Planetsave

This picture is a picture of the beautiful Monterey, California coastline. This is where I grew up. It is famous for it’s beautiful sea life. Sea otters, jelly fish, sea lions, kelp forests all populate the Monterey coast.  The Pacific Ocean is the largest ocean in the world. Yet, with all that mass of water, we humans are changing the chemical properties. The acid levels in the pacific ocean, as well as every ocean around the world, are rising. If things keep going this beautiful coastline, my home, will become a wasteland of acid. Habitable to only the most extremophiles.

Rewind our story. Fossil fuels are not just a problem for our atmosphere. When we burn fossil fuels carbon dioxide falls down into the sea. The carbon dioxide is quickly converted into carbonic acid. Carbonic acid has been known to be corrosive to corals and shellfish, and now scientists are discovering that rising acid levels in the ocean are effecting other animals as well.

Read the rest of this entry »

The conductor walks on to the stage and mounts the podium with applause from the crowd.  He bows to the audience, then turns to his orchestra and, with one fluid motion pulls music from the vast expanse of silence. Each musician moves, almost mechanically, in perfect time, in perfect concert. The violin section becomes one great body, no longer individual musicians. Together, as one, the orchestra ebbs and flows in crescendo and decrescendo. Melody. Harmony. Symphony.

But imagine with me for a moment that one violinist fell out of rhythm. The once fluid sound drips through the cracks of disarray. From there, another violinist. Next a cellist. Soon the entire string section has lost rhythm. The conductor struggles to pull the string section into concert with the rest of the orchestra. However, the chaos of the string section has spread to the brass and to the woodwind sections. Soon the entire orchestra is in conflict. Read the rest of this entry »

London’s mayor announced a new 2 million tree plan to help fight climate change and keep Londoners cool.

The plan is designed to counteract the “urban heat island effect” in which urban areas absorb and release more heat than surrounding areas, due to having more pavement, traffic and power demand.

Read the rest of this entry »

International companies such as McDonald’s are happy, and companies like Nike, Wal-Mart and Carrefour are asking for more.
Read the rest of this entry »

Timberland has announced a new policy agreement with Greenpeace to ensure that leather used in new boots and shoes won’t contribute to deforestation in the Amazon.

The policy will issue a moratorium on purchasing any cattle raised in newly deforested areas within the Amazon Rainforest, and it will force all of its suppliers to do the same.

Read the rest of this entry »

Cold-blooded animals have a lifespan which is exponentially related to the temperature of their environment, a new study finds.

That means that as temperatures increase due to global warming, cold-blooded animals around the world will begin dying younger. Given that the vast majority of animals on Earth are cold-blooded, including the likes of amphibians, mollusks, crustaceans and reptiles, global warming could have unexpected, profound impacts on the world’s ecosystems.
Read the rest of this entry »

The European Union (EU) and MTV are working together to get young people involved in the climate debate. The major entities started their “Play to Stop – Europe for Climate” campaign this month. Working with international music artists and other international celebrities, this is a major campaign to mobilize the youth around the topic of climate change, and especially for the Copenhagen Climate Conference in December.

The campaign targets 11 EU countries — Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The campaign will involve celebrities from the various participating countries.
Read the rest of this entry »

July 20th, 2009 was the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11’s historic flight to the moon, where astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first human beings to walk on the moon. 40 years ago, space flight inspired such awe that astronauts were hailed as heroes and celebrities by men, women, and children alike. 40 years later none of us, besides the most avid space fanatic, would likely to be able to name one astronaut in service today.

Despite the tragedies of Space Shuttle Challenger, and later Columbia, where the world is shocked into being reminded of the inherit dangers of sitting on 1 million gallons of rocket fuel, or re-entering the earth’s atmosphere at 1,870 miles per hour. We all see space flight as mundane because the vast majority of space flights since Apollo 11, have been mostly conducting seemingly routine scientific experiments. Now don’t get me wrong, I believe in the importance of science in space, but these experiments don’t exactly inspire awe in the general population like, oh say, a manned mission to Mars would. We also don’t have the fever of beating those damned Ruskies because they might go to space and blow us all up, which we had during the height of the cold war when Apollo 11 touched down on the lunar Sea of Tranquility.

Read the rest of this entry »

Join other bicyclists or support a bicyclist to help combat global warming this Fall. For the second year in a row, bicyclists (and non-bicyclists) will join together for a climate conference “on wheels” — the Brita Climate Ride.
Read the rest of this entry »

The sun is coming out. And Europe isn’t waiting any longer. Some of the biggest businesses in Europe are ready to invest in the largest solar energy project in the world. They are looking to create a “solar energy belt” in the Middle East and North Africa.

How will the energy get to Europe? It will go through huge “super grids” under the Mediterranean Sea. Has this kind of thing happened before? Siemens CEO, Peter Löscher, says: “A few years ago we connected Tasmania with the Australian continent. And from 2011 there will be a 250-kilometer undersea cable supplying Majorca with electricity from the Spanish mainland. For us, this kind of thing is now part of our core business.”

Read the rest of this entry »