environment
j7uy5 | March 31, 2007Perhaps
a minor issue in terms of national priorities: the Senate is
considering a bill that would make nearly ll federal employees eligible
for telecommuting.
face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/29/AR2007032902043.html">Senators
Push for More Telecommuting
By Stephen Barr
Washington Post
Friday, March 30, 2007; Page D04
face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Two senators think it's
time for more federal employees to be telecommuting.
Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and Mary Landrieu (D-La.) have introduced a bill
that…
clock | March 30, 2007In today's issue of Science, there is a study showing that hunting of sharks, by eliminating the main predator of rays, leads to a decline in the ray's - and ours - food: the scallops:
A team of Canadian and American ecologists, led by world-renowned fisheries biologist Ransom Myers at Dalhousie University, has found that overfishing the largest predatory sharks, such as the bull, great white, dusky, and hammerhead sharks, along the Atlantic Coast of the United States has led to an explosion of their ray, skate, and small shark prey species.
"With fewer sharks around, the species they prey…
clock | March 29, 2007I guess some people have no sense of aesthetic pleasure, no personal connection to nature, and no ability to think beyond money, money, money. They want to drill in Chaco Canyon, of all places! Apparently, there is more time to act, as the drilling is being assessed. During that brief respite, we can try to tip the scales by peititoning people whose job is to make the final decision. Afarensis has all the details, additional information about the case, and the contact information for you to use to try to prevent this disaster.
clock | March 26, 2007During the National Wildlife Week (April 21th - 29th), if you can, please participate in the First Annual Blogger Bioblitz:
Pick a neat little area that you are relatively familiar with and is small enough that you or the group can handle - a small thicket, a pond, a section of stream, or even your backyard - and bring along some taxonomic keys or an Audubon guide, or if you're lucky enough, an expert in local flora and fauna. Set a time limit. Try to identify the different species of organisms that you find as well as the number of each species that you find. Take pictures if you have a…
clock | March 23, 2007Treehugger interviews Tim Toben who is building the NC's first LEED Gold Mixed Use Project in Chapel Hill, NC.
ksharpe | March 23, 2007During the too-warm New York winter of 2007, a parent at Brooklyn's PS 58 started Little Grassroots as a place for children to blog about global warming. On it, the children of PS 58 are joined by kids from as far afield as France, the UK, and Singapore. Their contributions to the blog are lightly curated, but the children and their words really take center stage.
Earlier this month, the blog editor posted an email that a PS 58 first-grader wrote to Colin, the green blogger at No Impact Man.
March 11, 2007
A six-year-old I'd like to nominate for President
This email from a first-grader at…
grrlscientist | March 22, 2007As you all know, I love the Harry Potter books, so it should not surprise you to learn that I was most pleased to find out that the final Harry Potter book will be printed on recycled paper products. Recently, Scholastic Inc. said that it had agreed with the Rainforest Alliance, a conservation organization that works with the business community, on tightened environmental standards for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, coming out July 21 with a first printing of 12 million.
J.K. Rowling's seventh Potter book will be 784 pages long, Scholastic said, which is comparable to the fourth (734…
grrlscientist | March 22, 2007There are approximately 700 million people in the world who experience water scarcity. This number will probably increase to more than 3 billion by 2025. Because the world's lakes and rivers are shared between the world's nations, an integrated cross-border management of this vital resource is crucial, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today in a message marking World Water Day.
"The state of the world's waters remains fragile, and the need for an integrated and sustainable approach to water resource management is as pressing as ever. Available supplies are under great duress…
j7uy5 | March 15, 2007Everyone's
heard of blue lasers by now. Some people have them in their
homes. The reason they are important, is that blue light has
a shorter wavelength than the red lasers that were used in the first CD
and DVD devices. The shorter wavelength means that the laser
can see smaller dots. Smaller dots mean that more information
can be packed into the same space. That means more
information can be put on a DVD is a blue laser is used, compared to a
red laser.
A few years ago, companies started working on ultraviolet
light-emitting diodes and lasers. Because UV light has even
shorter…
ksharpe | March 14, 2007As the New York Times reports today, the British government has introduced a sweeping bill that would cut the UK's carbon emissions by 60 percent by 2050. Read the article, or watch Britain's environmental minister, David Miliband, introduce the bill on YouTube:
j7uy5 | March 12, 2007The draft for
the
href="http://www.ipcc.ch/">IPCC report for this
year paints a distinctly disturbing picture of the near future.
As reported in
href="http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/2007-03-11-climate-report_N.htm?POE=NEWISVA">USA
Today (among many others)...
Tens
of millions of Latin Americans who now
have water will be short of it in less than 20 years.
By
2080, between 200 million and 600 million
people could be hungry because of global warming's effects.
About
100 million people each year could be
flooded by 2080 by rising seas. [Think Central America…
ksharpe | March 12, 2007A leaked memo from an official in the U.S. Department of the Interior warns government officials traveling to other countries to avoid discussing topics "involving or potentially involving climate change, sea ice, and/or polar bears."
While the Bush administration continues to debate whether or not to list polar bears as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act, emissaries of the U.S. government are advised—at least in meetings with the officials of countries bordering the Arctic Circle—to avoid the controversial issue altogether.
As an Independent (UK) article reposted at ClimateArk…
j7uy5 | March 12, 2007One
of the embarrassing things about Michigan Politics is that many of the
national politicians, while generally fairly progressive, do not get on
board with mandates for cars that pollute less.
The auto makers argue that it would take too long to develop the
technology to meet higher fuel economy standards, etc.
But now they have been proved wrong.
href="http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/new-vehicle-design-surpasses-0011.html">New
Vehicle Design Surpasses State Global Warming StandardsEngineers
Design Affordable, Clean Car Using Existing Technology and Fuels
WASHINGTON
–…
j7uy5 | March 5, 2007A
while back, I wrote (twice) about the nettlesome issue of
rel="tag"
href="http://scienceblogs.com/corpuscallosum/2007/02/endocrine_disruptors.php">endocrine
disruptors. A more detailed post was offered at
href="http://scienceblogs.com/terrasig/2007/02/lavender_and_tea_tree_oils_may.php">Terra
Sig. The reason this is a nettlesome problem is
that it is an area with potentially huge implications, but with not
enough hard data.
The huge implications come in two forms: if we are not cautious enough,
we could be inadvertently lowering our fertility by exposure to
chemicals that…
pharyngula | March 4, 2007Wilson wrote a nice book, The Creation(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), in which he argued that Christians should be leaders in good stewardship of the earth. Now some religious leaders have spoken out against such activities.
The Catholic church is babbling about an antichrist.
An arch-conservative cardinal chosen by the Pope to deliver this year's Lenten meditations to the Vatican hierarchy has caused consternation by giving warning of an Antichrist who is "a pacifist, ecologist and ecumenist".
After all, as we all know, when Christ returns he will be an isolationist industrialist who will rip…
ksharpe | February 28, 2007The Western honeybee, Apis mellifera, came to North America with European settlers in 1622. An invasive species in the 17th century, the honeybee has since become indispensable for its services as a pollinator. Carrying pollen from flower to flower on their bodies, honeybees complete the plant reproductive cycle, vital for the creation of fruit. Farmers in the U.S. rely on honeybees to pollinate crops including apples, blueberries, cantaloupe, soybeans, pumpkins, and almonds, among others.
Honeybee populations in North America have declined by about 50 percent in the last half-century.…
maggie wittlin | February 22, 2007Global climate change may melt glaciers, slash biodiversity, and displace countless coastal dwellers, but there's one thing rising temperatures will never boil away: Our sense of style! That's the message Diesel (the jeans company, not the fuel) hopes to spread with its newest advertising campaign, "Global Warming Ready." When the Earth—and, apparently, all of its inhabitants—gets totally hot, we'll be able to sunbathe by a beachy Mount Rushmore, motorboat off the coast of London, and slash our way through the jungles of gay Paris, all in our hip Diesel threads. Oh dear.
(video below the fold…
sarahdasher | February 16, 2007A recent report by the Asian Development Bank predicts that garbage output by Asian cities will more than double by 2025--from 760 thousand tons to 1.8 million tons per day. That amount of garbage would rapidly swamp the municipal governments charged with taking care of trash disposal.
Here in the U.S., New York and Maryland lead the nation in trash export, although they produce a less than average amount of trash per capita. On the other hand, Pennsylvania and Michigan import (by far) the most.
Let's take a look at where all this trash is coming from...
The U.S. produces 1.3 tons of…
aardvarchaeology | February 16, 2007A few days of vigorous debate here has changed my views on the energy production and environment issue. I now believe we should do the following to improve our slim chances of saving civilisation and the environment.
Downscale our energy use dramatically.
Dam all suitable watercourses on Earth for hydroelectric power. (Screw scenic beauty.)
Replace fossil fuel power plants and lo-tech nuclear power plants with hi-tech nuke plants in affluent democracies, which must for safety's sake sell electricity cheaply to less fortunate countries. The nuke plants should preferrably be in areas with well-…
clock | February 15, 2007Global warming change is the topic of a symposium, free and open to the public, in NC State's Campus Cinema, located in Witherspoon Student Center, February 26-28, and featuring excellent speakers. Elizabeth Kolbert, author of FIELD NOTES FROM A CATASTROPHE, opens the meeting on Monday, Feb. 26, at 7:00 p.m.
For more information and to see who else is speaking during the three-day event, click here