The Environment

Figuring out how to recycle TPS reports and office printouts appears to have become a passion for Japanese engineers, as DigInfo News has discovered in recent days. If the "White Goat" machine that converts paper sheets into toilet paper failed to appeal, consider this supposedly eco-friendly printer that can erase old documents and reuse them up to 1,000 times per special page.

In a move to curb smog, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed the tightest regulations ever on ground-ozone-causing emissions. The new standards would replace 2008 ozone regulations implemented by the Bush administration that allowed so much smog emission that environmental advocates took the EPA to court, arguing that the weak emissions regulation didn't actually protect people's health.

In a break from their usual business of overthrowing South American governments, covering up alien landings, and broadcasting coded messages through my fillings, the CIA has revived a program that teams up spies and scientists for the study of climate change. Through the program, scientists get access classified images of the polar ice caps, as well as the chance to pick the targets of off-duty spy satellites.

A massive iceberg twice the size of Manhattan is headed for Australia's southwestern coast, threatening shipping lanes in the Pacific.

The "superberg," called B17B, is roughly 1,000 miles off the coast of Australia and headed for warmer waters, where it will likely break up into many small pieces.

Today's symbolic but politically crucial move by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recognizes greenhouse gases as a danger for humans and Earth alike. That would open the doors for new regulations on carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles, power plants and factories, according to the New York Times.

As geologists probe the world's rocky sediments for spots to safely store carbon dioxide underground, engineers are working on the first step of the process: separating pure CO₂ from noxious smokestack emissions. An enzyme in our blood already has the trick down, however, and it captures two pounds of CO₂ every day. Now a New Jersey company is trying to replicate the method.

In 1985, scientists from the British Antarctic Survey found a giant hole in the ozone layer of Earth's atmosphere over the South Pole. This discovery prompted a largely successful international effort to ban CFCs, the chemicals largely responsible for man-made thinning of the ozone layer.