Planetsave

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.

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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.
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A new study finds that there is a 50-50 chance all of the Colorado River reservoirs — in California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona — will run completely dry by the year 2057 if currents trends and practices continue.
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The American Public Transportation Association is asking for great transit photos showing transportation that is green and friendly and will change our future.

As shown year after year, public transit is a key factor keeping our planet from warming much further than it already is! It is also one of our best bets for slowing and eventually stopping global warming in the future. Beyond that, public transit helps the environment, the economy, and you in many other ways as well.

An organization working for you to increase and improve public transportation and to fight global warming, smog, excessive traffic congestion, water pollution, hours lost from home, stress, road rage, and your car becoming your home needs your help now.
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In 2003 “Nature” published a study showing that 90% of the large fish living in our oceans were fished out of existence. A group of scientists recently predicted, major seafood stocks will collapse by 2048. This is a staggering number, considering the technology and amount of people needed to cause overfishing is a relatively new phenomenon, starting really only in the late 19th century.

Most governments have shrugged these claims off, and continued their fishing practices. Alaska has shown to be the only sovereign state willing to self-police their fishing practices. Sarah Palin jokes aside… Threatened with the loss of one of its top industries, Alaska began limiting the number of fishing vessels, restricting the size of their catches; and perhaps most importantly, giving incentives to fishermen. Alaska currently gives fishermen a stake in the long-term viability of salmon and other fish.

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Leading the way for other mutual funds, Green Century Balanced Fund released a report on its carbon footprint today. The analysis was independently conducted by Trucost, a leading environmental data and analysis firm. According to the report, the carbon intensity (or carbon emissions per million dollars of revenue) is two-thirds lower than that of the S&P 500(r) Index. Green Century Balanced Fund is also leading other sustainability and socially responsible investment funds, according to the report. Trucost has analyzed sixteen other investment funds who are dedicated to sustainability and social responsibility, and Green Century Balanced Fund’s carbon footprint is almost half the average of these funds.

Why is Green Century Balance Fund’s carbon intensity so low?
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Would you be so cavalier in throwing out a disposable razor if you knew how much it actually impacted your local environments? Would you think twice about purchasing a bottle of water if you knew how much it cost you to dispose of? That’s the question asked by the MIT SENSEable City lab these days. And they plan to see what effects one man’s trash actually has on the environment.

Inspired by the Green NYC Initiative which aims to increase the rate of waste recycling in New York to almost 100 percent by 2030 (currently, only about 30 percent of the city’s waste is diverted from landfills for recycling!), a group of MIT researchers have developed a program that uses special electronic tags in order to track different types of waste on their journey through the disposal systems of New York and Seattle. Its name? Trash Track. Trash Track will monitor the patterns and costs of urban disposal while raising public awareness about the impacts the garbage can under the sink has on the environment.

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The U.S. National Park Service has partnered with the American Museum of Natural History to cryogenically freeze tissues from endangered species that live within U.S. national parks– eventually the new research collection will contain an estimated 1 million samples.

The effort will facilitate research that could help protect these endangered species from going extinct– or at least leave a record of their genetic makeup behind. The first specimens to enter the collection will be blood samples from California’s endangered Channel Island fox. They will be followed by genetic material from the American crocodile and the Hawaiian goose. Read the rest of this entry »

Permafrost, or permanently frozen ground - soil, sediment or rock that remains at or below 0° Celsius for at least two continuous years - makes up about 24 percent of the exposed land mass in the Northern Hemisphere: that’s approximately 22.79 million square kilometers. Permafrost can be thousands of years old, or it can be just beginning. Either way, as permafrost thaws, it jeopardizes both man-made structures and natural features. Thawing permafrost on mountain slopes can lead to landslides.

And it’s melting.

Besides posing threats to structures and landscapes on a local scale, melting permafrost emits carbon dioxide and methane, according to the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), making permafrost a threat on a global scale.

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June 29, 2009 - For the first time, the World Trade Organization (WTO) teamed up with the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) to release a report outlining the relationship between trade and climate change. The report describes the multitude of ways in which climate change and trade intersect.

Using current scientific knowledge as well as current literature and a survey of national policies, the two organizations worked together to create a report that summarizes concerns regarding existing and projected climate change, impacts of climate change, and on possible responses, through adaptation and mitigation, to the challenges posed by climate change.

The report states that climate change is “unequivocal.” The evidence, gathered through a review of thousands of scientific publications, is compelling, and describes that human activities are “very likely” the cause of such global warming.

The biggest concern that the report denotes is that; barring major changes in policy, law, action, and attitude, global greenhouse gas emissions are expected to increase over the coming decades, with emissions increasing anywhere from 25 to 90 percent by 2030. It is also anticipated that a greater proportion of greenhouse gases will be emitted from developing countries.

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