Miscellaneous
When climate change hits the top of a mountain, a lot of things happen -- less snow, faster melt and more degradation of the rocks themselves. Elizabeth Miller has written in Scientific American about how this climate-driven process is putting more heavy metals and rare earths into less water headed for people's drinking supplies.We know some of the heavy metals, like lead and cadmium can endanger human health, but what's scary is what we don't know about rare earth elements.