texto dummy
Here are a couple of great videos that attempt to illustrate the potential Many-Worlds Interpretation of quantum superposition through recorded video games.
The first video (below) was constructed using the Kaizo Mario hacked ROM version of the Super Nintendo classic Super Mario World. This particular custom level w
From: http://www.realityofnature.com/quantum-physics/quantum-superposition-in-video-games/
Rubber Story
Rubber was first discovered and exploited in the Amazon. The ancient civilizations across South America had used it in a number of different ways, including balls for a tennis-like sport that archeologists are still trying to decipher from the ruins. It was here that its commercial uses were first discovered, and a rubber boom followed. By the mid nineteenth century, the wild rubber of the Amazon was being over-tapped. As John Loadman explains in his history of rubber, ‘Tears of the Tree’, prices rose and quality fell, and after several failed attempts, British botanists successfully transplanted seedlings to India. The Amazonian rubber industry collapsed, and the plantations of Southeast Asia took on the challenge of supplying the vast quantities required by American and European industry.
The turning point came in 1941, at the height of the Second World War, when Japan seized these plantations and cut off the rubber supply. The consequences for military operations were dire - the war effort needed rubber. “For American soldiers and pilots fighting in Europe,” writes Sonia Shah, “a flat tire had become a death sentence.”
In response, the US government turned to the oil industry and its petrochemicals labs. Already working overtime to provide oil for the war, they now had to provide rubber too. With the help of billions of dollars of government investment, the oil industry delivered not just synthetic rubber for tires and life rafts, but nylon for parachutes, plexiglas for airplane windows, and nitrogen ammonia for plastic explosives.
By the end of the war, plastic was the future, the glamorous material of the space-age. Disneyland even built an attraction in 1957, the Monsanto ‘Plastics Home of the Future‘. It’s hard to imagine now, but five to ten thousand people a day queued up to see “a demonstration of the structural applications of plastics.”
Looking around my desk, I am surrounded by plastics. I’m typing plastic keys, looking at a screen in a plastic case. My pens are plastic, the remote for the stereo, the light switch, the lamp shade, the CDs and the CD cases. There’s a glue stick in a plastic tube, a magazine in a cellophane sleeve. The buttons on my shirt are plastic. Every one of these items is dependent on oil. When the oil squeeze comes, as it inevitably will, there is not a single area of consumer production that will escape the rising prices.
From: http://www.celsias.com/2008/02/27/five-key-moments-in-the-history-of-oil/
Why the comptetition
Why Greenopolis?
About Greenopolis
Greenopolis is a social networking site that develops online relations between everyday people, communities, organizations, schools and businesses. As an environmentally-focused social networking site, Greenopolis was created to engage users on green issues so that they might learn, explore and participate in an open dialogue about the present and future of our environment.
Waste Management sponsored the creation of the site to encourage individuals, communities, non-profits and businesses to communicate about green practices, to give users a tool to share ideas and to encourage people to make positive, incremental changes in their daily lives.
While Greenopolis shares some features with other environmental Web sites, such as sustainability resource guides, green job sites, social networking, educational organizations and grant-making institutions, Greenopolis is unique in that it combines all of these opportunities in a single community.
Our specific goals for Greenopolis can be summarized with its slogan: "Learn. Act. Reward. Together":
LEARN - Serving as an Educational Outlet to Discuss Topics
Any environmental issue can be discussed. Greenopolis has a broad range of information accessible to users, aggregated from a number of institutions that have conducted studies, experiments, or observations centered on the environment.
Through Greenopolis, people can learn not only green facts - the average person generates 4.5 pounds of trash per day - but also usable information to change their behavior, like how driving a car 55 mph rather than 65 will give about 15 percent better fuel economy.
ACT - Producing Online and Offline Interaction
Greenopolis is a forum to engage individuals, communities and businesses. The site encourages everyone to participate in the discussion. Businesses will benefit from the site by sharing information and learning about ways in which to improve their sustainability practices. Individuals will benefit by having more information, as well as the potential to earn discounts on green products.
Another way Greenopolis will directly engage users offline is through Free'N Exchange, an interactive mapping tool that tells people where they can exchange items with other users to conserve landfill space and encourage reuse. For instance, if a person wants to dispose of old books, Free'N will tell them the location of a person or charity that will accept used reading materials.
REWARD - Rewarding the Collaborative Effort Between Individuals, Communities, and Businesses
Greenopolis allows users to earn savings on various green products and services. As they participate on the site users earn credits through our Points rewards system, which gives points every time a user participates on the site.
Within Greenopolis is the Marketplace, where points can be redeemed for products and services from participating partners. Currently, businesses are being encouraged to participate, and as the site grows so will the number of incentives being offered.
TOGETHER - Serving as a Networking Site for its Members
Greenopolis is free for anyone who wants to join, and is an educational resource for anyone interested in learning about sustainability. The site was created to connect people of different demographics who all share a common concern for the environment and are looking for the means in which to exchange ideas.
From: http://greenopolis.com/why_greenopolis
US OIL CONSUMPTION
Al Gore Lies
The campaign against climate change could be set back by the global food crisis, as foreign populations turn against measures to use foodstuffs as substitutes for fossil fuels.
With prices for rice, wheat, and corn soaring, food-related unrest has broken out in places such as
One factor being blamed for the price hikes is the use of government subsidies to promote the use of corn for ethanol production. An estimated 30% of
“I
don’t think anybody knows precisely how much ethanol contributes
to the run-up in food prices, but the contribution is clearly
substantial,” a professor of applied economics and law at the
Ethanol was initially promoted as a vehicle for
“It takes around 400 pounds of corn to make 25 gallons of ethanol,” Mr. Senauer, also an applied economics professor at
Mr. Senauer said, “Crop-based biofuels are not part of the solution. They, in fact, add to the problem. Whether Al Gore has caught up with that, somebody ought to ask him.”
Mr.
Gore was not available for an interview yesterday on the food crisis,
according to his spokeswoman. A spokesman for Mr. Gore’s public
campaign to address climate change, the
However, the scientist who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Mr. Gore, Rajendra Pachauri of the United Nations’s Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change, has warned that climate campaigners are unwise to promote biofuels in a way that risks food supplies.
In an interview last year, Mr. Gore expressed his support for corn-based ethanol, but endorsed moving to what he called a “third generation” of so-called cellulosic ethanol production, which is still in laboratory research. “It doesn’t compete with food crops, so it doesn’t put pressure on food prices,” the former vice president told Popular Mechanics magazine.
A Harvard professor of environmental studies who has advised Mr. Gore, Michael McElroy, warned in a November-December 2006 article in Harvard Magazine
that “the production of ethanol from either corn or sugar cane
presents a new dilemma: whether the feedstock should be devoted to food
or fuel. With increasing use of corn and sugar cane for fuel, a rise in
related food prices would seem inevitable.” The article,
“The Ethanol Illusion” went so far as to praise Senator
McCain for summing up the corn-ethanol energy initiative launched in
the
The most obvious impact the food crisis has had in
From: http://kennysideshow.blogspot.com/2008/04/propagandist-al-gore-needs-new-shtick.html
Bacteria that saves humans
"Few people realise that our health is directly tied to the health of the natural world," Bernstein told Tierramérica
Bernstein and Harvard colleague Eric Chivian wrote and edited contributions from more than 100 leading scientists in their new book, launched Apr. 28 by Oxford University Press and available in May.
Written for a general audience, "Sustaining Life" draws on the latest scientific evidence to make a persuasive case that the current extinction crisis, with species vanishing every day, is a serious threat to humanity equal to, if not greater than, climate change.
Pharmaceuticals, biomedical research, the emergence and spread of infectious diseases, and the production of food, both on land and in the oceans, depend on biodiversity -- the rich variety of life on our planet.
The book documents seven groups of endangered species, including sharks, bears, primates and amphibians that are or have the potential to have "tremendous value to medicine and science".
Among these are cone snails, a tropical species whose venom has tens of thousands of chemicals called peptides, short chains of amino acids. These unique peptides are incredibly powerful molecular probes and used in medical research.
"We've learned a great deal about how our brains function by using cone snail peptides," said Bernstein.
The first new breakthrough in pain medication in years has also come from cone snails.
Thirty-three percent of terminal cancer and HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) patients for whom the strongest opiates were ineffective are now pain-free thanks to a pain-blocking peptide from cone snail venom.
Several other cone snail peptides are in clinical trials to treat diabetes pain, among other aliments, and show great promise, says Bernstein.
Cone snails live only in coral reefs and at least a third to one half of all reefs are in danger of dying off due to a combination of disease, pollution and climate change.
Horseshoe crabs have already provided the basis for detecting contamination in injectible medicines. They have also been crucial in understanding human vision, he says. But with only a limited habitat and the need to lay their eggs on beaches they are vulnerable to pollution and human disturbance.
Amphibians have been the source of new treatments for high blood pressure and potentially new pain killers, and may prevent bacteria from acquiring resistance to anti-biotics -- a serious concern throughout the world.
However, amphibians are the most threatened of any group of organisms on the planet, with almost one-third of some 6,000 known species in danger of extinction, and more than 120 believed to have already gone extinct in the past few decades.
Medicines are just a small part of the role biodiversity plays in human well being. Without beneficial insects "most of the land ecosystems of the world would collapse and a good part of humanity would perish with them," writes Edward O. Wilson, the world-famous Harvard expert on biodiversity in the book's foreword.
Wilson also notes that four million bacterial species can be found in one ton of fertile soil and that most of cells in our bodies "are not human but bacterial: 700 species live within our mouths alone."
Scientists estimate there are between three and 30 million species of plants, animals, fungi, bacteria and so on, but only 1.4 million have been identified so far.
Up to 30 percent of all species on Earth could vanish by 2050 due to unsustainable human activities -- mainly deforestation, habitat loss and climate change -- according to the 2006 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, an unprecedented international four-year research effort.
"It could be as much as the extinction of half of all species by 2050," says Stuart Pimm, a conservation ecologist at Duke University in North Carolina and a contributor to the book.
While humans might adapt to climate change, the natural world cannot adapt to rapid change. And it is unlikely we will be able to replace the services that nature provides us.
"Most people are unaware of this danger," Pimm told Tierramérica. However, climate change solutions ought to preserve and enhance biodiversity, not harm them.
Like many areas of the world, including Latin America, large areas of South Africa's east coast have been cleared of their native vegetation to grow non-native eucalyptus trees. While those trees will absorb carbon from the atmosphere, helping to combat climate change, the loss of the native ecosystem is of far larger consequence.
"We need to plant tens of millions of trees, but they should be native species so they enhance biodiversity," he said.
Clearing forest for biofuel is another bad solution to climate change. Countries need to be paid to halt deforestation, Pimm said.
"Made aware of the crisis, people are willing to take action but don't know what to do," he added.
The book has a chapter on possible actions, including a "top 10" list. The first three: Use public transportation or bike or walk to work once a week; buy local organic food or grow your own; eat sustainable seafood, which means no farmed shrimp or salmon.
Many of these recommendations are intended to reduce carbon emissions, but simply using native species in gardens and reducing water use are important steps to preserving biodiversity, says Bernstein
"We also need government policies that provide incentives to protect natural systems; many do the opposite currently," he said.
Finally, we need a new culture that values, cherishes and protects biodiversity, said the author. Such a culture exists when it comes to our health -- now we need to understand that it is tied directly to the health of the natural world.
(*Originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Environment Programme.) (END/2008)
From: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42221
Australia water problematic
From: http://www.environment.gov.au/minister/wong/2008/pubs/sp20080429.pdf
Water Problematic
From: http://www.environment.gov.au/minister/wong/2008/pubs/sp20080429.pdf
10 Years to avoid Catast
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - A leading U.S. climate researcher says the world has a 10-year window of opportunity to take decisive action on global warming and avert catastrophe.
NASA scientist James Hansen, widely considered the doyen of American climate researchers, said governments must adopt an alternative scenario to keep carbon dioxide emission growth in check and limit the increase in global temperatures to 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit).
“I think we have a very brief window of opportunity to deal with climate change ... no longer than a decade, at the most,” Hansen said Wednesday at the Climate Change Research Conference in California’s state capital.
If the world continues with a “business as usual” scenario, Hansen said temperatures will rise by 2 to 3 degrees Celsius (3.6 to 7.2 degrees F) and “we will be producing a different planet.”
On that warmer planet, ice sheets would melt quickly, causing a rise in sea levels that would put most of Manhattan under water. The world would see more prolonged droughts and heat waves, powerful hurricanes in new areas and the likely extinction of 50 percent of species.
Clashing with White House
Hansen,
who heads NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has made
waves before by saying that President Bush’s administration tried
to silence him and heavily edited his and other scientists’
findings on a warmer world.
He reiterated that the United States “has passed up the opportunity” to influence the world on global warming.
The United States is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, most notably carbon dioxide. But Bush pulled the country out of the 160-nation Kyoto Protocol in 2001, arguing that the treaty’s mandatory curbs on emissions would harm the economy.
Hansen praised California for taking the “courageous” step of passing legislation on global warming last month that will make it the first U.S. state to place caps on greenhouse gas emissions.
He said the alternative scenario he advocates involves promoting energy efficiency and reducing dependence on carbon burning fuels.
“We cannot burn off all the fossil fuels that are readily available without causing dramatic climate change,” Hansen said. “This is not something that is a theory. We understand the carbon cycle well enough to say that.”
Most scientists believe global warming is due in some measure to the greenhouse effect, which occurs when so-called greenhouse gases are emitted into the atmosphere. These gases trap in Earth’s heat like the glass walls of a greenhouse. Greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, are byproducts of the burning of fossil fuels.
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Arctic studies
Hansen spoke as NASA released two studies that found sharp reductions in winter Arctic sea ice.
One of those studies was from Hansen's institute. “It is not too late to save the Arctic, but it requires that we begin to slow carbon dioxide emissions this decade,” Hansen said in a statement.
Scientists and climate models have long predicted a drop in winter sea ice, but it has been slow to happen. Global warming skeptics have pointed to the lack of ice melt as a flaw in global warming theory.
The latest findings are “coming more in line with what we expected to find,” said Mark Serreze, a senior research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo. “We’re starting to see a much more coherent and firm picture occurring.”
“I hate to say we told you so, but we told you so,” he added.
Serreze said only five years ago he was “a fence-sitter” on the issue of whether man-made global warming was happening and a threat, but he said recent evidence in the Arctic has him convinced.
Summer sea ice also has dramatically melted and shrunk over the years, setting a record low last year. This year’s measurements are not as bad, but will be close to the record, Serreze said.
Shrinking Arctic ice means less sunlight gets reflected and more gets absorbed, exacerbating the problem of warming. It also threatens Arctic species, notably polar bears, said Claire Parkinson, a research scientist at the Goddard center.
The polar bear population in Canada’s Hudson Bay has dropped from 1,200 in 1989 to about 950 in 2004, a decline of 22 percent, Parkinson said at the teleconference.
Polar bears typically hunt on Arctic ice, but when ice is depleted, they will forage on land, she said. This has led to more sightings in Inuit settlements, but does not mean that the number of polar bears is increasing.
From: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14834318/
Eviroment Problematic
The build-up of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuel is changing the planet’s natural systems, upon which all life depends. Overfishing and pollution have ravaged the oceans, leaving commercial fisheries at the point of collapse. On land, areas that have not been inalterably changed by human civilization are under increasing stress from activities ranging from logging and mining to agriculture and development.
From: http://www.pewtrusts.org/our_work_category.aspx?ID=110
Global Warming problematic
The world’s leading scientists agree that the planet is warming and that human activities—especially the burning of fossil fuels and the clearing of forests—are a big part of the cause.
In a 2007 report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the international group of scientists charged with reviewing, validating and summarizing the latest research concluded that the warming of the climate system is unequivocal. They stated that it is 90 percent certain that human-generated greenhouse gases account for most of the warming in the past 50 years.
Many published scientific reports have documented the actual observed impacts of a warming planet—including dramatic melting of the Arctic ice cap, shifting wildlife habitats, increased evidence of wildfires, heat waves and more intense storms. Americans are now seeing the impacts of global warming in their backyards. The warming trend poses serious risks to the economy and the environment.
Pew uses two approaches to address climate change: science and policy analysis and advocacy campaigns.
- The Pew Center on Global Climate Change is a leading policy and research institute. It advances debate through analysis, public education and a cooperative approach with business. The center launched in 1998.
- The Pew Campaign on Global Warming is aimed at adoption of a national policy to reduce emissions throughout the economy, and the Pew Campaign for Fuel Efficiency seeks more stringent fuel efficiency standards for the nation’s cars and trucks.
Achieving the large-scale reductions in emissions needed to address climate change will require a major shift in the way the world produces and uses energy. Yet it can be done. While this change will not be easy, deploying currently available technologies could sufficiently reduce emissions over the next 50 years to avoid the most dangerous threats from global warming.
The urgency of addressing climate change is
prompting policy makers throughout the world to take action to reduce
global warming pollution. In the United States, cities, states and the
private sector are leading the way and, after years of inaction,
even Congress is beginning to make global warming a priority.
No global strategy to address climate change can succeed without
substantial, permanent and mandated reductions in U.S. emissions.
Leadership by the United States—still the world’s largest
per capita emitter of global warming pollution—is vital to
solving the most significant environmental challenge of our time.
An immediate step needed is the establishment of mandatory emission
limits, coupled with a market-based system that allows reductions to be
achieved as cost-effectively as possible. Complementary energy policies
must also be enacted quickly, including more stringent fuel efficiency
standards for vehicles, a national renewable energy standard, energy
efficiency measures, and other short- and long-term strategies to speed
the transition to low- and zero-emission technologies
From: http://www.pewtrusts.org/our_work_category.aspx?id=112
Species problematic
Pew works to protect wilderness areas and public lands, both within the United States and around the globe.
The world’s wildest places, the last refuges for nature, are under constant pressure from population growth and associated resource development, including logging, mining and oil and gas drilling. Protecting these global treasures is a difficult challenge, but it is one we must meet. The fate of so many of the world’s endangered species is at risk.
Pew invests in public education and advocacy efforts to mobilize support for protection of some of the world’s last great wilderness and forests on public lands in North America and around the world.
From: http://www.pewtrusts.org/our_work_category.aspx?id=158
National Eviromental Funding Priorities
From: http://www.saveourenvironment.org/greenbudget2009.pdf
Species Loss due to Humans
Human activity has caused between 50 and 1000 times more extinctions in the last 100 years than would have happened due to natural processes.
This rate of loss is projected to accelerate 10-fold by 2050. The UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Report, released in January 2006, confirms that many animal and plant populations have declined in numbers, geographical spread, or both. For instance, a quarter of mammal species are currently threatened by extinction. Increasingly, the same species are found at different locations on the planet and the overall biodiversity is decreasing, because some rare species are lost and common ones spread to new areas. Overall, the range of genetic differences within species has declined, particularly for crops and livestock.
The main causes of biodiversity loss are changes in natural habitats due to intensive agricultural production systems, construction and extractive industries, over exploitation of forests, oceans, rivers, lakes and soils, invasions of alien species, pollution and global climate change.
The global scale of the biodiversity issue demands concerted international action. The framework for this action is the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, which was signed in 1992 and which the European Union ratified in 1993. Its objectives are the conservation of biological diversity, the sustainable use of its components and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of genetic resources.
The EU has been legislating on biodiversity since the 1970s. It is a driving force on the world scene and it is committed to implementing the Convention on Biological Diversity. In 1998, it adopted a biodiversity strategy. Four biodiversity action plans were adopted under this strategy in 2001, on conservation of natural resources, agriculture, fisheries and economic and development cooperation. Today, nature and biodiversity are one of the priorities of the EU's sixth environment action programme 2002-12.
From: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature_biodiversity/index_en.htm
People Growth Problematic
There are currently over 6.4 billion people living on the planet, a figure which is increasing by 77 million each year. By 2050, the United Nations estimates that total world population will be over 9.3 billion. The bulk of this population growth will occur in the developing world, where today over 1.2 billion people, mainly women and children, are living in extreme poverty. Coping with this future population increase will pose severe social and environment challenges for global leaders, not least of which will be providing enough food to go round.
Life sciences and biotechnology are likely to be important tools in the fight to feed the world’s growing population. New biotechnology techniques have the potential to deliver improved food quality and environmental benefits through agronomically enhanced crops. Enhanced food and feed quality may be linked to disease prevention, and may result in the reduced use of chemical pesticides, fertilisers and drugs, leading to more sustainable agricultural practices in both the developed and developing world. Advances in biotechnology can also result in major health care benefits, allowing for the production of cheaper, safer drugs in large quantities. Personalised and preventative medicines based on genetic predisposition, targeted screening, and innovative drug treatments are among the possibilities on offer.
Despite these clear advantages, the subject of biotechnology, and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in particular, has raised widespread public concern about the possible impact on human health and the environment. The sensitivity of this issue highlights the need for responsible policies at EU and international level to ensure these concerns are addressed and that the protection of the environment and human health remains a priority at all times. The EU has been legislating on GMOs since the early 1990s. These rules and regulations cover the use, traceability and labelling of GMOs or products and feeds containing GMOs and are designed to protect the health of both citizens and the environment.
From: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/biotechnology/index_en.htm
