Green Daily

The ATP Earthdrive isn't made entirely of corn (a notoriously poor conductor of electricity, which is the reason I always head straight for a cornfield during thunderstorms) but partly of that particular commodity, as well as other elements more greenish than your average USB drive.

Apart from its probable deliciousness, the Earthdrive sources green cred from the fact that the manufacturer donates a portion of each unit sold to an organization that plants trees. The packaging is also made of recyled materials.

Practically speaking, the Earthdrive come in storage sizes ranging from 1GB to 8 GB, and will run you from $29 to $99. That's a little more costly than lesser, planet-wrecking USB keys, but Gaia will smile whenever you transfer data.

If you want to buy, click on the picture at right.

via [Inventorspot]

The recently appointed chief of sustainable water resources development for UNESCO says that the growing human population poses a greater risk to the planet than climate change.

Professor Shahbaz Khan observed that while climate change is only one problem – albeit not a trivial one – population growth is a more urgent crisis because we are unlikely to have the land, food, or water resources to support the future population. Khan pointed out that the price of rice in Thailand has quadrupled over the last 4 years, and India has banned rice exports in a drive to ensure sufficient supplies for its own people.

Overpopulation, while clearly an element in virtually every human-related crisis on the planet – rising food and energy prices, pollution, deforestation, conflicts over resources – is a controversial topic and for that reason goes largely ignored in the political arena.

Canada's National Post has long taken issue with the science of anthropogenic climate change, routinely running articles which glorify a variety of unresearched and improbable theories or argue the whole thing is a scheme by Big Green to raise our taxes and turn us all into socialists. While there are numerous examples ("Look to Mars for the truth on global warming!"), yesterday's column by Lorne Gunter will serve as an excellent illustration of the combination of intellectual dishonesty and scientific inaccuracy that passes for climate change debate in the Post.

The piece opens with a criticism of Al Gore for apparently driving to a speech last week, and degenerates from there into a ideological screed against climate change, with a level of inaccuracy and misrepresentation surprising even for Gunter. A few examples:

Lorne: "Indeed, there is increasing debate in the scientific community whether there is even any warming occurring at all."

Fact: Sure, just like there's increasing debate over whether humans evolved from apes or were magicked into existence in the Garden of Eden 6000 years ago. Just because someone is willing to debate an idea doesn't mean that their arguments have merit. Virtually all major scientific organizations in the world have now issued statements endorsing the theory of anthropogenic climate change; none, to my knowledge, have retracted them.

The voices of climate change denial are fading, and with good reason. First they're scientifically outgunned, and being routinely shot down every time they're forced to debate on a factual basis. Second, when you look around and see the Arctic ice cap dwindling into something you could slip into a gin-and-tonic, half of SoCal on fire, and unflappable old Morgan Freeman taking to the airwaves to prep us for the next natural disaster, it's increasingly difficult to give the thumbs up and say "everything's hunky-dory here!"

I'm sympathetic to the denialists, because I'm really not in the mood for climate change catastrophe either, and if I could prevent it by complaining about Big Green Al or shrieking "conspiracy" I'd be wearing a tinfoil hat and cherry-picking facts along with the rest of the cranks.

However, I can't, so I don't. But is the discussion academic at this point anyway? Do the math and it looks as though it may already be too late to turn the tide of what bids fair to be the biggest metaphoric train wreck in human history.

Alarmist? Read how it breaks down and you can decide.

A Vancouver realtor and two anonymous organizations from Toronto have chipped in more than $3000 to save a 10 kg (22 lb), 100 year old lobster from being somebody's dinner.

Big Dee-Dee was caught off New Brunswick, Canada last week, and had been arousing interest from both conservationists and connisseurs of cooked crusteaceans. The owner of the the aptly named Big Fish shop where Dee-Dee was temporarily living had received more than 100 offers to buy the old boy, including one who would have paid a cool 5 grand to fly him to Ontario to be guest of honour at a company banquet.

However, all's well that ends well and next week a marine biologist will pack Dee-Dee up in a truck and take him down to the ocean, where he will be returned to the wet and wild from whence he came. After which he will likely get wander into another trap and end up back at the Big Fish, because lobsters aren't really all that smart. But it's still a happy ending, for now.

UPDATE July 21: Fearing that a transition back into colder water could kill Big Dee-Dee, Denis Breau, the owner of the Big Fish has decided to donate him to an aquarium instead. Probably the best news of all for Dee-Dee, who'll be getting 3 hots and a cot for the rest of his golden years.

Jason Bateman will be pulling up to the red carpet in a hydrogen Beemer and Jamie Lee Curtis is rocking a hydro-Honda, but it'll likely be a while before you and I are cruising the strip in Hindenburg Specials.

A new report says that it will at take least 15 years for any auto manufacturer to bring a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle to the mass market. What's more, that estimate assumes government subsidies of around $55 billion dollars to help the project along.

The main obstacles to rapid adoption of hydrogen technology for cars are high cost and lack of an existing fueling infrastructure. It's estimated that fuel cell vehicles produced in low volumes probably cost around $1million to $2million each, which explains why they're being leased rather than sold outright.

What can we learn from the report? Well, if we want to get a handle on our energy/global warming crises, we're probably better off focussing on hybrids and plug-ins for the immediate future and looking at fuel cells as a long-term solution.

via [Discover]

Orangutangs in Chicago! Zebras in Alaska!

In one of the most wrong-headed non-solutions to come along in a while, a report in the journal Nature suggests that we might save some species of animals from climate change extinction by moving them to areas newly suited to their needs.

The idea is that if one part of the world gets a litlle too warm or wet, send the species that can't handle their new environment to places where climate change has made things more hospitable. An example given is the rare Iberian lynx, native to Spain, which might thrive in a future warmer Scotland.

While the idea has some surface appeal, it doesn't seem to consider in fullness the potential impact of deliberately introducing new species into existinng eco-systems, a practice which has add disastrous consequences in the past (rabbits in Australia, anyone?). Besides that, it doesn't address the larger problem of habitat loss due not to climate change, but the building of housing developments and strip malls on once-pristine land. It doesn't matter what country an animal is moved to if the only place to live is the dumpster out back of the Burger King.

The American Physical Society, which represents about 50,000 physicists,has denied a widely reported story that the it wants to reopen the debate on anthropogenic climate change.

The story, which appeared on numerous climate change denialist and conspiracy-oriented websites, as well as a few mainstream news outlets, said that the APS had reversed its earlier position assserting climate change was related to human activity. However, the official APS website denies this, pointing out that the controversial comments had been made on an online forum that is "not an APS journal and not peer-reviewed."

The highly respected scientific organization reaffirmed their statement of last November, which says "The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth's physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now."

I wonder how many of the denial types will print the correction?

Will the next March of the Penguins be a funeral march?

Ok, sorry about the melodrama but this story is really sad. Freak rain storms in Antarctica earlier this year were apparently responsible for killing thousands of baby penguins. Because penguin chicks don't have the water-repellent layer which develops as they mature, many became soaked by torrential rains during the day and then froze to death at night when the temperature dropped below freezing.

This isn't just one of those "oh well, circle of life" things; it's virtually unprecedented. Precipitation of any kind, and especially 5 day downpours as experienced in January, is extremely rare in Antarctica, one of the driest places on the planet. Researchers believe that the strange rainstorms, like other weather events around the world, can be linked directly to manmade climate change.

Frozen penguins - one more nasty aspect of global warming that we didn't predict. What else has Mother Nature got in store for us?

via [National Geographic]

Previewing a speech in Washington today, Al Gore will call for the United States to address the issue of climate change with the same kind of urgency and resources that were devoted to sending astronauts to the moon in the 1960's.

Gore called for an ambitious plan that would see every kilowatt of electricity come from renewable sources within the next decade. While acknowledging that achieving such a goal would require ingenuity, expense, and sacrifice, Gore said that it would also represent an unprecedented opportunity for the nation.

Gore says that by shifting investment from older, dirtier technologies like coal-fired power into solar, wind, and geothermal generation (and maintaining nuclear power at current levels), the United States would not only be combating global warming but freeing itself from the expense and security challenges created by dependency on foreign energy sources.

He's right, of course, but the difference between JFK's bold moon vision and Gore's eco-dream is that Kennedy was actually President when he came up with his idea. It remains to be seen whether the next President will have the courage and conviction to steer the country towards a cleaner, saner future.

[via AP]

A bit of good news on the conservation front, especially if you're a lobster. An area around Lundy Island in the UK that was designated off-limits to fishing 5 years ago has shown that sea life can make a quick comeback if left alone.

The restriction was put into place principally to provide lobsters with a place where they could grow to maturity without fear of being trapped and thrown in a pot of boiling water, and it appears to be successful. Lobsters are 7 times more plentiful within the "no-take" zone than they are outside of it, with an especially high proportion of young lobsters.

Is Corey Feldman really making a comeback or is PETA just scraping the bottom of the big barrel of famous folk? I liked him in Lost Boys but I really miss the days when washed-up celebrities faded away with dignity and didn't turn up 20 years later airing their addictions, insecurities, and pitifully unlikely career aspirations in primetime.

So anyway, in PETA's latest marketing coup Feldman and wife Suzie riff off the vastly more talented but just about as annoying John Lennon and Yoko Ono in a new ad campaign based on the slogan "Give Peas a Chance". The ad is intended to promote the vegetarian lifestyle and shows the couple in bed, with Feldman holding a guitar and Suzy curled up seductively beside him.

If the lack of nudity disappoints, keep in mind that Suzy will be appearing in Playboy next month, although I believe that's a solo gig.

According a report from the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI), population growth and the increasing scarcity of food and fuel are going to wreak havoc in the world's tropical forests.

The report estimates that by the year 2030, 515 million hectares (1.27 billion acres) of extra land will be needed to grow food, wood and biofuels and roughly 315 million hectares (778 million acres) of that will have to come from existing tropical rainforests.

There are so many downsides to this scenario that it's hard to decide what order to list them in – more deforestation means more carbon emissions, less carbon storage, more climate change, more conflict over land, more use of water and other resources etc etc.

After 2030, the outlook gets downright gloomy. The report estimates that based on current trends, by 2050 the planet will require another 3 billion hectares (7.4 billion acres) of land to grow enough food for the human population. To put that into perspective, there are currently only 1.4 billion hectares (3.6 billion acres) of land currently under cultivation around the world.

The RRI is an organization dedicated principally to promoting improved forest management and advancing the rights of indigenous peoples who live in forested areas.

via [BBC News]

More bad news for Santa and the elves. A group of Russian scientists are being forced to abandon their camp on the Arctic sea ice after it began breaking up much earlier than expected.

The research camp North Pole 35 was set up last September on a chunk of ice which then measured a sizable 5 kilometres by 3 kilometres (3 miles by 1.8 miles), and the plan was to remain until this September. However, the floating island has now diminished to 600m by 300m (1968 feet by 984 feet), and as it drifts into warmer waters, the researchers are being evacuated by icebreaker before the floe disintegrates altogether.

Canadian researchers are reporting that the annual Arctic summer thaw has begun about 4 weeks earlier than usual this year. Besides that, the Russians, who usually prefer to camp on ice at least 3 metres (10 feet) thick, had to settle for a floe of half that thickness due to last year's unexpected melt-off.

Just when you thought global warming was all gloom and doom, news from Down Under that climate change is making the local tuna catch fatter.

Apparently as waters in parts of the southern hemisphere heat up, strong southeasterly winds drive nutrients to the surface, meaning good times for the creatures which eat them. Since tuna are perched atop the maritime food chain - or close to it, after sharks and us - they in turn benefit. As a result, the fish being caught this year are apparently bigger and of better quality than in the past.

That's a good thing for sushi fans, of course. However, it may not mean much in the big picture - the popular fish is disappearing in the Mediterranean and much of the Pacific due to overfishing.