News headlines are filled with stories of polar ice caps melting, pollution choking cities and the countless microplastics in everything we own and eat. While it is important to stay informed about environmental problems, it is just as important to acknowledge what is going well.
To flip the script, let’s look at some happy news in the world of the environment.
“Ya like jazz… or solar panels?”
According to research published in Global Change Biology, wildflowers could be planted around solar panel installations to provide nectar, pollen and nesting sites for several bee species. Such spatial planning would promote greater biodiversity and pollinator health in addition to maximizing energy production.
Bring back coral reefs!
Coral reefs are declining as ocean temperatures and pollution levels rise, a problem exacerbated by coral larvae’s selectivity when choosing surfaces on which to grow. In an effort to promote coral reef growth, researchers at the University of California-San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Jacobs School of Engineering developed a gel that attracts coral larvae with chemical signals. The scientists described the gel as a “breakthrough” with the potential to promote larger and healthier coral reefs.
Zombie waters: Ocean dead zones can come alive again
“Dead zones” are bodies of water with extremely low oxygen levels, preventing them from supporting most forms of marine life. They occur when excess nitrogen and phosphorus enter water, causing massive growth of algal blooms. This process consumes large amounts of oxygen, creating “hypoxia” – in other words, a dead zone. Dead zones are detrimental to marine habitats, but strategies to reduce nitrogen pollution are succeeding at the Long Island Sound. Hypoxia levels there are the lowest in decades, thanks to intervention from the EPA and states of New York and Connecticut. As the dead zone shrinks, marine life flourishes.
