Planetsave

Isn’t it just so convenient that we flush our poop away, down the toilet, never to return? I mean, literally speaking, but metaphorically, too. We flush away our poop, like it’s a problem that we don’t want to deal with. But little do we realize, there’s value in everything, even that which might stink, and which we’d rather send away down a porcelain bowl.

Pooping is a natural process, and doing it in a bowl of drinking water (which must only later be treated with nasty chemicals so that we can reuse this same water) is a horrific waste, and polluting, too. That’s where the humanure system comes in.

The term “humanure” refers to human waste which is recycled by methods of composting, and which can later be used for gardening or agricultural purposes. Before you think: “I don’t want dookie on my daisies!”, remember that everything (everything natural, that is) breaks down in due time. So let’s talk about humanure, and how human waste can be more effectively recycled and reused, instead of letting it continue to pollute ever-precious drinking water supplies. Perhaps by the end of this post, you too will think that flushing your crap away is just as crazy as any other form of pollution.

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Across the country, cities are passing new laws to allow backyard chickens.

Cities across the country have shown new leniency in the urban chicken arena.  Ann Arbor, Michigan, South Portland, Maine and Fort Collins Colorado, have all voted in the past year to allow backyard chickens.  They join the growing number of U.S. cities to make legal the raising of poultry in the backyard.

Illegal or not, city chicken flocks are more popular than ever.

“It’s no longer something kinky or interesting,” said Jac Smit, president of the Urban Agriculture Network. “The ‘chicken underground’ has really spread so widely and has so much support.”

Though some worry that backyard chickens might carry and transmit avian flu, advocates of urban chicken farming claim that farming poultry on a small scale presents less of a risk of disease than large-scale production.

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A comprehensive, international survey released today, showed that half of all 5,487 mammal populations are declining.

Just today, data from a global survey was revealed at a meeting of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in Barcelona, Spain.  1,700 researchers took part in the survey and named habitat loss and hunting as the major causes of the current, mass extinction.

Jan Schipper, who led the team, said: “Mammals are declining faster than we thought — one in four species is threatened with extinction worldwide.”

He said that land animals in Asia have been the hardest hit, where almost 80% of the primates are at risk.  Other mammals at risk across the globe include the blue whale, the bumblebee bat, the Caspian seal and the Tasmanian Devil.

Scientists currently have data for 4,651 species of mammals.  According to this study, 1,139 of these species face the threat of extinction. Read the rest of this entry »

“Required reading” gets thrown out a lot in environmental circles—in all reading circles for that matter. Any time anyone reads a book that moves them they declare to the world (read: anyone who will listen) that book X “should be required reading”. The problem is, if you do it too often people stop listening, ie.“The Boy Who Cried Wolf (should be required reading).

So I am here to clean my slate of the books I have declared in the past that should be required reading. Wipe “Rule of the Bone”, “The Lorax”, “You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train”, “Black Elk Speaks”, “In Defense of Food”, and “A Walk in the Woods” off the list. And replace them with the book that won the Independent Publishers Award for the book “Most Likely to Save the Planet”…

…BLUE PLANET RUN: The Race to Provide Safe Drinking Water to the World

In order for a book to appeal to the masses (as “required reading” should) I feel it should:
a) move you
b) change your lifestyle—for the better of course
c) be visually appealing (the masses like pictures)
d) and most importantly, make you want to share it with others while causing you to deal with the inner turmoil of not wanting to share it with anyone because you want it forever in your presence (maybe I just have sharing issues).

Blue Planet Run is all that–and much more…

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Hurricane Ike has been harshly degraded to a “tropical depression” after his failure to deliver to the greater southern area. Colleagues say that they could see it coming.

“I think that he just felt a lot of pressure in this system” says Katrina. “This is a dog-eat-dog business and only the great are remembered. He had all the makings of an epic storm, but just didn’t have that, what we like to call, ‘Storm Sparkle.’ Sure, 29 counties were declared ‘disaster areas,’ but a Category Two? He just wasn’t living up to standard.”

Friends report that Ike has TIVO-d every episode of Project Runway and refuses to change his sweatpants.

“I think he was just trying to impress Josephine, who is next up,” says Gustav. “That just made the situation sadder. This is even worse than the time he found Hanna going down on that guy in the elevator. Poor guy has lost all hope in women.”

There are reports that things have gotten so out of hand that Ike has actually befriended Lindsay Lohan. He is also trying to start a reality TV show just to pay the bills. It’s going to be called ‘Guy of the Storm’ and delve into Ike’s “normal” home life.

Although things are looking bad, Fay thinks that the clouds will break soon. “He has already started taking antidepressants and seeing a therapist. He told me that that he and Lindsay might even check into the Le Cirque Lodge together for some TLC. I just hope he doesn’t become a Scientologist.”

A new study published in Science Magazine concludes that an improved estimate of sea level rise (SLR) puts the increase at 0.8-2.0 meters, roughly 3.5 times the IPCC projections.

There has been significant debate regarding the projected sea level rise over the 21st century. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projected that neither Greenland nor Antarctica would lose significant mass by 2100. However, recently both regions have experienced significant ice loss.

Richard Kerr of Science Magazine explains the discrepancy between the IPCC predictions and recent studies.

Warming glaciers raise sea level in two main ways. They add more water as they melt, and they also add water when ice breaks off from glacial flows. The incidence of this latter phenomenon has soared in recent years for some glaciers draining the southern Greenland Ice Sheet, much to the mystification of glaciologists. Unable to model such accelerated ice losses, members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change declined to include them in their widely cited projection of up to 60 centimeters of sea level rise by 2100

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According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC),

Following a record rate of ice loss through the month of August, Arctic sea ice extent already stands as the second-lowest on record, further reinforcing conclusions that the Arctic sea ice cover is in a long-term state of decline. With approximately two weeks left in the melt season, the possibility of setting a new record annual minimum in September remains open.

A record was set for Arctic sea ice melt in 2007.  Much was made of the sea ice “recovery” over the ensuing winter of 2007/2008.  However, while the Arctic sea ice returned to an extent similar to that of the winter prior to the record melt, much of the new ice was very thin.  Thus even though 2008 has been a cooler year than 2007 (partially due to a strong La Nina cycle), the new, thinner ice has proven to be more susceptible to melting, as the graphic following the jump illustrates.

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With Alaska in the political spotlight, and with that spotlight showcasing someone with a less-than-stellar record when it comes to the environment, reading about sustainable life in Alaska, in this case, the rural Arctic, might just be a blast of cold, last frontier air.  Seth Kantner’s second book, Shopping For Porcupine (Milkweed Editions, $28), a collection of memoirs on his life in Arctic Alaska, documents his upbringing by transplanted parents and his current life with his wife and daughter in Kotzebue.  Accompanied by Kantner’s stunning photography of life in the tundra, Shopping for Porcupine is a beautiful tribute to land that, despite its remoteness, is slowly succumbing to the influence of globalization. Read the rest of this entry »

Everglades National Park has obtained approval to proceed with a plan to redesign the most developed area of the park with an emphasis on promoting sustainability. Through building design, alternative energy, and improved transportation systems, the park area known as “Flamingo” will be reborn as an example for other parks to follow.

Flamingo is near the very bottom tip of Florida’s mainland, and in 2005, Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma landed a knock-out punch to what was until then a heavily visited area. Damage from the hurricanes effectively destroyed a dilapidated but popular lodge, its restaurant, and numerous other facilities– leaving virtually no place for park visitors to stay overnight in the park if not camping.

The park was pressured by numerous groups to rebuild overnight visitor facilities as soon as possible. After releasing several plans and receiving public comment, the park has selected a plan that blends sustainable ideas with creature comforts. I myself used to work as a park ranger in Flamingo, and I think the plan is brilliant. There’s only one catch: the park has no idea where to get the estimated $20-23 million it needs to bring the plan to fruition. Read the rest of this entry »

Henry’s Farm, a local organic farm that brings a wide range of produce every week to my local farmer’s market, stirred the pot a bit lately when they asked shoppers to byob, or pay $0.25 for a biodegradable bag to tote their produce home.  BYOB?  It stands for Bring Your Own Bag.

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