Author: Organikos

The Best Use We Have Ever Heard Of For A Taco Bell

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From left, Emma Fernberger, associate director of the Bortolami Gallery; the dealer Stefania Bortolami; and the artist Tom Burr in the former Pirelli Tire Company building in New Haven, where Mr. Burr plans an installation as part of the gallery’s “Artist/City” initiative. Christopher Gregory for The New York Times

We do not bother complaining about fast food on this platform, but we are happy to pass along this story about re-purposing a fast food site:

Art Dealers Move Out of the Gallery and Into a Taco Bell

By ALAN FEUER

Stefania Bortolami still recalls, with cathartic exultation, the moment she decided to display her art in a slower, smaller way. It was May 2015, and Ms. Bortolami, the owner of the Bortolami Gallery in Manhattan, was at the art fair Frieze New York — her sixth such gathering of the year. Continue reading →

More Before The Flood

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We have been there, we have seen it, we have breathed it, we have witnessed enough. We are grateful to the film makers for bearing witness to a wider audience. Click above to go to the preview of the film:

Exclusive Clip: DiCaprio’s Climate Doc Exposes Destruction of Rainforest for Palm Oil as Huge Driver of Global Carbon Emissions

Rainforest Action Network Rainforest Action Network

A new documentary produced and starring actor and activist Leonardo DiCaprio premieres in Los Angeles today and will be broadcast globally in 45 languages in 171 countries on the National Geographic Channel starting Oct. 30, timed to air in advance of the November elections. Continue reading →

Returning Rivers To Their Natural State

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A view of the Milford Dam. After the removal of two large dams downriver, the Milford Dam is now the first barrier fish face when ascending the Penobscot River. Murray Carpenter

We are thrilled to read about the rivers getting their groove back:

Taking Down Dams and Letting the Fish Flow

By MURRAY CARPENTER

BANGOR, Me. — Joseph Zydlewski, a research biologist with the Maine Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit of the United States Geological Survey, drifted in a boat on the Penobscot River, listening to a crackling radio receiver. The staccato clicks told him that one of the shad that his team had outfitted with a transmitter was swimming somewhere below.

Shad, alewives, blueback herring and other migratory fish once were plentiful on the Penobscot. “Seven thousand shad and one hundred barrels of alewives were taken at one haul of the seine,” in May 1827, according to one historian. Continue reading →

Genetic Engineering Versus GMO

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E-maxx/Flickr.com

Thanks to Anthropocene for this summary of promising new findings for the GMO-concerned:

A novel approach to pesticide-free, non-GMO food?

by | Oct 21, 2016

Genetically modifying food crops to be resistant to pests is a promising approach to reducing agriculture’s dependence on pesticides. That’s what motivated a group of German scientists a few years back to develop a barley that was modified to produce RNA that makes it resistant to a common and devastating fungus. But some people, including many who are concerned about pesticide use, aren’t comfortable consuming GMO food. In 38 countries, the growth of GMO crops has been banned. Continue reading →

Sani Choice, Yasuni Future

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Wildlife watch … the author’s guide, Victor, explores an area of flooded forest in the Yasuni national park, Ecuador. Photograph: The Guardian

The Guardian keeps attention on this difficult balancing act, requiring Solomonic wisdom, that we have linked to on more than one occasion:

Ecuador’s Yasuni park: where oil vies with tourism for the rainforest

The Sani people face a choice between encouraging ecotourism to their rainforest – one of the world’s most biodiverse – and allowing in the oil companies

Kevin Rushby

Fernando was sitting on his veranda listening to the whoops and whistles of the jungle. Our visit was a surprise, but the old man was soon answering my questions, keen to talk.

“I arrived here in about 1960,” he told me. “A group of us came to start a new life. Hunting was easy. The animals were almost tame. We just used a blowpipe, no guns.” Continue reading →

Farms, Interns, Valuable Life Experience

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We have a long, productive and gratifying history with internships, and so we take note when the Thanks to the Atlantic’s website for this:

The Benefits of Interning on a Farm

Video by The Perennial Plate

High in the mountains of Telluride, Colorado, Tomten Farms offers the opportunity to learn agriculture through an internship program. Continue reading →

Carbon Capture’s Unintended Consequences

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Photo: Ryan T. Flickr Creative Commons.

Be careful what you wish for as this summary of a new scientific study reminds us:

Could carbon capture fuel our carbon addiction?

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Until we can shake off our reliance on fossil fuels, removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere could slow down global warming. But carbon capture and other negative-emission technologies will only seal our dependence on carbon, according to a paper published in the journal Science. Continue reading →

Monkeys & Tools

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Monkey see, monkey smash. T. Falótico

Ed Yong’s recent story about this cleverest of creatures:

Rock-Smashing Monkeys Unintentionally Make Sharp Stone Tools

What this says—and doesn’t say—about the evolution of human technology

In 2014, Michael Haslam wedged between two boulders in northeast Brazil and filmed some monkeys. Oblivious to the voyeur, the monkeys—bearded capuchins—began smashing stones together. They lifted small cobbles into the air and brought these down upon a rock face, like a hammer upon an anvil. In the process, the hammer stones would often shatter.

After the monkeys had gone, Haslam picked up some of these broken fragments—and was amazed. Many had sharp edges, and looked remarkably like human tools. Continue reading →

FishFace

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Midnight Snappers, Fusiliers, and Triggers school in deep water, photographed in the waters off Kofiau. Photo © Jeff Yonover

Nature Conservancy’s blog,

We Can Have Oceans Teeming with Fish with FishFace Technology

By Lisa Feldkamp

Traditional methods of gathering fisheries data can take as long as one or two years, costing time and money that many imperiled global fisheries don’t have.Enter FishFace, a new application under development by The Nature Conservancy in partnership with Refind Technologies. Similar to facial recognition software used to identify people, FishFace uses artificial intelligence to learn to recognize fish species in photographs. Continue reading →

Solar Rising

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A road divides solar panels at the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System in the Mojave Desert, Nevada. Photograph: Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Those of us who live near the Kochi Airport in Kerala, India feel pretty proud of our 100% solar-powered access to the outside world; but this story tells us to expect even more in the USA soon:

US energy shakeup continues as solar capacity set to triple

Solar expected to almost triple in less than three years by 2017 as coal continues to fall, solidifying gas as country’s chief electricity source, reports Climate Central

Bobby Magill for Climate Central, part of the Guardian Environment Network

Solar power capacity in the US will have nearly tripled in size in less than three years by 2017 amid an energy shakeup that has seen natural gas solidify its position as the country’s chief source of electricity and coal power continue to fade, according to monthly data published by the US Department of Energy. Continue reading →

Health Via Happiness

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Illustration by Jeanine Murch

Thanks to Harvard Magazine for this one:

RIGHT NOW | BENEFITS OF BLISS

Can Happiness Make You Healthier?

by ELIZABETH GUDRAIS

THE QUEST to study human happiness, including its causes and effects, even agreeing on a definition is a formidable undertaking. Joy, euphoria, contentment, satisfaction—each of these, at times, has been used as a proxy or emphasized in research studies. Continue reading →

Remote Living, Well Done

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Edinburgh of the Seven Seas, Tristan da Cunha, South Atlantic Ocean michael clarke stuff / Wikipedia

Thanks to EcoWatch for keeping us posted on the greenish news from the bottom edge of the planet:

World’s Most Remote Village Is About to Become Self-Sufficient World’s Most Remote Village Is About to Become Self-Sufficient 

Kristin Falzon

The most remote village on Earth, located on Tristan da Cunha in the South Atlantic Ocean, is about to get a 21st century upgrade thanks to an international design competition aimed at creating a more sustainable future for the farming and fishing community. Continue reading →

Public Art Pulling More Than Its Own Weight

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Thanks to Anthropocene:

Art That Delivers Clean Water & Power

An international competition challenges designers to show that clean energy production and dazzling public art can be one and the same

Since 2010, the Land Art Generator Initiative (LAGI) has sponsored site-specific design competitions, soliciting ideas for public art that generates clean power. Its 2016 contest was the most ambitious yet. It called on designers to conceive of art installations that generate both clean power and water for the city of Santa Monica, California. Continue reading →

Before the Flood

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Leonardo DiCaprio in a scene from the global-warming documentary “Before the Flood.” National Geographic

Have you seen it? Let us know if the reviewer got it right:

Review: In ‘Before the Flood,’ Leonardo DiCaprio Sounds the Climate-Change Alarm

By NEIL GENZLINGER

Even if you subscribe to the view that a problem isn’t a problem until a Hollywood celebrity tells you it is, “Before the Flood” feels out of phase. It’s a documentary in which Leonardo DiCaprio sounds the alarm about global warming, something that could not possibly have escaped anyone’s attention in recent years and is at this point probably beyond discussion: Either you think climate change is real or you don’t, and the battle lines aren’t likely to be shifted by an earnest movie star. Continue reading →

Coffee Grounds To The Rescue

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Kevin O’Mara/Flickr.com

Thanks again, after a series of earlier excellent items, Anthropocene:

A caffeine fix for heavy metal cleanup

by

Each year, coffee drinkers across the globe create six million pounds of waste in the form of spent coffee grounds. Some of us chuck it in our compost pile, but most of it becomes just another garbage disposal challenge. Continue reading →

Adorable, Luminous, and Rare

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The rare patch of black feathers is evidence that the bird is leucistic, not albino. Photo: Brad R. Lewis

Hummingbirds are frequent visitors to this site, including the Anna’s hummingbird. All hummingbirds are known as tiny winged gems flitting from flower to flower or feeder to feeder, so the individual pictured above is especially startling. The term “leucistic” is new to us, and we thank Audubon.org for bringing this to our attention.

Rare White Hummingbird Steals the Spotlight at California Garden

In the Australian Gardens at the University of California, Santa Cruz Arboretum, a dozen Anna’s Hummingbirds dart between golden banksia flowers and various pink and white blooming shrubs. Their feathers are bright, iridescent shades of emerald, pink and gray. The grove is awash with color.

Except for one strange bird that’s sitting in a cypress tree, watching the flurry of feeding and fluttering. It’s an Anna’s Hummingbird—and it’s almost entirely white. Continue reading →

Rights, Entities & Conservation

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Mount Taylor, from Albuquerque, New Mexico. The Zuni believe Mount Taylor is a living being. Photograph: Morgan Petroski/AP

Thanks to the Guardian for this editorial opinion in their Environment section:

What if nature, like corporations, had the rights of a person?

For some people, like the Zuni in New Mexico, wild places are considered living beings. In western society, it’s companies that assume that privileged position

Chip Colwell

In recent years, the US supreme court has solidified the concept of corporate personhood. Following rulings in such cases as Hobby Lobby and Citizens United, US law has established that companies are, like people, entitled to certain rights and protections. Continue reading →

Hydroelectric & Its Discontents

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Ladybower Reservoir in Derbyshire. Credit: justfluff via Flickr.

We only said a brief note of thanks for the arrival of the new version of what used to be Conservation magazine, one of our most-cited sites. Now, after some days of observing Anthropocene, we are even more grateful for their effort at overhaul:

Dam greenhouse gas emissions really add up

by

For all their ecological faults, hydropower dams are usually thought of as a source of green, carbon-neutral energy. But it turns out that the reservoirs behind dams release a significant amount of greenhouse gases that, until now, have gone unaccounted for in global carbon budgets. Continue reading →

Salmon Cam, Daylight Hours Only

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Salmon returning to spawn in the Shasta River. Photo © Bridget Besaw.

We missed this when it was first published a couple months back, so a belated thanks to The Nature Conservancy for pointing us to the site where we can see underwater, in real time, and hopefully observe fish in their natural habitat. Salmon Cam is only visible during daylight hours so click on the website during California daylight hours:

Salmon Cam: Watch Migratory Fish Live

BY MATT MILLER, CHRIS BABCOCK

If you’re a fan of Salmon Cam, you may have noticed a change of scenery when you’re viewing. Continue reading →