Animals

I thought this was interesting.  Shows how we value certain animals over others.

Paul Kuczynski - more paintings that question various aspects of our society.  Many of them have to do with what we’ve been talking about in class.

Banana!

Check Out This Guy

70-year-old is rescued after surviving for 6 days in the Austrian Alps on a chocolate bar and glacial water.  What’s the first thing he says? “I’d like a beer, please!”   The man, who is from the southeast of Germany, had been touring by himself the Schrankogel mountain in the central eastern Alpine region of Stubai without the safety of a rope.  Rescuers are shocked that he survived for so long.

Earth at Tipping Point?

This article articulates the findings of scientists, who believe that the global environmental changes that we are observing are irreversible and will forever change the ecology of the earth.  The size of the human population is estimated to be 9.3 Billion by the year 2050.  Our planet’s natural resources and biodiversity simply cannot handle this.  The article suggests that we must have “significant reductions in world population growth and per-capita resource use, more efficient energy use, less reliance on fossil fuels and stepped-up efforts to protect the parts of Earth that have so far escaped human dominance” in order to alter this outcome.  I think this article is important to remember in our sustainability efforts on campus and in our daily lives.  On a small scale each person is able to accomplish a lot, and together, hopefully we can accomplish to avoid this perceived ‘inevitable’.

A coal power station in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. (Martin Meissner / Associated Press)

Amazing Footage

 

 

 

 

 

 

You may have seen this posted on Yahoo or Google, but I was sent this through an email.  I couldn’t believe what I saw!  I thought this would be a funny for everyone to see.  Ok, not that funny since he was hurt, but I just didn’t see it coming!  A mountain biker in Africa is jumped by a native antelope.

Hitler’s last bodyguard gives up on fan mail

93 year old Rochus Misch, the last remaining body guard is Hitler calls it quits to answer fan mail from around the world after 65 years. Misch served as Hitler’s telephone operator and courier aswell. Surprisingly mail that Rochus recieved was not negative. He would answer all that he could and he also sent out signed photos of himself, to fans all around the world.

 

Undercover Cop Marries Environmental Activist He Is Spying On

Given the fact that environmental activists don’t cause much serious damage in the world, it is astounding that governments spend so much effort to infiltrate the groups. The Brits seem to be working to uncover the undercover cops who have infiltrated UK environmental protest groups. This story reveals that one of the undercover cops married and had kids with one of the activists he was “surveilling.”

The cops defend the undercover agents as necessary given a small number of members ”intent on causing harm, committing crime and on occasions disabling parts of the national critical infrastructure”. Alas, they don’t offer up any examples of such criminal activity.

You have to watch these two videos.

http://www.webtvhub.com/funny-hippies-crying-over-dead-trees-video-environmental-extremists-are-insane/

This first video…well, ha ha, I don’t know what is really going on. These people must really like their trees. Were people this crazy in the 90s?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ka4sTfySkFo

This second video I think is not really on topic. But, I found myself holding onto my desk really tight when watching this video. There’s a small camera attached to the top of a guy’s helmet. The video is filming his climb to the top of a tower…not just any tower, but one that is several thousand feet off the ground. Watch it full screen to enhance the feeling. It’s incredible. My hands hurt from gripping onto my desk so hard.

Now for the real news:

http://www.enn.com/lifestyle/article/41449

It’s an older article from June 2010, but it’s still ongoing issue.

Greener cities.

The EPA will be working with the 50 state capitals (hitting all 50 would be unlikely) to create regulations that restrict usage of certain things that would harm the enviroment.

Each year, starting in a few months, three to four cities will begin their projects to go “greener”.

Many non-capital cities have already begun green projects such as:

“Oakland, California uses renewable sources for generating energy and plans to be oil independent by 2020.

Eugene, Oregon with its Emerald Express, the first hybrid public transport system was the first city in the 1960′s to embrace the Green revolution.

Cambridge, Massachusetts dubbed as the “Best Walking City in US”, has most city vehicles fueled by B20 biodiesel or electricity.

Berkeley, California is recognized as a leader in the incubation of clean technology for windpower, solar power, biofuels and hydropower.

Seattle, Washington runs an extremely successful incentive program where residents are encouraged to install solar panels on their homes for energy conservation.

Chicago, Illinois — The windy city has gone green. The “Chicago Green Roof Program” has ensured that more than 2.5 million square feet of city roofs support plant life.

Austin, Texas with 206 parks, 12 preserves, 26 greenbelts and more than 50 miles of trails plans to go carbon neutral by 2020.”

Pretty soon some cities may look like this:

GIANT RATS?!?!?!?!

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/09/07/herorats.detect.landmines/index.html?hpt=C2

This is awesome. I really don’t like rats, but somehow I think they are cute little furry things. So in Mozambique, a company called APOPO is training these rodents how to sniff out…no not bombs, but land mines. Mine sniffing rats? Hecks yea!

Bart Weetjens is the “brains and buddhist monk” behind the mind sniffing rats. I get the “brains” part, but what does being a Buddhist Monk have to do with this?

Anyway, so these rats are native to Africa, so they are immune to the tropical diseases in Mozambique and in Tanzania (where they are used to detect uh…tuberculosis? <<–CNN didn’t say anything about these rats.

They begin training at like 4 weeks old, just when they begin to see. Now, the price to train just ONE rat is…drum roll – $7,700!! PER RAT!! But apparently that is only half the cost of training a mind sniffing canine, which is the most common animal used for this type of job. But $7,000 for a rat is a lot of money.

Why would you use these rats in the first place? Mr. Weetjen said that they are so light in weight, that when they step on the mines, the triggers aren’t, well, triggered. Therefore, if you don’t want your Labrador Buddy blown to pieces, then get a rat to do the job (I apologize if any of you actually had your Labrador named Buddy blown to pieces, and did not mean to offend you).

Now what does this article have to do with the environment?

• Increase in canine population
• Significant decrease in number of forgotten mines (More mines discovered)
• Substantially less hazardous to people living in the mine-infested areas
• Development can continue in those areas

The Geneva International Center for Humanitarian Demining has been optimistic about using more rats to detect the mines. These rats have been trained to sniff in holes, and when they detect TNT, they are taught to scratch the ground with their paws (is that what they are called on rats?) which then notifies the team that there is an active mine in that hole.

Africa has seen decades of war, of who knows how many land mines are still hidden all over the vast continent? Although Mr. Weetjen said that convincing the public to use more rats for this purpose isn’t going well, I think that eventually they will catch on to how awesome these rats are. In just one day, one of these highly trained special ops rats can uncover an average of 17 mines. Wow.

It’s the Gooey-Slimy-Green-Growling-Stinky Acid Monster!!

Source: http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/08/31/concrete-eating-acid-at-former-california-mine/

Frank Springer Comics

So in California, there is a plant that has been closed off to the public for the past 45 years. For the past 45 years, concrete eating acid has been leaking. The EPA has spent $20 million to clean it up. It is still leaking. (BP?) That’s pretty much the story.

I like how they said that the scientists have been “trudging through the steamy, toxic sludge” in order to clean up what obviously can’t be cleaned. Although the acid has been contained to the site (somehow) the potential hazards that it can have on the environment are astounding. The EPA, in order to minimize the potential hazards, created a facility that monitors the nearby river to make sure that the continually (and growing) 2% leak of acid stays out of the waters.

Rick Sugarek “…it’s like battery acid coming out of the mountain”

yuck. I wonder why they decided to write a story on it now, when it has been a problem for the pasty 45 years. Way to go EPA