Green Tumblrs

theearthcharity: The Atlantic turns lime green as lava and gas...

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 23:11:27 -0500

The Atlantic turns lime green as lava and gas billow from an underwater volcano off the coast of Hierro island on Monday.

About 10,000 earthquakes have hit Hierro, the smallest of the Canary Islands, since July 19-a sign of the volcano’s rising magma, according to the European Pressphoto news agency.

Photo

Sun, 07 Aug 2011 12:40:43 -0500

Keep Warm with a Low-Tech, Solar Powered Radiator

Sun, 07 Aug 2011 12:38:36 -0500

theearthcharity:

by Alex Davies, Paris, France on 07.16.11

Images Courtesy of Florent Bouhey Fayolle

Space and water heating are responsible for about two thirds of energy use in American homes. Considering that the conventional choices for home heating are oil and gas, it’s not easy to find a sustainable way to keep warm in the winter months. But if you’re not up for the move to a passive house, don’t worry; there’s a green solution for your heating woes. It’s the Sun Container, a solar powered radiator.

The design is the work of Florent Bouhey Fayolle, a student at the University of Art and Design (ECAL) in Lausanne, Switzerland. An array of pieces of slate sit under a glass bell that both traps the heat absorbed by the slate and increases the temperature in the Sun Container. The design sits on an aluminum base that allows heat to ventilate out.

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climateadaptation: “Climate change is one of the most serious...

Sun, 07 Aug 2011 12:38:26 -0500

climateadaptation:

“Climate change is one of the most serious public health threats facing the nation, but few people are aware of how it can affect them. Children, the elderly, and communities living in poverty are among the most vulnerable. Click on a state on the map for more information on climate-health threats, actions being taken to prepare communities, and what you can do.” - NRDC/Climate/Health (Click through for interactive).

soss: mothernaturenetwork: If you really want to be the envy...

Sun, 07 Aug 2011 12:37:50 -0500

soss:

mothernaturenetwork:

If you really want to be the envy of your locavore friends, tell them you sourced dinner from a ditch or gully. While not every weed is an epicurean delight, plenty of free-range flora can be used to prepare recipes that won’t taste like dirty dishwater. Mother Nature’s pantry will provide, if you know where to look.
Urban foraging recipes

Yes!!!

Do We Need a Militant Movement to Save the Planet (and Ourselves)? | Food Freedom

Sun, 07 Aug 2011 12:37:18 -0500

Do We Need a Militant Movement to Save the Planet (and Ourselves)? | Food Freedom:

stopkillingourworld:

Because the planet is being destroyed. Each day 200 species go extinct, Jensen writes in the preface. And if you can’t wrap your head around that number, how about “90 percent of the large fish in the ocean are gone, there is ten times as much plastic as phytoplankton in the oceans, 97 percent of native forests are destroyed, 98 percent of native grasslands are destroyed …” and Jensen continues with the bad news from there.

SOURCE

Green: HydroElectric Dams More CO2 Friendly Than We Thought

Sun, 07 Aug 2011 12:37:11 -0500

Green: HydroElectric Dams More CO2 Friendly Than We Thought:

realcleverscience:

With all the attention paid to the technological breakthroughs involved with some of the emerging energy fields (e.g. solar, wind) we don’t hear enough about some of our tried-&-true accomplishments, like hydroelectric energy. Anyways, I was pretty thrilled to read about this green news.

RCS Highlights:

An international team of scientists has amassed the largest data set to date on greenhouse gas emissions from hydroelectric reservoirs. Their analysis… posits that these human-made systems emit about 1/6 of the carbon dioxide and methane previously attributed to them.

Prior studies based on more limited data cautioned that hydroelectric reservoirs could be a significant and large source of both carbon dioxide and methane to the atmosphere…

“Our analysis indicates that hydroelectric reservoirs are not major contributors to the greenhouse gas problem,” comments Dr. Jonathan Cole, a limnologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies and one of the paper’s authors. “But there are some caveats. To date, only 17% of potential hydroelectric reservoir sites have been exploited, and impacts vary based on reservoir age, size, and location.”…

When rivers are dammed to make the reservoirs needed for hydroelectricity, flooding creates lake-like conditions that generate carbon dioxide and methane. Emissions are the highest following reservoir construction, due to decomposing vegetation and soil organic matter. As reservoirs age, emissions decline, with cold-water systems stabilizing more rapidly than their warm-water counterparts.

Lead author MSc. Nathan Barros, of the Federal University of Juiz de Fora further explains, “The bottom line is that per unit of energy, hydroelectric generation produces much less carbon dioxide and methane emissions than previously thought, but impacts are not equal across all landscapes.”…

Hydroelectricity supplies an estimated 20% of the world’s electricity and accounts for more than 85% of electricity from renewable sources. Future development is expected globally.

The paper’s authors urge careful consideration of site location and design. “During the environmental impact phase, it should be a goal to minimize the amount of carbon dioxide and methane emitted per unit of energy generated,” Cole notes…

mothernaturenetwork: 46 smart uses for saltPut this versatile,...

Sun, 07 Aug 2011 12:37:04 -0500

mothernaturenetwork:

46 smart uses for salt
Put this versatile, nontoxic mineral to work around your home.

The tattered economy has a silver lining for conservationists....

Sun, 07 Aug 2011 12:36:46 -0500

The tattered economy has a silver lining for conservationists. With developers and speculators on the sidelines, desirable property is on the market for a fraction of its former price.

Photo: Sierra Buttes is reflected in Upper Sardine Lake at sunrise. Credit: Rich Reid / The Trust for Public Land

mothernaturenetwork: Jellyfish keep U.K. nuclear plant...

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 23:37:56 -0500

mothernaturenetwork:

Jellyfish keep U.K. nuclear plant shut
Global warming and increased fishing activity allow jellyfish to flourish in oceans.

tutorializer: A beautiful collection of mason jar projects...

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 23:34:57 -0500

tutorializer:

A beautiful collection of mason jar projects & products.

(via adelynSTONE: Mason Jar Love)

Learning and Support for Mushroom Industry

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 23:34:17 -0500

Learning and Support for Mushroom Industry:

plantmoretrees:

Really great info on mushroom cultivation for commercial oyster/other edible mushrooms.

khrisjuhlin: Sad but true.

Sat, 18 Jun 2011 10:11:10 -0500

khrisjuhlin:

Sad but true.

Nature Conservancy: Climate Change: A Slender Hope

Sat, 18 Jun 2011 10:11:00 -0500

Nature Conservancy: Climate Change: A Slender Hope:

natureconservancy:

The following is an excerpt of a blog post from Mark Spalding, a marine scientist with The Nature Conservancy. It involves time travel, World War I and World War II. It is fascinating and you can read the whole thing here.

I think you might say: “You’re right Mark, but you know it wasn’t all that bad. There were good things too.” That’s what most of us honestly believe. There was also medicine, and technology, and conservation, and wealth, and leisure, and improved equality…

This is how we need to think when we get too depressed about climate change. The prognosis is TERRIBLE:

The sea will rise sufficient to destroy entire countries, and even the wealthy won’t escape as large parts of London, New York, the Netherlands become uninhabitable and some of our greatest culture icons and our best loved landscapes fall prey to the sea.

The heat will be horrible, and agriculture will change almost everywhere.

The last patches of nature will dry out or give way to floods, leaving us with an entirely human-built landscape in many areas.

Extinction, which for the last 100 years has been something of a sporadic and newsworthy thing, will rage across the planet, just asnew diseases and invasive species rise up and throttle the old world we once loved.

We can make a much better attempt at fortune-telling now thanks to modern science, and while we can’t yet predict wars, more of these seem likely, too. Perhaps through disputes of diminishing water resources. Perhaps from the wealthy countries who can no longer access the resources they want, but can afford armies and weapons. Perhaps from the growing numbers of fanatics who use doctrines of faith or of atheism to justify survival and dominance (come on, Richard Dawkins, the “survival of the fittest” is a pretty clear injunction to fight — you don’t need religion for that).

So here’s my point. The future does look bleak in some regards. But we humans are a very resourceful and resilient species. We will adapt. The threats of climate change will sometimes be cataclysmic — a famine here, an exodus there. But more typically, they will be creeping.

Venice may be kept “afloat” for 50, even 100 years through clever engineering, and by then we might even decide to move it, as we did the fantastic World Heritage mortuary of Abu Simbel in Egypt almost 50 years ago. We may conduct a “managed realignment” of our coastline. Britain will get smaller, but Cambridge-on-Sea could be quite a beautiful place. Our crops will change, but British wine, olive oil and the like will be okay, while date palms and sago fill the landscapes of Tuscany.

And with a bit of luck, the underfunded, under-appreciated armies of conservationists will support the change, helping nature to move with the changing climate, replanting, restoring and allowing change while minimising loss.

Climate change is upon us. There’s a risk that the populace will jump from disbelief to despondency, with no space for the critical emotion of outrage and the determination to do what we can to prevent runaway climate change and to start planning for how we will adapt to the slower changes.

The headlines are not the whole story. Let’s not give up before we start.

biologyislove: Several people who were injured when a tornado...

Sat, 18 Jun 2011 10:10:50 -0500

biologyislove:

Several people who were injured when a tornado devastated Joplin, Mo., last month have become sickened by an uncommon, deadly fungal infection and at least three have died, although public health officials said Friday that a link between the infection and the deaths was not certain.

Also on Friday, the death toll from the tornado was raised to 151.

Eight tornado victims have fallen ill from the mysterious infection, and each had “multiple injuries and secondary wound infections,” said Jacqueline Lapine, a spokeswoman for the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. Citing confidentiality rules, officials declined to discuss the treatment or condition of the patients.

The fungus that causes the infection, which is believed to be mucormycosis, is most commonly found in soil and wood, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is studying samples from the eight Joplin patients. “It is a very aggressive and severe infection,” said Dr. Benjamin Park, chief of the epidemiology team in the C.D.C.’s Mycotic Diseases Branch. “It is also very rare.”

Mucormycosis enters the body either via a puncture wound or when a victim breathes in its mold spores, officials said. Those who have weakened immune systems have a mortality rate as high as 90 percent. Other people at risk include those with diabetes or cancer and burn victims.

On Friday, the Jasper County coroner’s office said that 151 people died in the May 22 tornado. It is revising the toll as additional death reports come in from hospitals where tornado victims had been taken.

That figure includes the three dead victims who appear to have had the fungal infection — though the cause of those deaths has not yet been established because they had other injuries as well, said Rob Chappel, the Jasper County coroner.

Even before the updated death toll was released Friday, the tornado was the deadliest in the United States since modern record-keeping began. As many as one-third of the town’s buildings were damaged, including the city’s main hospital, St. John’s Regional Medical Center. St. John’s, which lay in the path of the tornado, was evacuated.

Health officials said they were not aware of any other cases of mucormycosis arising from the series of tornadoes that struck the Midwest and the South this spring, killing hundreds of people and injuring thousands.

“Although this is a naturally occurring infection, to have a cluster which potentially involves this many people is highly unusual,” Dr. Park said.

Health officials said even busy hospitals around the country might see no more than a case or two of mucormycosis each year. They have asked that tornado victims from Joplin who have wounds that have failed to heal properly see a doctor immediately. It cannot be spread from person to person.

Mucormycosis and similar fungal infections that enter the skin through puncture wounds can usually be prevented once a wound is disinfected in a hospital, health officials said. But during a natural disaster, when there is confusion and a shortage of medical personnel and supplies, wounds are sometimes treated inadequately. In Joplin, staff members from St. John’s treated some of the thousands injured at makeshift clinics.

Mucormycosis, which can have an incubation period of two weeks or more, must be treated with intravenous antibiotics and in some cases the removal of the affected tissue.

fuckyeahenvironmentalism: something I have honestly never...

Sat, 18 Jun 2011 10:09:47 -0500

fuckyeahenvironmentalism:

something I have honestly never understood: even if global warming were a hoax (it’s not)…so what?

mothernaturenetwork: Arabian oryx leaps back from...

Sat, 18 Jun 2011 10:09:30 -0500

mothernaturenetwork:

Arabian oryx leaps back from near-extinction
The desert antelope that may have sparked the legend of the unicorn has bounced back after almost being hunted to extinction.

thegreenurbanist: “Chicago is the First City when it comes to...

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 12:50:55 -0500

thegreenurbanist:

“Chicago is the First City when it comes to permeable paving”

Pictured is the streetscape design on Blue Island between Wood and Ashland in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago (still under construction).

Stop Killing Our World: COAL FIRED PLANTS ARE USING UP YOUR WATER TEXAS!

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 12:47:58 -0500

Stop Killing Our World: COAL FIRED PLANTS ARE USING UP YOUR WATER TEXAS!:

stopkillingourworld:

Water and Air are required for life. Can we all agree on that? So who owns the water and who owns the air we breathe? This is a question that all of us should ponder on a regular basis as these vital elements fall deeper into the controlling hands of industries. But for now, let’s ponder this…

soss: bostongreenfest: This would be a very hot idea to make...

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 12:47:27 -0500

soss:

bostongreenfest:

This would be a very hot idea to make at Boston GreenFest. We need a donor for pizza boxes and for aluminum foil. Everyone could go home with a solar cooker and try cooking s’mores at the end of the summer. This box gets up to about 200ºF. Close to boiling point. Perhaps we can find some creative thinkers to up the ante on the pizza box and figure out a way to raise the temperature?

To see how to make one, go here.

Awesome! Def going to try this out.