From the monthly archives: September 2008

Humans are Slowly and Steadily Destroying the Everglades and Amazon

By On September 30, 2008

If it wasn’t bad enough that we seem to be pumping more and more in the way of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, we humans seem to be doing a pretty damn good job of eating away any chance of removing said emissions.

The latest comes in a one-two punch. First of [...]

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GRACE Acquires Accurate Picture of Greenland Ice Loss

By On September 30, 2008

Over the past few years we have sadly had to watch the Arctic ice concentrations drop significantly. Focus has been primarily centered on the Arctic Circle, but Greenland is also suffering from the increased global temperature.

And now, thanks to researchers from the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands and the [...]

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Air Capture System Can Filter Carbon Dioxide From Any Air, Anywhere

By On September 30, 2008

This is a guest post by Meg Hamill, a freelance writer, also working at the environmental non-profit LandPaths in Sonoma County, California

This summer at the University of Calgary in Canada, great strides were made in  an air capture system, built to filter CO2 emissions from diffuse sources.

Professor David Keith, director of [...]

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Will the Florida Keys Be Our Next National Park? I Hope Not

By On September 29, 2008

Representatives from South Florida’s Monroe County are going to make a pitch this week for undeveloped private land in the Florida Keys to be bought with federal and state money, and then turned into a national park. While I’m all for more protection of beach and ocean areas in the Keys, I think this [...]

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Eco-News Roundup: Stories You Might Have Missed

By On September 29, 2008

Every week sees so many developments and news stories about the environment, energy and sustainability, it’s impossible to cover them all in depth. So I thought it would be helpful to occasionally summarize some of the more interesting reports from the past week. Here are a few that caught my eye:

Two South African [...]

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British Experiments to Test Ecological Conditions in 2100, Today

By On September 28, 2008

There is almost nothing quite as intriguing and interesting as learning of a new experiment. And while Bunsen burners and the like may be OK for some of you, for me, get me outside and in some dirt any day.

A new experiment, being conducted at Imperial College London’s Silwood Park campus [...]

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What Will Earth Look Like in 100 Million Years?

By On September 26, 2008

Did Alan Weisman’s book The World Without Us get your mind spinning about what our planet would look like if we just suddenly disappeared? Well, get ready to spin some more, courtesy of a new book by University of Leicester geologist Jan Zalasiewicz.

Titled The Earth After Us: What Legacy Will Humans Leave in [...]

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wheat

The Search is On for Food Crops That Will Survive Global Climate Change

By On September 24, 2008

This is a guest post by Meg Hamill who works at LandPaths in Partnership with The Open Space District of Sonoma County, California.

Here’s a question, not meant to keep you up at night, but definitely worth thinking about:  Which of the foods in your refrigerator right now would be likely to survive [...]

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Riding a Bike: Superhero Bike Tour of Missouri

By On September 24, 2008

This most recent weekend, I had the pleasure of meeting about two dozen different superheroes. These weren’t your typical eye beam-blasting, web-slinging, high-flying superheroes, though. Instead, they were bicycle-riding, service-providing, and compassion-inspiring superheroes with names like CompashMan (short for compassionate man), Believe-Oh, Love Ninja, Queen Bee, Atomic Calm, and Super OK With Himself Guy. [...]

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farmers market

Urban Farmer Wins MacArthur Genius Grant

By On September 24, 2008

Will Allen, former pro basketball player, founded Growing Power to help low-income people in Milwaukee  and Chicago grow their own food locally.

He will now have an extra $500,000 to help his efforts.

 

The MacArthur Foundation announced yesterday that they will honor his work with one of their  25 annual [...]

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More Progress Needed for Environmental Restoration

By On September 24, 2008

According to a new study published in Restoration Ecology, the use of large experimental tests in the field of environmental restoration has been limited, at best. The study posits that, for restoration to proceed as a science as well as a practice, large scale experiments will have to be conducted on whole [...]

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Turn Your House into a Water Conservation Station

By On September 24, 2008

On average, humans need approximately 13 gallons of water a day. In the U.S. the average family uses 245 gallons per day!


If you did your homework and purchased the Blue Planet Run book as I suggested last week, then you will find most of what I’m about to [...]

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Palin Says Polar Bears are Secure. Science Says They’re Eating One Another

By On September 23, 2008

Sarah Palin has said many times that the polar bear habitat is safe, and there’s no need to classify them as a “threatened” species.  Yet today comes word that as the Arctic sea ice melts, polar bears are finding less and less food sources and are beginning to cannibalize one another.

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Omnivore’s Dilemma Author and Monsanto CEO Chat with Google in the Defense of Food

By On September 23, 2008

Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant and author Michael Pollan agree to disagree over the world’s food crisis…kinda.

In an unlikely pairing, both Michael Pollan and Monsanto’s CEO Hugh Grant sat down with Google.org and YouTube for a discussion on the world’s food crisis. The two had met and became friends upon visiting the [...]

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Robert De Niro Caught Selling Endangered Fish in His Restaurants

By On September 23, 2008

This past weekend, undercover operatives from Greenpeace tested the DNA of fish served in several London-based restaurants that are part of a chain known as Nobu. The restaurants are partially owned by actor Robert De Niro. The tested fish were discovered to be endangered bluefin tuna. In an incredibly stupid response, Nobu’s principal manager [...]

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Much of Iran is Sinking Due to Drained Aquifers

By On September 23, 2008

American missiles are not the only threat to Iran’s physical stability. A geological study has found that the nation’s groundwater is running so low from decades of over-use that many parts of the country have sunk dramatically, causing damage in both agricultural and urban areas.

Fifty percent of the country’s water is [...]

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