Japan tsunami debris looms off U.S. coasts
Items washed away by the 2011 tsunami are already arriving in North America, raising fears of an environmental crisis from Alaska to California.
Source: mothernaturenetwork
Nature in the News: "Study: Seagrass stores more carbon than forests "
via MSNBC
(May 22, 2012) Coastal seagrass can store more heat-trapping carbon per square kilometer than forests can, which means these coastal plants could be part of the solution to climate change, scientists said in a new study.
Even though seagrasses occupy less than 0.2 percent of the…
Source: conservationcommunique
“Greenpeace International Wednesday, alleged that Yum! Brands is using rainforest wood in paper products used to package their food. Image courtesy of Greenpeace International”
“Yum! Brands, the maker of KFC, is blazing a trail of destruction through Indonesian rain forests, chopping down trees and threatening endangered Sumatran tigers to produce its signature crispy chicken buckets, according to a Greenpeace International report released Wednesday.
The report How KFC is Junking the Jungle alleges Yum, KFC’s parent company, uses rainforest wood in their paper products to package food.
Nine Greenpeace activists marched on Yum’s Louisville, Kentucky headquarters Wednesday morning to mark the report’s release, hanging a banner from the building’s pillars emblazoned with a Sumatran tiger and reading KFC Stop Trashing My Home.
“The colonel’s secret is out,” Shane Moffatt, forest campaigner with Greenpeace Canada, told the Star. “They’re keeping their chicken fresh with packaging from rainforests. The last rainforests of the world are ending up as trash on our streets. It’s a needless tragedy.””
KFC—lining the pockets of the 1% while trashing the planet.
Another libertarian vision of the future. This is not acceptable.
Source: redshift-13
One hundred years from now, the role of science and technology will be about becoming part of nature rather than trying to control it. So much of science and technology has been about pursuing efficiency, scale and “exponential growth” at the expense of our environment and our resources. We have rewarded those who invent technologies that control our triumph over nature in some way. This is clearly not sustainable. We must understand that we live in a complex system where everything is interrelated and interdependent and that everything we design impacts a larger system. My dream is that 100 years from now, we will be learning from nature, integrating with nature and using science and technology to bring nature into our lives to make human beings and our artifacts not only zero impact but a positive impact to the natural system that we live in.
Has mankind outgrown Earth?
A new report from the World Wildlife Fund says we’re gobbling up the planet’s resources at such an alarming rate that by 2030, even a second Earth wouldn’t be enough to sustain us
Which resources are we depleting?
Renewables like fish, water, timber, and food are being used up much faster than previously thought. According to experts, mankind’s “ecological footprint” is now over 50 percent higher than it was in 2008, meaning it takes 1.5 years for Earth to regenerate the natural resources we use up annually.Why is our ecological footprint growing?
The world’s population, which according to the U.N. surpassed 7 billion last October, is getting too big, and the average individual is using more than he or she needs. “The excessive demands that we are putting on the planet will inevitably lead to acute water shortages, a chronic food crisis, and rising prices for energy, metals, and minerals,” says Robert Walker at the Huffington Post.I could never understand how economies based on growing populations consuming non-renewable resources could be sustainable.
Source: theweek.com
“Among the environmental trends undermining our future are shrinking forests, expanding deserts, falling water tables, collapsing fisheries, disappearing species, and rising temperatures. The temperature increases bring crop-withering heat waves, more-destructive storms, more-intense droughts, more forest fires, and, of course, ice melting. We are crossing natural thresholds that we cannot see and violating deadlines that we do not recognize.” - Lester Brown
Source: mastt.org.uk
Interesting: The big green no-brainer
In four days, world leaders could agree to a plan that is our best chance yet to save the planet from runaway climate change. But it needs a massive public push to drive it from words to action.It’s crazy, but right now, our governments give nearly $1 trillion a year of our…
Source: avaaz.org
New study finds that biodiversity in the tropics has declined 61% since 1970
“This report is like a planetary check-up and the results indicate we have a very sick planet. Ignoring this diagnosis will have major implications for humanity. We can restore the planet’s health, but only through addressing the root causes, population growth and over-consumption of resources,” Jonathan Baillie, conservation program director with the Zoological Society of London said in a press release.
Source: dgrnewsservice.org
Source: Guardian
Endangered-species truce faces big test from little sand dunes lizard - The Washington Post
It wasn’t too hard for the Fish and Wildlife Service to decide the fate of 92 freshwater snails, or 17 dragonflies, or indeed more than 500 species over the past year. But when it comes to the dunes sagebrush lizard, trouble looms. The small spiny reptile seeks refuge from the hot sun and potential predators in the shinnery oak dunes of southeastern New Mexico and West Texas. Ranchers have been clearing the oak shrubs, and oil and gas companies are drilling in the dunes. If the lizard is designated as an endangered species, some of those activities could be in jeopardy. The lizard’s future is among the first in a series of wrenching tests threatening what has been a year-long cease-fire in the fight over endangered-species listings.
Source: tartantambourine
: If everyone went vegetarian just for one day, the U.S. would save:
- 100 billion gallons of water, enough to supply all the homes in New England for almost 4 months;
- 1.5 billion pounds of crops otherwise fed to livestock, enough to feed the state of New Mexico for more than a year;
- 70 million gallons of gas — enough to fuel all the cars of…
Source: pinealglands
How have our minds been subverted?
Well, here’s a small (but perfect) example.
(via carolinafrica)
Source: wombatattack
