Skip to main content

fossil fuels

Steam at inflow to tailings pond at Syncrude's Mildred Lake bitumen refinery Oil sands north of Fort McMurray, Alberta

15 ways oil sands development impacts oceans

Stephanie Green, a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Ocean Solutions at Stanford University, shares this Frontiers Focus on the effects of oil sands development on ocean ecosystems, from the March 2017 issue of ESA Frontiers. North America contains some of the largest sources of bitumen—a thick, sticky petroleum extracted from land-locked clay and sand deposits known as oil sands….

Read More

In Ecology News: Heartland leak, hydrofracking law, and conservation in pictures

By Liza Lester, ESA communications officer A dead pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) on a back road of the Thunder Basin National Grassland in northeastern Wyoming. Coal, oil and gas development in the basin have brought more vehicles, and more conflicts with wildlife. Rob Mutch, 2004. FRESH water scientist (and MacArthur Fellow and member of the National Academy of Sciences) Peter Gleick…

Read More

Imagining a smarter water future in World’s Water 7

This post contributed by Liza Lester, ESA Communications Officer Unequal wealth. Worldmapper.org contorts the shapes of world territories to reflect the relative proportions of the world’s freshwater resources found within their bounds. © Copyright SASI Group (University of Sheffield) and Mark Newman (University of Michigan).   How much water do humans use? And how much water do ecosystems need? At…

Read More

Biofuel’s indirect environmental effects

Biofuels hold promise for reducing the world’s consumption of unsustainable fossil fuels.  But like any new technology, they come with their own host of issues and problems.  One such problem is the so-called “indirect” effect of biofuels on the landscape and the atmosphere. For example, when farmlands are converted to biofuel crops, the food formerly grown on those lands needs…

Read More

Warning: array_map(): Expected parameter 2 to be an array, null given in /home/esaorg/public_html/wp-content/themes/esa-main/inc/functions/nav_pagination.php on line 49