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Religious leaders unite around climate change
On Monday, in the wake of remarks that caused anger and intense debate around the world, Pope Benedict XVI told Muslim diplomats that "our future" depends on good relations between followers of the Catholic and Muslim faiths. His Holiness quoted John Paul II calling for "reciprocity in all fields" and urging religious freedom and tolerance.
This past week, I had the incredible honor of presenting on a panel with religious leaders from around the world as part of the Climate Institute's Summit on Climate Destabilization. The panel, chaired by famed Earth Day founder Denis Hayes, featured revolutionary leaders from the Jewish, Presbyterian, Catholic, Christian, Muslim, and Mormon faiths, all united in efforts to urge their religious communities to take action to stop global warming. As each leader spoke, I watched the rest of the panel nodding, taking notes, and cheering each other on.
"Good relations" and "reciprocity in all fields" indeed!
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Tender Loving Caribou
Judge sides with caribou, bans snowmobiles from some Idaho national forests Mountain caribou celebrated last week as a judge banned snowmobiles from a nearly 470-square-mile caribou recovery zone in the […]
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So That’s Why We Can Never Find a Parking Space
U.S. population to hit 300 million in October As the U.S. population ticks ever closer to the 300 million mark — 299,800,000-plus and counting! — many enviros worry that the […]
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Tailless dolphin considered for prosthetic
Four months ago, a fisherman found a baby bottlenose dolphin tangled in the buoy line of a crab trap near Cape Canaveral. "Winter" is just one of hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, marine mammals, and seabirds caught accidentally by fishermen each year. The good news is, unlike most bycatch victims, instead of losing her life, Winter only lost her tail.
After being nursed back to health by more than 150 marine biologists and volunteers working around the clock, Winter has shown great improvement. She swims and plays at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium. But Winter isn't out of the woods just yet; experts think she needs ... a prosthetic tail.
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Almost extinct in the ’70s, black-footed ferrets celebrate 25 years since their rediscovery
We get all sorts of interesting press releases here. Some informative, some less-informative, others amusing and random. According to this one, today marks the 25th anniversary of the rediscovery of the black-footed ferret. It came with a complete history of the ferret, as well as charts, graphs, and contact information for prominent ferret experts.
The black-footed ferret, which is the only species of ferret native to the United States, was believed to be extinct back in 1979, after the last known ferret died in captivity. But on September 26, 1981, a fortuitous run-in with a ranch dog led investigators to the last remaining ferret colony in the United States.
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Seriously
Okay, he's talking about Iraq, but the lesson holds for climate change, as well as all the sundry environmental crises we face:
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Tour calls attention to low-income communities of color facing environmental challenges
This week, environmental justice activists are travelling the country with the Environmental Justice For All Tour to call national attention to sites of ecological and public-health concern in the nation's poorest communities.
Stops include both major metropolitan and rural areas, most of which are communities of color and low-income communities disproportionately affected by toxic contamination in their air, water, and soil.
In San Jose, Calif., employees toil in carcinogen-laden factories. In Dickson, Tenn., waste from a nearby landfill seeps into a community's wells. And in Syracuse, N.Y., a woman stands up to a city government that would evict her in order build a sewage treatment facility.
The tour allows these folks to tell their stories, many of which are absent from the conversation of the mainstream environmental movement.
The tour is the result of the efforts of more than 70 environmental-justice groups around the nation. It includes three tour groups -- in the northeast, south, and west -- and is intended to provide social and political forums for citizens to tell their stories. Monday, Oct. 2, is meant to be a lobbying day in Washington, D.C., where the participants speak to representatives about what they have witnessed on the tour.
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PopSci announces this year’s top young scientists
PopSci has this month announced its fifth annual Brilliant 10 awardees. These are young scientists (average age: 34) just beginning to be noticed outside their respective fields and "changing not just what we know but the limits of what we think it's possible to know." PopSci explains the meaning of the Brilliant 10 honor:
By "brilliant," we don't mean smart. Or at least not just smart. Brilliance is marked by insight, creativity and tenacity. It's the confidence to eschew established wisdom in order to develop your own. It's the foolishness needed to set out for the edge of understanding and sail right past it, ignoring the signs reading "Thar be monsters" (not to mention "Turn back lest ye never be awarded a decent research grant again").
The work of the 10 winners ranges from the biomechanics of worm movement to birdsong "language" translation. And two of the 10 are working on eco-related projects.
