Topher White: What can save the rainforest? Your used cell phone #TED : http://on.ted.com/q0TOb
This is a great solution to illegal loggers.
Very cool solution.
The importance of rainforest deforestation may be overstated with the stats. It may not be more important than anything else… But there are several ways to look at it. Very, very important though.
Author: SustainMe
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Smart tech solution to save the rain forest.
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Another massive meltoff of Antarctic glacier. Really ugly likely outcomes.
The melting of Antarctica was already really bad. It just got worse. http://wapo.st/19rU1xp
Wow. Another area, like the west of antartcica, could result in massive ice melt from the ocean side up!
Each shelf/sheet could add about 10 feet to ocean rise, maybe 25% more for the northern hemisphere.
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Don’t Confuse Sustainability with CSR | Ivey Business Journal
Don’t Confuse Sustainability with CSR | Ivey Business Journal:
Definition of sustainability — essentially not imposing additional costs on the future — is quite different from Corporate Social Responsibility, which looks at balancing the needs of all current constituents.
This is a very cool article that addresses the key issues that differentiate sustainability from CSR. Even though sustainability is overused and frequently missuses, it is a better term to use and a better utopia to aim for.
“It is time for organizational leaders to stop confusing responsibility with sustainability, which hinders businesses from thinking deeply enough about the inequities created by their actions over time. Simply put, some activities are either responsible or they are sustainable, not both.”
The article talks about resources, but does not frame things in terms of the process of resource depletion, like the consumption of fossil fuels. Sustainability identifies the issue. CSR aims to offer some restitution, kind of. Neither really addresses the issues of non-sustainable natural resource consumption well.
Unintended consequences happen with CSR, with sustainability, and especially with non-sustainable activities. Lot’s of unintended consequences happen with non-sustainable actions.
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Falling Chinese Coal Consumption and Output Undermine Global Market – WSJ
Falling Chinese Coal Consumption and Output Undermine Global Market – WSJ:
Finally, Finally, Finally…
China has finally started to cut back on it’s production and use of dirty coal. China now consumes far more than half of the world’s coal.
It’s a perfect time for them to do so, with all energy prices so low, the Chinese economy growing slow(er) and the costs/consequences of pollution from coal becoming more and more conspicuous.
It is also interesting that this article talks about peak coal. It seems that peak oil and peak coal have been pushed back with the overwhelming supply of cheap(er) oil and gas from new technologies (fracking, horizontal drilling, etc.)
In China’s case it may be peak pollution, where the health costs, environmental costs and quality of life costs are are starting to overpower the perception of coal being a cheap energy source.
Doing non-sustainable stuff, especially for long periods of time, has its costs and unintended consequences.
Sustainable Growth…
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Why science is so hard to believe… It’s in the Kool-Aid – The Washington Post
Why science is so hard to believe – The Washington Post:
Joel Achenbach hit the nail on the head with this article.Ever wonder why you can talk with otherwise intelligent people and you suddenly drop into the twilight zone. They suddenly are totally convinced that the earth is flat, and there’s no arguing with them.Or they are totally convinced the fluoride in water is a horrible government conspiracy to …
It is in the water. Or the Kool-Aid. Each group, tribe if you will, is drinking a different flavor. And you drink enough of it, the facts get a little wacky.!!!
This is a wonderful opinion letter.
Here also is a great article as well on the distrust of science by Americans. It includes Pew Research on the topic.Hmmm….
Achenback argues against the idea of scientist taking a more proactive stance. He argues that when scientist step off of the ivory tower to wrestle in the mud of politics and public policy they get dirty-ugly like the rest of us. (Well, something kind of like that argument anyway.)
So, it appears, that many people only want to hear what they want to hear. If it doesn’t match with their world view, then they switch to a channel that matches…And so we have the world’s most information rich environment, with exponentially more information available each decade, yet ignorance runs rampant. It is almost impossible to believe that such is possible. But it is.
For several years now I keep returning to the wise axioms of Rotary International. In the 4-way test, of all we say and do… “First, is it the truth?”
Ignoring the truth (ignoring the facts) has a nasty way of coming back around and biting you in the butt if/when you get it wrong.
We like to focus on sustainability. Things that are sustainable rather easy to view mathematically. Eating 4,000 calories per day, and burn only 2000, you are apt to gain weight. Burn 9m barrels of oil per day (42 gals each) pumping the hydro & carbons into the atmosphere and you are changing all kinds of things in the atmosphere (and environment). [These carbons have been sequestered in the earth for some 5 to 50 million years.] The resulting imbalances will have effects and side-effects. Guaranteed. Predicting them accurately may not be easy. Assuming that doing non-sustainable things won’t cause a problem because they never caused a problem before, has some very serious logic flaws.
So, let’s all move away from the flavored waters and start seeking out the crystal clear true of the facts and the issues. We’ll all have a healthier outlook, and healthier teeth as well.
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