“..If you want to travel in the developing world yet leave a light footprint, consider pointing yourself to Poland, Suriname, or Chile.
These countries are among the surprising selections on “The Developing World’s 10 Best Ethical Destinations” of 2010 named by Ethical Traveler, reports Earth Island Journal.
Here’s the full list:..”
go to source/story>>The 10 Most Ethical Travel Spots
“..I’ve a fear of oceans.
Lakes—even the biggest ones—I don’t mind. I love them, in fact, having grown up in Chicago and attending college on the shores of Lake Superior.
But oceans, and their rip tides and undertows, have always struck me as sinister.
Ironically, just after returning from a week on a beach in Baja, where I started coming to terms with these fears, I watched The End of the Line, a newly released documentary that makes the case for why the oceans should be afraid of us.
The film, which Ted Danson narrates and Robert Murray directed, delves into the depravity we’ve brought to the world’s oceans through centuries of wanton fishing (and, obviously, consuming) fish from oceans around the world.
The film starts in Newfoundland, whose fishermen nearly fished Northern cod to extinction before the Canadian government placed a two-year moratorium on the fishery in 1992, when the once seemingly endless bounty of cod started to deteriorate.
As a result, 40,000 fishermen lost their jobs.
And, though the moratorium was extended, cod stock never recovered.
“The cod is gone, and I think within the context of cod—particularly in the Canadian perspective—is that this is a species that has been fished for centuries and centuries.
Cod was the reason that people migrated from the UK, from Europe—Northern France particularly—to Canada.
It was because of cod,” says Jeffrey Hutchings, a biology professor at Dalhousie University, who is interviewed for the film.
“The loss of the [cod] fish was basically akin to a loss of soul, and it still remains that 15 years later.”
go to source/story>>Film Exposes Overfishing Practices, Fishes for Answers |Triple Pundit
“..There is no simple way to battle public hostility to climate research.
As the psychologists show .. facts barely sway us anyway
There is one question that no one who denies manmade climate change wants to answer: what would it take to persuade you?
In most cases the answer seems to be nothing.
No level of evidence can shake the growing belief that climate science is a giant conspiracy codded up by boffins and governments to tax and control us.
The new study by the Met Office, which paints an even grimmer picture than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, will do nothing to change this view.
The attack on climate scientists is now widening to an all-out war on science.
Writing recently for the Telegraph, the columnist Gerald Warner dismissed scientists as “white-coated prima donnas and narcissists …
.. pointy-heads in lab coats [who] have reassumed the role of mad cranks …
..The public is no longer in awe of scientists.
Like squabbling evangelical churches in the 19th century, they can form as many schismatic sects as they like, nobody is listening to them any more.”
Views like this can be explained partly as the revenge of the humanities students.
There is scarcely an editor or executive in any major media company – and precious few journalists – with a science degree ..
.. yet everyone knows that the anoraks are taking over the world..”
go to source/story>>The trouble with trusting complex science | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian
“.. 20+ African countries are selling or leasing land for intensive agriculture on a shocking scale ..
.. in what may be the greatest change of ownership since the colonial era.
— We turned off the main road to Awassa, talked our way past security guards and drove a mile across empty land before we found what will soon be Ethiopia’s largest greenhouse.
Nestling below an escarpment of the Rift Valley, the development is far from finished, but the plastic and steel structure already stretches over 50 acres* — the size of 20 soccer fields.
The farm manager shows us millions of tomatoes, peppers and other vegetables being grown in 1,500 foot rows in computer controlled conditions.
Spanish engineers are building the steel structure, Dutch technology minimises water use from two bore-holes and 1,000 women pick and pack 50 tons of food a day.
Within 24 hours, it has been driven 200 miles to Addis Ababa and flown 1,000 miles to the shops and restaurants of Dubai, Jeddah and elsewhere in the Middle East.
Ethiopia is one of the hungriest countries in the world with more than 13-million people needing food aid ..
.. but paradoxically the government is offering at least 7.5 million acres of its most fertile land to rich countries .. and some of the world’s most wealthy individuals .. to export food for their own populations.
The 2,500 acres of land which contain the Awassa greenhouses are leased for 99 years to a Saudi billionaire businessman, Ethiopian-born Sheikh Mohammed al-Amoudi, one of the 50 richest men in the world..”
go to source/story>>Billionaires and Mega-Corporations Behind Immense Land Grab in Africa | | AlterNet
“..Detroit, the very symbol of American industrial might for most of the 20th century ..
.. is drawing up a radical renewal plan that calls for turning large swaths of this now-blighted, rusted-out city back into the fields and farmland that existed before the automobile.
Operating on a scale never before attempted in this country, the city would demolish houses in some of the most desolate sections of Detroit ..
.. and move residents into stronger neighborhoods.
Roughly a quarter of the 139-square-mile city could go from urban to semi-rural.
Near downtown, fruit trees and vegetable farms would replace neighborhoods that are an eerie landscape of empty buildings and vacant lots.
Suburban commuters heading into the city center might pass through what looks like the countryside to get there.
Surviving neighborhoods in the birthplace of the auto industry would become pockets in expanses of green.
Detroit officials first raised the idea in the 1990s, when blight was spreading.
Now, with the recession plunging the city deeper into ruin, a decision on how to move forward is approaching.
Mayor Dave Bing, who took office last year .. is expected to unveil some details in his state-of-the-city address this month.
“Things that were unthinkable are now becoming thinkable,” said James W. Hughes, dean of the School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University, who is among the urban experts watching the experiment with interest.
“There is now a realization that past glories are never going to be recaptured.
Some people probably don’t accept that .. but that is the reality..”
go to source/story>>Detroit Wants To Save Itself - By Shrinking
“..Arctic seabed stores of methane are now destabilizing and venting vast stores of frozen methane—a greenhouse gas 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
The paper, in the prestigious journal Science, reports the permafrost under the East Siberian Arctic Shelf—long thought to be an impermeable barrier sealing in methane—
- is instead perforated and leaking large amounts of methane into the atmosphere.
Melting of even a fraction of the clathrates stored in that shelf could trigger abrupt climate warming.
Lead author Natalia Shakhova Shakhova of the International Arctic Research Center tells U of Alaska Fairbanks:
“The amount of methane currently coming out of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf is comparable to the amount coming out of the entire world’s oceans.
Subsea permafrost is losing its ability to be an impermeable cap.”
The East Siberian Arctic Shelf is a methane-rich area encompassing more than three-quarter million square miles of seafloor in the Arctic Ocean—
- three times larger than the nearby Siberian wetlands formerly considered the primary Northern Hemisphere source of atmospheric methane.
Shakhova’s research shows the East Siberian Arctic Shelf is already emitting 7 teragrams (1 teragram = 1.1 million tons) of methane yearly ..
.. about as much as the all the oceans of the world..”
go to source/story>>Massive Methane Melt off Siberia | Mother Jones
“..With their powers combined, can climate change skeptics and creationists succeed in getting anti-science views into the country’s classrooms?
The New York Times today reports that there is a growing .. (evolving, perhaps?) .. movement to unite skepticism of both global warming and evolution ..
.. in hopes of a creating a winning legal case for getting their agenda into schools.
This move comes after a 2005 ruling in the United States District Court in Atlanta found that a school district that had placed stickers on textbooks telling students that evolution is just a theory ..
.. violated the First Amendment’s separation of church and state.
..The Times reports:..”
go to source/story>>Climate Skeptics and Creationists Join Forces | Mother Jones
“..Imagine some ugly, underused street in your town, marked by drab buildings, wide streets, and forbidding expanses of parking lot.
If you have to go here at all, chances are you’d prefer to drive.
Now imagine it remade into a place where you’d actually want to walk or bike.
There would be broad sidewalks, trees, and streetfront buildings with ground-level windows.
There would be other people walking around too.
Picture this in your mind, if you can.
If you can’t, digital artist Steve Price might be able to help.
Price builds Flash animations that show what blighted urban landscapes would look like if they became healthier, safer, and more sustainable places..”
go to source/story>>Digital designer shows what future towns could look like | Grist
“..The greener we become, the more we have to scrutinize.
I for one have cleaned up my home, my diet, my cleaning products and ““ of utmost importance ““ the products I put on my skin.
I’m an avid ingredient reader and do the research ““ after all, my skin is the largest organ in my body!
Here’s a list of some common skin and hair care chemicals we all need to avoid.
Coal Tar: Coal tar is used to treat eczema, psoriasis and other skin disorders and can be found in anti-itch creams and scalp treatments.
It’s also a known carcinogen.
Diethanolamine (DEA): A lathering agent in soaps and shampoos, DEA isn’t carcinogenic by itself ..
.. but can react with other chemicals in products to create a carcinogen readily absorbed into the skin.
Look for DEA in many forms, such as Cocamide DEA, Oleamide DEA and Lauramide DEA.
Formaldehyde: A frighteningly common ingredient in a variety of beauty products.
Formaldehyde can irritate your eyes, nose and throat, dry out and irritate your skin ..
.. and even cause asthma and cancer with repeated exposure..”
go to source/story>>Safe Products, Cosmetics, Personal Care, Skincare, Plus Ingredients to Avoid | EcoSalon
“..When you get hungry, and I mean hungry, it’s your body calling out for protein.
.. many people are surprised to learn that simply cutting back on meat consumption is one of the most significant ways to help the planet.
And it doesn’t require subsistence on tofu.
(Personally, I find tofu delicious, but it’s one of those vegetarian protein sources people either really love or really don’t.)
There are so many delicious options available that slipping out of meat mode is breeze.
Try one meat-free dinner a week, and build from there:..”
go to source/story>>More Than Tofu: Delicious Meat Alternatives for Vegetarian Recipes | EcoSalon
“..New research reveals the potent gas is leaking through Arctic permafrost.
But don’t be alarmed — it’s just science
Some scientists believe that previous episodes of rapid temperature rises in the earth’s climate were caused by abrupt releases of methane gas into the atmosphere.
Salon published an excellent story a year ago exploring the possibility that such a scenario could happen again.
The doomsday scenario goes something like this:..
.. If global temperatures keep rising, some methane hydrates will melt .. sending methane gas bubbling up through the ocean and into the atmosphere.
Like any good greenhouse gas, the methane will trap heat close to Earth’s surface, causing temperatures to climb even higher.
Hotter temperatures will melt more hydrates, and on and on.
In other words, methane hydrates could trigger the mother of all feedback loops.
The story, says David Archer, a geophysicist at the University of Chicago, “has a great apocalyptic side to it.”
Now comes this, from a paper to be published today in Science:
A section of the Arctic Ocean seafloor that holds vast stores of frozen methane is showing signs of instability and widespread venting of the powerful greenhouse gas ..
.. according to the findings of an international research team led by University of Alaska Fairbanks scientists Natalia Shakhova and Igor Semiletov.
The research results, published in the March 5 edition of the journal Science ..
.. show that the permafrost under the East Siberian Arctic Shelf .. long thought to be an impermeable barrier sealing in methane ..
.. is perforated and is leaking large amounts of methane into the atmosphere.
Release of even a fraction of the methane stored in the shelf could trigger abrupt climate warming..”
go to source/story>>Get ready for the methane apocalypse - How the World Works - Salon.com
“..It’s not meat, but it looks like meat.
It’s not meat, but it tastes like meat.
It’s not meat, but it feels like meat.
It’s not meat, but the more it looks and tastes and feels like meat, the more eating it is like having sex with rubber blow-up dolls: ..
..Both are the simulacra of primal adventures for which we are born and built.
For very different reasons, in each case we choose the version without flesh and blood.
One skill that sets apart our species from all others is counterfeiture: ..
.. We excel at fashioning imitations, simulations, analogues.
Whatever we don’t or can’t — or tell ourselves that we don’t or can’t — possess, we make a fake to replicate.
We are so good at this as to have changed the very meaning of reality.
So just as sex with blow-up dolls — and, to be all-inclusive, latex rods — is sex, and sounds and feels and looks (just squint) like sex, fake meat is real.
It’s real fake meat.
When we quit eating animals, why keep eating what looks/tastes/feels like animals?
What is it that we still yearn for from meat, about meat, in fake meat?
Lifetimes of barbecues and baseball games and beach parties and holidays have programmed our nostrils to flare at the sweet-salt smell of seared fat before our consciences kick into gear and holler No.
When bacon curls, our salivary glands perk up unbidden, just like being publicly aroused in middle school.
When we choose fakes, what battles rage inside our bodies and our heads?
What of sex with live partners is absent when we have it with lifelike replicas?
Let’s see: Emotions. Microbes. A response.
What of eating animals is missing when we eat Tofu Pups?
Gristle.
Guilt over farms and slaughter.
Fear of cancer, heart disease, global ruin..”
go to source/story>>Why Eating Meat-Shaped Vegetarian Food Is Like Having Sex with a Blow-up Doll | | AlterNet
“..I like beer, especially distinctive and flavorful craft brews, and I’m an environmentalist.
So I was disappointed to learn that the beer-brewing process is incredibly water-intensive, using six to eight gallons of water for every gallon of beer produced.
Fortunately, some green-minded brewers are finding ways to reduce their water use, as well as to conserve energy and other resources.
Sustainable Industries reports in its February issue that Full Sail Brewing in Hood River, Oregon, the nation’s ninth largest craft brewery, has taken on water conservation with great zeal, reducing its water use to just 3.45 gallons for each gallon of beer brewed.
The brewery also operates on a four-day workweek to cut down on water and energy use..”
go to source/story>>Brewing a Greener Beer
“.. Water and national security may not seem at first to be interconnected.
But they are-increasingly so as the global freshwater scarcity crisis deepens.
While leaders in Washington have been war-gaming the national security risks of climate change ..
.. they’ve only started to connect the dots to the closely related threats emanating from the growing crisis of global freshwater scarcity.
At first blush, water and national security may not seem to be interlinked.
But the reality, as narrated in my new book WATER: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization ..
.. is that the unfolding global water crisis increasingly influences the outcome of America’s two wars, homeland defense against international terrorism..
.. and other key U.S. national-security interests, including the transforming planetary environment and world geopolitical order.
Former U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali famously predicted 25 years ago that the “next war in the Middle East will be fought over water.”
While that has yet to come to pass, the greatest present danger stems from failing nation-states—and not just in the bone-dry Middle East.
With world water use growing at twice the rate of human population over the last century ..
.. many of the Earth’s vital freshwater ecosystems are already critically depleted and being used unsustainably to support our global population of 6.5 billion ..
.. according the 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment ..
.. and the situation can only be expected to get worse as the population pushes toward 9 billion by 2050.
As great rivers run dry before reaching the sea, groundwater is mined deeper and deeper beyond replenishment levels ..
.. and water quality erodes with growing pollution, an explosive fault line is cleaving between freshwater Haves and Have-Nots across the political, economic, and social landscapes of the 21st century.
Among the water Have-Nots are the 3.6 billion who will live in countries that won’t be able to feed themselves within 15 years due largely to scarcity of water—likely to include giant India.
Throughout history, states that have been unable to feed themselves with homegrown or reliably imported cheap food have stagnated, declined..
.. and often collapsed, with grievous adjustments in living standards, population levels, and regional turmoil..”
go to source/story>>Why Availability of Freshwater Is a Huge Factor in the ‘War on Terror’ | | AlterNet
“..
Yesterday, Norman kayaked Lake Ellesmere, which has a toxic alga concentration ..
.. as part of his national “dirty rivers rafting tour”.
He also attended a meeting on contaminated water supply in Dunsandel.
“It’s Dunsandel today but it’s Christchurch tomorrow – it’s getting closer,” he said.
“It seems like it’s a local problem for a little town .. but actually Christchurch needs to sit up and take notice.”
A GNS scientist said last year a 200-metre deep well in Avonhead had shown a “statistically significant trend” in increasing nitrate-nitrogen concentrations since 1995.
At the time Environment Canterbury (ECan) said the trend was a concern but the concentrations were low and did not pose health risks.
Yesterday, Norman said central and regional government had a responsibility to introduce regulations that protected water supplies, lakes and rivers.
“We just have to accept that with this kind of intensive agriculture we need regulation,” he said.
“You can’t say any more `farming’s all right’ – no-one has the right to pollute this water and this lake (Ellesmere) ..
.. and fundamentally that’s what happened.”
go to source/story>>Drinking water under threat, says Norman | Stuff.co.nz
“..The Government is considering allowing access to minerals in parts of the conservation estate now off-limits to mining under Schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act.
The areas are listed in Schedule 4 for their ecological and scenic values .. and include all 14 national parks and the Coromandel Forest Park.
Mining companies have been urging the Government to relax access rules so they can re-examine known gold deposits in the Coromandel and minerals such as tungsten, tin and copper in South Island national parks including Kahurangi and Mt Aspiring.
Mr Brownlee has questioned whether all land in schedule 4 merits highest-value conservation status .
.. and Prime Minister John Key and Conservation Minister Tim Groser have talked of the potential for “surgical” and “discrete” mining in these areas.
Activity could take place underground through narrow entrance tunnels to minimise surface disturbance.
But conservationists say many sought-after minerals are in low concentrations and widely dispersed ..
.. so large areas would need to be dug up for mining to be economic..”
go to source/story>>Brownlee refuses to rule out pit mining - Politics - NZ Herald News
“.. Lately, the United States hasn’t been very good at looking down the road.
Its captains of industry and government admittedly blew the economic meltdown ..
.. even as its sellout media kept urging buys on stocks that were mostly worthless.
Too bad the environmental meltdown is following the same, lame script.
According to a new study from the United Nations Environment Program, countries combating catastrophic climate change aren’t lacking in resources or reasons;..
.. they’re simply lacking ambition.
It seems that, as with the economic meltdown, they’d rather wait until the crisis has already ripped the roof off the world as they knew it ..
.. before doing anything significant about it.
“The U.S. is in danger of losing the race in the new global energy economy,” Angela Anderson, program director of the U.S. Climate Action Network, explained to AlterNet.
“The reason is simple power politics.
The entrenched fossil fuel industries are fighting tooth and nail to maintain their supremacy.
They are fighting with campaign contributions and scare tactics that do nothing but block the actions Congress and the president could take to make the U.S. a real leader.”
And they’re succeeding wildly.
After the so-called ClimateGate crap-sling purposefully peaked during last year’s Copenhagen summit, global warming skepticism apparently rose in the UK and no doubt elsewhere.
Consistent denier drumbeats from Fox News and its jackasses like Glenn Beck and others have further poisoned the well.
Worse, there are allegations that even officials in the Obama administration, such as David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel, are actively standing in the way of catching the U.S. up on global climate change efforts ..
.. as they forage among more domestic issues like the cratered American economy .. or the health care hornet’s nest for worthier poll-bait.
But they are missing the obvious, as usual:..
.. Like Earth itself, America’s regional and international problems are intricately networked ..
.. and they can all be ameliorated by accelerating the development of tomorrow’s global energy economy today.
More jobs, less waste, annihilation averted.
Seems like easy street, right?
Wrong..”
go to source/story>>We’re Screwing the Environment the Same Way We Screwed the Economy | | AlterNet
“..Footage of the new and innovative Scuderi engine actually running on its own can be seen at www.scuderigroup.com.
The engine is a huge departure from the existing Otto cycle that has been the mainstay of the internal combustion engine for the past 130 years.
It almost sounds too good to be true but the manufacturers are claiming their revolutionary Scuderi Cycle technology will double fuel mileage and produce just a fraction of the pollutants currently belched out by cars today.
The video is a two-minute clip showing the normally aspirated 1000cc petrol prototype engine in operation seemingly proving the idea of firing after top dead centre does in fact work.
Massachusetts engineer and inventor Carmelo Scuderi started tinkering with the fundamentals of the internal combustion engine when he retired in the mid-1990s.
The result was a radical new design that could make engines for lawn mowers to diesel locomotives lighter, far more efficient, and a whole lot easier on the environment.
After patenting the first design concepts, Scuderi unfortunately died in 2002 but his dream didn’t end there.
Five of his children now work at the company and are determined to bring the prototype to the market.
Scuderi’s new idea splits the idea of a central single cylinder doing the entire intake, compression, power and exhaust stroke work.
His design was to have two cylinders linked together.
In the first cylinder, air is compressed and then forced into the second cylinder where the fuel is added and the mixture is ignited.
It’s in this chamber that Scuderi again moves away from convention.
Bucking a trend that goes back to before Henry Ford’s day, ignition takes place after top dead centre when the piston is beginning its downward stroke.
The idea of a split-cycle engine has been around for ages, but none have ever matched the efficiency of traditional engines.
Scuderi believed he could solve the problem by pumping highly pressurised air from the compression cylinder into the combustion chamber ..
.. and then allowing the fuel and air to ignite when the head of the piston was already moving away from the top of the combustion cylinder..”
go to source/story>>Scuderi takes efficiency to new level - Motoring - NZ Herald News
“..Patrick Michaels has more credibility than your average climate skeptic.
Unlike some of the kookier characters that populate the small world of climate denialists—like Lord Christopher Monckton, a sometime adviser to Margaret Thatcher who claims that “We are a carbon-starved planet,” ..
.. or H. Leighton Steward, a retired oil executive and author of a best-selling diet book who argues that carbon dioxide is “green”—
- Michaels is actually a bona fide climate scientist.
As such, he’s often quoted by reporters as a reasonable expert .. who argues that global warming has been overhyped.
But what Michaels doesn’t mention in his frequent media appearances .. is his history of receiving money from big polluters.
Michaels, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute, has some impressive-sounding credentials.
He has a PhD in ecological climatology and is a senior fellow in the School of Public Policy at George Mason University.
He’s a past president of the American Association of State Climatologists ..
.. and a former program chair for the Committee on Applied Climatology of the American Meteorological Society.
He regularly touts his work as a contributing author and reviewer of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports.
(Almost every climate scientist in the world has at some point contributed to or reviewed an IPCC study.)
Unlike climate skeptics who implausibly claim that there’s no such thing as global warming ..
.. Michaels accepts that it’s happening, but downplays the severity of the problem .. and the role that human activity plays in the phenomenon.
With climate science increasingly under siege, Michaels has been getting plenty of airtime lately.
Following reports of errors and sloppy research procedures with the reports produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Michaels featured prominently in a CBS News report last month ..
.. claiming that there is “no doubt the trust in the UN panel has been undermined.”
And after hacked emails revealed that a group of climate scientists had tried to block skeptical views from academic papers and journals, Michaels appeared on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 to debate Bill Nye (the “Science Guy”).
Michaels said he was “troubled” that scientists at the heart of the controversy might have tried “to hide things” from Freedom of Information Act requests.
He was also featured prominently in a New York Times piece calling the controversy “a mushroom cloud” for climate science ..
.. and appeared several times in the Wall Street Journal complaining that scientists said mean things about him in the emails.
(It’s worth emphasizing that while the incident revealed scientists behaving unprofessionally, nothing in the emails undermined the underlying science of climate change.)
But Michaels’ credibility on climate is called into question by a trove of documents from a 2007 court case .. that attracted almost no scrutiny at the time.
Those documents show that Michaels has financial ties to big energy interests—
- ties that he’s worked hard to keep secret.
Here’s the back story:..”
go to source/story>>Most Credible Climate Skeptic Not So Credible After All | Mother Jones
“..Since we all know by now that air travel takes a giant toll on the earth ..
.. maybe you’ve been resisting those impossibly cheap last-minute weekend getaway deals.
Good for you.
But what about business travel?
For most of us, flying for work falls into the category of “those emissions aren’t my fault because my boss made me do it.”
But a recent study (PDF) by England’s Cranfield University found that most companies aren’t doing their part in cutting back on flying time.
In fact, they’re planning even more air miles..”
go to source/story>>Are Your Business Trips Killing the Planet? | Mother Jones
“..In 2007, New York Times writer Mark Bittman likened the cow to the atom bomb .. when speaking on the demands of our meaty diets on the planet…”
go to source/story>>Three TED Talks That Will Change How You Think About Food
“..For all of its ecological baggage, synthetic nitrogen does one good deed for the environment: it helps build carbon in soil.
At least, that’s what scientists have assumed for decades.
If that were true, it would count as a major environmental benefit of synthetic N use.
At a time of climate chaos and ever-growing global greenhouse gas emissions, anything that helps vast swaths of farmland sponge up carbon would be a stabilizing force.
Moreover, carbon-rich soils store nutrients and have the potential to remain fertile over time—a boon for future generations.
The case for synthetic N as a climate stabilizer goes like this.
Dousing farm fields with synthetic nitrogen makes plants grow bigger and faster.
As plants grow, they pull carbon dioxide from the air.
Some of the plant is harvested as crop, but the rest—the residue—stays in the field and ultimately becomes soil.
In this way, some of the carbon gobbled up by those N-enhanced plants stays in the ground and out of the atmosphere.
Well, that logic has come under fierce challenge from a team of University of Illinois researchers led by professors Richard Mulvaney, Saeed Khan, and Tim Ellsworth.
In two recent papers (see here and here) the trio argues that the net effect of synthetic nitrogen use is to reduce soil’s organic matter content.
Why?
Because, they posit, nitrogen fertilizer stimulates soil microbes, which feast on organic matter.
Over time, the impact of this enhanced microbial appetite outweighs the benefits of more crop residues.
And their analysis gets more alarming.
Synthetic nitrogen use, they argue, creates a kind of treadmill effect.
As organic matter dissipates, soil’s ability to store organic nitrogen declines.
A large amount of nitrogen then leaches away, fouling ground water in the form of nitrates, and entering the atmosphere as nitrous oxide (N2O), a greenhouse gas with some 300 times the heat-trapping power of carbon dioxide.
In turn, with its ability to store organic nitrogen compromised, only one thing can help heavily fertilized farmland keep cranking out monster yields: ..
.. more additions of synthetic N..”
(gee..!..someone really had better tell our farmers..eh..?..before they really fuck the place up..eh..?..)
go to source/story>>New research: synthetic nitrogen destroys soil carbon, undermines soil health | The N2 Dilemma: Is America Fertilizing Disaster? | Grist
“..Sridhar says the Bloom Energy Server generates electricity at 50 percent to 55 percent efficiency ..
.. which is about twice as efficient as the overall power grid.
Unlike competing systems, the Bloom Box will not repurpose excess heat to warm buildings and water, which can raise the overall energy efficiency of fuel cells to 90 percent.
The tradeoff is that installing so-called combined heat and power systems is an expensive and months-long process..”
go to source/story>>Bloom: Thinking inside the box | Grist
“..I thought Bill Nye was awesome when I was a kid, and he’s still awesome now.
Take this video clip, for example, in which the onetime (and always!) Science Guy keeps a cool head while explaining the science behind global warming to Bill O’Reilly ..
.. and the frantic TV meteorologist/denier shill Joe Bastardi:..”
go to source/story>>Bill Nye Schools Bill O’Reilly in Climate Change « SpeakEasy
“.. Having your own vegetable garden is now trendy, 38 percent of people planted a vegetable garden in 2009, but there are a host of other reasons, too.
Not that being part of a trend is ever a good reason to start or learn something new ..
.. but if it helps you move forward by being part of the “in” crowd ..
.. then you really need to plant your own edible garden this year..”
go to source/story>>7 Reasons Why You Should Grow Your Own Food | | AlterNet
“.. It smells like burnt sheep and faeces, the water changes colour, algae grows on the rocks and waterfalls of white, frothy foam pours into it.
Green Party co-leader Russel Norman came to see first-hand how sick the Manawatu River is yesterday.
He had read the statistics and heard the claims that Manawatu’s River was one of the most polluted rivers in New Zealand.
But it was not until he got into a kayak, paddled up to the pipes where the pollution pours straight into the river, that he realised how dire the water quality was.
The discharge coming from New Zealand Pharmaceuticals looked the worst, he said.
“All this white foam was pouring out non-stop, it smelt very odd, like burnt sheep.
“It’s sad because just down stream from it is this deep, slow moving area that would be a fantastic swimming hole but who would want to swim in that.”
New Zealand Pharmaceuticals was granted consent in 2008 to continue to discharge up to 240 cubic metres a day of process water, up to 2400 cumecs a day of cooling water and up to 3200 cumecs a day of stormwater from the plant to the Manawatu River.
Managing director Richard Garland said the discharge was nothing in comparison to the runoff from farms.
“When people look at the point discharge they say `horror horror’,” he said.
“They can spend a lot of time criticising point discharge and miss the major issue.”
New Zealand Pharmaceuticals was spending $1.5 million to make a ten-fold reduction in waste going into the river, he said.
Palmerston North City Council’s discharge also smelt, Mr Norman said.
The council discharges up to 42,000 cumecs of treated wastewater each day during dry weather. It has an unspecified wet weather discharge limit.
Palmerston North Mayor Jono Naylor said people had to remember that the sewage made up a small proportion of the overall river flow.
“At low flows our discharge at most makes up 1.5 per cent of the river flow and in high river flows it makes 0.3 per cent.”
But Mr Norman said no-one should be allowed to pollute into the river.
“It belongs to everybody..”
go to source/story>>Norman disgusted by river stench | Stuff.co.nz
“..A young mother of two, tired of spending her evenings in the kitchen hammering out slow, “sustainable” recipes, recently embarked on an interesting experiment:
She and her husband would try one month of quick-and-dirty dinners—“if it came frozen, wrapped in cellophane, in a plastic tub or with a pop top . . . we would buy it and eat it”—followed by one month of “the locavore’s dream,” complete with herb-growing, bean-soaking, and trash-composting.
“This would be a battle between the frozen chicken piccata with 38 ingredients and the BLT made from Prather Ranch bacon, hand-kneaded bread, farm-fresh veggies and home-blended mayonnaise,” Sierra Filucci explains in the Sacramento News & Review.
“But more than that, it would be a test of what it means to be a mother—a mother who wants to feed her family and keep them healthy..
.. but who also wants more from life than kneading dough and a sink full of dishes.”
go to source/story>>One Family’s Experiment: Crap Food vs. Sustainable Food
“..A skipper hoping to become the first to sail round the world using solar power said his catamaran could carve a wake for pollution-free shipping as he unveiled the record-breaking yacht Thursday.
“This is a unique feeling to see in front of me today a boat which I so often dreamed about,” said Raphael Domjan as the covers came off the $24 million boat, the world’s biggest solar-powered vessel.
PlanetSolar, a 100-by-50-foot white catamaran, has been designed to reach a top speed of around 15 knots, equivalent to 15 miles per hour, and can hold up to 50 passengers. It is topped by 5,380 square feet of black solar panels, with a bright white cockpit sticking up in the center.
Constructed at the Knierim Yacht Club in Kiel in northern Germany, its state-of-the-art design also means it will be able to slice smoothly through the waves even in choppy waters..”
go to source/story>>World’s biggest solar-powered boat unveiled | Grist
“..Twenty-one years ago, in 1989, I wrote what many have called the first book for a general audience on global warming.
One of the more interesting reviews came from The Wall Street Journal.
It was a mixed and judicious appraisal.
“The subject,” the reviewer said, “is important, the notion is arresting, and Mr. McKibben argues convincingly.”
And that was not an outlier: around the same time, the first president Bush announced that he planned to “fight the greenhouse effect with the White House effect.”
I doubt that’s what the Journal will say about my next book when it comes out in a few weeks ..
.. and I know that no GOP presidential contender would now dream of acknowledging that human beings are warming the planet.
Sarah Palin is currently calling climate science “snake oil,” and last week the Utah legislature, in a move straight out of the King Canute playbook, passed a resolution condemning “a well organized and ongoing effort to manipulate global temperature data in order to produce a global warming outcome” on a nearly party-line vote.
And here’s what’s odd.
In 1989, I could fit just about every scientific study on climate change on top of my desk.
The science was still thin.
If my reporting made me think it was nonetheless convincing, many scientists were not yet prepared to agree.
Now, you could fill the Superdome with climate-change research data. (You might not want to, though, since Hurricane Katrina demonstrated just how easy it was to rip holes in its roof.)
Every major scientific body in the world has produced reports confirming the peril.
All 15 of the warmest years on record have come in the two decades that have passed since 1989.
In the meantime, the Earth’s major natural systems have all shown undeniable signs of rapid flux: melting Arctic and glacial ice, rapidly acidifying seawater, and so on.
Somehow, though, the onslaught against the science of climate change has never been stronger, and its effects, at least in the U.S., never more obvious: ..
.. Fewer Americans believe humans are warming the planet.
At least partly as a result, Congress feels little need to consider global-warming legislation, no less pass it;..
.. and as a result of that failure, progress toward any kind of international agreement on climate change has essentially ground to a halt..”
go to source/story>>The attack on climate science is the O.J. moment of the 21st century | Grist
“.. The Obamas are taking on childhood obesity by tackling problems with the National School Lunch Program.
But will their fixes be enough?
Michelle Obama launched her “Let’s Move” campaign to fight obesity with a flood of media attention and a Presidential Memorandum, signed by her husband, establishing a new Task Force on Childhood Obesity.
But how does the rhetoric of the Let’s Move campaign stack up against what President Obama’s administration is actually doing to address childhood obesity?
While many of the president’s priorities have lost steam in Congress, tackling childhood obesity is thankfully not one of them.
But are the administration’s efforts on the right track?
While the First Lady has been a champion for healthy, sustainable food since the creation of her historic garden in her first days in the White House ..
.. the title of her campaign, Let’s Move, rings of food industry influence.
After all, junk food manufacturers have long advocated that Americans can eat whatever they want, so long as they work out afterward.
(The industry-favored term for this is “energy balance.”)
Such an outlook carelessly ignores nutrients that contribute to good health, putting 100 calories of French fries on par with 100 calories of fruit.
It also ignores the simple fact that, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture numbers, Americans today eat more than they did in the past —
– over 500 calories more per day, if you compare 1970 with 2006.
So, just moving is not going to solve our obesity epidemic, especially in kids.
While there are many factors that contribute to children being overweight ..
.. the big kahuna of the child obesity debate is our National School Lunch Program..”
go to source/story>>Are School Lunches Setting Kids Up for Obesity and Poor Nutrition? | | AlterNet
“..A new study coming out of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that when it comes to the net contribution to climate change on-road transportation, burning biomass for cooking, and raising animals for food are the biggest culprits.
Since most of us don’t regularly use biomass stoves to cook, as do millions of people in developing nations ..
.. that leaves us with your car and your diet to tackle.
Rather than looking at the sources of different chemicals linked with global warming, the GISS study looked at net climate impact from different economic sectors.
By net impact, we’re talking about emissions than contribute to warming (the usual suspects CO2, methane, black carbon, etc) ..
.. minus those emissions that actually slow warming (some aerosols, sulfates, etc) by reflecting light and altering clouds..”
go to source/story>>Your car and your meat-eating: the biggest causes of climate change | Grist
“.. Former Green Party MP Sue Bradford’s son has been found not guilty of sex charges after a week-long trial last week.
Joseph Henry Bradford, 20, of Dunedin, was acquitted of three counts of sexual violation, including rape, the New Zealand Herald reported.
Interim name suppression in the case finished yesterday.
The charges were related to an incident in a Dunedin flat during a party on May 9 last year.
Bradford’s application for permanent name suppression was denied by Judge Paul Kellar.
He said he was concerned that suspicion would fall on others if name suppression was continued..”
go to source/story>>Former Green MP’s son acquitted of sex charges | Stuff.co.nz
“..or all its complexity, the core of this problem can be stated simply enough: ..
.. What kind of a climate transition would be fair enough to actually work?
First, a confession: This is not another enumeration of confident judgments.
I will not tell you that Copenhagen was an unmitigated failure. Or that this failure was Obama’s fault.
Or that, as is the new fashion, China was the ugliest of them all.
I will not say that the South’s negotiators made impossible demands.
Or argue that the United Nations’ process is unwieldy and obsolete.
I will not claim that only domestic US action really matters.
Nor will I talk of a “North-South impasse” or a “US-China polluters pact,” two popular formulations that misleadingly imply an equal division of blame.
I will say this: Almost two decades after I started working on climate change, I was happily astounded to witness the crystallization, on the streets of Copenhagen, of a grassroots movement that was both energetic and sophisticated ..
.. and to see global civil society groups working in solidarity with the leaders of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable nations to press a collective agenda.
And I can tell you something else: ..
.. Our chances of preventing climate catastrophe rests in large part on the ability of this new alliance to communicate to the world’s richest and most powerful peoples that the emissions emergency is, above all things ..
.. a crisis of justice..”
go to source/story>>We’re Headed for the Greatest Resource-Sharing Problem of All Time | | AlterNet
“..Up to now, the Earth has been very kind to us.
Most of our achievements in the past 10,000 years - farming, culture, cities, industrialisation and the raising of our numbers from a million or so to almost 7 billion -
- happened during an unusually benign period when Earth’s natural regulatory systems kept everything from the climate to the supply of fresh water inside narrow, comfortable boundaries.
This balmy springtime for humanity is known as the Holocene.
But we are now in a new era, the Anthropocene, defined by human domination of the key systems that maintain the conditions of the planet.
We have grabbed the controls of spaceship Earth, but in our reckless desire to “boldly go”, we may have forgotten the importance of maintaining its life-support systems.
The demands of nearly 7 billion humans are stretching Earth to breaking point.
We know about climate change, but what about other threats?
To what extent do pollution, acidifying oceans, mass extinctions, dead zones in the sea and other environmental problems really matter?
We can’t keep stressing these systems indefinitely ..
.. but at what point will they bite back?..”
go to source/story>>From ocean to ozone: Earth’s nine life-support systems - New Scientist
“..Chinese commuters in the millions are turning to electric bicycles—hailed as the environmentally friendly future of personal transport in the country’s teeming cities.
Up to 120 million e-bikes are estimated to be on the roads in China, making them already the top alternative to cars and public transport, according to recent figures published by local media.
“This is the future—it’s practical, it’s clean, and it’s economical,” said manufacturer Shi Zhongdong, whose company also exports electric bikes to Asia and Europe.
The bikes have been hailed as an ecologically sound alternative in a country that is the world’s top emitter of greenhouse gases, with their rechargeable batteries leaving a smaller carbon footprint than cars.
But some have expressed concerns about the pollution created by cheaper lead batteries in the bikes, calling for better recycling and a quick shift to cleaner, though more expensive, lithium-ion battery technology.
More than 1,000 companies are already in the e-bike business in China..
.. with many of them clustered in the eastern coastal provinces such as Jiangsu and Zhejiang, which both border Shanghai..”
go to source/story>>Electric bikes on a roll in China | Grist
“..Evidence continues to build regarding the impact of climate change on the environment and people.
Even if you are a climate change sceptic you cannot escape the fact that businesses and governments around the world are adapting policies and practices accordingly.
So, what about the impact of climate change on the employment market?
The need to understand, adapt to and mitigate the effect of climate change is creating new career opportunities on a global scale.
The recent United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen recognised “that clean energy technology and efficient energy use are cornerstones in managing the challenges of the future.
Not just for the sake of the climate, but also for growth, jobs and security of supply”.
Today you can find courses relating to climate change at universities, organisations have departments that are focused on sustainability matters ..
.. and local and national governments are working on sustainable policies to create a more positive future.
It is now a critical issue for many businesses and is an integral part of strategic planning to address the risks and potential opportunities.
Employees are also increasingly required to have a thorough understanding of the implications.
Functional areas of a business, such as finance and marketing, need to consider sustainability/carbon reporting and issues of sustainability branding.
Technical fields, engineering and sciences especially .. have an array of emerging employment opportunities..”
go to source/story>>Eco-issues shaping global job market - Employment - NZ Herald News
“..Wally et Hermès use green energy to 20 to 30% fuel savings and 40 to 50% electricity consumption on board.
Therefore there are 900 m2 equipped with solar panels .. producing a daily output of 500 kW..”
go to source/story>>Unusual Luxury Yacht | Time Idol - Funny Animals, Funny News, Animals News
“..Modern life diminishes such skills and wisdom; ..
.. at the beginning of the twenty-first century, society has lost touch with what may be the singular sensibility crucial to our survival as a species.
The routines of our daily lives go on completely disconnected from their adverse impacts on the world around us; ..
.. our collective mind harbors blind spots that disconnect our everyday activities from the crises those same activities create in natural systems.
Yet at the same time the global reach of industry and commerce means that the impacts of how we live extend to the far corners of the planet.
Our species threatens to consume and befoul the natural world at a rate that far exceeds our planet’s carrying capacity..”
go to source/story>>Ecological Intelligence: Do Humans Have What it Takes to Survive? | | AlterNet
“.. Olympics advertising is an orgy of sugar and empty calories .. thanks to the athletes who shill fast food for cash.
Maybe you thought that junk food and soft drinks would take a hike during the Olympics, the world’s largest celebration of bodies at the peak of health and fitness.
But if you thought that, you’d be wrong.
McDonald’s and Coca Cola are almost as ubiquitous as the five rings up here in Vancouver.
We’re drowning in evidence of the detrimental effects of soft drinks, and being crushed under the weight of research about the consequences of junk food.
Yet these Olympics seem to be setting records for the number of billboards and TV commercials selling sugar-filled and empty calorie food and drink.
And also for the number of athletes shilling them, and even equating them with national pride.
If you believe what you see and hear, you’d think junk food and soft drinks are the stuff Olympic and other dreams are made of.
In one McDonald’s TV commercial, played dozens of times, for example, snowboarder Brad Martin says he “gives into temptation” to eat French fries every chance he gets.
To him, that’s a “golden moment.”
Martin is sponsored by McDonald’s..”
go to source/story>>The Olympics and Its Stars Pimp for Junk Food | | AlterNet
“..Many companies have proven quite successful in promoting their products as sustainable, but their actual practices are—gasp!—quite the opposite.
In the Maddock Douglas survey of 2,032 U.S. adults, General Mills—the maker of brands ranging from Hamburger Helper to Muir Glen—ranked highest among companies in the food and beverage sector scoring 81 out of 100 possible points in public perception.
However, General Mills, which also makes Cheerios, scored only 49 points based upon their actual practices..”
go to source/story>>When the big guys want to do the right thing | Grist
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