The 1840, seven-volume edition of John James Audubon’s Birds of America is now avaiable online. Granted, it’s not as useful as modern field guides, but it’s certainly interesting for the historical context (and the illustrations, of course.)
(via LII)
…is a new, open-access journal available online. Only online, in fact.
In its own words,
Sustainability: Science, Practice, & Policy is a new peer-reviewed, open access journal that provides a platform for the dissemination of new practices and for dialogue emerging out of the field of sustainability.
I hope to see some interesting—and, ideally, useful—things come out of this venture.
(via Waterboro Library Blog)
Local Harvest lets you find organic food grown close to where you live. Browse/search for farmers’ markets, restaurants, farms, co-ops, and the like.
Check the facts on power generation with EPA’s eGRID database. Get info on regions, states, individual power plants, etc. Find out the mix of power generation (i.e., wind power [ha!] vs. nuclear vs. coal, etc.). Find out how dirty the plants are. And all sorts of other useful info.
(via Gristmill)
The idea is that additional stops—for, say, coffee—tacked onto already painful commutes translate into even more gridlocked traffic and a powerfully negative ecological impact. The idea’s originator is one travel behavioral analyst by the name of Nancy McGuckin, who based her ideas on a survey of 70,000 households. It might not actually make that much of a difference—there’s possibly some debate—but, you know, it could.
(WaPo: “Pursuit of a Grande Latte May Be Stirring Up Gridlock,” by Katherine Shaver [April 18, 2005]; via PLANETizen)
Via the Waterboro Public Library, I stumbled across a blog called, appropriately enough, So what can I do? The site explores ways to enact social change. A lot of them, in fact. A lot of the tips seem to be the ‘easy’ sorts of things of which I’m endlessly suspicious—I tend to be skeptical of the social-change-can-be-achieved-through-easy-feel-good-activities school of thought—but it might be the type of thing you’re looking for, in which case, enjoy.
It’s difficult to remain optimistic when “the most comprehensive survey into the state of the planet concludes that human activities threaten the Earth’s ability to sustain future generations.”
On the other hand, at least the report exists.
(I’ll form more of an opinion once I’ve read the report, which you can download online in PDF format.)
(via BBC News: “Study highlights global decline,” by Jonathan Amos [March 30, 2005]; see also the CSM editorial, “Heading off Eco-Armageddon”)
The telltale paw prints with huge 10 centimetre-long nails spoke volumes. But now definitive corroborating DNA evidence seals the case of the most northerly sighting of a grizzly bear. The discovery fuels mounting evidence that Canada’s High Arctic is no longer the sole preserve of the polar bear – Nanuk is having to make room for its southern cousin.
I’ve been putting this off for a while, mostly because the end of the world seems as good a thing as any to put off till later. But ladies and gents, The End Is Near.
Or might be, anyway:
Their research has shown that every 62 million years - plus or minus 3m years - creatures are wiped from the planet’s surface in massive numbers.
And given that the last great extinction occurred 65m years ago, when dinosaurs and thousands of other creatures abruptly disappeared, the study suggests humanity faces a fairly pressing danger. Even worse, scientists have no idea about its source.
While a study by Berkeley professors cites this apparent cycle, a separate study by British scientists makes another claim to the end of the world: Supervolcanoes.
(And on a more lighthearted note, Exit Mundi catalogues possible ways of the world ending, from aliens and nuclear war to biotech gone awry and tsunami.)
(Observer: “Bad news - we are way past our ‘extinct by’ date,” by Robin McKie [March 13, 2005]; Gristmill: “PS: We’re all going to die” [March 9, 2005]; MSNBC: “Super volcanoes will chill the world someday,” by Robert Britt [March 8, 2005])
The radiation may make ants grow, but the heat from global warming is liable to shrink them, new research suggests.
(Though in fairness, the research speaks only of the latter effect. TV land speaks of the former.)
(New Scientist: “Global warming could trigger ant invasions,” by Shaoni Bhattacharya [March 21, 2005])
Going all the way back to mid-February, WorldPress Review carried an interesting story about the US Military’s recruitment schemes, both historical and contemporary.
And did you hear about the starquake? Oh. You did.
Well, did you hear that women are “less likely to get quality heart attack care,” or that cancer-stricken rats live longer if they’re curious, or that a new law in China will require power grid operators to purchase as much renewable energy as possible?
Tackling the very large subject area of Things That Do Not Make Sense, NewScientist picked 13 and wrote up an article on them; the result is quite interesting. Curiously, the list is heavily weighted in favor of spacebourne phenomena like dark matter and the Kuiper cliff.
In a turn of events that does not bode well for the success of Yucca Mountain (you know–the whole radioactive waste storage thing), the Energy Department made a series of dubious choices in preparing to get all its ducks in a row, certification-wise. Like, e.g., used instruments without bothering to calibrate them; and certified instruments prior to their calibration (and before being received).
In other, arguably more positive environmental news, Grist Magazine has a Q&A with author/activist/scientist oil-spill expert Riki Ott (whose book is Sound Truth and Corporate Myth$: The Legacy of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, which ought to be read by all).
And researchers in Ohio make the claim that man-made wetlands do just as well as natural ones in filtering and cleaning water. I’m slightly dubious of the claim, but I’d be a lot more dubious if one of the researchers (William Mitsch) weren’t the author of a wetlands textbook (he is), what textbook I’ve in fact used for a wetlands class in the past.
For those of you with an itch to learn about Daylight Saving Time, the California Energy Commission has a fairly comprehensive backgrounder.
Once they were a byword for mindless docility. But cows have a secret mental life in which they bear grudges, nurture friendships and become excited over intellectual challenges, scientists have found.
Cows are also capable of feeling strong emotions such as pain, fear and even anxiety—they worry about the future. But if farmers provide the right conditions, they can also feel great happiness.
(Sunday Times: “The secret life of moody cows,” by Jonathan Leake [Feb 27, 2005])
Not that this should necessarily come as news, but:
The [Heart and Stroke] foundation’s first study of urban versus non-urban living shows that car-dependent Canadians are more sedentary and at increased risk of being overweight or obese.
(via CBC News: “Cars killing suburban dwellers, heart foundation says” [February 10, 2004])
Research suggests that while an unmade bed may look scruffy it is also unappealing to house dust mites thought to cause asthma and other allergies.
(BBC News: “Untidy beds may keep us healthy” [January 28, 2005])
An estimated 11,300 laptop computers, 31,400 handheld computers and 200,000 mobile telephones were left in taxis around the world during the past six months, a survey found Monday.
Taxi drivers in nine cities also said they had found a range of other items left by passengers, including a harp, 37 milk bottles, dentures and artificial limbs. One driver said he even found a baby in his taxi.
Minimum number of countries with a greater capacity to produce nuclear weapons than Iraq at the time of the U.S. invasion.
(via Harper’s)
Via BBC:
…Alaska is not the only region in a slump. The permafrost melt is accelerating throughout the world’s cold regions, scientists reported at the recent Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in San Francisco.
In addition to northern Alaska, the permafrost zone includes most other Arctic land, such as northern Canada and much of Siberia, as well as the higher reaches of mountainous regions such as the Alps and Tibet. All report permafrost thaw.
In related news—sadly—Michael Crichton takes on the greatest threat the world’s ever seen; not dinosaurs, or microbes, or anything like that: this time it’s the environmentalists!
The environmentalists and their wicked agenda (apparently).
Michiko Kakutani (at the NYT) and Dr. Jeffrey M. Masters (at the weather site wunderground.com) both present good critical reviews of Crichton’s new State of Fear. Kakutani takes Crichton to task for the book as a whole, while Masters takes a closer look at the climate- and science-related aspects of the book.
(BBC News: “Earth’s permafrost starts to squelch,” by Molly Bentley [December 29, 2004]; NYT: “Beware! Tree-Huggers Plot Evil to Save World” by Michiko Kakutani [December 13, 2004]; Wunderground: “Review of Michael Crichton’s State of Fear,” by Dr. Jeffrey M. Masters)
Such, apparently, is the situation faced by a solitary whale, species unknown, that has been tracked since 1992 in the North Pacific by a classified array of hydrophones used by the Navy to monitor enemy submarines.
…
Its sonic signature is clearly that of a whale, but nothing like the normal voice of the giant blue or the next biggest species, the fin, or any other whale for that matter, said Mary Ann Daher, a marine biologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod.
(NYT: “Song of the Sea, a Cappella and Unanswered,” by Andrew Revkin [December 21, 2004])
Despite minimal oversight, now the Pentagon apparently feels it is too constrained by its existing environmental responsibilities. Lovely.
The Pentagon is becoming a cold, calculating beast.
Oh, er…
Never mind.
(truthout: “Pentagon to Jettison Environmental Responsibilities” [December 14, 2004], via Planetizen)
Sources & additional commentary-type crap:
a security blanket; a blankie; a favorite toy or object. Also wooby.
Why do you write? What is your main objective?
Derrick [Jensen]: My main objective is to bring down civilization. Actually that’s not quite true. My main objective is to live in a world with more wild salmon every year than the year before, more migratory songbirds, more natural forest communities, more fish in the ocean, less dioxin in every mother’s breast milk. And I’ll do what it takes to get there. And what it will take is for us to dismantle everything we see around us. It will take, at the very least, the destruction of civilization, which has been killing the planet for 6000 years.
I write because I am a recruiter for this revolution, in favor of life, and against civilization.
…
I don’t think most people care, and I don’t think most people will ever care. We can trot out whatever polls we want to try to prove most Americans actually do care about the Environment(TM), Justice(TM), Sustainability(TM)—that they care about anything beyond being left alone to numb themselves with alcohol, cheap consumables, and television. We can cite (or make up) some poll saying that all other things being equal, 64 percent of Americans don’t want penguins to be driven extinct (unless saving them will even slightly increase the price of gasoline); or we can cite (or make up) some other poll saying that 22 percent of American males would prefer to live on a habitable planet than to have sex with a supermodel (this number climbs to 45 percent if the men are not allowed to brag about it to their friends). But the truth is that it’s just not that important to most people, it in this case being the survival of tigers, salmon, traditional indigenous peoples, oceans, rivers, the earth; it also being justice, fairness, love, honesty, peace. If it were, “most people” would do something about it.
Sure, most people would rather that they themselves be treated with at least the pretense of justice, fairness, and so on, but so long as those in power aren’t aiming their Peacekeepers(TM) at me, why should I care if brown people living on a sea of oil a half a world away get blown to bits? Likewise, so long as the price of my prescription anti-depressants stays reasonably low and the number of TV channels on my satellite dish stays high, why should I care that some stupid fish can’t survive in a dammed river? It’s survival of the fittest, damn it all, and I’m one of the fit, so I get to survive.
(The first part is from an interview; the second part [after the ellipsis] is quoted within the interview, and is part of a work-in-progress of Jensen’s.)
(Alternative Press Review: “Bring it all down: An interview with Derrick Jensen”; originally published in Green Anarchy [Summer 2004])