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The Recovery Scenario |
The trend lines, for those who are paying attention, are quite bleak. But the ApocoDocs remember that Lake Erie was declared dead from pollution back in the 70s, yet managed to recover. So we have hope that we haven't tipped past the tipping point in the natural world, and that humankind can wake up and repair the damage we've done. Or, if we have indeed passed some tipping point, we can move quickly enough to mitigate the impending harm.
Recovery will require sacrifice. This will be difficult for the generations spoiled by the last fifty years of cheap energy, bountiful resources, and seemingly limitless capacity for economic growth. Like a spoiled boy stomping his little foot, they will believe that they have the natural right to commute alone in SUVs, the right to convenience at the expense of nature, the right to dispose of anything they no longer want, the right to eat fresh fruit in January. Perhaps like that spoiled boy, we can grow up, and realize that there are limits.
Recovery will require a societal awakening. We need to become disgusted with ourselves, and embarrassed by what we've done. We must identify the polluters, and demand they stop -- recognizing that consumer prices will rise. We will need to find social systems and economic rewards to motivating right action, and disregard namecalling regarding "tree huggers" and "eco-nazis." We must recognize that occasional terrorist outbreaks are nothing compared to the terror of environmental collapse.
Recovery will require political action. Small farms should get more tax benefits than factory farms, penalties for waste must be devised, carbon taxes must continue to be developed. Mostly, it will require a common vision that extends beyond the next political cycle.
Recovery will require scientific action. We must listen to experts, even if it hurts. It will require encouraging engineers to develop small-scale and large-scale solutions. It will require the wealthy world to provide affordable options to the poor world, so they don't repeat our mistakes.
Above all, recovery will require recognition -- that we all face up to what we've done, what we're doing, and what will happen if we don't change. This may be the most difficult task ahead of us.
We are hypothesizing, over the next ten years, the following scenario:
We must not let them.
| from ScienceDaily, 02/17/08 Ocean Plankton Reducing Greenhouse Gases By Using More Carbon Dioxide "Microscopically tiny marine organisms known as plankton increase their carbon uptake in response to increased concentrations of dissolved CO2 and thereby contribute to a dampening of the greenhouse effect on a global scale. An international group of scientists led by the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Kiel, Germany documented this biological mechanism in a natural plankton community for the first time." | |
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| from USA Today, 02/17/08 Microwave popcorn chemical out of the bag "ConAgra has removed a controversial chemical from its microwave popcorn that gives the snack a buttery, creamy taste, citing concern for its workers' health." | |
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| from Yankton Press and Dakotan (US), 01/01/08 Project Offers Sanctuary For Endangered Birds "Down by the river, there is a habitat for endangered species recovery program being created with a price tag of $2.47 million. The endangered species piping plover and least tern have been threatened with predators since the building of the dams along the Missouri River." | |
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| from New Straits Times (Malaysia), 01/03/08 Malaysian Cabinet committee to tackle climate change "Environmental needs go beyond environmental impact assessments." Azmi said the setting up of the committee would mean a more concerted effort in dealing with issues of the environment. "As it is, some ministries don't look at climate change mitigation as their responsibility. This cabinet committee will bring everyone in." | |
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| from Radio Netherlands, 01/03/08 Breakthrough in effective bird flu vaccine There has been a new step forward in the development of an effective vaccine against H5N1, the bird flu virus that's also dangerous to humans. By adding an agent that stimulates the immune system, it appears that the existing vaccine is effective against various strains of the bird flu virus. | |
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| from DOE Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UC at Berkeley, 01/11/08 Body Heat To Power Cell Phones? Nanowires Enable Recovery Of Waste Heat Energy "Energy now lost as heat during the production of electricity could be harnessed through the use of silicon nanowires synthesized via a technique developed by researchers ... The far-ranging potential applications of this technology include DOE’s hydrogen fuel cell-powered “Freedom CAR,” and personal power-jackets that could use heat from the human body to recharge cell-phones and other electronic devices." | |
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| from United Press International, 01/11/08 Hybrid poplar trees to absorb contaminants "U.S. researchers want to plant poplar trees at a former oil storage facility to see if the trees can turn contaminants into harmless byproducts. Purdue University researchers said a recent a study found that transgenic poplar cuttings absorbed 90 percent of trichloroethylene within a hydroponic solution in one week. The engineered trees also took up and metabolized the chemical 100 times faster than unaltered hybrid poplars." | |
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| from OC Register, 01/17/08 Research tracks arctic warming "As much as a third of the warming trend in arctic regions is caused by "dirty snow," not by greenhouse gases, UC Irvine researchers say, a finding that could have implications for pollution control efforts across the Northern Hemisphere. Because darker surfaces absorb more heat from sunshine, [climate researcher Charlie] Zender said, soot is making a significant contribution to Arctic warming, which is melting permafrost, increasing spring runoff and causing a variety of woes for the people who live in these regions. Better control of pollution sources that emit large amounts of soot – coal-fired power plants in China, for example – could be a relatively easy way to reduce arctic warming, he said." | |
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| from Living on Earth, 01/21/08 From toilet to tap "Orange County will soon use purified wastewater to replenish sinking groundwater. Orange County, CA has opened what is likely the largest sewage purification plant for drinking water in the world. The community is on board, and the idea is already being copied elsewhere in the U.S. and abroad. 'The squeamish call it 'toilet to tap.' The correct term is 'indirect potable water reuse.' That's a mouthful. And in a few days 2.3 million people in Orange County California will begin quenching their thirst with it. Living on Earth's Ingrid Lobet reports.'" | |
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| from Montana State University, 01/21/08 Renewed Interest In Turning Algae Into Fuel "The same brown algae that cover rocks and cause anglers to slip while fly fishing contain oil that can be turned into diesel fuel, says a Montana State University microbiologist. Drivers can't pump algal fuel into their gas tanks yet, but Keith Cooksey said the idea holds promise. He felt that way 20 years ago. He feels that way today. "We would be there now if people then hadn't been so short-sighted," Cooksey said." | |
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| from Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research, 01/26/08 Extra Power From Private Wind and Solar Generation Can Be Given Back To Grid More Easily "An increasing number of people use wind or solar energy as a power source, and at times, they have extra power available that could be sold to the electricity grid. Dutch-sponsored researcher Haimin Tao examined how this externally generated energy can be better stored and transferred." | |
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| from Technical Research Centre of Finland, 01/29/08 Could Bush Chips Be Profitably Used For Electricity Generation In Namibia? "VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has studied the profitability of using bush chips in electricity production in Namibia, where biomass from bushes has great energy production potential. Namibia suffers from the overgrowth of bush, which is disruptive to cattle raising, the country's primary source of livelihood. VTT also developed the production technology for bush chips. According to the study, the production of chips for power plants is technically possible." | |
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| from AP (via Yahoo), 02/05/08 Navy must comply with no-sonar rule "Scientists have said loud sonar can damage the brains and ears of marine mammals, and may mask the echoes from natural sonar that some whales and dolphins use to locate food. The president signed a waiver Jan. 15 exempting the Navy and its anti-submarine warfare exercises from the injunction, arguing they are vital to the nation's national security." | |
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| from Associated Press, 02/09/08 Device on knee can produce electricity "Call it the ultimate power walk. Researchers have developed a device that generates electrical power from the swing of a walking person's knee. With each stride the leg accelerates and then decelerates, using energy both for moving and braking...With the device, a minute of walking can power a cell phone for 10 minutes, [Max] Donelan, of Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, said in a telephone interview. Other potential uses include powering a portable GPS locator, a motorized prosthetic joint or implanted drug pumps." | |
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| from Houston Chronicle, 02/09/08 Brown pelican population soars "Celebrating the phoenix-like recovery of the brown pelican, brought to near-extinction 40 years ago by potent insecticides, U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne on Friday proposed removing the big-beaked coastal bird from the endangered species list. Kempthorne, speaking in Baton Rouge, La., said more than 620,000 of the pelicans now inhabit the U.S. Gulf and Pacific coasts, the Caribbean and Latin America. Last year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Texas Coastal Program counted 3,800 nesting pairs in Texas." | |
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| from University of Alberta, 02/09/08 Barnacles Go To Great Lengths To Mate "Compelled to mate, yet firmly attached to the rock, barnacles have evolved the longest penis of any animal for their size - up to 8 times their body length - so they can find and fertilize distant neighbours. Graduate student Christopher Neufeld and Dr. Richard Palmer from the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Alberta have shown that barnacles appear to have acquired the capacity to change the size and shape of their penises to closely match local wave conditions." | |
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| from Wall Street Journal, 02/11/08 Nine Cities, Nine Ideas "Ann Arbor, Mich., and Beijing, China, have precious little in common. But the modest college town and sprawling national capital do share one trait: They're part of a world-wide movement by cities to rein in their runaway energy use. Ann Arbor is replacing the bulbs in its street lamps with light-emitting diodes that use much less power. Beijing is closing or relocating cement kilns, coal mines and chemical plants dating back to the era of Chairman Mao. | |
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| from Financial Times, 02/14/08 Study finds profit in cutting emissions "Half the cuts in greenhouse gas emissions needed to make the world safe can be achieved at a net profit to the global economy, a study has found. McKinsey, the consultancy, publishes a report on Thursday concluding that investment in energy efficiency of about $170bn a year worldwide would yield a profit of about 17 per cent, or $29bn. Diana Farrell, director of the McKinsey Global Institute, said: “It shows just how much deadweight loss there is in the economy in energy use.” | |
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| from Georgia Institute of Technology, 02/14/08 Carbon Capture Strategy Could Lead To Emission-free Cars "Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a strategy to capture, store and eventually recycle carbon from vehicles to prevent the pollutant from finding its way from a car tailpipe into the atmosphere. Georgia Tech researchers envision a zero emission car, and a transportation system completely free of fossil fuels." | |
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| from TED (Ideas worth spreading), 02/15/08 The omnivore's next dilemma (Michael Pollan) "What if human consciousness isn't the end-all and be-all of Darwinism? What if we are all just pawns in corn's clever strategy game, the ultimate prize of which is world domination? Author Michael Pollan asks us to see things from a plant's-eye view -- to consider the possibility that nature isn't opposed to culture, that biochemistry rivals intellect as a survival tool. By merely shifting our perspective, he argues, we can heal the Earth. Who's the more sophisticated species now?" | |
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| from Science, 02/19/08 New Materials Can Selectively Capture Carbon Dioxide, Chemists Report "UCLA chemists report a major advance in reducing heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions in the Feb. 15 issue of the journal Science. The scientists have demonstrated that they can successfully isolate and capture carbon dioxide, which contributes to global warming, rising sea levels and the increased acidity of oceans. Their findings could lead to power plants efficiently capturing carbon dioxide without using toxic materials." | |
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| from Associated Press, 02/21/08 Wolves to be removed from species list "BILLINGS, Mont. - Gray wolves in the Northern Rockies will be removed from the endangered species list, following a 13-year restoration effort that helped the animal's population soar, federal officials said Thursday. An estimated 1,500 wolves now roam Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. That represents a dramatic turnaround for a predator that was largely exterminated in the U.S. outside of Alaska in the early 20th century." | |
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| from Science Daily (US), 02/23/08 New possibilities for removing NOx "A discovery in molecular chemistry may help remove a barrier to widespread use of diesel and other fuel-efficient "lean burn" vehicle engines. Researchers at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have recorded the first observations of how certain catalyst materials used in emission control devices are constructed." | |
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| from Science Daily (US), 02/23/08 New Fuel Cell Cleans Up Pollution And Produces Electricity "Scientists in Pennsylvania are reporting development of a fuel cell that uses pollution from coal and metal mines to generate electricity, solving a serious environmental problem while providing a new source of energy. They describe successful tests of a laboratory-scale version of the device in a new study." | |
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| from University of New Hampshire, 02/24/08 Paving The Way For Green Roads "We have a real opportunity to re-build the infrastructure the right way with sustainable materials and socially sensitive designs that protect air, water, land, and human resources".... "The cost of building a road is not reflected fully in the price of materials," Gardner adds. "The total cost of mining virgin materials, for instance, involves not only the cost of materials and labor, but also the environmental cost at the mining site, the environmental costs... of transporting these materials to the building site, and the environmental costs of building the equipment to mine and transport material and build the roads." | |
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| from American Society of Agronomy, 02/24/08 Transgenic Cotton Cultivars Not More Profitable "... Again in 2003, selection of the transgenic cultivars reduced returns, while similar, higher returns were attained from non-transgenic technologies. According to the authors, “Collectively these results indicate that profitability was most closely associated with yields and not the transgenic technologies.” Continued research is necessary to analyze the 2005 and 2006 results with more recent types of transgenic cotton cultivars." | |
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| from Sandia National Laboratories, 02/24/08 Sandia, Stirling Energy Systems set new world record for solar-to-grid conversion efficiency 31.25 percent efficiency rate topples 1984 record "Gaining two whole points of conversion efficiency in this type of system is phenomenal," says Bruce Osborn, SES president and CEO. "This is a significant advancement that takes our dish engine systems well beyond the capacities of any other solar dish collectors and one step closer to commercializing an affordable system." | |
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| from Science Daily (US), 02/25/08 Bio-crude Turns Cheap Waste Into Valuable Fuel "This makes it practical and economical to produce bio-crude in local areas for transport to a central refinery, overcoming the high costs and greenhouse gas emissions otherwise involved in transporting bulky green wastes over long distances." The process uses low value waste such as forest thinnings, crop residues, waste paper and garden waste, significant amounts of which are currently dumped in landfill or burned." | |
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| from AP News, 02/25/08 France Halts Genetically Modified Corn The French government on Saturday suspended the use of genetically modified corn crops in France while it awaits EU approval for a full ban. The order formalized France's announcement Jan. 11 that it would suspend cultivation of Monsanto's MON810, the seed for the only type of genetically modified corn now allowed in the country. | |
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| from Science and Spirit, 02/25/08 Creation Care, and evangelicals "Surveys by the Ellison Research Group, Inc., show that seventy-five percent of evangelicals believe that climate change is real and will impact their lives. Eighty-four percent believe that the Congress should pass a mandatory limit on greenhouse gas emissions. Senate Republicans recently rejected a "Climate Security Act." | |
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| from Science Daily (US), 02/26/08 Cheap, Clean Drinking Water Purified Through Nanotechnology "Tiny particles of pure silica coated with an active material could be used to remove toxic chemicals, bacteria, viruses, and other hazardous materials from water much more effectively and at lower cost than conventional water purification methods, according to researchers writing in the current issue of the International Journal of Nanotechnology." | |
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| from Guardian (UK), 02/26/08 CRAGs: carbon rationing action groups. "Some have described them as the 21st century's green equivalent of the Co-operative Movement. Others have likened them to the book club craze inspired by chat-show hosts Richard and Judy. Some bloggers have dismissed them as 'green authoritarians'. Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of the 'crags', or carbon rationing action groups. Crags are community groups that meet in one another's homes and local pubs and set themselves personal carbon targets for the year. Backsliding members who jet off on too many foreign holidays have to pay their colleagues a nominal fine or do green-style 'community service' to make up for their environmental transgressions. Only 17 of these groups are active globally, but 16 are in the UK." | |
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| from Earth Institute at Columbia University, 03/01/08 Seafloor Cores Show Tight Bond Between Dust And Past Climates "Each year, long-distance winds drop up to 900 million tons of dust from deserts and other parts of the land into the oceans. Scientists suspect this phenomenon connects to global climate--but exactly how, remains a question. Now a big piece of the puzzle has fallen into place, with a study showing that the amount of dust entering the equatorial Pacific peaks sharply during repeated ice ages, then declines when climate warms. The researchers say it cements the theory that atmospheric moisture, and thus dust, move in close step with temperature on a global scale; the finding may in turn help inform current ideas to seed oceans with iron-rich dust in order to mitigate global warming." | |
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| from The Wall Street Journal, 03/03/08 Americans Start to Curb Their Thirst for Gasoline " As crude-oil prices climb to historic highs, steep gasoline prices and the weak economy are beginning to curb Americans' gas-guzzling ways. In the past six weeks, the nation's gasoline consumption has fallen by an average 1.1\% from year-earlier levels, according to weekly government data. That's the most sustained drop in demand in at least 16 years, except for the declines that followed Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which temporarily knocked out a big chunk of the U.S. gasoline supply system." | |
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| from Exchange Morning Post (Canada), 03/04/08 Turning a Landfill Into a Pollination Park "Turning a garbage dump into a bloom-filled haven for birds, butterflies and other pollinating insects is the vision the Guelph Pollination Initiative has for a local landfill site.... Hosted by the University of Guelph and the City of Guelph, the event will focus on plans to turn Guelph's Eastview landfill into an urban habitat for pollinators by designing the 100 acres to include plant species that attract pollinators." | |
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| from Associated Press, 03/05/08 Hogs Help Battle Beetle in Apple Orchard "CLAYTON TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) -- Jim Koan has gone hog-wild in his battle against a beetle that threatens his 120-acre organic apple orchard. As part of a research experiment believed to be among the first of its kind, Koan is using pigs to help protect his fruit from the plum curculio, a tiny insect that is among the most destructive apple pests... They hope their work will someday help fruit growers throughout the world reduce the use of pesticides while diversifying their agricultural operations, as he is doing. He plans to periodically sell off the offspring of his four original hogs, keeping only those he needs." | |
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| from Telegraph.co.uk, 03/06/08 Scheme to protect 1.8m acres of rainforest "A world-first rainforest conservation project which will lock up 100 million tons of carbon dioxide, the equivalent of 50 million flights from London to Sydney, has been agreed in Indonesia. The scheme will protect 1.8 million acres of rainforest in northern Sumatra, including endangered species such as the Sumatran tiger, Sumatran elephant and the northernmost population of orangutans." | |
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| from Los Angeles Times, 03/08/08 Edison to launch big wind project "Southern California Edison said Friday that it was about to begin construction on a desert wind farm that could provide power for upward of 3 million homes by 2013, predicting that it would be the largest wind transmission project in the country...Michael Peevey, president of the California Public Utilities Commission, said the project would create the largest block of wind energy in the country." | |
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| from Times Online, 03/09/08 Climate czar, Lord Adair Turner, says take off your tie to cut CO2 "Office workers should be allowed to shed their suits and ties and adopt lightweight informal clothing to help cut carbon dioxide emissions, according to Lord Adair Turner, the new climate czar. He believes forcing men to wear suits and women to wear smart skirts raises demand for air-conditioning and discourages them from using sustainable forms of transport such as walking and cycling." | |
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| from Science Daily (US), 03/11/08 MegaBee Nourishes Beleaguered Honey Bees ... [A] new, convenient source of proteins, vitamins and minerals that bees need for good health. Bees can eat MegaBee as a meal or snack when days are too cold for venturing outside of their warm hive, for example, or when flowers—bearing pollen and nectar, the staple foods for adult bees—aren't yet in bloom. Better nutrition might be a key to reversing the decline of honey bees, Apis mellifera, in the United States. A mostly mysterious colony collapse disorder is blamed for losses of once-thriving colonies, as are problems caused by mites, beetles, Africanized honey bees, diseases and pesticides. | |
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| from Chemical & Engineering News, 03/12/08 Maryland Bug Boosts Biofuels "Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley was at the University of Maryland, College Park, on March 10 to present a $50,000 state grant to Zymetis, a company spun off from research conducted at the university. The company will use the grant to accelerate the commercialization of a novel process to make ethanol from cellulosic biomass. At the heart of the new process is a mixture of enzymes derived from the bacterium Saccharophagus degradans, which was discovered by chance and isolated from Chesapeake Bay salt marsh grasses...Today, most ethanol is made by fermenting sugars from agricultural products such as corn and sugarcane. But the large-scale use of food crops for fuel production is controversial because it will allegedly raise food prices. Thus, companies have been seeking ways to make fuels out of cellulosic waste products such as corn stover, woody residues, and switch grass with a variety of chemical and biochemical processes....Zymetis enzymes are an advance in the field because they break down cellulose faster and "more simply" than other methods." | |
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| from The News, 03/15/08 "Islamabad Green City" charter to be signed today "Caretaker Prime Minister Mohammedmian Soomro has approved the proposal to declare the Islamabad a Green City and has directed the Ministry of Environment to finalise the Islamabad Green City Action Plan in consultation with all stakeholders including ministries of industries, petroleum, interior, health, CDA and others. A charter to declare the Islamabad a green city will be signed today (Saturday) with the promise that from now and onward every government official, resident, industrial and business entrepreneur, administration, planner/developer and civil society will work together to make Islamabad a True Green City by improving its Environmental Conditions and promoting Sustainable Development...About 100 cities have so far been declared as green cities world over. In the green cities, urban planning is given due importance and programmes such as energy conservation, tree plantation are carried out in a more coherent manner. | |
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| from Hartford Courant, 03/18/08 Carbon Dioxide Up For Sale "For the first time in the U.S., carbon dioxide goes on sale in September — and the bidding will start at $1.86 a ton. A consortium of 10 states, including Connecticut, said Monday it will hold the first auction of carbon emissions "allowances" on Sept. 10, part of a plan to curb greenhouse gases from the region's power plants and slow global warming. Subsequent auctions will be held quarterly, and power plant operators — who until now have been able to emit without paying — will have until the end of 2011 to acquire enough credits to account for all of their CO{-2} emissions. "It's a new model not just for the region but for the nation," said state Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Gina McCarthy. "It's a way we can make greenhouse gas reductions achievable but do it in way that costs are contained, that protects the interests of the consumer." | |
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| from Agence France-Press, 03/18/08 Japanese baseball joins fight against global warming "TOKYO -- Japanese professional baseball players have vowed to shorten playing time per game as part of the national pastime's contribution to the fight against global warming. They will aim to cut playing time by six percent, or 12 minutes, from the average of three hours and 18 minutes per game, the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) commissioners' office said. "When a professional baseball game is staged, a huge amount of carbon dioxides, a cause of global warming, is discharged because it requires use of energy to move players and spectators, supply electricity for lighting and other purposes and dispose of food and drink waste," NPB said in a statement." | |
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| from Toronto Globe and Mail, 03/22/08 Wal-Mart move 'tipping point' for non-hormone milk "Organic food proponents will remember Thursday as the day the ground shifted. Giant food retailer Wal-Mart Stores Inc. announced that its store brand milk in the United States will now come exclusively from cows not treated with artificial growth hormones. The move sends a powerful signal to food manufacturers about the growing mainstream demand for health food products. With Wal-Mart already the largest retailer of organic milk in the U.S., it has been clear that consumers interested in greener food products are no longer the narrow group of back-to-the-earth types and wealthy urban yuppies. "It's reached the tipping point," said Ronnie Cummins, director of the Organic Consumers Association in the U.S., who has spent years campaigning against the use of hormones designed to boost milk production by up to 15 per cent in dairy cows. | |
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| from Mongabay.com, 03/22/08 Markets could save forests: An interview with Dr. Tom Lovejoy "Market mechanisms are increasingly seen as a way to address environmental problems, including tropical deforestation. In particular, compensation for ecosystem services like carbon sequestration — a concept known by the acronym REDD for "reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation" — may someday make conservation a profitable enterprise in which carbon traders are effectively saving rainforests simply by their pursuit of profit. Protecting rainforests and their resident biodiversity would be an unintentional, but happy byproduct of money-making endeavors." | |
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| from ZDNet, 03/22/08 The lightbulb of the future? Silicon Valley's Luxim has developed a lightbulb the size of a Tic Tac that gives off as much light as a streetlight. News.com's Michael Kanellos talks to the company about its technology and its plans to expand into various markets. | |
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| from WattzOn.org, 03/24/08 The Game Plan for changing energy use Remarkably thoughtful long powerpoint-like presentation by Saul Griffith, a MacArthur Grant recipient, with gorgeous graphics, detailed talking points, and a structured plan for remedying our path to overheating the world. Recommended. | |
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| from Jeff Vail, via The Oil Drum, 03/24/08 The Problem of Growth "This has been a whirlwind tour of the structural bias in hierarchy toward growth, but it has also, by necessity, been a superficial analysis. Books, entire libraries, could be filled with the analysis of this topic. But despite the scope of this topic, it is remarkable that such a simple concept underlies the necessity of growth: within hierarchy, surplus production equates to power, requiring competing entities across all scales to produce ever more surplus—to grow—in order to compete, survive, and prosper. This has, quite literally, Earth shaking ramifications. We live on a finite planet, and it seems likely that we are nearing the limits of the Earth’s ability to support ongoing growth...." | |
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| from Newark Star-Ledger, 03/27/08 On Saturday, hit the lights for Earth Hour "Coca-Cola's iconic sign in Times Square will go dark this Saturday night. Lights will switch off along downtown San Francisco's skyline. McDonald's arches in Chicago will power down. These are just some of the large-scale lights-out efforts planned for Earth Hour, an event the World Wildlife Fund started last year in Sydney. During Earth Hour, observed between 8 and 9 p.m. local time on Saturday, individuals and businesses around the world will turn off their lights in the name of energy conservation and global warming awareness. Dan Forman, a spokesman for Earth Hour, said millions are expected to participate." | |
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| from Science Daily (US), 03/27/08 Suspended Animation Induced In Mice With Sewer Gas: Effects Are Reversible "Hydrogen sulfide is the stinky gas that can kill workers who encounter it in sewers; but when adminstered to mice in small, controlled doses, within minutes it produces what appears to be totally reversible metabolic suppression," says Warren Zapol, MD, chief of Anesthesia and Critical Care at MGH and senior author of the Anesthesiology study. "This is as close to instant suspended animation as you can get, and the preservation of cardiac contraction, blood pressure and organ perfusion is remarkable." | |
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| from Associated Press, 03/30/08 Cities switch off lights for Earth Hour "From the Sydney Opera House to Rome's Colosseum to the Sears Tower's famous antennas in Chicago, floodlit icons of civilization went dark Saturday for Earth Hour, a worldwide campaign to highlight the threat of climate change. The campaign began last year in Australia, and traveled this year from the South Pacific to Europe to North America in cadence with the setting of the sun." | |
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