Saturday Morning Linkfest

Good morning people. How's the environmental movement living, breathing, moving, in your world, today?

Anyway, here's some stuff I've found interesting in the past while:

• "I think leadership starts to crumble when it becomes inconsistent. People don’t know which way the wind’s blowing. What’s the C.E.O. going to decide today? They’d rather him or her consistently be a jerk in a certain area as opposed to being inconsistent. Then they know it’s coming." (on leadership via New York Times)
• Still, we are rapidly approaching a point of no return, cautions climate modeler Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution for Science's Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University, who participated in the study. (via Scientific American)
• OK, for all you conspiracy theorists out there who have long known that there's a 100 mpg car out there, it turns out you just  might be right (wink, wink).
• Need some good news on the environment and people in general? Who doesn't? Here's our highlighted link of the weekend. "Faced with the mind-numbing bad news about the environment over recent months, a couple of us at the Guardian decided to try to cheer ourselves up by finding examples of the right kind of environmental change. We set out to find 50 green pioneers, people who are making a practical difference but whose work is not yet widely known."  (via The Guardian)
• "In just 20 years, one in every three vehicles on British Columbia's roads could be electric, according to a primer released by the Pembina Institute today, coinciding with the start of a four-day electric vehicle conference in Vancouver."  (via Pembina Institute)
• George Monbiot says "In 2012 the only global deal for limiting greenhouse gas emissions – the Kyoto protocol – expires. There is no realistic prospect that it will be replaced before it elapses: the existing treaty took five years to negotiate and a further eight years to come into force. In terms of real hopes for global action on climate change, we are now far behind where we were in 1997, or even 1992. It's not just that we have lost 18 precious years. Throughout the age of good intentions and grand announcements we spiralled backwards." (via his blog)
• “If you spent your entire annual income in nine months, you would probably be extremely concerned,” said Global Footprint Network President Mathis Wackernagel. “The situation is no less dire when it comes to our ecological budget. Climate change, biodiversity loss, deforestation, water and food shortages are all clear signs: We can no longer finance our consumption on credit. Nature is foreclosing.” (via Global Footprint Network)
• "As the world gets warmer, sea levels are rising. It has been happening at a snail's pace so far, but as it speeds up more and more low-lying coastal land will be lost. ...  Throwing trillions of dollars at the problem could probably save big cities such as New York, London and Shanghai, but the task of defending all low-lying coastal areas and islands seems hopeless. Or is it?"  (via New Scientist)
  
  

Soil - the basis of all land based life

Q. What's wrong with the soil?


A. Half of Iowa's original topsoil has been lost or moved by erosion caused by agriculture. And we've lost half of our black organic matter (carbon) to oxidation from crop production. We can't keep on with this deficit spending of the ecological capital that the prairies bequeathed us, as Wes Jackson has phrased it.

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Interview here

Baby thrown out with bathwater? - OR What's in the bathwater?

Alviso's Medicinal All-Salt may look like ordinary table salt, but it has a little extra pharmaceutical kick. Exactly which drugs are present is somewhat unknowable, even to those selling the product, since it depends on which ones happen to have been recently flushed down local toilets. That mysterious grab-bag aspect is all part of the fun -- unless of course, you happen to get a batch infused with industrial pesticides and flame retardants.

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Man, this is pretty messed up, when we don't even have a system in place to deal with all the industrial materials, whether it's pharmaceuticals, or what have you, to avoid having them flushed down the toilet.

Story here

Even simple things add up, collectively ...

Like, for example, the environmental consequences of using too much soap in the laudry, or dishwasher. From the creation of the resource, to the outflow of the soap-laden waste water, it all has an effect.

Washing machines and dishwashers are made to use far less water now than older models and, therefore, need less soap. And detergents have also become increasingly concentrated. So a little goes a long way. 

“Most people use 10 to 15 times the amount of soap they need, and they’re pouring money down the drain,” Mr. Schmidt said.

Story here

Second Week of Walking to and from Work - 12km / 8 miles round trip

This is the Agitated Ecoist's report of the second week of walking to and from work.

Global hunger will rise soon ...

Conundrum: fewer people are hungry, but hunger on the rise. But UN says 925 million people undernourished an ‘unacceptably high number’


Story here

Saturday Morning Linkfest

Good morning oh fellow timid environmentalists.

What do we have on tap today? Well, it's the usual round up of suspects - things I find interesting.

As always, I am on the lookout for articles on leadership particularly, including especially ones dealing with the ability to motive people to action. This is a trait sorely needed in our general populace, as apathy and complacency are as widespread as our material wealth is deep. If you see something that fits the bill, drop me a note, and I'll include it in a future edition here.

• A wind turbine suitable for urban circumstances is tricky, given the low wind speeds and swirling source winds inevitable in many urban locales. "Eddy is one of many vertical axis turbines vying for attention among consumers and businesses looking for on-site power options. Urban Green Energy's wind turbines have a design that makes them perform very well in changing wind conditions, said Blitterswyk. A two-axis shaft reduces strain on the permanent magnet generator at the base of the turbine and improves the performance." (via CNET - see photograph, above)
• Another green dream - a real possibility, or simply one more blind alley of technology? You decide. "A group of chemical engineers at MIT have devised a way to collect solar energy 100 times more concentrated than a traditional photovoltaic cell. If their ’solar funnel’ venture proves to be a success, it could drastically alter how solar energy is collected in the future — there will no longer be a need for massive solar arrays or extensive space to generate significant and sufficient amounts of power." (via inhabitat)
• Bulky and expensive photovoltaic panels are so 2008. What does the future look like? Entire buildings, rooftops and even windows spray-painted with revolutionary nanoparticle inks that channel solar power into a thin, semi-transparent and relatively inexpensive medium. Sound crazy? (via inhabitat)
• More proof that women are smarter than men (as if I needed someone else to pile on my wife's side): more women believe global warming is real and the effects likely to be negative (via Live Science)
• While she can show you how to lower your carbon footprint, just don't call her the "green Martha Stewart". (via David Suzuki Foundation)
• Part of the Obama infrastructure proposed spending looks good - 4,000 miles of new railway. Could it be more than just enough to get across the country once? Seems unambitious to me. (via inhabitat)
• Why are so many, so timid about standing up against climate change - is it because we are all complicit to some degree? "Doctors have been too timid about highlighting the risks to human health from rises in greenhouse gases," Dr. Michael Wilks, past president of the Committee of European Doctors, said in a statement." (via Daily Climate)
• The problem is that we are now frequently seeing even the scientists surprised by the speed at which various climate change effects are occurring. Greenland's glaciers are melting "faster than expected". (via Greenpeace [3 minute video]) 
• A neighborhood nuclear power plant on every corner? Sounds appealing from a carbon reduction standpoint - unfortunately, terrorists would likely enjoy the shopping convenience such a situation would provide. (via The Washington Post)
• Carbon market: the low-hanging fruit? (via Daily Climate)
• And our highlighted link on leadership today ... "Great leaders (there, I’ve said the dreaded word) get people to focus on the key elements of strategy – the standards on which the firm is going to compete. With a clear ideology to rally around, talented people get the choice of saying – ‘I can believe in that. I think I’ll stick around to a part of that and be a member of a society of like-minded people operating together in accordance with common values.’" (via David Maister)
• Gary Ovitt, chairman of the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors, said Friday that the state's global-warming law could cost local governments and businesses dearly. The county, he said, is looking at an estimated $133 million deficit each year for the next few years. "It's clear," he said, "we can't afford higher energy costs."  (via San Bernardino Sun)  ... I would add that this is the shit that environmentalists have to deal with: people who have NO CLUE how climate change mitigation strategies will balloon wildly in cost as they are pushed ever off into the future.
• Time is growing shorter and shorter to sustain human life on this planet, in quantities that are both here now, and capable of supporting with lifestyle changes. Only 225 months left until climate change effects are virtually irreversible. (via nef)
• Sure, green roofs. And green walls too? But what type? (via New Scientist)