Equity & Empowerment | Shared Resources. Housing Innovation Awards. Greenland Is Melting Away. On the Greenland Ice Sheet — The midnight sun still gleamed at 1 a.m. across the brilliant expanse of the Greenland ice sheet.
Brandon Overstreet, a doctoral candidate in hydrology at the University of Wyoming, picked his way across the frozen landscape, clipped his climbing harness to an anchor in the ice and crept toward the edge of a river that rushed downstream toward an enormous sinkhole. If he fell in, “the death rate is 100 percent,” said Mr. Overstreet’s friend and fellow researcher, Lincoln Pitcher. But Mr. Failing phytoplankton, failing oxygen: Global warming disaster could suffocate life on planet Earth. Falling oxygen levels caused by global warming could be a greater threat to the survival of life on planet Earth than flooding, according to researchers from the University of Leicester.
A study led by Sergei Petrovskii, Professor in Applied Mathematics from the University of Leicester's Department of Mathematics, has shown that an increase in the water temperature of the world's oceans of around six degrees Celsius -- which some scientists predict could occur as soon as 2100 -- could stop oxygen production by phytoplankton by disrupting the process of photosynthesis. Professor Petrovskii explained: "Global warming has been a focus of attention of science and politics for about two decades now. The Koala in the Coal Mine. GUNNEDAH, Australia—Scrambling up a rock-strewn hill, I crane my neck and scan a row of trees for koalas.
Truth be told, I’ve never been all that good at spotting koalas in the wild. The cartoon-cute marsupial may be one of the world’s most recognizable animals, but try finding one silently snoozing 40 feet off the ground in a leafy eucalyptus tree among hundreds scattered across this former farm in the Liverpool Plains, a fertile agriculture district 250 miles northwest of Sydney. Koalas, which sleep up to 22 hours a day, don’t snore or do much of anything else that would attract attention. But on this sunny antipodean spring day in late September, even the koala experts from the University of Sydney I’m accompanying aren’t having much luck.
After hours of searching, we’ve found only one in an area formerly crawling with koalas. Everything You Need to Know About the New SAT. Photo The new SAT will soon arrive on a wave of bold promises.
The College Board has said its redesigned admission test would contain “no more mysteries.” Why Food Waste is an Urgent Global Problem. You’ve probably already heard the stats: 35 million tons of food goes to the landfill every year in the United States.
It’s a staggering amount when you figure that food comprised more than 20 percent of our entire yearly waste stream in 2013. Put another way: On average, every family in the nation loses $1,600 to $2,000 each year to food that is purchased but not eaten. That loss is more than what it costs to feed a family of four for an entire month. Seattle Is Not Being Changed by Amazon but by Financial Institutions. Amazon's new headquarters in downtown Seattle.
Charles Mudede Much of the blame—maybe too much—on the rising costs of living in Seattle has been placed on Amazon and tech workers. But the source of the major housing issues Seattle faces will eventually prove not to be in the sectors of production (Boeing) or distribution (Amazon) but in finance. We pick on Amazon because, despite being a tech company, it is a visible and hard entity. Indonesia's Wildfires Are as Bad as Some of the Planet's Worst Air Polluters. They’ve burned for weeks, producing toxic smoke that has blanketed much of Southeast Asia and caused air quality to plummet.
But just how bad is the pollution generated by the wildfires raging across Indonesia? Between Sept. 1 and Oct. 14, the fires—which are allegedly being intentionally set by businesses looking to make a buck producing palm oil—may have produced more air pollution than Germany does in a calendar year. RELATED: Now Palm Oil Is Killing the Frogs Although Germany has one of the worst air pollution problems in Europe, try this on for size: The pollution generated from the fires is also greater than the single-day emissions of the second-largest producer of greenhouse gases on the planet, the United States. That’s the startling finding of a team of researchers led by Guido van der Werf, a scientist at VU University Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
This California district brings tasty, local, affordable food to the cafeteria. If you grew up eating school lunches, you probably think of them as gross: soggy vegetables, canned fruits, and mystery meats.
In a bid to fix that, the U.S. Department of Agriculture made big changes to nutrition standards in 2012. But if you tune in to what young people have to say on social media, plenty of school lunches remain unappetizing — and sometimes plain inedible. When Child Care Costs More Than Rent, Women Stay at Home. The percentage of mothers who stay at home with their children has been on the rise since 1993, and it’s not because formerly career-driven women have suddenly woken up to the joys of full-time baby bonding.
In nearly 81 percent of U.S. towns, the average price of two-kid child care costs more than rent, which can make working a full-time job seem like a poor economic decision. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, expenses related to child care (day care facilities, babysitters, and nannies) should not exceed 10 percent of a family’s income. For its new study, the Economic Policy Institute used its family budget calculator to compare “the income families need in order to attain a modest yet adequate living standard where they live” with how much child care costs in their respective communities. The stats are an effective argument for birth control among people of reproductive age who hope for financial security.
These $1 Contraceptives Last Three Months—and Could Change the Lives of Millions. Women in Burkina Faso are the first to gain access to a new, easy-to-use contraceptive injection that lasts for three months, costs $1, and could "transform women's lives" in the world's poorest countries, according to health officials.
The new Pfizer-developed contraceptive, Sayana Press, is a small, all-in-one disposable needle and syringe developed for populations where access to modern contraception is limited or nonexistent. It delivers a dose of the widely used drug Depo-Provera. What We’ve Learned from New Orleans. 08.27.15 | By Judith Rodin Facebook Twitter This blog was first published by The Rockefeller Foundation on August 24. We are happily rerunning it to emphasize the long relationship between The Rockefeller Foundation and the City of New Orleans, which resulted in the release of New Orleans' Resilience Strategy on August 25.
Ten years ago, Hurricane Katrina was unprecedented in its destruction—awakening cities around the globe to a new reality. Today, crisis is the new normal, but not every disruption has to become a disaster. Can capitalism evolve to address the climate crisis? There are two extremes in the debate over capitalism’s role in our present climate change problem. On the one hand, some people see climate change as the outcome of a consumerist market system run rampant. In the end, the result will be a call to replace capitalism with a new system that will correct our present ills with regulations to curb market excesses. On the other hand, some people have faith in a free market to yield the needed solutions to our social problems.
In the more extreme case, some see climate policy as a covert way for bigger government to interfere in the market and diminish citizens’ personal freedom. Between these two extremes, the public debate takes on its usual binary, black-and-white, conflict-oriented, unproductive and basically incorrect form. Facebook looks to assert itself as a force for social good. Throughout much of its 11-year history, Facebook has been used as a tool to raise awareness and donations in times of crisis, whether it be for the 8.9 magnitude earthquake that rocked Japan in 2011 or for this year's ebola crisis. Now, Facebook is looking to play a more active role in those efforts. Naomi Gleit, a longtime Facebook manager, revealed Sunday that the social network has created a team "dedicated to and committed to social good" during a panel discussion at Mashable's annual Social Good Summit in New York. Facebook's social good team, which numbers in the dozens, is less focused on activism and on-the-ground work than building a new suite of products that tap into the social causes and personal needs of its community.
Even those efforts can have a tremendous impact when you consider every feature has the potential to tap into a community of nearly 1.5 billion people. That mission now explicitly extends to broader social good efforts. It Takes a Shipping Container to Feed a Campus. Students advocating for local, sustainably grown food to be served on campus may soon have a surprising new tool to leverage—one more commonly found at industrial sites than on verdant farms. That is, they will if a pilot project at the State University of New York at Stony Brook to grow hydroponic lettuce in a upcycled shipping container proves successful.
The “Leafy Green Machine,” as the farm is called, was installed on the campus in late August. Now that students are back for the fall session at the school, located about an hour east of New York City, they’re getting the farm up and running. In times of drought, should I use hand sanitizer instead of washing my hands? Q. Several years ago, in consideration of our ongoing water woes here in California, I started using hand sanitizer almost exclusively. However, I have always wondered if this actually saves water. I have no idea of the amount of water it takes to produce sanitizers. Chelan & Okanogan Complex Fires Fly Through 8-20-2015 @ 3:30AM. Here's how new buildings can actually help salmon. Making a Living on the Bayou After a Decade of Disasters. Farmers market vouchers may boost produce consumption in low-income families.
Where Are the Highly-Impacted Communities in Washington? Why Everyone Benefits from Energy Efficiency Programs. Why Whites Don’t Understand Black Segregation. Whitest big county in the U.S? It’s us. Going Green and Conserving Cash. Zero Counties in the U.S. Have Enough Housing for Families in Extreme Poverty. How to Stop Humans From Filling the World With Trash. 5 Trends Transforming the US Energy Sector. Pope Francis, in Sweeping Encyclical, Calls for Swift Action on Climate Change. Nutella Sparks War Of Words Between European Environmental Ministers.
New Fund Will Help More Seattle Residents Build Rain Gardens. Waste to Energy Plants on the Rise - Forester Network. Climate Change Is Helping One Weird Pest Destroy More Crops. Ecos PowerCube® - world’s mobile, solar-powered generator for military and di... This New San Francisco Corner Market Design Will Make You Crave Vegetables. 4 Years After Fukushima, How Is The Nuclear Industry Faring? VIDEO: How The Energy Industry Can Stay Resilient In A Collaborative Economy. When Will This West Oakland Neighborhood Get a Grocery Store? At Their Annual Gathering in Seattle, Urban Planners Confronted a Growing Housing Affordability Crisis. Satellite and Information Service (NESDIS) Energy Storage Paves Way for Electricity Independence. One GIF Shows the Coming Megadrought. 10 cities aiming for 100 percent clean energy. These 6 Countries Are Responsible For 60% Of CO2 Emissions. Convertible Sleeping Bags Turn Into Insulated Tents for the Homeless. Using Solar Energy to Improve Desalination Process.
Drones could help save the world's forests. SustainAbility's 10 trends for 2015. Education for Success in the Sustainability Industry. Procter & Gamble Releases 16th Annual Sustainability Report. Argentina: The Country that Monsanto Poisoned. F-ABRIC RESOURCES. Six Myths About Electricity in the U.S. South Debunked. Fracking the Poor. Are We Missing the Big Picture on Climate Change?
Incorporating Social Equity into Sustainability Initiatives - Sustainability: Community. Global Warming Photography, Climate Change Science, Weather, Arctic, Antarctica, Climate Zones, Glacier, Effects of Climate Change, Paleoclimate. First 17 Multifamily Buildings Attain Energy Star. Electronic 'tongue' to Ensure Food Quality. U.N. Extends Protections to 31 New Species. Where Obama's Potential Successors Stand On Climate Change.
How Los Angeles Plans to Survive the Big One. Making A Global Action Plan For Antibiotics. Food Waste is a Bigger Problem Than You Think.