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 Archive
of Environmental News - August
2000
(Click Here for
the Environmental News Archives)
 Find
out how YOUR power consumption impacts the environment
Environmental
Reports for OKALOOSA COUNTY 
Earth
View - A fascinating, real-time look at our
home from above...
The
Dawn of Micropower - Much of the world gets its
electricity from big, inefficient and dirty power plants
situated far from consumers. That will soon change... THOMAS
EDISON was a man of great foresight, but who would have
thought he could have been more than 100 years ahead of his
time? When he set up his first heat-and-electricity plant
near Wall Street in 1882, he imagined a world of micropower.
Edison thought the best way to meet customers’ needs would
be with networks of nimble, decentralized power plants in or
near homes and offices. What goes around, comes around.
After a century that seemed to prove Edison wrong—with
power stations getting ever bigger, and the transmission
grids needed to distribute their product ranging ever
wider—local generation for local consumption is back in
fashion...
Report: Bacteria Closing More Beaches
- Beach closings and advisories because of high bacteria levels are on the rise nationwide, according to a new
report that awards high praise for pollution control to only five
beach areas, all on the East Coast. The nationwide survey released Thursday by the Natural Resources
Defense Council also singles out four states as ``beach bums'' for
failing to regularly monitor their coastlines...
Deep
Damage - "Without question,
humans dominate the Earth. But is that a
good thing for the planet? Two years ago,
researchers Peter Vitousek, Harold Mooney,
Jane Lubchenco and Jerry Melillo published
a report in the journal Science on
"Human Domination of Earth's
Ecosystems." That overview detailed
how we have altered the environment by
transforming approximately half of the
earth's land surface, driving about a
quarter of bird species to extinction and
increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide by
nearly 30 percent since the industrial
revolution..."
Cities May Make Their Own Weather
- Forecasters have known for decades that big cities trap the sun's rays, holding the heat in asphalt and
concrete and staying consistently warmer than their suburbs. But new research suggests that the ``urban heat islands'' of
sprawling metropolises can actually create weather, churning out
thunderstorms that dump rain hundreds of miles away. National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientists
discovered the pattern in Atlanta, a sprawling metro area increasingly choked by traffic and smog. They were interested in
Atlanta, in part, because it has few natural boundaries to contain
the sprawl...
THE
EVERGLADES SERIES: by USF
THE FLORIDA
EVERGLADES - The Everglades is Florida's most
famous natural area. On their maps, the early Spaniards
called it "El Laguno del Espiritu Sanctu"-the
Lake of the Holy Spirit-a worthy name for such an
extraordinary place. Said Marjory Stoneman Douglas in her
book, The Everglades: River of Grass...
THE FLORIDA EVERGLADES: A Model of Destruction
- More recently, the Everglades has become a classic
example of widespread environmental destruction. Although
in its 5,000 years of existence, the Everglades has
supported an extraordinary quantity and variety of plant
and animal life, we have taken less than a century to
damage seriously or to alter most of it. The current
superintendent of Everglades National Park calls it the
most threatened park in the country, and one in a state of
biological collapse...
THE FLORIDA
EVERGLADES - - Including the Everglades itself, the
system's original watershed was more than 8,100 square
miles. The remaining marsh now comprises about 2,300
square miles-of which almost three-fifths is impounded
in the Water Conservation Areas. Two-thirds of the
original Everglades now subsists on the rain that falls
on one-third of the original watershed. On an areal
basis, the current Everglades has about half the water
of the original. Everglades National Park makes up less
than one-fifth of the historic Everglades...
THE FLORIDA
EVERGLADES - The Sugarcane Industry - Sugar is the biggest industry in the
Everglades, producing more raw sugar than California or
Hawaii and employing almost 20,000 people. In the
Everglades Agricultural Area, sugar cane covers 400,000
of 700,000 acres and is the leading cause of phosphorus
pollution. (Even though vegetable growers use more
phosphorus in their fertilizers, they use less acreage.)
Eighty percent of Florida's sugar cane is grown in Palm
Beach County...
THE FLORIDA
EVERGLADES - - While it may be impossible to
re-create the historic Everglades, we can work toward
protecting and restoring what remains, and we can work
toward optimizing its management. Though much has been
lost, the remnant Everglades is still extremely valuable
biologically and well worth restoring...
THE FLORIDA
EVERGLADES - The Florida Panther - The Florida
panther, our official state mammal, is one the most
endangered animals on Earth and a federally listed
endangered species. Between 30 and 50 individuals are
believed to remain in the wild-mainly south of Lake
Okeechobee. Unless its historic habitat and food supply
can be preserved and restored, the panther will probably
become extinct in less than 20 years. More than half the
remaining cats inhabit privately owned lands that are
rapidly being converted to agricultural production.
About a dozen live in a complex of public lands managed
by several state and federal agencies...
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