environment
voltagegate | October 16, 2007Just read an article about the apparently widespread use of tropical hardwoods in New York City. The numbers are impressive:
...the market for Ipé wood drives much of the industrial logging of the entire Amazon, and has increased dramatically in the past 20 years. An emergent flowering tree, which peppers the canopy of the Amazonian rainforest in hues of pink, magenta, yellow and white, Ipe grows in the rainforests at densities of only one or two trees an acre. This means that vast areas of the forests are razed to the ground to feed the market for a single tree. It is estimated that, for…
j7uy5 | October 15, 2007Today is Blog
Action Day, during which many persons have agreed to write a
blog post about environmental concerns. This is one of
thousands.
Consider Climate Change, and consider the Iraq War. Other
than both being among the biggest mistakes ever made by humans, it is
not obvious, immediately, that they have much in common.
However, there are common elements, and those common elements
help explain why the threat from both is persisting so long...
Both Climate Change, and the Iraq War, are going to be
enormously expensive. But for both, the bulk of the expenses
are going to be paid later…
tqa | October 15, 2007
Since today is Blog Action Day, it seems like a good day for a post I've been meaning to write for a while now - what my family is doing to reduce our impact on the environment, and what else we can (and should) add to the mix.
I should probably admit right off the bat that I'm not doing enough to minimize my effect on the environment. I tend to suffer from inertia sometimes, and if something hasn't been made easy for me to do, I tend to not do it. That might not make me all that different from many (most) Americans, but it's still not good. While we were living in Honolulu, we didn't do…
clock | October 15, 2007Since today is the Blog Action Day and I am swamped at work, I decided to republish one of my old posts concerning the environment (under the fold).
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Since this is another one of the recurring themes on my blog, I decided to republish all of my old posts on the topic together under the fold. Since my move here to the new blog, I have continued to write about this, e.g., in the following posts:
Preserving species diversity - long-term thinking
Hot boiled wine in the middle of the winter is tasty....
Global Warming disrupts the timing of flowers…
revere | October 15, 2007[Today is Blog Action Day, where bloggers of all political stripes and subject interest are encouraged to put up a post on an environmental topic. Here is the first of two.]
Maryland and its Chesapeake Bay have a water pollution problem. The size of the problem is not chickenshit, either. Or rather, it is chickenshit. 1 billion pounds of it. A billion. That's not chickenshit. Or rather, it is chickenshit. There's really a lot of chickenshit around in Maryland. Maryland regulators have been too chickenshit to regulate the source: the poultry business. Why? Guess:
Maryland requires [waste…
scientificactivist | October 15, 2007 Along with thousands of other bloggers, I'm observing the inaugural Blog Action Day by blogging about the environment today.
We heard some good news out of California on Saturday. Going against pressure from his own party and particularly from the National Rifle Association (NRA), governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law AB 821 (the Ridley-Tree Condor Preservation Act), which outlawed the use of lead ammunition by large game hunters in California within the range of the highly endangered condor.
Although their numbers in the wild are slowly increasing, these majestic birds are still…
sciencewoman | October 15, 2007
This weekend, Minnow, Fish, Princess Pup and I went for a hike. We didn't go far. Just enough that we got away from the city and to a spot where we could look out over a lake and see the trees turning colors on the far shore.
I've often seen environmental issues framed in terms of our responsibility to future generations. The idea is as old as the Iroquois: ""In every deliberation we must consider the impact on the seventh generation..." and it is the driving force behind the idea of sustainability. Basically, I like to think of it is as a long-period version of the golden rule: "do unto…
clock | October 14, 2007The last time we met at the Tar Heel Tavern was on April 2nd. After that, the inspiration dried out and no Tarheel-brewed amber-colored liquid was flowing for months. With the grass wilting everywhere around us, it was easy to just give up and stop watering one's blogging flowers with creative juices which were in such short supply. Even slippery slopes are not slippery when not wet. And thirst for knowledge is hard to sustain in the presence of real thirst. But, a long series of bad, bad puns aside, it is time to re-start the carnival, open up the taps and let it all flow! In two weeks…
clock | October 14, 2007Tomorrow, Monday, October 15th, many blogs (14,081 at this moment) will participate in the Environment-themed Blog Action Day.
On October 15th, bloggers around the web will unite to put a single important issue on everyone's mind - the environment. Every blogger will post about the environment in their own way and relating to their own topic. Our aim is to get everyone talking towards a better future.
Blog Action Day is about MASS participation. That means we need you! Here are 3 ways to participate:
* Post on your blog relating to the environment on Blog Action Day
* Donate your…
scientificactivist | October 14, 2007Tomorrow, 15 October, is the inaugural Blog Action Day. This means that thousands of bloggers from across the internet will publish posts on a single topic: the environment. So far over 14,000 blogs have signed up, with an estimated audience of over 12,000,000 readers. And, especially considering the outcome of the Nobel Peace Prize last Friday, the topic couldn't be more relevant.
Check out the official site for more details:
Hat tip to A Blog Around the Clock
mikethemadbiologist | October 13, 2007The MBTA in its infinite wisdom has started a pilot program to commercialize the public announcement system at subway stops:
The roar of subway cars and chords of amateur musicians at the T station will now face competition from Neil Diamond songs, 1970s trivia, and live playoff updates from Fenway Park.
It comes from T-Radio, an experiment that began yesterday at three stations and may someday broadcast on every subway platform in Eastern Massachusetts. Disc jockeys and media personalities will mix in light news, weather, entertainment tips, and the like. If it proves popular enough to go…
j7uy5 | October 12, 2007On October 15, 2007, over six thousand blogs will have a
post about the
environment. It was not intended as a tribute to our new
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/13/world/13nobel.html?ex=1349928000&en=3f45aeb1eeb5f59c&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss">Nobel
Peace Prize recipients (
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore" rel="tag">Al
Gore and
rel="tag">IPCC), but it will be a
fitting recognition of the seriousness of the topic.
HT to
href="http://zenhabits.net/2007/10/50-ways-to-help-the-environment-today-plus-blog-action-day-in-5-days/"…
tqa | October 12, 2007
As you are undoubtedly aware, this year's Nobel Peace Prize is being split between the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Al Gore, in recognition of "their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change."
Like almost everybody else here at Scienceblogs, I think this is absolutely fantastic. Gore has worked his butt off over the last few years. He's been tireless in his efforts to focus attention on climate change, and he's made a real difference. The…
scientificactivist | October 12, 2007The 2007 Nobel Peace Prize was announced this morning, and it will be shared equally between Al Gore and the IPCC. It was widely anticipated that Al Gore would be this year's honoree. The IPCC was less expected, although it is certainly at least as--if not more--deserving of the honor. Here's what the Nobel Committee has to say about the award:
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 is to be shared, in two equal parts, between the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Albert Arnold (Al) Gore Jr. for their efforts to build up and…
clock | October 9, 2007Melting Sea Ice Forcing Walruses Ashore:
Thousands of walrus have appeared on Alaska's northwest coast in what conservationists are calling a dramatic consequence of global warming melting the Arctic sea ice.
Alaska's walrus, especially breeding females, in summer and fall are usually found on the Arctic ice pack. But the lowest summer ice cap on record put sea ice far north of the outer continental shelf, the shallow, life-rich shelf of ocean bottom in the Bering and Chukchi seas.
[Via Russ Williams]
clock | October 9, 2007Another thing I will also have to miss - the Inaugural Event of the 2007-2008 Pizza Lunch Season of the Science Communicators of North Carolina (SCONC), on October 24th at Sigma Xi Center (the same place where we'll have the Science Blogging Conference). Organized by The American Scientist and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, the first Pizza Lunch Session will feature Dr.Fred Gould, professor of Entomology and Genetics at NCSU (whose Insect Ecology class blows one's mind - one of the best courses I have ever taken in my life). Fred recently received The George Bugliarello Prize for an…
grrlscientist | October 9, 2007tags: researchblogging.org, conservation, birds, ornithology, ecology, environment, endangered species
Image: Robert Linder.
I suppose this seems obvious to you city dwellers, but recently published research demonstrates that urban birds are better overall survivors than their country-dwelling cousins. Apparently, this is because city-dwelling birds are less specialized in their requirements, and thus, are more broadly adaptable to a variety of microenvironments, such as those found in large cities. While this might seem to be a mere conversational topic to many of you, this observation…
j7uy5 | October 7, 2007Finally, a cool way to commute via bicycle!
Actually, it is
not a new idea, but perhaps the cooling aspect has been overlooked.
One thing that has kept me from riding a bicycle to work has been the
concern that I would be too sweaty upon arrival. This
invention might take care of that:
href="http://deputy-dog.com/2007/09/27/7-unusual-propeller-driven-vehicles/">
It could, conceivably, take care of the heat problem while
mowing a
lawn, too, although it would take a bit more engineering:
mikethemadbiologist | October 4, 2007Salon.com has a really interesting article about the hidden and expensive costs of parking. There's lots of interesting stuff in the article, but this bit really stood out (italics mine):
Americans don't object, because they aren't aware of the myriad costs of parking, which remain hidden. In large part, it's business owners, including commercial and residential landlords, who pay to provide parking places. They then pass on those costs to us in slightly higher prices for rent and every hamburger sold.
"Parking appears free because its cost is widely dispersed in slightly higher prices for…
revere | October 4, 2007Swedish scientists are warning about Tamiflu in the environment because it passes through sewage treatment plants more or less unchanged. Readers of this blog may remember this coming up before when Andrew Singer and his colleagues in the UK published an article in Environmental Health Perspectives a year ago asking a logical question: what would happen in a pandemic if everyone started taking hoarded and stockpiled Tamiflu at once? Singer gave good reasons to think the active form of Tamiflu, oseltamivir carboxylate, would pass through the wastewater system. The Swedish study apparently…