Clipmarks | reimers's 'eco' clips

Cicero - The Six Mistakes of Man

Thu, 28 Jun 2007 15:55:54 GMT

clipped by: ecopirate

Marcus Cicero was a prominent philosopher who lived at the time the Romans began to lose their domainance as a civilization. He was a statesman, poet, orator and a philosopher all combined into one…I think he had a tendency to hit the nail on the head pretty often, and as a critic he excelled. Here are what he thought were “The six mistakes of Man”:Cicero’s Six Mistakes of Man.

The delusion that personal gain is made by crushing others.
The tendency to worry about things that cannot be changed or corrected.
Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it.
Refusing to set aside trivial preferences.
Neglecting development and refinement of the mind, and not acquiring the habit of reading and studying.
Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do.

Tags: eco.spirit

Illegal to Buy an Eco-Friendly Car

Mon, 03 Sep 2007 04:49:42 GMT

clipped by: ellen_001
clipper's remarks: It's illegal to buy a low emissions car. Goes against reason, doesn't it?

Clip Source: autos.msn.com

Dirty Secret: Green Cars
Automakers Won't Sell You

There's only one catch: You can't actually buy this ultra-green Accord, or the four-cylinder version that also produces near-zero pollution. That is, unless you live in California, New York or six other northeast states that follow California's tougher pollution rules. Only there can you buy this Accord, or the roughly two dozen other models that meet so-called Partial Zero Emissions Vehicle standards, PZEV for short.

Not only can't you buy one, but the government says it's currently illegal for automakers to sell these green cars outside of the special states. Under terms of the Clean Air Act—in the kind of delicious irony only our government can pull off—anyone (dealer, consumer, automaker) involved in an out-of-bounds PZEV sale could be subject to civil fines of up to $27,500. Volvo sent its dealers a memo alerting them to this fact, noting that its greenest S40 and V50 models were only for the special states.

Tags: environment, government

Re-Oxygenating the Oceans

Sat, 03 Nov 2007 11:08:06 GMT

clipped by: abailart

Clip Source: www.positivenews.org.uk

A Californian firm has found a way of re-oxygenating the world’s oceans, which it firmly believes will help combat global warming. Using the latest technology, leading eco-restoration firm, Planktos, is planning to replenish the sea’s floating plankton forests, which absorb half the Earth’s carbon dioxide and generate half the Earth’s oxygen.

Simply restoring the marine plankton that has been lost since 1980 could sink and sequester billions of tons of carbon dioxide each year. It can also regenerate billions of tons of lost ocean nourishment for collapsing fisheries, birds and whales.

Tags: global warming, oceans, co2

Waves Could Power the World 2X Over

Fri, 15 Jun 2007 00:14:24 GMT

clipped by: ecopirate

Clip Source: www.ecogeek.org

Ever sit by the ocean, and watch a buoy or a seagull bob up and down without end? The energy it takes to move all that water up and down is massive. Prevailing winds, temperature differentials, strong weather and even the rotation of the Earth all contribute to the never-ending crash of waves against the shore, and viewed from a certain perspective, that's a lot of energy going to waste:

The World Energy Council has estimated that approximately 2 terawatts (2 million megawatts), about double current world electricity production, could be produced from the oceans via wave power. It is estimated that 1 million gigawatt hours of wave energy hits Australian shores annually and that 25% of the UK’s current power usage could be supplied by harvesting its wave resource.

Tags: eco.news

Artificial Islands of the Dead Sea

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 12:54:55 GMT

clipped by: Mohir

Clip Source: io9.com

The Dead Sea, a body of water that sits at the nexus of several political hot spots in the Middle East, has been a source of contention for decades. Now a New York City architecture firm called Phu Hoang Office has proposed a way to turn the sea into a thriving center for tourism and eco-research. The firm proposed the creation of artificial islands (pictured) called No Man's Land that would house hotels, create energy, and harvest clean water from the atmosphere. Check out more pictures and a schematic below.

Salinity gradient solar ponds, water purification tanks, and water filtering processes will all be integrated into the designated “water islands” of the chain. The other two island designs will be for tourists and solar energy production, providing self sufficient power as well as creating revenue.

Tags: geo-enginering, architecture, dead sea

Super-Green City of the Future?

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 15:06:59 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

Can San Francisco's Treasure Island live up to plans to make it the "Super-Green City of the Future"?
The island is set to become a model for eco-livinga model of urban sustainability, is an entirely man-made 400-acre property in the middle of the San Francisco Bay. Originally built in 1939 from sea bottom, quarried rock, and loam, it is currently home to an abandoned naval base and a small number of low- and middle income residents.

Among some of the plans include LEED-certified residential towers to increase urban density, a pedestrian-friendly downtown center, bike lanes, open green space to promote biodiversity, city-sponsored composting/recycling, "living machine" wastewater treatment, an urban farm, and solar/wind/tidal renewable energy generation.

The new Treasure Island proposal is a testament to what our world is capable of when the political will exists to make sustainability a reality.

Tags: green, super city, san fransisco

Crieky! That's a HUGE Windmill!

Fri, 27 Jul 2007 22:08:42 GMT

clipped by: Tylast

Clip Source: www.treehugger.com

It's a vision of a magnetically levitated wind turbine that can generate one gigawatt of energy (enough to power 750,000 homes). This is the device proposed by a new Arizona-based company, MagLev Wind Turbine Technologies. The company claims that it can deliver clean power for less than cent per kilowatt hour using this wind turbine.

Web site: MagLev Wind Turbine Technologies

Clip Source: magturbine.com

The Maglev Wind Turbine Power Plant contributes to the reduction of pollution by eliminating our dependency of fossil fueled power plants. Since carbon dioxide is absorbed by trees, our Maglev Wind Turbine Power Plant can offset as much as 1,750,000 acres of forest. Another analogy used, is to equate the energy generated by our Power Plant to the amount generated by a barrel of oil. Maglev Wind Turbine Power Plant can generate the same amount of energy annually as 5,475,000 barrels of oil.

Tags: arizona, az, eco, inovation, technology, wind, maglev

A Planet Under Pressure

Wed, 26 Dec 2007 11:52:18 GMT

clipped by: thisnamecantbetaken

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

With humanity demanding more from the Earth than ever before, BBC News explores the planet's most pressing environmental problems in a six-part series.

PART 1: BIODIVERSITY

The sixth mass extinction?

PART 2: WATER

Running dry?

PART 3: ENERGY

Heading for a crisis?

PART 4: FOOD

Can the planet feed us?

PART 5: POLLUTION

Pollution: A life and death issue

PART 6: CLIMATE CHANGE

Entering uncharted waters?

Talking Point
How does climate change affect you? Can it be tackled?

Climate evidence
Warming world, rising sea and melting ice

Saving the planet
Teenagers tell us how they would tackle environmental damage

Animated guide
How the greenhouse effect might shape our climate

Changed Earth
Before and after images of the effects of climate change

Kyoto era dawns
EU emissions trading scheme starts the carbon revolution

Green gardening
See the results of our eco-friendly garden competition

Where will we be?
BBC website exploring the UN's goals for the planet in 2015

The Hell in Information: a warning

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 10:32:43 GMT

clipped by: abailart
clipper's remarks: A powerful article. A long read but sometimes good to reflect on just one thing rather than try to know everything

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

I have been alone in a room for almost 24 hours with 6 TVs, a laptop and two radios, listening to and watching and reading only political shows and pundits and blogs, sometimes monitoring four or five things at the same time. Just to see if it can be done.

I'll tell you it can be, but I cannot tell you how horrible it is. It rattles the very center of your being. If you care about the state of humankind, it fills you with despair. We are as a people bleak and hostile and suspicious, filled with senseless partisanship and willing to believe anything and everything about anyone. We are full of ourselves and we hate. And we do it 24-7.

"Information is not knowledge." -- Albert Einstein.

"KNOWLEDGE IS NOT INTELLIGENCE." -- Heraclitus of Ephesos.

". . . the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth." -- Umberto Eco.

Tags: knowledge, information, truth

Sound The Alarm: Landscapes in Distress Enviro-Exhibit

Sun, 04 May 2008 10:30:26 GMT

clipped by: Aribeth

Clip Source: www.inhabitat.com

This carefully curated photography and painting exhibition at Wavehill’s Glyndor Gallery in the Bronx is strikingly powerful

Set amidst a lush garden estate and thriving cultural center, Sound the Alarm: Landscapes in Distress is proof that ‘interpreting’ nature and our relationship to and with it, is perhaps better understood while in the throes of nature and all its eco-messiness rather than in a gallery’s sleek, sanitized, white box.

features an impressive roster of international photographers who have painstakingly documented the state of our environment - in all is fragility and resilient robustness

Alarming enviro-circumstances from the Artic to the Equator are boldly represented as are man-made imprints like rock quarrying, wildfires, burnt farmland, subterranean coal mines, and peoples displaced by some serious climate shift.

Biomonitors like moss and lichen are also shockingly off-color in the photos displayed

and

communities

seem to be a former charred shadow of their vibrant selves

Clip Source: www.wavehill.org

Tags: environment, green, photography, exhibition

The Green Ad Effect

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 08:29:11 GMT

clipped by: Aribeth

Clip Source: www.divinecaroline.com

The Green Ad Effect

A recent survey from Burst Media revealed that green advertising has a stronger than average impact with consumers. Good, right? Well they have higher recall, but they aren’t necessarily buying into the messages. Maybe that’s due to the overwhelming amount of green claims consumers have been hit with.

The survey showed the most popular online green content is recycling information and healthy recipes. These are followed by information on alternative energy sources, natural remedies, eco-friendly cleaning products, green technologies, nature/outdoor recreation, tips for simple living, gardening/organic gardening, and organic foods.

Some of the most powerful ads have come from environmental organizations like the World Wildlife Fund and Greenpeace. Some retailers have also decided to take a stand with their brands with strong green messaging. Here are number of my favorites.

Clip Source: www.divinecaroline.com

Tags: environment

Beautiful sea creature

Fri, 17 Aug 2007 18:31:00 GMT

clipped by: dorine
clipper's remarks: a lobate ctenophore.

Clip Source: www.coml.org

One of 88,000 specimens collected during a research during a two-month MAR-ECO research cruise in the summer of 2004. Pictured is a lobate ctenophore (Bathycyroe fosteri) which is very common and abundant near the mid-Atlantic ridge. (5 cm tall). Photo: ©Marsh Youngbluth.

Tags: oceans, animals, photo, discovery

7 Modern Wonders of Green Technology

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 08:48:43 GMT

clipped by: shunyax
clipper's remarks: Those amazing designs can be watched at source

Clip Source: weburbanist.com

Conceptual and Actual Ecological Designs of the Future

Green architecture comes in many forms though lately it seems like these forms are stranger than ever. Urban skyscraper farms? Floating eco-cities? Glowing solar towers? Turbine-driven skyscrapers? Magnetically levitated wind collectors? Where does it end?! With all of these emerging green technologies it seemed an appropriate time to take a look at seven of the most amazing real and conceptual designs currently at the forefront of ecological innovation. These examples push the limits of ecological architecture and contemporary urban design discourse.

Tags: green technology, design

What Breed of Liberal Are You?

Sat, 14 Jul 2007 00:45:46 GMT

clipped by: cniq_cniq

Clip Source: fightconservatives.com

From Chapter 1: "What It Means to Be a Liberal" in How to Win a Fight with a Conservative

Which bumper sticker would you most likely put on your car?

I’m Already Against the Next War
Nice Hummer—Sorry About Your Penis
America: One Nation Under Surveillance
Of Course It Hurts, You’re Getting Screwed by an Elephant
Evolution Is Just a Theory . . . Kind of Like Gravity
May the Fetus You Save Be Gay

A second civil war has just broken out in America. Who is to blame?

Imperialistic neocons—for launching simultaneous wars against Iran, North Korea, and France
Global warming deniers—for bringing us an eco-apocalypse
The South—for never having gotten over the fact that they lost the first War of Northern Aggression
Corporate greedmongers—for outsourcing every last American job to Bangalore
FOX News—for fomenting a war with a flashy “March to Civil War” logo and theme music
Bible-thumping puritans—for banning abortion, gay people, and sex

Tags: quiz, politics, political, humor, spoof, parody, satire

Blair, Schwarzenegger Join to Fight Warming

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 16:15:41 GMT

clipped by: ecopirate

Clip Source: www.ecoearth.info

Tony Blair, in his last news conference as British prime minister, joined California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday in calling for world leaders to take action on climate change.

"We can show leadership," Schwarzenegger said, while praising Blair's policies.

In Europe, the governor's appeals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are seen as a sign of growing popular support in the United States to combat global warming, even if critics say the Bush administration has been reluctant to do so.

Blair said he saw "growing popular will" around the world for individuals, businesses and governments to reduce their carbon footprint. He also rejected arguments that a choice must be made between economic growth and a reduction in emissions. "It is a false choice," Blair said.

Tags: eco.success