Read Roger

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Bleached coral in the Great Barrier Reef. Agence France-Presse/XL Catlin Seaview Survey

Today’s editorial, from his current perch in Australia, is typical of the most reasoned editorialist currently writing for an English language major daily that we know of; so, worth a read:

Coral vs. Coal

Roger Cohen

MELBOURNE, Australia — Tim Flannery, a scientist and environmentalist who was named Australian of the Year in 2007, lost his job in 2013. The right-wing government of then-Prime Minister Tony Abbott shut down the Climate Commission that Flannery headed in a peremptory move designed to demonstrate its contempt for climate change. The commission had been established two years earlier to provide “authoritative information” to the Australian public. Continue reading →

The Origins of E-Ink

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Some of us contributors to the blog are Kindle users. We all have friends that are obstinate book-handlers and would never give up the feeling of rustling pages or the musty smell of yellowing paper, and we understand the appeal, but sometimes the convenience of having several books packed into one slim package is too much to give up. But one thing we’ve taken for granted is the relatively new technology of e-ink. How does it work? When was it invented? Chau Tu reports for Science Friday in an article from a few weeks ago:

When Amazon introduced its first Kindle back in 2007, it raved about the e-reader’s “crisp, high-resolution electronic paper display that looks and reads like real paper, even in bright sunlight.” The tablet did not use the LCD screens that most consumers saw on their laptops or TVs. “It reflects light like ordinary paper and uses no backlight, eliminating the eyestrain and glare associated with other electronic displays such as computer monitors or PDA screens,” Amazon boasted.

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Better Packaging for the Ocean’s Sake

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Over the years we have referenced Ecovative Designs before, as a mycological solution for styrofoam and way to reduce reliance on petrochemicals. Recently we learned about a new method of replacing plastics that doesn’t involve fungus–at least not directly. Using the byproducts of beer-making (which technically includes yeast, a fungus), the Saltwater Brewery partnered with WeBelievers to create edible six-pack rings for beer cans, as you can see in the video below:

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Lionfish Initiative Spearheaded By Whole Foods In Florida

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Florida Stores First Region to Offer New “Spearited” Catch of the Day

We are not purposely low tech, but we do not use tracking devices for news topics we care about (this topic we have tended to leave to Phil Karp, a contributor who first brought it to our attention a few years ago, and is highly attuned to the news and trends related to lionfish entrepreneurial conservation). We just watch the news sources we are inclined to trust, and try to get exposed to new news sources as frequently as possible. Those of us tracking news from India sometimes are late picking up important stories, like this one that has already been out for more than a day as it comes to our attention.

No matter. We like it, and for the record we want to share good news when we encounter it. This comes from ABC television affiliate WWSB in Florida, USA. We consider it a public service announcement, and so quote in full here, but still please click to the source of the story so they get credit:

A hub for certified sustainable seafood, Whole Foods Market® is excited to offer shoppers a fresh and delicious new seafood option – lionfish. The fish is a nonnative, invasive species that has a potential negative impact on indigenous species and habitat. By reducing the number of lionfish in the wild, Whole Foods Market® will help to improve the serious environmental threat they cause. Continue reading →

A Call to Cut Truck Emissions in EU

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Image © prweb.com

The Guardian just keeps the good environmental news coming. Any initiative to reduce carbon emissions is helpful, and to have big companies with clout promote such a goal is admirable and a good sign of cooperation to come. Arthur Nelsen reports:

An alliance of companies including Ikea, Nestle and Heathrow airport have called on the EU to pass new laws cutting truck emissions within two years, to meet promises made at the Paris climate conference.

Heavy duty vehicles make up less than 5% of Europe’s road traffic but chug out a quarter of the sector’s carbon emissions – more than airplanes – and their fuel efficiency has hardly changed in two decades.

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Lionfish Initiative In Florida

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Capturing lionfish is typically done by divers with spears. Angel Valentin for The New York Times

We never tire of hearing about new initiatives to eradicate this introduced species, and like the way the folks in Florida are thinking outside the box:

Florida Needs a Lionfish King or Queen. It Could Be You.

By JOANNA KLEIN

Ladies and gentlemen, behold an opportunity to become maritime royalty. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is hosting the Lionfish Challenge, a statewide hunting competition intended to encourage divers to capture, kill and eat the beguiling beauties, which have been invading western Atlantic waters and gobbling up native species for at least two decades. The title of Lionfish King or Queen goes to whoever captures the most lionfish by Sept. Continue reading →

Lost & Found, Geological Trickery, Conservation

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I had the opportunity to visit a site in Belize that had been on my radar for most of the last two decades. On my radar, but chance had conspired to keep me away, until last week. I will write more about that visit soon, but for now I want to share a thought on the photo above, and the one below (since I neglected to snap photos while standing in exactly the same location as the photographer who took these two, my thanks to him for his website’s provision of these two images).

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These are commonly referred to as looter’s trenches, on opposite sides of a Mayan burial site. They are relatively fresh. The family that owns the property on which these trenches were dug, by tomb raiders looking for valuables, decided that the best way to protect the patrimony of this site was to ensure that there were always people nearby to keep looters away. A lodge was built, and it became a pioneering success story in protecting both archeological and natural patrimony. In other words, what we call entrepreneurial conservation. Continue reading →

Tar Sands Impact Air Pollution via Aerosols

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Tar sandstone from the Monterey Formation of Miocene age; southern California, USA. Photo © Wikimedia contributor James St. John

Obviously we never thought that extracting oil from tar sands was ecologically friendly, but a new study published in Nature has found that, in Canada (but presumably everywhere else too), the process releases much more fine particle air pollution than previously believed. Bobby Magill reports for Scientific American:

In one of the first studies of its kind, scientists have found that tar sands production in Canada is one of North America’s largest sources of secondary organic aerosols—air pollutants that affect the climate, cloud formation and public health.

The study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, showed that the production of tar sands and other heavy oil—thick, highly viscous crude oil that is difficult to produce—are a major source of aerosols, a component of fine particle air pollution, which can affect regional weather patterns and increase the risk of lung and heart disease.

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More Good Fishery News in Arctic

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Map of the area of northern Barents Sea including the waters around Svalbard where some of the world’s largest seafood and fishing companies have committed not to expand their search for cod into. Photograph: Greenpeace

We read yesterday about countries agreeing to stand against piracy in fishing, which is great, and The Guardian is continuing its optimistic reporting by sharing news on leading seafood-consuming companies have decided to source from industrial fisheries that don’t target a particularly pristine Arctic region. Jessica Aldred reports:

Fishermen and seafood suppliers struck a major deal on Wednesday that will protect a key Arctic region from industrial fishing for cod.

Companies including McDonald’s, Tesco, Birds Eye, Europe’s largest frozen fish processor, Espersen, Russian group Karat, and Fiskebåt, which represents the entire Norwegian oceangoing fishing fleet, have said their suppliers will refrain from expanding their cod fisheries further into pristine Arctic waters.

“From the 2016 season the catching sector will not expand their cod fishing activities with trawl gear into those areas where regular fishing has not taken place before,” the deal reads.

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Please Do Not Close The Door, Iceland

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The Northern Lights above the ash plume of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano Lucas Jackson / Reuters

We have had a thing for Iceland for a few years now, mainly due to Seth’s honors thesis. But none of us currently contributing to this blog have actually been there, yet. There is a plan in the air, very vaguely, for several of us to meet up there one day soon. Thanks to writers such as the Atlantic‘s Feargus O’Sullivan, and our own ongoing discussion on travel conundrums, we are not rushing into the plan, but contemplating it in back burner mode. We know we cannot wait forever:

Iceland vs. Tourists

It’s not easy fitting 1.2 million annual visitors onto an island of 330,000 residents.

Fighting Flouting Fishing Fleets

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Chinese boats banded together with ropes, after alleged illegal fishing in South Korean waters in the Yellow Sea off the southwestern coast county of Buan. Photograph: Dong-A Ilbo/AFP/Getty Images

Tragedy of the commons on the high seas, fought by those who perceive their interests in common enough to do something about it (a tricky thing, as we note frequently), once again in the news.  Thanks to the Guardian, and environmental reporter Emma Bryce, for this reportage:

Tens of countries sign up to shut pirate fishers out of their ports

The first of its kind, a new international treaty obliges signatories to intercept pirate fishers before they can sell their catch

In March, the Argentinian coast guard shot at and sank a Chinese vessel that was alleged to be fishing illegally in Argentinian waters (the crew were all rescued). While it’s unclear whether the boat was committing crime, the incident showed that the tension surrounding pirate fishing is reaching a peak, marked elsewhere by increasing conflict, and the detainment and scuttling of illegal fishing fleets. But for pirate fishers, the financial gains appear to be worth these risks. Continue reading →

A Bird’s Journey Tracked, Mapped & Shared

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From National Public Radio (USA) today, this should have your attention even if you are not a birder:

We Followed A Snowy Owl From Maryland To Ontario

At the end of 2013, snowy owls started showing up far south of their usual winter range. The big white birds were reported in South Carolina, Georgia, even Florida.

Dave Brinker, an ecologist with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, had never seen anything like it. Continue reading →

Cacti in Trouble from Collectors

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Mammillaria herrerae. Photo © Jardín Botánico Regional de Cadereyta

While we have amateur ornithologists, herpetologists, mycologists, and entomologists who contribute to this blog, we haven’t had many botanists around, and therefore we learned something new today about cacti: they’re a group of plants that’s only present in the Americas, apart from one species that grows in Madagascar, Sri Lanka, and South Africa. We also read some bad news from a Cool Green Science blog post by Christine Peterson, which is that 31% of cacti species have a threatened status, a terribly high proportion. Peterson writes,

The smugglers carried their tiny prizes tucked away in suitcases of jalapeños and dirty laundry. The spicy fruit was supposed to deflect inspections. Perhaps they thought the dirty laundry would do the same. Another rare item sat nestled in a new box of Uncle Ben’s Rice. Russians had a hard time finding Uncle Ben’s Rice back home, says Nicholas Chavez, Special Agent in charge of the Southwest Region for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

From the Los Angeles airport, the six Russian men weren’t carrying precious art or poached ivory. They were smuggling cacti stolen from National Parks and Indian Reservations. Some of the cacti they had were labeled appendix two, which means they aren’t currently “threatened with extinction but may become so unless trade is closely controlled,” according to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

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Intangible Heritage In Ireland

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Irish landscape

Apropos of this post yesterday, and many that preceded it on the topic of intangible patrimony (thanks to the BBC):

How The Irish Lost Their Words

New storytelling groups are reintroducing the Irish to ancient myths and the art of blarney.

By Rory Boland

I always knew my Uncle Peter was setting up for a story when he’d lean back in his bar stool. Nothing dramatic, nothing too flashy, just a gentle recline – always followed by a more determined pushing away of his half-drunk pint of Harp and a wipe of the whiskers. Stage set, audience warned, he’d begin by saying “C’mere ‘till I tell you.” By the time that pint of Harp was drained, half the pub would be leaning in to listen and laugh. Continue reading →

Architecture’s Role In Renewal

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The fortress-like facade of the 17,000-ton Angelini Innovation Center in Santiago, Chile, which Alejandro Aravena designed for the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile in 2011. Photograph by Anthony Cotsifas

There is an excellent story in today’s New York Times about an architect, likely to become a celebrity due to the prize he won this year. I am not a huge fan of concrete (notwithstanding this), but so what? None of my business, plenty of Chilenos would say, and rightly so. However, as noted in my post yesterday, I can sometimes turn on a dime of an image is moving enough. And this image is enough to draw me in to Mr. Aravena’s world. So is this story that the photo illustrates:

Alejandro Aravena, the Architect Rebuilding a Country

Good-looking, charming and a celebrity in his native Chile, the surprise winner of this year’s Pritzker cares more about solving social problems than exercising his artistic chops.

By MICHAEL KIMMELMAN

THE EARTHQUAKE, one of the biggest ever recorded, hit in the middle of a late February night in 2010. The real damage came 18 minutes later, with the tsunami, crashing from the Pacific up the estuary of the River Maule, where the small, hardscrabble city of Constitución nestles. Continue reading →