Thanks to the Guardian, click above to go to the audio slide show of Daniel Beltra in which the
Prix Pictet-shortlisted photographer discusses his recent expedition to the frontline of climate change, on board the Arctic Sunrise along with John Vidal, documenting the lowest sea-ice level ever recorded
Photo Credit: Janna Crafts
A couple weekends ago, I attended the 2012 Net Impact Conference, which was hosted by the University of Maryland in Baltimore this year. If you’re unfamiliar with Net Impact, it is a 30,000-member nonprofit focused on mobilizing students and professionals to solve the world’s most pressing environmental and social problems through the public and private sector. I would personally describe Net Impact as an organization dedicated to mobilizing young professionals to make impacts with their careers. It’s an awesome organization.
Restricted Demon Butterflies are common in forests as well as countrysides, frequently seen during the rainy season. The upper side of the wings have three small white dots and just below that a long white patch. These butterflies are drawn to flowers especially lantana. Other favorite plants are Costus specoisa, Zingiber montana and Curcuma decipiens.
By now we all know the importance and value of recycling, right? Right. Except when wrong. So, to be clear in case my occasional thoughts of science writing as a career go somewhere: I am in a course that requires my written reflection on some amazing books and articles related to environmental history. Raxa Collective, whose blog I have been contributing to since mid-2011, has asked me to recycle some of that work for the sake of its readers. Agreed. I hope we are all right, alright?
First, one thing I am learning in university is that it is never too late to review literature. Some posts on this site point to evidence in favor of that idea. Ann Greene’s Horses at Work is just a few years old (whereas Swerve is a review of poetry from millennia past) but is already part of a canon: it made the cut for this course. Continue reading
Although we steer clear of politics, we pay close attention to policy; we do our part to support policy outcomes that match our values and interests; and (given the complexity of it all) mostly we just try to keep on our radar the various issues that lead to the need for policy in the first place. You don’t need a weatherman. You need be neither policy wonk nor know-it-all nor tree hugger to know where those winds are blowing us. Case in point:
Dear President Obama,
As the lead negotiator for the world’s 48 Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in the United Nations climate change negotiations, I congratulate you on your re-election. I also want to express my admiration for your response to superstorm Sandy: without the preparations that you made, the impacts to those hit by the storm would have been even more devastating. As communities in the north-east work to rebuild and recover, the world has an opportunity to begin a new, reality-based conversation about climate change. Continue reading
Photo Credit: Anukash
Photo Credit: Janna Crafts; Munnar
Roses are elegant and also nostalgically shaped blooms that have an almost magical attraction. The rose is one of the oldest cultivated plants, and also richest in mythology. The fact that they bloom throughout the year makes these flowers a common sight in the gardens of the High Ranges.
Thanks to Smithsonian Magazine‘s blog, this collection of close-up photographs of seeds…
The moderator, in particular, is a favorite food writer of mine so I must suggest this if you are a passionate participant in the food world, professionally or as a consumer:
Join food-world luminaries including Bill Buford, Will Guidara (co-owner of Eleven Madison Park), and Maguy Le Coze (owner of Le Bernardin) at 92YTribeca on Thursday, November 15, for a discussion with author and Financial Times restaurant critic Nicholas Lander in celebration of his new book, The Art of the Restaurateur. The panel, moderated by Buford, will discuss the role of the restaurateur in the age of the celebrity chef. Tickets are $18.
We are anchored, as an organization, around experiential learning and action, not only for our interns but also in/for the communities we are part of. But this bias itself is informed by the opportunities many of us have had, through education, living in cultures other than those we were born into, access to libraries, or work experience early in life, to read our way to better understanding. We have plenty of diverse posts on this topic. In a couple of minutes, the video above sheds light on why this post, and a few follow-ups by one of our first contributors, set the bar for what we see on a good day: with the aid of good literary perspective, we can describe our experiences in a way that benefits others.
Mr. Richard George from England stayed at Cardamom County and shared some of his wild life experiences from his visit to the Periyar Tiger Reserve.
Coffee plantations surrounding Xandari, Costa Rica.
Photo: Emilia Ferreira
It is not a journal we regularly read, but the topics in this particular study–coffee and climate change–we follow closely. Click the banner above to read the (accessible to non-scientists) article:
Coffee (Coffea L.) is the world’s favourite beverage and the second-most traded commodity Continue reading
Uda Walawe, Sri Lanka
Safetynet won this year’s James Dyson Award and is explained on the website of that award program:
Function
The goal of the SafetyNet system is to make commercial fishing more sustainable by significantly decreasing the numbers of non-target and juvenile fish caught during the trawling process. Escape Ring devices form a part of this system, and are currently the focus of the development work. The rings tackle the problem of
Photo Credit: Janna Crafts; Ernakulam
Click the image above to go to the full story from Green Blog:
KiOR, a renewable fuel start-up based in Pasadena, Tex., said Thursday that it had produced a crude oil made from wood chips at a plant in Mississippi and expected to refine it into gasoline and diesel and sell it commercially later this month. That would be a first for the cellulosic biofuel sector.
Urban Markets play an important role in the Indian economy. A large number of people depend upon these ideal places to get fresh local vegetables and fruits. Continue reading
A great conversation with the author of this book is podcast here thanks to PBS and its contributors. In the current issue of American Scientist, a review:
Gottschall clearly considers it safe to say that storytelling has something to do with helping us navigate our social worlds, since we are such thoroughly social animals: “We are attracted to fiction not because of an evolutionary glitch, but because fiction is, on the whole, good for us. This is because human life, especially social life, is intensely complicated and the stakes are high.”
