According to the the UN, the newest threat to the global environment is pollution affecting our food supply. Atmospheric brown clouds caused by pollution contribute to glacial melting and reduce sunlight that negatively impacts agricultural production. Extreme weather caused by global warming is also of concern for farmers. From Beijing to Cairo, dark clouds have darkened 13 cities from the Persian Gulf to Asia decreasing the amount of sunlight by as much as 25 percent.
Climate change might be putting Australia in the throes of a long and devastating (and probably permanent) drought, but the “d” word is making farm families feel bad, government officials have decided. Their recommendation: use the word “dryness” instead.
That’s right: it’s the word “drought” that’s so disturbing and not, say, oh, the acre upon acre of dust-covered wheatfields, mile upon mile of dry riverbeds and ever-dwindling farm income levels.
Doesn’t that remind you of the old Saturday Night Live sketch, “The Pepsi Syndrome,” in which Richard Benjamin uttered this line about a Three-Mile-Island-like accident: “Sometime yesterday afternoon we experienced what we like to call a ’surprise.’ “?
Green Christmases could be coming soon to the U.K. The Daily Mail reports that climate change is causing oak trees to shed their leaves later and later each year … between Nov. 23 and Dec. 13, compared to between Nov. 4 and 21 in the ’30s and ’40s. “Environmental experts say it is only a matter of time before foliage remains until the end of (December),” reporter Andrew Levy writes.
According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, meat production is responsible for nearly a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions. Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Nobel Peace Prize winner, suggested:
In terms of immediacy of action and the feasibility of bringing about reductions in a short period of time, it clearly is the most attractive opportunity. Give up meat for one day [a week] initially, and decrease it from there.
This photo is one of two such billboards I saw driving through central Pennsylvania recently. The other had a similar message but said: “Clean Coal: Now Clean and Green with New Technologies.” The billboard is sponsored by an organization called Families Organized to Represent the Coal Economy (FORCE). I know I’m curious how FORCE defines “Clean and Green.” Anyone else?
Google is holding a Project “10 to the 100th” competition to offer opportunity to all of the unknown geniuses out there who have something world-altering to contribute.Serve up an idea that can improve the planet for the most people you can imagine.
It’s simple to submit an idea online. Check some boxes, fill out some blanks and click the “Submit” button before Oct. 20 to participate.
It’s art in action for the planet. CoolGlobes is a project confronting the need for a cooler planet, by generating awareness via art such as Karen Ami’s Wind Andamento that is on view in San Francisco. Chicago, San Diego and Washington, D.C. are also into the CoolGlobes scene, with London planning to debut in 2009.
Gary Busey is a man of action. He’s taking his massive cow corks to the farm and putting an end to the madness — with the help of an assistant, an unwitting farmer and a few approachable, if displeased, cows.
Scientists have discovered massive amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas far more powerful than carbon dioxide, bubbling up from the Arctic seabed, according to an exclusive report published today in the U.K.’s Independent. The revelation raises the frightening possibility that vast quantities of methane long trapped below undersea permafrost will enter the atmosphere and set off runaway global warming. Known as the “Clathrate Gun Hypothesis,” the theory is held as a likely reason that 70 to 96 percent of all species on Earth went extinct at the end of the Permian 251 million years ago.
According to the the UN, the newest threat to the global environment is pollution affecting our food supply. Atmospheric brown clouds caused by pollution contribute to glacial melting and reduce sunlight that negatively impacts agricultural production. Extreme weather caused by global warming is also of concern for farmers. From Beijing to Cairo, dark clouds have darkened 13 cities from the Persian Gulf to Asia decreasing the amount of sunlight by as much as 25 percent.
