Representatives from South Florida’s Monroe County are going to make a pitch this week for undeveloped private land in the Florida Keys to be bought with federal and state money, and then turned into a national park. While I’m all for more protection of beach and ocean areas in the Keys, I think this is a terrible idea for several reasons.
The group in favor of protecting the private land from development plans to ask for $1.2 billion from both the U.S. government and Florida State government to cover the cost of buying the property from its landowners. About 7,372 acres of land that contains sensitive vegetation would be bought and would comprise the national park– not the entirety of the Florida Keys. A lawyer who represents some of the landowners has already said that it’s “the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Representatives from South Florida’s Monroe County are going to make a pitch this week for undeveloped private land in the Florida Keys to be bought with federal and state money, and then turned into a national park. While I’m all for more protection of beach and ocean areas in the Keys, I think this is a terrible idea for several reasons.
The group in favor of protecting the private land from development plans to ask for $1.2 billion from both the U.S. government and Florida State government to cover the cost of buying the property from its landowners. About 7,372 acres of land that contains sensitive vegetation would be bought and would comprise the national park– not the entirety of the Florida Keys. A lawyer who represents some of the landowners has already said that it’s “the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Every week sees so many developments and news stories about the environment, energy and sustainability, it’s impossible to cover them all in depth. So I thought it would be helpful to occasionally summarize some of the more interesting reports from the past week. Here are a few that caught my eye:
Two South African architects last week won the $100,000 Curry Stone Design Prize for their unique energy-efficient housing design using timber framing and sandbags. Based on traditional mud-and-wattle construction, the timber-sandbag structures are also inexpensive and easy to build, with no electricity required.
Every week sees so many developments and news stories about the environment, energy and sustainability, it’s impossible to cover them all in depth. So I thought it would be helpful to occasionally summarize some of the more interesting reports from the past week. Here are a few that caught my eye:
Two South African architects last week won the $100,000 Curry Stone Design Prize for their unique energy-efficient housing design using timber framing and sandbags. Based on traditional mud-and-wattle construction, the timber-sandbag structures are also inexpensive and easy to build, with no electricity required.
There is almost nothing quite as intriguing and interesting as learning of a new experiment. And while Bunsen burners and the like may be OK for some of you, for me, get me outside and in some dirt any day.
A new experiment, being conducted at Imperial College London’s Silwood Park campus in Berkshire, will attempt to determine how the British plant ecosystem will be affected by future changes to climate and biodiversity.
With this experiment, however, there will be no computer simulations. Instead, scientists and researchers will be conducting the experiment outside, with 168 plots of grassland ecosystem at their fingertips. This will give a clear insight into how the ecosystems will hold up under a variety of different situations.
There is almost nothing quite as intriguing and interesting as learning of a new experiment. And while Bunsen burners and the like may be OK for some of you, for me, get me outside and in some dirt any day.
A new experiment, being conducted at Imperial College London’s Silwood Park campus in Berkshire, will attempt to determine how the British plant ecosystem will be affected by future changes to climate and biodiversity.
With this experiment, however, there will be no computer simulations. Instead, scientists and researchers will be conducting the experiment outside, with 168 plots of grassland ecosystem at their fingertips. This will give a clear insight into how the ecosystems will hold up under a variety of different situations.
Did Alan Weisman’s book The World Without Us get your mind spinning about what our planet would look like if we just suddenly disappeared? Well, get ready to spin some more, courtesy of a new book by University of Leicester geologist Jan Zalasiewicz.
Titled The Earth After Us: What Legacy Will Humans Leave in the Rocks?, Zalasiewicz’s book explores what an alien geologist might be able to learn about our species from the geological record. And, like The World Without Us, it sounds like a fascinating — and sobering — read.
Did Alan Weisman’s book The World Without Us get your mind spinning about what our planet would look like if we just suddenly disappeared? Well, get ready to spin some more, courtesy of a new book by University of Leicester geologist Jan Zalasiewicz.
Titled The Earth After Us: What Legacy Will Humans Leave in the Rocks?, Zalasiewicz’s book explores what an alien geologist might be able to learn about our species from the geological record. And, like The World Without Us, it sounds like a fascinating — and sobering — read.
This is a guest post by Meg Hamill who works at LandPaths in Partnership with The Open Space District of Sonoma County, California.
Here’s a question, not meant to keep you up at night, but definitely worth thinking about: Which of the foods in your refrigerator right now would be likely to survive a global climate change?
Lucky for us, this question is not going unanswered. The Global Crop Diversity Trust recently earmarked 1.5 million dollars towards screening the world’s food supply for natural resistances to floods, temperature change, and droughts. The Trust is also looking for higher yielding crops that need little water and less space to grow.
The overarching mission of the organization is to ensure the conservation and availability of crop diversity for food security, worldwide. In February of this year, they opened the doors of their “Arctic Seed Vault,” otherwise known as “Doomsday Vault,” a safe haven for seeds from all over the world. The vault was dug into a mountainside in Svalbard, a group of islands nearly a thousand kilometers North of Norway.
This is a guest post by Meg Hamill who works at LandPaths in Partnership with The Open Space District of Sonoma County, California.
Here’s a question, not meant to keep you up at night, but definitely worth thinking about: Which of the foods in your refrigerator right now would be likely to survive a global climate change?
Lucky for us, this question is not going unanswered. The Global Crop Diversity Trust recently earmarked 1.5 million dollars towards screening the world’s food supply for natural resistances to floods, temperature change, and droughts. The Trust is also looking for higher yielding crops that need little water and less space to grow.
The overarching mission of the organization is to ensure the conservation and availability of crop diversity for food security, worldwide. In February of this year, they opened the doors of their “Arctic Seed Vault,” otherwise known as “Doomsday Vault,” a safe haven for seeds from all over the world. The vault was dug into a mountainside in Svalbard, a group of islands nearly a thousand kilometers North of Norway.
This most recent weekend, I had the pleasure of meeting about two dozen different superheroes. These weren’t your typical eye beam-blasting, web-slinging, high-flying superheroes, though. Instead, they were bicycle-riding, service-providing, and compassion-inspiring superheroes with names like CompashMan (short for compassionate man), Believe-Oh, Love Ninja, Queen Bee, Atomic Calm, and Super OK With Himself Guy. They were all part of The Haul of Justice, an extraordinary event in which regular folks dress up as superheroes and hit the roads on their bicycles for a month-long journey, providing service to the public with no agenda, and no pre-established course or plans .
Once or twice a year since 2000, the Superheroes have assembled to bike through a specific location (usually a particular state - 23 states and five other countries have been ridden through thus far). On their journey, which is totally unplanned, these Superheroes stop in random towns and cities, and provide service to people in need. Usually, it’s a simple matter of asking people if they need help with anything. As you might expect, people are often surprised by the appearance of twenty-some-odd bikers dressed up in capes and costumes.
This most recent weekend, I had the pleasure of meeting about two dozen different superheroes. These weren’t your typical eye beam-blasting, web-slinging, high-flying superheroes, though. Instead, they were bicycle-riding, service-providing, and compassion-inspiring superheroes with names like CompashMan (short for compassionate man), Believe-Oh, Love Ninja, Queen Bee, Atomic Calm, and Super OK With Himself Guy. They were all part of The Haul of Justice, an extraordinary event in which regular folks dress up as superheroes and hit the roads on their bicycles for a month-long journey, providing service to the public with no agenda, and no pre-established course or plans .
Once or twice a year since 2000, the Superheroes have assembled to bike through a specific location (usually a particular state - 23 states and five other countries have been ridden through thus far). On their journey, which is totally unplanned, these Superheroes stop in random towns and cities, and provide service to people in need. Usually, it’s a simple matter of asking people if they need help with anything. As you might expect, people are often surprised by the appearance of twenty-some-odd bikers dressed up in capes and costumes.
Will Allen, former pro basketball player, founded Growing Power to help low-income people in Milwaukee and Chicago grow their own food locally.
He will now have an extra $500,000 to help his efforts.
Will Allen, former pro basketball player, founded Growing Power to help low-income people in Milwaukee and Chicago grow their own food locally.
He will now have an extra $500,000 to help his efforts.
According to a new study published in Restoration Ecology, the use of large experimental tests in the field of environmental restoration has been limited, at best. The study posits that, for restoration to proceed as a science as well as a practice, large scale experiments will have to be conducted on whole ecosystems.
“Very few restoration ecologists are taking advantage of large restoration sites by conducting large-scale experiments,” says Joy B. Zedler of the University of Wisconsin- Madison. “Most people wouldn’t buy a new shirt without trying on several different kinds to see which fits best and looks right. It’s similar with restoration; we want to find the best fit between the methods we use and the outcomes we want.”
According to a new study published in Restoration Ecology, the use of large experimental tests in the field of environmental restoration has been limited, at best. The study posits that, for restoration to proceed as a science as well as a practice, large scale experiments will have to be conducted on whole ecosystems.
“Very few restoration ecologists are taking advantage of large restoration sites by conducting large-scale experiments,” says Joy B. Zedler of the University of Wisconsin- Madison. “Most people wouldn’t buy a new shirt without trying on several different kinds to see which fits best and looks right. It’s similar with restoration; we want to find the best fit between the methods we use and the outcomes we want.”
If you did your homework and purchased the Blue Planet Run book as I suggested last week, then you will find most of what I’m about to share in the beautiful charts and graphs on page 174 and 175.
If you did your homework and purchased the Blue Planet Run book as I suggested last week, then you will find most of what I’m about to share in the beautiful charts and graphs on page 174 and 175.
Sarah Palin has said many times that the polar bear habitat is safe, and there’s no need to classify them as a “threatened” species. Yet today comes word that as the Arctic sea ice melts, polar bears are finding less and less food sources and are beginning to cannibalize one another.
Sarah Palin has said many times that the polar bear habitat is safe, and there’s no need to classify them as a “threatened” species. Yet today comes word that as the Arctic sea ice melts, polar bears are finding less and less food sources and are beginning to cannibalize one another.
