SustainZine

Finding Where U.S. Forests Have Been Undisturbed for a Quarter Century « Landsat Science: This is a very cool study of the “old forests” that are undisturbed in the USA. The Northeast and the pacific maintained some undisturbed forests; the south was really bad. There are many plants, animals and entire ecosystems that rely on old forests. This study demonstrates how bad it is and how much worse it could get over the next few…

Chef Massimo Bottura on Why the Future of Food is in Our Trash http://www.wsj.com/articles/chef-massimo-bottura-on-why-the-future-of-food-is-in-our-trash-1449506020 We throw away about $700 worth of food each year in the USA. That’s per person, last I saw, which was probably about 10 years ago. Think of the products taken from the shelf because they are past the due date. Capturing most of this food can go a long way toward feeding a hungry planet.

Inside the war on coal: Wow, this is a very thoughtful and well presented article on Coal. The real demise of coal is too fold: raising costs of trying to make coal a little cleaner (less dirty); and the increase of cheaper alternatives. Number 1 in all of this is the dirty cheap costs of NatGas which is a by-product of much oil production. We in the US flair about half of the NatGas we…

Here it is the United Nations water report for 2015: http://www.sustainablebrands.com/digital_learning/research_report/leadership/united_nations_world_water_development_report_2015?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=schtweets&utm_campaign=social As California suffer through water shortage, imagine what the rest of the world looks like. Now, imagine what the rest of the world will look like in the year 2050? By that time we should have moved to a population of 9 to 11 billion! The first chapter is on non-sustainable uses of water. The trends, including use of water, that are not sustainable,…

BBC News – The goats fighting America’s plant invasion: A different approach to invasives. That would be Kudzu. I wonder how it works with balsam pear in Florida? How about the melaleuca? Old school, but an effective approach to attach invasive plants is the old goat trick. What I didn’t realize before reading this article, is that the double chew and strong processing of the stomach reduce the changes of seed making the passage through…

Garbage-patch tale as flimsy as a single-use plastic bag – SFGate: So the GREAT Pacific Garbage Patch is not real… Or maybe not nearly as big as originally expected. Saunders does a great job of attaching the myth behind the original reports of “the size of Texas” and such. Great sources of info included. But now I’m really worried. The amount of plastic floating in the oceans amount to only (right, only) 7,000 to 35,000…