When a Way of Life Melts With the Ice

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Albert Lukassen’s world is melting around him. When the 64-year-old Inuit man was young, he could hunt by dogsled on the frozen Uummannaq Fjord, on Greenland’s west coast, until June. This photo shows him there in April. PHOTO: Ciril Jazbec

Albert Lukassen’s world is melting around him. When the 64-year-old Inuit man was young, he could hunt by dogsled on the frozen Uummannaq Fjord, on Greenland’s west coast, until June. This photo shows him there in April. PHOTO: Ciril Jazbec

Climate change – a situation that choices can better, but circumstances see it go from bad to worse. Much talk, much less done. Temperatures rise, glaciers melt, and seas begin to usurp shores. Also, people like the natives of Kiribati and now the Inuit are forced to rethink ways to survive on their lands which once provided for all. And did not threaten their lives. National Geographic reports from the North:

Something else is vanishing here too: a way of life. Young people are fleeing small hunting villages like Niaqornat. Some of the villages struggle to support themselves. And now a culture that has evolved here over many centuries, adapting to the seasonal advance and retreat of sea ice, is facing the prospect that the ice will retreat for good. Can such a culture survive? What will be lost if it can’t?

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Nature’s Waste Management Powerhouse

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69% of vulture and condor species are listed as threatened or near-threatened, most of which are classed as “endangered” or “critically endangered”.

69% of vulture and condor species are listed as threatened or near-threatened, most of which are classed as “endangered” or “critically endangered”. PHOTO: Mujahid Safodien

Vultures play an important role in the ecosystem by consuming animal carcasses, which helps prevent the spread of disease. The cinereous vulture (Aegypius monachus), the largest bird of prey is distributed throughout Eurasia and is an iconic bird in the Far East. Its population is estimated to number 7,200–10,000 pairs globally, with 5,500–8,000 pairs residing in Asia. Over the past two centuries, its numbers have declined across most of its range leading to this species being classified as ‘near threatened’ on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List.

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Short Story Dispensers Aim to Dispense with Unproductive Waiting Time in Grenoble

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Screenshot from a spot by the French news channel M6

Last week Konbini, the online magazine dedicated to popular culture, featured a short story (the nonfiction kind) on the French city of Grenoble, so-called capital of the French Alps. In a collaboration between the city council and the French publishing company Short Édition, certain public spaces that frequently feature waiting time–libraries, the post office, the tourist center–have been equipped with short story dispensers.

After pressing a button to select between one-, three-, and five-minute stories, a long strip of paper is printed from the kiosk and the user can enjoy a piece of short fiction from Continue reading →

Wedded to Their Land Despite the Tides

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Kiribati—33 coral islands in an expanse of the central Pacific larger than India—is “among the most vulnerable of the vulnerable” to climate change. PHOTO: Kadir Van Lohuizen

Kiribati—33 coral islands in an expanse of the central Pacific larger than India—is “among the most vulnerable of the vulnerable” to climate change. PHOTO: Kadir Van Lohuizen

They do not think of themselves as “sinking islanders,” rather as descendants of voyagers, inheritors of a proud tradition of endurance and survival.

That’s how National Geographic captures the spirit of the people of Kiribati, a spirit that forgives the seas despite the threats that its warming, rising, acidifying waters pose to their native islands. A people who believe that planting mangroves will stop the encroaching sea in its tracks, a people whose lives are centered on the seas that without it, they maybe forced to question who they are. This is their story then, from “the front line of the climate-change crisis.”

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Airports and Urban Farming

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Katrina Ceguera tends JetBlue's farm outside Terminal 5 at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. PHOTO: Chelsea Brodsky /JetBlue

Katrina Ceguera tends JetBlue’s farm outside Terminal 5 at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport. PHOTO: Chelsea Brodsky /JetBlue

Airports are growing a ‘green’ conscience, and how! If Kochi in Kerala, India is home to the world’s first airport to be completely powered by solar energy, then the Galapagos airstrip is not far behind. Going off-grid is just one way to offset massive carbon footprints left behind by the use of fossil fuels. Another way might be to add a touch of green – like JetBlue did at the New York airport.

JetBlue was intent on growing potatoes and other produce at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. It took three years of jumping through hoops before the T5 Farm, named for its location outside Terminal 5, came to fruition in early October, the company says.

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Look At the Germans

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Wind turbines surround a coal-fired power plant near Garzweiler in western Germany. Renewables now generate 27 percent of the country’s electricity, up from 9 percent a decade ago. PHOTO: Nat Geo

Wind turbines surround a coal-fired power plant near Garzweiler in western Germany. Renewables now generate 27 percent of the country’s electricity, up from 9 percent a decade ago. PHOTO: Nat Geo

Germany has been one of the few countries that have successfully moved away from nuclear energy. Germany has so far successfully shut down its nine units that had the capacity of generating enough power for at least 20 million homes in Europe. In fact, the contribution of nuclear power in Germany’s electricity generation has now fallen to just 16 percent and renewables are now the preferred source of electricity generation in the country.

Germany is pioneering an epochal transformation it calls the energiewende—an energy revolution that scientists say all nations must one day complete if a climate disaster is to be averted. Last year about 27 percent of its electricity came from renewable sources such as wind and solar power, three times what it got a decade ago and more than twice what the United States gets today. The change accelerated after the 2011 meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant, which led Chancellor Angela Merkel to declare that Germany would shut all 17 of its own reactors by 2022.

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Let the Corals Have Their Colors

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Partially bleached coral in Kaneohe, Hawaii. Coral reefs worldwide are at risk of damage from the suncscreen ingredient oxybenzone. PHOTO: AP

Partially bleached coral in Kaneohe, Hawaii. Coral reefs worldwide are at risk of damage from the suncscreen ingredient oxybenzone. PHOTO: AP

Corals worldwide are losing their colors, they are getting bleached. We’d discussed how stress due to global warming and climate change is forcing corals to drive out the zooanthellae that give them their colors. And now here’s more evidence on how human lifestyles are affecting life beneath the waters.

New research about sunscreen’s damaging effects on coral reefs suggests that you might want to think twice before slathering it on. Reports about the harmful environmental effects of certain chemicals in the water have been circulated for years, but according to the authors of a new study, the chemicals in even one drop of sunscreen are enough to damage fragile coral reef systems. Some 14,000 tons of sunscreen lotions wind up in coral reefs around the world each year.

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What Lies Beneath Your Feet

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Farmers harvest sesame in Syria. PHOTO: JIM RICHARDSON

Farmers harvest sesame in Syria. PHOTO: JIM RICHARDSON

The 68th UN General Assembly declared 2015 the International Year of Soils. It aims to increase awareness and understanding of the importance of soil for food security and essential ecosystem functions. According to scientists, soil is being eroded faster than that the Earth can replace it. So the next time the words ‘dirt cheap’ come up, think again and take not the soil below your feet for granted.

Dirt is not only rare, but it’s complicated. To the uninitiated, dirt may look like grubby generic mush, but actually it has character, individuality, and a taxonomy all its own. Soil scientists recognize twelve major orders of dirt, each divided into suborders, groups, subgroups, families, and series, according to its various allotments of minerals and organic matter. Each dirt has a pedigree. Furthermore, dirt is proactive. It’s not an inert blanket; it’s a dynamic entity.

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When the Sun Goes Down

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Holding a solar-powered lamp, Soni Suresh, 20, and Suresh Kashyap, 22, celebrate their marriage ceremony in Uttar Pradesh, where 20 million households lack electricity. PHOTO: Nat Geo
A worker at a logging camp in Myanmar’s Bago region, where elephants have been used by loggers for centuries, sits atop his 11-year-old animal. Laborers in these camps have no electricity, so they use solar lanterns before sunrise. PHOTO: Nat Geo

About seven out of every 10 households in rural India have no access to electricity. Many of these households still use less efficient energy sources that are harmful to the environment, such as kerosene. Even in places where electricity is accessible, shortages are frequent and the supply is inconsistent. In such a scenario, solar lamps come as a blessing and are revolutionizing lives in the country and around the world.

PRASHANT MANDAL FLIPS ON A CANDY-BAR-SIZE LED LIGHT in the hut he shares with his wife and four children. Instantly hues of canary yellow and ocean blue—reflecting off the plastic tarps that serve as the family’s roof and walls—fill the cramped space where they sleep.  He shuts down the solar unit that powers the light and unplugs it piece by piece, then carries it to a tent some 20 yards away, where he works as a chai wallah, selling sweet, milky tea to travelers on the desolate road in Madhotanda, a forested town near the northern border of India.

“My life is sad, but I have my mind to help me through it,” Mandal says, tapping the fraying cloth of his orange turban. “And this solar light helps me to keep my business open at night.”

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Wildlife Photographer of the Year: Finalists

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The 2015 British Natural History Museum’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition has recently come to a close, and, as always over the last fifty-one years, the results are fantastic and fascinating to see. Below check out a brief slideshow of some finalists below, which met the judges’ goals: “outstanding images that raise awareness of nature’s beauty and fragility, while also championing the highest ethical standards in wildlife photography. From intimate animal portraits to atmospheric landscapes, groundbreaking photojournalism to innovative technique, the 2016 jury wants to see it all.”

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Drinkwell: A Pioneer of Potable Water

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Photo credit: Drinkwell

Water is the essence of all life on Earth, and access to potable water is an absolute human right. To resolve the global arsenic water crisis that affects over 200 million people across 70 countries, Drinkwell is pioneering an alternative method for providing potable water to affected communities by transforming existing arsenic-affected tube wells into local profitable water enterprises. The organization provides affected villagers with water filtration technology and business tools, and in turn, the villagers become entrepreneurs of these mirco-water businesses.

Drinkwell filtration systems extract the arsenic and do it efficiently. “Whereas current solutions use Reverse Osmosis technology that wastes 40%-60% of input water, Drinkwell wastes only 1% of water,” their website explains. The polymers, or resin beads, are infused with nanoparticles which extract arsenic from water flowing through them. These polymers are regenerable and can filter water for years.

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