Poisoned Waters

From site: In Poisoned Waters, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Hedrick Smith examines the growing hazards to human health and the ecosystem.

“The ’70s were a lot about, ‘We’re the good guys; we’re the environmentalists; we’re going to go after the polluters,’ and it’s not really about that anymore,” Jay Manning, director of ecology for Washington state, tells FRONTLINE. “It’s about the way we all live. And unfortunately, we are all polluters. I am; you are; all of us are.”

Through interviews with scientists, environmental activists, corporate executives and average citizens impacted by the burgeoning pollution problem, Smith reveals startling new evidence that today’s growing environmental threat comes not from the giant industrial polluters of old, but from chemicals in consumers’ face creams, deodorants, prescription medicines and household cleaners that find their way into sewers, storm drains, and eventually into America’s waterways and drinking water.

Earth Floor

From site: Sixty-five million years ago the Earth was not the way we know it. Where now an ocean ebbs and flows, the Earth supported land plateaus. The land upon which you now stride was underneath an ocean’s tide. And yet all kinds of species thrived and many of them have survived. From clams to trees to you and me Earth guarantees variety!

Explore rooms for plate tectonics, diversity, cycles, geological time, adaptation, and biomes on the Earth floor.

What You Need to Know About Energy

From site:  As debates about energy grow more intense, Americans need dependable, objective, and authoritative energy information. The National Academies, advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine, provide the facts about energy—a complex issue that affects us as individuals and as a nation.

The information on this site draws on that body of material and on other sources in order to offer a basic toolkit of facts and concepts to use in assessing various energy claims and proposals [on uses, sources, costs, and efficiency].

Cycles of the Earth

From site:  Our planet is constantly changing. Natural cycles balance and regulate Earth and its atmosphere. Human activities can cause changes to these natural cycles.

Life on Earth is well adapted to our planet’s cycles. In our solar system, Earth is the only planet with air to breathe, liquid water to drink, and temperatures that are just right for life as we know it. Because our existence depends on our planet and its climate, we need to understand how what we do affects the Earth.

Scientists try to figure out how our planet works by studying Earth’s cycles. Changes to Earth’s cycles can cause changes in the climates of our planet. The more we know about these cycles, the more we will understand how humans are affecting them and how that might change the planet.

The cycles described include energy balance, carbon, rock, ocean, atmosphere, water and nitrogen.

Extreme Earth

From site:  Welcome to the Earth Science portal on Extreme Science! This is the place to find information on world records in earth science and geological formations and to also read about key science concepts in the earth sciences, such as plate tectonics and seismology. Click on any of the earth science topics below to get the whole story – with pictures!!

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