Many plants can help our indoor air, including Rubber Plants, Eureka Palms, and Peace Palms. Putting plants in your house or office can help your health. Below is a table indicating the pollutants removed by certain plants.

Economically poor, but culturally rich, Jabal al Akhdar was in ancient times a thriving Greek trading hub, but now suffers from drought and 30% unemployment. The water table has dropped from 200 metres to 600 m below the surface in 15 years.

The area, also known as the Green Mountains, used to be home to 500,000 hectares of trees; 20 years later only 180,000 hectares remain. And its ancient ruins, a UNESCO world heritage site, are unguarded and periodically looted.

But all that is set to change, according to plans signed by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's son, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, on 10 September. The Green Mountain Conservation and Development Authority, which will oversee the transformation of the area, was launched by Gaddafi in the ancient Greek city of Cyrene at the heart of the Green Mountains.

Fosters + Partners, the firm which has developed iconic landmarks such as the London “Gherkin” office building and redeveloped the Reichstag in Berlin, has been commissioned to develop the region.

Visionary stage

Over the next year, the group will firm up regional plans to create a national park, a renewable energy infrastructure, a public transportation infrastructure fuelled by biofuels, sustainable agriculture irrigated through desalination plants, and an eco-tourism resort. The latter could, according to some preliminary plans, have buildings built into the side of mountains to minimise their visual impact and take advantage of the stone's insulating properties.

The project is still very much at the visionary stage. "Until the regional plan is finished by Fosters, we cannot say anything for sure," says Anthony Kleanthous, a spokesman for the Green Mountains project.

"But the idea is to show how these things are not just applicable to the Green Mountains. [Fosters] are trying to build a model that can be built elsewhere – not just in Libya, but also in other African countries," he adds.

Gordon McGranahan of the International Institute for Environment and Development in London, UK, says it is unlikely that the Libyan development could be used as a model. He points out that the size of the project requires a substantial amount of investment, making similar projects prohibitively expensive for most African nations.

Substantial investment

The Green Mountains project will benefit from a substantial investment from the Libyan government – the total amount has yet to be signed off, but it could be in the billions of US dollars. The partners in the project, which include UNESCO and the UN Environment Programme, also hope to raise funds from private companies wishing to be seen to be involved in a sustainable venture of this size.

But McGranahan says the lessons of the project should not to be neglected as unworthy, simply because the project as a whole may be too expensive to be replicated elsewhere.

"The learning and tech from projects like this that can be applied elsewhere," agrees Kleanthous. "Figuring out how to build a sustainable transport system, what is the most efficient type of sustainable biofuel – these are all things that are very useful for other projects and that we are going to have to feel out for ourselves just because of the scale of the project."

Climate Change – Want to know more about global warming: the science, impacts and political debate? Visit our continually updated special report.

Energy and Fuels – Learn more about the looming energy crisis in our comprehensive special report.

When you hear Chernobyl, you immediately think nuclear disaster. It was, in fact the worst nuclear accident in history. A huge fallout cloud of radioactive dust spread across vast swathes of the Soviet Union, Europe and Eastern North America. As a result, an estimated 9 thousand people have contracted cancer and died. The disaster displaced over 336,000 people. Life expectancy is low. However, according to scientist James Lovelock, Chernobyl was an ecological success: animals can now roam around free without being hunted. Environmental Graffiti disagrees.

2. Dzerzhinsk, Russia

Until recently, the city of Dzerzhinsk in Russia used to produce huge quantities of chemical weapons, including mustard gas and lewisite. Chemical weapons ceased to be produced by 1945. However, the waste was buried underground, contaminating water and crops. The site however, remains the largest producer of chemicals for the Russian Federation. Life expectancy is low at 42 for men and 47 years for women. This is attributed to the high levels of persistent organic chemicals.

3. Haina, Dominican Republic

Haina, has been referred to as the ‘Dominican Chernobyl’. According to the United Nations, the population of Haina is considered to have the highest level of lead contamination in the world, and its entire population bears the scars. The contamination is believed to have been caused by the past industrial operations of the nearby Baterías Meteoro, an automobile battery recycling smelter. Although the company has moved to a new site, the contamination still remains.

4. Kabwe, Zambia

Kabwe, the “bush capital” of Zambia was the site of a huge mine. The mine became the largest in the country until overtaken in the early 1930s by larger copper mining complexes on the Copper belt. Apart from lead and zinc it also produced silver, manganese and heavy metals such as cadmium, vanadium, and titanium in smaller quantities. The reason why the mine is on our list is that large quantities of zinc and lead tailing have made their way into the local water supply.

5. La Oroya, Peru

Since 1922, adults and children in La Oroya, Peru - a mining town in the Peruvian Andes and the site of a poly-metallic smelter - have been exposed to the toxic emissions from the plant. Currently owned by the Missouri-based Doe Run Corporation, the plant is largely responsible for the dangerously high blood lead levels found in the children of this community. Studies carried out by the Director General of Environmental Health in Peru in 1999 showed that ninety-nine percent of children living in and around La Oroya have blood lead levels that exceed acceptable amounts.

It works in a similar way to sponge, removing heavy metals from a solution. It ‘soaks up’ the larger (and very toxic) heavy metal ions by allowing them to bond with sulphur particles on the surface of the material. Scientists hope it will be useful in heavy industry.

1880 to 2005 Global-Mean Surface Temperature Anomaly (Celsius) in a steady climb upward
since the 1960s. The ten warmest years in the past 150 years have all occurred after 1990.
Temperature graph by NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

August 8, 2007 Geneva, Switzerland - In mid-July at the Cheltenham Science Festival in England, global warming was a featured topic. One of the speakers was Fred Pearce, an environmental journalist and author of a new book entitled, The Last Generation: How Nature Will Take Her Revenge for Climate Change. He told his audience, “I want to scare you about climate change. We are probably the last generation to be able to rely on a stable climate. ... The truth is, the more we observe about the climate system, the more frightening the scenarios that scientists are starting to develop. Past climate change has been more violent and extreme than we have been led to believe. Tranquility looks like the exception rather than the rule. We could be measuring sea level rises in meters, not centimeters. Old ideas about climate chang are just not how the world works. When climate does change, it does so suddenly and violently.”

Is human civilization, with its industrial pollution of methane, carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, flicking on the switch for more rapid global climate change than any population can adequately handle? If global weather is erratic in 2007, what will it be like in another ten years?

The United Nations World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reports that the “global land surface temperatures for January and April 2007 will likely be ranked as the warmest since records began in 1880.” Further, the head of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, U. K., has predicted that 2007 could surpass 1998 as the warmest year on record owing to rising concentrations of greenhouse gases and a growing El Niño warming of the Pacific. The ten warmest years in the past 150 years have all occurred after 1990.

The U. N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), reported in 2007 that there has been an increasing trend of extreme weather events over the past fifty years and that erratic weather events are likely to intensify as the Earth continues to warm up.

Devastating Floods

- South Asia's "Worst Floods in Living Memory." Since the beginning of monsoon season in June 2007, there have been twice the normal number of monsoon depressions and more than 1,200 people have died in storms and floods in Afghanistan, India and Pakistan. Hundreds more dead in Bangladesh and Nepal. More than 20 million people in India and Bangladesh have been forced to leave their homes after recent monsoon rains and Himalayan glacier melts have flooded rivers. Now post-flood diseases threaten to kill more people.

- Franklin Joseph, Director of India's World Vision Emergency Response, said: "There is a fear when the water recedes that diseases will strike. Water sources will be contaminated when the villagers return. We need to provide clean food and homes."

- The U.K. Meteorological Office reports that in the period May to July 2007, 387.6 mm of rain have already fallen across England and Wales, making it the wettest early summer since precipitation records began there in 1766. At least eight people were killed in the heavy rainfalls.

- Northern England and parts of Texas saw torrential rain and flooding in June to July 2007. Austin, Texas, has had its wettest year on record so far.

- In Sudan, abnormally heavy rains and flooding destroyed 23,000 mud homes and killed at least 62 people.

- The Arabian Sea had its first documented cyclone in June 2007, which affected Oman.

- The Maldives islands average only five feet above sea level and were overcome by 15-foot-high ocean waves and flooding in May. "It is an annual occurrence at this point of the monsoon. Storm surges are quite common, but it is unusual to have them to the extent we have had today," said government spokesman Mohamed Shareef in the Maldives' capital of Male. "It is essentially a rise of the tide. The water came in at least 100 feet (30 meters) on some islands, and then receded in the evening."

- Uruguay in May 2007, unusually heavy rains in Uruguay have caused the worst flooding to hit that country in 50 years. More than 12,000 people were evacuated and another 110,000 people were affected by the emergency, most of them children, women and elderly living in poor communities. A week of heavy rain also caused landslides and rivers to break their banks. “Within two days, we received precipitation between 350 and 400 millimeters, while on average in most parts of the country we get 800 to 1000 millimeters per year,” said UNICEF Uruguay Representative Tom Bergmann-Harris.

- Mozambique's government on February 4, 2007, declared a “red alert” for the evacuation of communities along the Zambezi River Basin, as rising water levels threatened to flood low-lying areas. Heavy rains in Mozambican territory created this threat, as well as in the neighboring countries of Zambia and Malawi, which also feed the Zambezi River and its tributaries. An estimated 285,000 people were affected by the floods.

On February 22, 2007, Mozambique suffered another natural disaster when Cyclone Favio made landfall in Vilanculos, in the coastal province of Inhambane. Thousands of acres in crops were destroyed, health centers and schools were badly damaged and an estimated 150,000 people were displaced from their homes.

Scorching Heat in Northern Hemisphere

- Temperatures in Greece reached 110 degrees F. (46°C) in a heat wave across southern Europe. The Greek government has activated a civil emergency defense plan to deal with the heat wave, which is also affecting the rest of the Balkan peninsula, with forest fires from Croatia to Romania. A previous extreme heat wave in 1987 killed at least a thousand people.

- China has also had a heat wave in recent days reaching 104 degrees F. (40 degrees Celsius) in southwestern regions such as Chongqing. More than 3,500 people were hospitalized and at least five people died. China.org reports the highest temperature so far was in the central Chinese city of Shijiazhuang at 109 degrees Fahrenheit (43 degrees Celsius.)

- Russia had an extreme heat wave across western and central regions during May 2007, breaking several temperature records. On May 28, 2007, in Moscow, temperatures reached 32.9°C (91.2°F), the highest temperature recorded in May since 1891 (31.8°C/89.2°F). This is the first time in 128 years that the Russian capital has suffered a sustained 30°C (86°F) or higher temperatures. This heat prompted Russia's energy administrator to restrict the use of non-residential energy for the first time on record in the summer.

- Drought and Fires in Southeastern Europe: Millions of acres in destroyed crops and widespread forest fires are direct results of high temperatures and severe drought in southeastern Europe, according to the Global Drought Monitor.

- Montana, Idaho and California have been fighting huge wildfires all summer long and the Midwestern states have exceeded 100 degrees F., including Montana and North Dakota. The National Weather Service has issued excessive-heat warnings for several states in the South and Midwest. To date, three people have died from heat exposure and the Tennessee Valley Authority said that the Monday, August 6, power consumption broke a peak record of 32,095 megawatts for 8.7 million customers.

August 8, 2007 Large Fire Incidents of 100 acres or more
occuring in timber, or a wildfire of 300 acres or more occuring in grass/sage.
Red, blue and black colors are where firefighters are working.
Green is naturally ignited wildland fires allowed to burn.
Map by National Interagency Fire Center, Boise, Idaho.

Unusual Cold in Southern Hemisphere

- During the floods, heat and fires of the Northern Hemisphere summer, South America has been suffering one of its coldest winters on record, with blizzards and snowfall sending temperatures down to 0 Fahrenheit freezing and below in Argentina and Chile.

- Argentina's capital Buenos Aires witnessed snowfall in July for the first time in 90 years. Wet snow fell for hours without accumulating. A cold snap caused by freezing air from Antarctica killed two people. Before then in late May 2007, was a bitter cold snap that produced subfreezing temperatures, the coldest in forty years in Buenos Aires. That cold wave contributed to an energy crisis and 23 people died from lack of heat.

- South Africa had almost ten inches (25 centimeters) of rare snow fall in late June 2007 on the city of Johannesburg. Mountain passes were closed and one person died.

Credit 2002 by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

A tiny fraction of the plastic waste in the oceans being collected from a beach. Plastic waste kills many marine animals when they mistake plastic for food.

Enlarge Image

The very thing that makes plastic items useful to consumers, their durability and stability, also makes them a problem in marine environments. Around 100 million tonnes of plastic are produced each year of which about 10 percent ends up in the sea. About 20 percent of this is from ships and platforms, the rest from land.

The “Eastern Garbage Patch”

Click to view animation.

Chemical sponge

Ocean hitchhikers

Turn down or shut off your water heater when you will be away for extended periods.

Unplug seldom used appliances.

Use compact fluorescent light bulbs to save money and energy.

Learn about alternatives to household cleaning items that do not use hazardous chemicals.

Use an electric lawn- mower instead of a gas-powered one.

Rent or borrow items like ladders, chain saws, party decorations and others that are seldom used.

Set up a bulletin board for memos instead of sending a copy to each employee.

Report smoking vehicles to your local air agency.

Ignite charcoal barbecues with an electric probe or other alternative to lighter fluid.

1. Check and fix any water leaks.
2. Install water-saving devices on your faucets and toilets.
3. Don't wash dishes with the water running continuously.
4. Wash and dry only full loads of laundry and dishes.
5. Follow your community's water use restrictions or guidelines.
6. Install a low-flow shower head.
7. Replace old toilets with new ones that use a lot less water.
8. Turn off washing machine's water supply to prevent leaks.
   
   Ways to Protect Our Water
   
   
9. Revegetate or mulch disturbed soil as soon as possible.
10. Never dump anything down a storm drain.
11. Have your septic tank pumped and system inspected regularly.
12. Check your car for oil or other leaks, and recycle motor oil.
13. Take your car to a car wash instead of washing it in the driveway.
14. Learn about your watershed.
    
    
    Create Less Trash
    
    
15. Buy items in bulk from loose bins when possible to reduce the packaging wasted.
16. Avoid products with several layers of packaging when only one is sufficient. About 33 of what we throw away is packaging.
17. Buy products that you can reuse.
18. Maintain and repair durable products instead of buying new ones.
19. Check reports for products that are easily repaired and have low breakdown rates.
20. Reuse items like bags and containers when possible.
21. Use cloth napkins instead of paper ones.
22. Use reusable plates and utensils instead of disposable ones.
23. Use reusable containers to store food instead of aluminum foil and cling wrap.
24. Shop with a canvas bag instead of using paper and plastic bags.
25. Buy rechargeable batteries for devices used frequently.
26. Reuse packaging cartons and shipping materials. Old newspapers make great packaging material.
27. Compost your vegetable scraps.
28. Buy used furniture - there is a surplus of it, and it is much cheaper than new furniture.

Experiments in the early 1990s that seeded a region of the Pacific Ocean with iron dust saw a phenomenal 20 fold increase in the local phytoplankton population, with a corresponding decline in atmospheric carbon dioxide by roughly 2,500 tons within a period of 2 weeks. California-based Planktos Inc. believes this process can be repeated on a large scale to put a serious dent in our excess carbon dioxide problem.Since 1980, global levels of phytoplankton have dropped 25%. This is significant because phytoplankton, tiny floating surface algae, perform 50 percent of Earth’s photosynthesis. The result of this is the production of 50 percent of our oxygen, and removed half of our carbon dioxide. At 1980 levels, this meant the metabolism of 50 gigatons of carbon dioxide each year. Since 1980, the loss in phytoplankton has resulted in a reduction of carbon dioxide metabolism of nearly 3 gigatons; equivilant to approximately half of all industrial and automotive emissions each year.

80 percent of the world’s ocean water includes phytoplankton, the other 20 percent is said to be high nutrient/low chlorophyll (HNLC) because is it virtually devoid of phytoplankton. Although these areas are rich in most of the nutrients required by plant life, they are missing one crucial ingredient: iron.

Because the other nutrients (phosphorus, nitrogen, silicon) required for growth are already present, the addition of iron causes a very rapid algae bloom. Of most interest is an algae species known as coccolithophorids, which take in carbon dioxide and form calcium carbonate plates/scales. Coccolithophores were abundant during the late Cretaceous period and their remains form the northern European chalk deposits, such as the white cliffs of Dover. This is particularly useful for carbon sequestration because it locks up the carbon permanently, something that injection wells can’t guarantee.

The Planktos process is relatively simple, involving spreading small (50 tons) amount of iron dust across the surface of the ocean to cover an area of about 10,000 square kilometers. This is a very small amount of iron, measured in the parts per trillion (ppt). There have been previous proposals to seed the oceans with iron to form algae blooms for the purpose of carbon sequestration, but the Planktos approach seems to be based on sound environmental science rather than a “quick fix” solution to make money without considering the possible consequences. Planktos proposes using their iron seeding process to restore the algae blooms to 1980 levels (as measured by NASA & NOAA) rather than overshooting those amounts, although some people believe that algae levels were much higher in the past.

If this were carried out on a large scale, it could have the effect of reducing our atmospheric carbon dioxide outputs by up to 50 percent and locking it up forever as chalk on the ocean floor. This would need to be done very carefully though, as we still know relatively little about deep ocean ecosystems and the sudden influx of large amounts of calcified algae might have unintended side effects. However, compared with the alternative of unrestrained carbon dioxide emissions, this seems like a very good avenue to explore. The Planktos process is also the cheapest of the sequestration solutions offered, as it requires no pipes, pumps or other fixed equipment.

It’s important to point out that this isn’t a solution that will let us continue “business as usual”, it must be done in addition to other carbon reduction strategies in order to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide levels sufficiently to affect the rate of climate change. The simple fact is, this technology is available now, it’s based on real science, and it works.

While the technology of processing materials with plasma has been around for some time now, Joseph Longo, CEO and founder of Startech Environmental Corporation has developed a device that can handle pretty much any type of waste put into it and turn it into a clean source of energy.

Inside a sealed stainless steel vessel filled with ordinary air, high voltage is passed between two electrodes rips electrons from the air, converting the gas into plasma. The energy of the plasma arc is so powerful; it breaks down matter into it’s component parts by stripping the valence electrons from the atoms, and tearing apart the molecular bonds.

This process creates two byproducts; one is a synthetic gas composed mostly of hydrogen and carbon monoxide which can be converted into a clean fuel. The second byproduct is a form of vitrified glass that can be used as inert fill for construction in roads, building blocks or other uses. Depending on the nature of the materials fed into the conversion unit, the glass may be suitable for creating tiles or countertops. Some scientists caution however that the glass would likely contain toxic heavy metals.

The process produces enough synthetic gas to power the unit, as well as a surplus which could be sold directly or used to generate excess electricity, providing an additional source of revenue for the facility.

This is an attractive option for many cities who are paying large fees to transport and store garbage; one of the StarTech units can handle about 2,000 tons of trash per day. Michael Nuzzi of US Energy says:

“New York City is already paying an astronomical $90 a ton to get rid of its trash. According to Startech, a few 2,000-ton-per-day plasma-gasification plants could do it for $36. Sell the syngas and surplus electricity, and you’d actually net $15 a ton. Gasification is not just environmentally friendly, it’s a good business decision.”