Even though the push to create green jobs is getting the lion”s share of business news headlines right now, almost $7 billion of the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act, the stimulus bill President Obama signed into law earlier this year, has been allocated to help businesses reduce their environmental footprints in any number of ways.
A spawning Coho Salmon in Washington State. Cohos returned to spawn in Oregon and Washington in abundant numbers this year, but others, like California”s Sacramento River Chinooks and British Columbia”s Fraser River Sockeyes returned in near-record low numbers. Experts say reasons for the decline include diversions of river water for farming, pollution, the intermingling of wild salmon with weaker, disease-ridden hatchery fish, and global warming - which creates some problems and exacerbates others.Dan Bennett, courtesy Flickr
Some larger whale species have been recovering since the dark days before the whaling industry was regulated, but the majority of cetaceans—that is, the distinct order of marine mammals consisting of whales, dolphins and porpoises—are in decline, with some likely headed for extinction in the near term.
An Earthship in Taos, New Mexico, where the concept took root.© Annie & John, courtesy Flickr
An Earthship is a kind of passive solar home—or community of homes—typically made of natural and recycled materials such as old tires and recycled cans.
Among the most intelligent animals on Earth, three species of hyenas still roam in wilder parts of Africa and Asia. Of them, the striped hyena and the brown hyena are most at risk. Both are considered “Near Threatened” by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which maintains
Aside from the obvious physical safety considerations (especially when talking on a cell phone!), biking on highly trafficked roads exposes riders to considerable amounts of fine particles, nitrogen dioxide and volatile organic compounds spewing out of tailpipes.
Are Elephant Populations Stable — And Safe — Nowadays?
Besides being more sanitary than toilet tissue, bidets—those squirty accessories so popular in Europe, Japan and elsewhere that clean your underside using a jet of water—are also much less stressful on the environment than using paper.
Columbia University professor of environmental health and microbiology, Dickson Despommier, coined the term “vertical farming.” He says that a 30-story building built on one city block and engineered to maximize year-round agricultural yield could feed tens of thousands of people.
The upcoming COP15 meeting in Denmark—so named because it is the 15th such international gathering of the Conference of the Parties (COP) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change—is the world’s next big chance to take decisive
