Archive for July 4, 2013

Erkin | July 4, 2013
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How did our water get so dirty?

In 1972, the United States legislature passed the Clean Water Act due to a crisis in the nation’s water purity. The purpose of the act was to restore the chemical, biological, and physical nature of our nation’s waterways that had been so damaged by pollution.

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The goal of the act was that, by 1985, no more pollutants would be discharged into the water supply and all of our nation’s rivers, streams, and lakes would be fishable and swimmable once more. Every city was required to install a water treatment plant, and every industry was required to use the best available technology to limit the amount of pollutants that entered water sources (Outwater, 1996). Under these stringent demands, water quality began to improve slightly. Still, almost two decades after the year of supposed goal fulfillment, about a third of the nation’s waterways continue to be polluted. Read more

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Erkin | July 2, 2013
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Arctic’s sea ice melts to record low

arcticArctic ice-melting this summer has already been so extreme that it has easily passed the last record low, set in 2007.

Sea ice cover in the Arctic has fallen to its lowest level since satellite records began 33 years ago, scientists said recently, prompting experts to warn the world had entered “uncharted territory” in the rate of climate change.

But as the annual summer melting period ends, scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado said the Arctic’s sea ice “extent” – the total area that is at least 15 per cent ice – had fallen to just 3.41m square kilometres, or 1.32m square miles. This is nearly 50 per cent lower than the average recorded from 1979 to 2000 and well below the September 2007 record low of 4.17m sq km, leading some to warn that the climate may be changing faster than previously forecast. Read more

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