tropical cyclone that occurs several times a year off the coast of Sumatra. The unique, short-lived storms occur on a cyclical basis in the southeastern Indian Ocean. They tend to start swirling in winter and spring (in the Southern Hemisphere), when westerly equatorial winds meet north-westerly winds. Researchers are fairly familiar with the sloshing about of large volumes of air close to the westerly equatorial winds through the summer months, specifically known as the Boreal Summer Intra-Seasonal Oscillation. But the periodicity of these oscillations didn't quite match the storms' patterns, invit...

  By Romardo Lyons Charcoal burning is hailed as a dependable source of income by those who do it, especially at Christmastime when there is increased demand. Officials maintain and warn that not only is the practice illegal, but it poses serious threats to the environment, which is home to over 300 endemic species of trees, as at 2021. Jamaica is now only 30 per cent (336,000 hectares) forested lands, with the rate of deforestation being about 350 hectares per year – another reason why officials shun charcoal burning. But a St Thomas-based vendor said he chops thousands of wood to burn from 50 to 100 bags of charcoal from coal kilns, and described it is an easy job. "It take me all two weeks fi done everything. I get the wood from anywhere in woodland… anywhere mi can find some wood. But it depends on the size and the amount of wood. If it is a big kiln, I can get 50, 100 bag of coal from it when everything done. Me hear sehh we nuffi cut down tree and dem thing deh. It look like...

By Suzette A. Haughton, 2002 Americas Project fellow from Jamaica Water security is inextricably linked to human survival, health, and economic and social well-being. Water scarcity in Jamaica has brought serious development and social challenges. A recent United Nations Development Programme report projected that by 2025, water scarcity will affect 1.8 billion people globally. Currently, 1.1 billion people in developing countries  lack adequate access to water . Moreover, food insecurity driven by water scarcity is negatively impacting developing countries, and Jamaica is no exception. Water access in Jamaica is linked to power, inequality and poverty. Seventy-one percent of Jamaica’s 2.7 million people have piped water, with 5.7 percent of residents relying on water from rivers and 3.1 depending on pond water. One-third of Jamaica’s poorest households rely on standpipes to obtain water, and 30 percent of the poorest households obtain untreated water from sources such as rivers. O...

  Click here to watch documentary Can We Cool The Planet By  Christine Casatelli Since the Industrial Revolution, humanity has been running an experiment in the Earth’s atmosphere, pushing the climate to new extremes. With the Earth’s temperature on the rise, researchers are working urgently not only to stop CO2 from being released into the atmosphere but also to remove or counteract the warming from the CO2 that is there already. In  Can We Cool the Planet?  (premiering on Wed, 10/28 at 9pm on GBH 2), GBH’s science series NOVA introduces scientists and engineers from around the world who are developing new technologies to mimic Earth’s operating system — from manipulating our atmosphere to reflect more sunlight, to building machines that suck carbon dioxide right out of the air, to planting trees to do the job for us.  More than 50 researchers and scientists in the US, Canada, Iceland and Switzerland were interviewed for the film, which took 14 months to produ...

There is a health and environmental crisis developing in a section of Portmore, St. Catherine following the revelation that some residents in Edgewater have resorted to disposing of their garbage in the lagoon.   A resident of Edgewater, Rodney Davy, told  Radio Jamaica News  that for more than one month, no garbage has been collected.   Mr. Davy said some residents dump the garbage in the lagoon or pay to have it done.    "We have seen garbage trucks pass but they have not stopped so far.... If you go by [the lagoon], there are tons of garbage down there because people have to find other ways and means to dispose of their garbage," he disclosed.    Member of Parliament for St. Catherine South Eastern Robert Miller is appealing to the residents to desist from this practice.    "We understand that the state have [sic] a duty to collect your solid waste, but we encourage you not to litter our surrounding, not to damage our environment, bec...

  Ozone is a form of oxygen that shows up in our atmosphere. Instead of two atoms bound together, which is the form we breath, this is three atoms that bind under certain circumstances. The contradiction is that it is toxic for us to inhale, but is vital to protecting life on Earth. The toxic form of ozone is a form of pollution that occurs more commonly in the summer when pollution interacts with high angle sunlight and high temperatures. This is also one component of smog. This is why we have ‘Ozone Action Days’ sometimes during a heat wave. The essential form of ozone is much higher in the sky in the stratosphere. This is above the weather portion of our sky and above the normal flight path of commercial planes between 10 and about 30 miles above the ground.   This is a more natural location for that molecule, where it serves to block harmful ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Without it, most life on our planet could not exist.    So basically, we need this. The...