In a larger philosophical context, we've arrived at a place where societal power structures function within a particular ecosystem of funding
But you don't understand anything about the environment and nature.''He told him:''The buffalo in the prairies are our brothers and the same thing for the deer.
neighborhood--that served as the impetus for Lindsay Smith to start Rubbersidewalks in 2001. She learned about a pilot project in Santa monica in
when near trees or in freeze thaw climates everything must be demolished and started over.  That so called â Ëoelower cost â â¢is doubled now often in less than 5 years.
Both Rubbersidewalks and Terrewalks are unaffected by cold weather, and can be salted and plowed without damage. Â Water that freezes on the surface before it can run off will turn into ice,
There's an increasing realization of carbon emissions having a negative effect on the environment through climate change.
of which has the capacity of reaching 100 million $2 a day customers generating $10 billion a year in sales and making an impact on world economies and the environment.
Smartplanet spoke with Dr. Richard Webby, Director of the World health organization Collaborating Center for Studies on the Ecology of Influenza in Animals and Birds at St jude Children's Research Hospital.
Can we innovate our way out of climate and geologic problems? As the American writer Stewart Brand wrote in his 1969 Whole Earth Catalogue:
Smartplanet turned to David Biello who has been writing about the environment and energy for nearly 15 years, most recently for Scientific American.
So in addition to the climate change we have raised greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere by about 100 parts per million (ppm)
which is much more significant than the rise during past climate changes. SP: Beyond climate change, how have affected we humans the Earth to such a degree that we warrant our own geologic era?
DB: We also do a lot of things that are geologic in scope. We move more earth and stone than all the world rivers.
The good news is that we â â¢ve been dealing with sea level rise and weird weather for most of human history.
The majority of people driving climate change those are the rich will adapt fine, no problem.
The real problem is the 2 billion people who are desperately poor and vulnerable to climate disruption.
This is where we would actively manage planetary scale systems, particularly the climate. SP: Such as? DB:
Where we mimic the cooling effect of a massive volcanic eruption by putting a lot of sulfur dioxide particles into the atmosphere to block sunlight.
or silver it might have an impact on the global climate. SP: Really? DB: Yes, there has been research modeling on that.
Not only does this make economic sense this makes climate sense. No one wants to lose their natural gas, it a product.
when we talk about climate change. We are not saving the planet, we are saving ourselves.
Their results are fine in their environment. But when we put them together in a holistic way,
After school, neighborhood kids frequent a pizza shop where slices sell for $1. 50. Scheidel of Iowa said the childhood obesity fight needs to move into homes and communities. â Å When
 Nuclear power is a green environmental solution. It generates no CO2. The fuel is cheap and inexhaustible.
Green nuclear power can solve the global crises of air pollution deaths and climate change. Cheap energy can help developing nations escape poverty
Now, do not take any of this as a cue to throw caution to the wind.
There are 80,000 planes flying our skies every day. It common knowledge that global climate change is a reality.
By 2030, it estimated that Glacier national park will no longer have any glaciers on it. â Å I â â¢m not anti-growth,
â  Leavell said. â Å We â â¢re going to have the growth whether we like it or not.
We only have one environment, and it ours to care for or neglect, to abuse or even deplete. â Â Leavell researched a number of smart growth models,
but maybe I can change it. â â¢He went to his neighbors, and they started having town meetings
but stewardship applies to our neighborhoods, our corporations, our communities. And stewardship is hard work.
He is also cofounder and director of environmental affairs at The Mother Nature Network, which launched last year.
and hear the wind in the pines instead of honking horns, it a wonderful balance. I love the physical work.
rapid urbanization and changing weather patterns have lead to major flash floods in Singapore. It can be presumed safely  that the weather patterns in Singapore have changed,
said Singapore's Minister for the Environment and Water Resources last year after a flash flood where in one day Singapore  received  77 percent of the amount of rainfall that usually falls in June.
Singapore convened a panel to come up with the best options for dealing with flash floods and stormwater runoff.
they can also play a big role in mitigating floods by reducing and slowing stormwater runoff
The panel also suggested  storage tanks, rain gardens, and porous pavement. Photo:  Henryleonghimwoh/Flickr Urbanisation has led to increase in storm water run off:
Expert panel Today
Saltwater-cooled greenhouse grows crops in the Saharahow do you grow vegetables in arid areas?
so that the prevailing wind blows the resulting cool, moist air over the plants inside. This cooling effect allowed the Qatar facility to grow three crops per year, even in the scorching summer.
the California start-up might have something to offer climate change mitigation. The company has found a way to produce biofuel from the dead wood that pine beetles have left in their wake.
Though salvaging the often remote trees could have its own environmental concerns. Prior to experimenting with stricken pines,
(which is short for Environmental Quotient). Jennifer Miller, executive vice president, strategic marketing and communications, and chief sustainability officer for Sappi Fine Paper, said eq is intended to help customers better understand how her company procures different products.
Scientist gets climate data off NASA satellite before it diesan assistant professor at Colorado State university, Michael Lefsky, has combined data from three NASA satellites to produce a global map of the height of the world's forests.
That data should in turn help guide policies on climate change. Lefsky will publish a paper on his work next month in Geophysical Research Letters.
to measure global topography, vegetation, the mass of ice sheets and the height of aersols and clouds.
which measures large-scale changes On earth, like cloud cover and radiation, but not height. So who has the tallest trees?
This model is also useful for simulating the visual input of a bee-like agent in a virtual environment.
â Å Even the Ministry of the Environment, the ones who actually lead the decontamination work,
an independent consultant on radioactivity in the environment who is closely monitoring Fukushima says that Japanese should fear radiation just not necessarily in the region food. â Å Contaminated food intakes are a relatively small part of the problem.
and enhance our environment, said Scotts Miracle-Gro CEO Jim Hagedorn. There are more than one million community gardens in America,
In Seattle's Beacon hill neighborhood, plans are in place to turn an empty seven acre lot that didn't receive much attention (expect from the occasional lawn mower) into a food forest for everyone to use.
In reality, it will be a large scale example of permaculture, an attempt to mimic natural ecosystems. In this case,
Plus, the lot will now be equipped better to capture more of Seattle's notorious rain water.
told MIT News Office. â Å They have the ability to latch onto their neighbors;
they have the ability to talk to their neighbors; they have the ability to do some computation.
hard look into the ways in which ecosystems behave. It is the model for how we should be handling things like water management, energy utilization,
In an ecosystem, assemblages of plants and animals are linked together by a common thread: the sharing of nutrients, the transfer of energy from sunlight to plants and then to animals,
With available technologies, we can now biomimic an ecosystem best features. If cities learned to take advantage of these new technologies,
which the EPA includes in its approaches to regulate coal ash, has been to recycle the stuff.
According to PEER (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility), certifying coal ash products as green is misleading
because the toxins they contain wind up in our indoor and outdoor environments. Such materials, they say,
That's not to say there aren't any--there are plenty of big, leafy, deciduous trees all over my neighborhood.
Many years ago, my West Philadelphia neighborhood was not as nice as it is today. And some would argue, rightly, that it's still not quite nice.
Now, an otherwise leafy neighborhood filled with century-old homes has a decidedly barren bald spot.
We believe that large street trees can reduce crime by signaling to a potential criminal that a neighborhood is cared better for and, therefore
Their research will be published in a forthcoming issue of the journal Environment and Behavior
Silicon valley's new green trend: beesthere's a lot of buzz coming out of Silicon valley these days.
and the environment to not only coexist, but also thrive. For instance, there Â's a conservatory complex that houses a temperature-controlled flower dome and a replicated cloud forest.
Numerous Horticultural Themed Gardens offer visitors an education on the relationship between humans and nature.
The entire city itself was created to demonstrate how people can subsist by blending an urban environment within a natural setting.
But within the steel framework of each tree is a vibrant Ecosystem of various plant species,
and environmental contaminants and have created even a better artificial nose to sniff out explosives, but it looks like researchers are finally zeroing in on the smallest possible detection system ever:
and other checkpoint areas or be used to monitor the environment. Scientists showed for the first time that these peptides can react to explosives
â Å Compounds such as TNT decompose in the environment, creating other molecule types, and those derivatives could also be identified with this type of sensor.
Because molecules in the environment are constantly changing into other chemicals, we need sensor platforms that can detect the entire network and classes of chemicals, instead of just one type.
and environmental contaminants Chemists create a better artificial nose to sniff out explosives and sour milk German airports use honeybees to sniff out air quality Breath test can detect cancer New remote sensing system can detect explosives
and drugs A cheap landmine detector made from ebay parts Sensor robots sense out environmental changes
The indoor nature of the farm allows total control over the environment in which the fish and plants are grown.
there are plenty of environmental benefits. There is no need to run heavy farm equipment and the produce does need not to be shipped long distances, conserving precious fossil fuels.
Built by Sky Greens Farms, the rising steel structure will help the city grow more food locally,
Perhaps, most people try to protect the surroundings by reducing energy-consumption associated with foodstuff distribution from faraway farmers.
since the insects are able to efficiently adapt to changes in their environment without receiving orders from one authority.
Gustavo Castro is an environmental chemist at who says he'd heard for a long time that the peel of the banana was the best part of the fruit,
and to make a positive impact on their surrounding environment. Our work contributes to creating better communities across the UK in both urban and isolated rural areas.
and to make a positive impact on their surrounding environment. Our work contributes to creating better communities across the UK in both urban and isolated rural areas.
an environmentally friendly technique that all but eliminates plowing to curb erosion and the harmful runoff of fertilizers and pesticides.
and breaks down quickly, reducing its environmental impact. Sales took off in the late 1990s,
Mr. Anderson and his neighbors are plowing their fields and mixing herbicides into the soil.
That reduced erosion, the runoff of chemicals into waterways and the use of fuel for tractors.
oethat is certainly a major concern for our environment, Ken Smith, a weed scientist at the University of Arkansas, said.
belies the claims made by the biotechnology industry that its crops would be better for the environment. oethe biotech industry is taking us into a more pesticide-dependent agriculture when they ve always promised,
saying that the emergence of resistant weeds jeopardized the substantial benefits that genetically engineered crops were providing to farmers and the environment.
Beddington has increased called for production to counter a"perfect storm"of food shortages that could become a global threat by 2030.
Exponents say the idea is symbolic of the local determination to highlight the risk of food shortages and climate change.
When the weather is hot, just a few days without water can kill your garden! The time it takes to drag out hoses,
Getting a neighbour or friend to check on your garden is inconvenient to say the least.
Some incorporate rain sensors. But what if you want to check on or water your garden remotely?
but the impacts of this decline can differ with the individual genes and environment. The net result of aging in an animal population is a progressive increase in all-cause mortality and morbidity.
which selects the best genotype for fitness in a particular ecological niche. In 1952 The british Nobel zoologist Peter Medawar proposed that aging is the simple result of the failure of natural selection to maintain fitness in older animals with declining fertility.
Evolution appears to evolve a life history for each species that is best adapted to its ecological niche.
coupled with concern over the environment in developed nations, will signal the end of the oil era.
vibrations in the surrounding environment derived from the piezoelectric phenomenon could provide power for future nanoscale devices.
Read Bushnell op-ed for THE FUTURIST. 3. Ocean-current power. Tidal-current turbines and tidal-stream turbines tapping the power of sea systems like the Gulf stream could provide energy for power-hungry states such as Florida.
Energy use in Florida will go up nearly 30%in the next decade as a result of growth. Researchers from Florida Atlantic University have received a $5 million grant to see how the Gulf stream,
which flows at 1, 000 times the rate of the Mississippi river, might be tapped for power,
according to the United nations Environment Program. Finding fresh water in Africa is often a huge task, requiring people (mostly women
The device uses wireless sensors to constantly monitor patients and check environmental factors in the patients home
But the system could provide a low-cost option for powering tree sensors that might be used to detect environmental conditions or forest fires.
May Wu, an environmental scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, says Coskata's ethanol produces 84 percent less greenhouse gas than fossil fuel even after accounting for the energy needed to produce
"We cannot survive in a climate where there a patchwork of state-by-state rules.
Each pod contains a computer-controlled environmental system to regulate the pod temperature, humidity, ph levels and CO2 throughout the crop life cycle.
and be stacked for in-town use think unused land in urban spaces or non-arable land in the middle East or Africa or even a rainforest after deforestation.
and crops could halve food price inflationresource conservation technologies in agriculture could potentially halve the staggering increases in food prices in the face of climate change,
director of environment and production and project leader for IFPRI's"How to Achieve Food security in a World of Growing Scarcity"program."
IFPRI researchers have found that drought tolerance technologies for rain-fed agriculture would increase maize output by 27 percent,
Climate change could send prices soaring Under climate change scenarios up to 2050, maize prices could shoot up 90 percent, rice by 65 percent and wheat by 70 percent,
said Ephraim Nkonya, a senior research fellow in the environment and production technology division of IFPRI.
IFPRI researchers found areas with highly dense roads also had a lower rate of land degradation and deforestation."
and in such areas, the roads were not affecting deforestation as we would expect.""Degradation of forests
and land contributes to about one-fifth of global annual greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
to foster similar blue skies innovations (Idea#9). The lab spawns the kind of apparatuses you d expect to encounter at Starbucks 50 years from now:
and multinational corporations very rich even as they devastate the poor and put the rest of the planet at severe environmental and economic risk.
This process creates an environment of 100-percent humidity, from which water is harvested then. The collected water is stored in an underground tank,
and saving the environment. It may even give the phrase"factory farming"a whole new meaning.
vegetables and dry goods. The mobile market was conceived as a solution for oefood deserts, those densely populated, often low-income, neighborhoods that lack pedestrian access to healthy, affordable food.
shop environs are a dramatic departure from the typical cafã. More than just a place to grab a sandwich, Farm:
shop is an experiment in food cultivation within a constrained urban environment whose goal is to grow the maximum amount of food in the most efficient way possible.
That may sound like blue-sky futurism, but evidence shows that the vision is beginning to be realized on the ground, in recent investments, products and services, coming from large industrial and technology corporations and some ambitious start-ups.
now the issue is"stability in an uncontrolled environment and getting this out at scale."
Spontaneity One of the easiest ways to make your employees more productive is to change up the environment they are working in.
but I prefer changing up the environment by being spontaneous. For example, I have a weekly brainstorming session with 2 marketers whom
as the weather was nice. The beautiful thing about this is that my guys were able to come up with some awesome marketing ideas
explores biohacks for the ecological issues that face modern cities. For instance, the waste that New york city produces every hour weighs as much as the Statue of liberty--in the future that waste could be recompacted into building blocks,
and nature--it would be something that would be a positive addition to the ecology,
and prioritize regions with poor forest management and high rates of deforestation. The Company will report its implementation progress on an annual basis. oethe paper policy is an example of how Disney conducts business in an environmentally and socially responsible way,
and demonstrates the Company commitment to creating a lasting, positive impact on ecosystems and communities worldwide,
said Dr. Beth Stevens, senior vice president, Disney Corporate Citizenship, Environment and Conservation. Disney sought input from stakeholders throughout the supply chain and from the environmental community in the formulation of its paper policy.
Disney will continue to solicit ongoing feedback as the policy is implemented. oewe commend Disney for adding its significant voice to the growing chorus of companies demonstrating that there no need to sacrifice endangered forests
but by maximizing ecosystem services, Davis said. oewe re not throwing away those tools. They re very important.
of building a crop system around the ecological services it provides, is universal
Apple's ipod Touch is fast becoming the new cash registerevery other day, it seems,
with the Passbook service in ios 6. Passbook is marketed as a convenient way to hold airline, rain, and theater tickets.
and selected concepts they felt promoted the most efficient and welcoming environments and met space utilization trends of the future.
and there are ample opportunities for diverse work environments and oethird-places, such as:¢¢Lounge work areas,
and institutions encourage employees to supplement their office space with work locations not paid for by the company-home offices, neighborhood coffee shops and communal spaces, such as parks and museums in the public domain of the city.
and¢A nexus for the neighborhood with activated retail and green space. Pickard Chilton The office building of the future envisioned by Pickard Chilton will embody three distinct principles centered around human qualities, business objectives and sustainability.
like clean water, obtained from healthy watershed ecosystems-by incentivizing the maintenance and improvement of watershed areas.
Researchers Maryanne Grieg-Gran and Ina Porras, from the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), say they have been recording oefaltering progress of payment for watershed services initiatives in their reviews of such schemes
and to rate their performance on sensitive issues like the treatment of small-scale farmers, sustainable water and land use, climate change,
and it is also one of the sectors most at risk from climate change, as recent changes in rainfall patterns have made evident.
Clearing tropical forests for grazing or palm-oil production releases large quantities of stored carbon into the atmosphere.
Grazing ruminant animals, like cattle and sheep, also contribute significantly to climate change. Commentsview/Create comment on this paragraphhere, too,
which is derived from tanks of hormone-free tilapia offering up nutrients to the plants in a controlled environment that ensures optimal growing.
"Growing indoors in a controlled environment, perfect humidity, perfect temperature. We hire local, we grow local,
Even in Germany, home of the Energiewende (energy transformation) which has poured huge subsidies into wind and solar power,
the European Environment Agency, said in 2011, the assumption oethat biomass combustion would be inherently carbon neutral is not correct as it ignores the fact that using land to produce plants for energy typically means that this land is not producing plants for other purposes,
But as Tom Brookes of the European Climate Foundation points out, oewe re trying to cut carbon now;
engineered crops, pest control, fertilizers, etc. â environmental protection and remediation: restoration, monitoring, detection, etc. â consumer products:
Impacts on the wider environment will tend to be treated as an externality. Corresponding impacts on price and other economic changes for smaller producers (e g. smallholder farmers) will affect their decisions about land conversion and management
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