William Borucki donated Shaw Award prize money for pioneering planet finding to the Union of Concerned Scientists for its climate change efforts

William Borucki has had an amazing scientific career. One of his first jobs was at NASA Ames Research Center, where he worked on the Apollo moon missions, including helping to develop the heat shield for the space shuttle. After the successful moon landings, Borucki shifted to NASA’s Theoretical Studies Branch in the 1970s, where he developed models of the Earth’s atmosphere to predict the effects of nitric oxides and chlorofluoromethanes on the ozone layer. Both were determined to contribute to the problem of ozone depletion and the hole in the ozone layer.

In the 1980s, Borucki began advocating the development of a space mission that could detect Earth-size planets. He published a paper in 1984 showing that a photometer 1,000 times more precise than any in existence could detect Earth-size planets. Undeterred by rejections of four proposals in the 1990s for a planet-finding mission, Borucki was ultimately appointed Principal Investigator in 2001 for NASA’s new Keppler Mission to discover these planets. During its four years of its operation, the Keppler Mission discovered over 4,600 planetary candidates, confirmed more than 1,000 as planets, and made numerous contributions to stellar astrophysics.

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Source: Guardian Environment

Richard Curtis’ ad for Global Goals for Sustainable Development to debut in cinemas on Saturday in more than 30 countries aiming to reach 7 billion people

Film director Richard Curtis had to phone the UN to make sure they didn’t mind being portrayed as animals in a new cinema ad to promote global development goals.

The ad for Global Goals for Sustainable Development is set to debut on Saturday in more than 30 countries and aims to reach 7 billion people in seven days.

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Source: Guardian Environment

Wind, solar and bioenergy surge to supply a record 25% of the country’s electricity for a whole quarter

Renewable energy has for the first time surpassed coal in supplying the UK’s electricity for a whole quarter, according to government statistics released on Thursday.

The revelation of the surge in wind, solar and bioenergy to a record 25% comes in a week when the government has been heavily criticised by business leaders and Al Gore for cutting support for clean energy.

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Source: Guardian Environment

Film director Richard Curtis has created a cinema ad teaser to promote global development which is set to debut on Saturday in more than 30 countries and aims to reach 7 billion people in seven days

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Source: Guardian Environment

A group of Finnish organisations have launched a project to experiment with a new cellulose dissolution technique that transforms old disused cotton clothing into brand new fibres that can be utilised freshly in the textile industry.

There is plenty of optimism surrounding this project. The cellulose “wet-spinning” is expected to begin in a plant in Finland this October with a new clothing line made using exclusively the new recycled fibres expected to be ready for release by the end of 2016.

The project aims to bring together recent advancements in recycling technology and growing business demand for ways to improve the lifespan and maximise the use of materials and products, including textiles.

It has been found that cotton that cannot be reused can still be dissolved to make a cellulose solution, which can be turned into new fibres. These fibres are produced using a similar technique to the one that has been utilised in viscose fibres for decades, but the Finnish project leads state that the new production method is not toxic in comparatively and more cost effective from a water and energy use perspective.

Source: Unique production experiment: Turning waste cotton into new fiber for the fashion industry

Lead image licensed under CC – credit Flickr user: FraserElliot

 

The post Turning Waste Cotton Into A New Fibre appeared first on Circulate.

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Presidential hopeful builds on Keystone pipeline stance to outline agenda to create climate change compact with Canada and Mexico and incentivize clean energy

A day after announcing her opposition to the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, Hillary Clinton unveiled a more comprehensive agenda for the US energy infrastructure that seeks to transform the US into “the clean energy superpower of the 21st century”.

The Democratic presidential candidate detailed her proposals on Wednesday in both a blog post on Medium and a fact sheet distributed by Clinton’s campaign.

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Source: Guardian Environment

Stunned sightseers off the coast of Costa Rica find their small boat surrounded by a ‘superpod’ of dolphins, racing alongside and leaping into the air. Orlando Marin, who posted his footage to Facebook, says they numbered in the thousands. Such a large gathering can be the result of abundant food in the area, or can happen spontaneously

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Source: Guardian Environment

Documents show former PM was briefed on setting up a taskforce into whether the Bureau of Meteorology exaggerated records – as claimed in the Australian

Tony Abbott considered asking a taskforce to investigate whether the Bureau of Meteorology was exaggerating temperature data records following the publication of such claims in the Australian newspaper, newly released documents show.

Related: Tony Abbott adviser calls for Bureau of Meteorology ‘warming’ inquiry

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Source: Guardian Environment

Without an operating licence the hydroelectric plant will stand unused but projects to limit the impact on the local community remain incomplete

Brazil’s controversial Belo Monte hydroelectric plant is facing another setback after the country’s environmental protection agency, Ibama, threatened to withhold an operating licence until the consortium which built the dam completes mitigation projects in the area to be affected.

Without the operating licence, Norte Energia – a consortium of 10 Brazilian public and private energy companies and investment funds, is banned from flooding Belo Monte’s reservoir. Without the water in the reservoir, the turbines of the world’s third-largest hydroelectric power plant – Brazil’s biggest engineering project – will remain unused.

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Source: Guardian Environment