In honor of the Fourth this week, we wanted to highlight one of our favorite American-made product lines. Hydroponics is growing in popularity for growing a variety of different plants. It requires much less space than traditional growing methods and uses only water to bring plants to maturity. Here is a little run down on Growers Supply’s NFT hydroponic channels that fits in with the theme of the week—the good ole’ red, white and blue!
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Gordon Brown is a United Nations Special Envoy on Global Education. He was formerly the UK’s prime minister.
(CNN) — Today we can tell the remarkable story of Shazia Ramzan, a 15-year-old Pakistani schoolgirl.
Last October Shazia was travelling home from school with her friend Malala Yousafzai when a Taliban gunman boarded their bus and shot both of them. Malala suffered head and facial injuries and had to be rushed to hospital in the UK. Shot in the neck and arm, Shazia spent a month in hospital while her deep wounds healed. Both were attacked by terrorists who wanted to stop girls going to school. Read more…
See on Scoop.it – Green & Sustainable News
China’s demand for coal continues to rise, but the parched country faces challenging finding enough water to cool its coal-fired power plants
>Currently, more than half of China’s industrial water usage is in coal-related sectors, including mining, preparation, power generation, coke production and coal-to-chemical factories, according to China Water Risk, a nonprofit initiative based in Hong Kong. That means that the water demand of the Chinese coal industry surpasses that of all other industries combined.
[…]
To answer China’s rising appetite for power, Chinese policymakers have decided to establish 16 large-scale coal industrial hubs by 2015. If the plan materializes, those hubs are estimated to consume nearly 10 billion cubic meters of water annually, equivalent to more than one-quarter of the water the Yellow River supplies in a normal year, according to a report jointly issued last year by the…
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Some more worrisome observations from Greenland.
Extreme contrasts between warm, moist air, and cold dry air, make for rapid and dramatic change in the environment of coastal Greenland, as evidenced in this mysterious fog effect over Sisimiut.
Surface reflectivity of sunlight is called “albedo”. Albedo is a Latin-based word referring to whiteness. The higher the albedo, the more sunlight can be reflected. As albedo decreases, more sunlight can be absorbed.
The absorption of sunlight is the largest single source of melt energy on the Greenland ice sheet.
Surface albedo across Greenland is mapped using data from NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite-borne sensors. Before melting is underway, albedo is above 80%.
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FromThe Grand Junction Daily Sentinel (Paul Shockley):
Coming off one of the driest Junes on record for Grand Junction, there are dim prospects for change for the beginning of July, according to the National Weather Service in Grand Junction. As measured at Grand Junction Regional Airport, the city recorded 0.01 inch of rain for the month just ended, well below a normal value for June of 0.45 inch, National Weather Service senior forecaster Chris Cuoco said. “We’re certainly down there for one of the driest June’s on record,” Cuoco said. “(Saturday) had some of the first raindrops I’ve felt in the valley in quite a long time.”
As dry as the past month registered, June 2012 recorded trace amounts of rain, he said. Don’t look for change anytime soon. “We have the slightest hint of precipitation for July 7 and July 8, but certainly it’s not something we’re banking…
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PRAGWATER 