Green Environment

Giant leatherback turtles, some weighing half as much as a small car, drag themselves out of the ocean and up the sloping shore on the northeastern coast of Trinidad while villagers await wearing dimmed headlamps in the dark. Their black carapaces glistening, the turtles inch along the moonlit beach, using their powerful front flippers to move their bulky frames onto the sand. In years past, poachers from Grande Riviere and nearby towns would ransack the turtles’ buried eggs and hack the critically threatened reptiles to death with machetes to sell their meat in the market. Now, the turtles are the focus of a thriving tourist trade, with people so devoted to them that they shoo birds away when the turtles first start out as tiny hatchlings scurrying to sea. via Sea Turtle Comeback: Giant Leatherback Numbers Rebound In Parts Of Caribbean.

Purple wildflowers sprout in abundance around the bright-yellow pipe, one of several jutting from the sandy soil in this unassuming patch of grass and mud. A dirty hose runs from the pipe to an idling truck and into a large tank labeled, “NON-POTABLE WATER.” This is the former Hadnot Point fuel farm, Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune’s main fuel depot until it was ordered closed in the 1980s. At one point, a layer of gasoline 15 feet thick floated atop the groundwater here, and this “fluid vapor recovery” truck is part of the continuing effort to remove it. “He’s skimming that contaminate out of that well, into this tank,” civilian Bob Lowder, head of environmental quality for the base, said during a recent tour. “We’ll take that off for recondition or disposal, as appropriate.” The coastal base is the site of what’s considered the worst case of drinking-water contamination in the nation’s history. But the Marines stress that that’s just what it is — history. via Camp Lejeune, Marine Corps Base, Coming Clean After Water Contamination Concerns.

More than 30 million people fled their homes in 2012 because of disasters such as floods, storms and earthquakes, a new report indicates. According to the study by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre and theNorwegian Refugee Council, natural disasters forced 32.4 million people to flee last year, with the overwhelming majority (98 percent) due to climate- and weather-related events. While most of the victims live in developing nations, 2012 also saw an increase in environmental refugees in wealthy countries, particularly in the United States. The report establishes that most of the damage was caused by severe flooding, with India and Nigeria suffering the brunt of the destruction. India, in particular, experienced repeated flooding during its long monsoon season. Africa suffered a record high in 2012, with 8.2 million people displaced because of natural disasters. The study points out that both the intensity and the frequency of natural disasters are cause for concern as climate change is projected to continue to spur recurrent tragedies. According to the report, multiple displacement events occurred in three-quarters of the countries affected. via Natural Disasters Displaced 32.4 Million People In 2012, IDMC Study Shows.

In the weeks following the horrific Rana Plaza building collapse that killed 1,127 workers — one of the worst tragedies in the history of the garment industry — more than 30 of the world’s leading apparel companies signed an agreement vowing to protect the safety of garment workers. But two prominent American companies have refused to sign the accord. Wal-Mart announced plans to launch its own safety initiative, and Gap has refused to sign any agreement, citing liability concerns. In a recent LA Times op-ed, law professors James Brudney and Catherine Fisk call the companies’ fears over their financial and moral commitments “irrational.” READ MORE >   Permalink | Add to del.icio.us | digg Post tags: Bangladesh, bangladesh building collapse, building collapse, GAP, garment workers, Rana Plaza, walmart, worker safety, worker safety accord

The organic food industry is gaining influence on Capitol Hill, prompted by its entry into traditional farm states and by increasing consumer demand. That’s not going over well with everyone in Congress. Tensions between conventional and organic agriculture boiled over this week during a late-night House Agriculture Committee debate on farm legislation that for decades has propped up traditional crops and largely ignored organics. When Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Ore., a former organic farmer, offered an amendment to make it easier for organic companies to organize industry-wide promotional campaigns, there was swift backlash from some farm-state Republicans. One lawmaker said he didn’t want to see the industry get a free ride and a second complained about organics’ “continued assault on agriculture.” Growing consumer interest in organics has proved tough for some Republicans on the committee to ignore. Eight Republicans, most of them newer members of the committee, joined with all of the committee’s Democrats in supporting the amendment, which was adopted 29-17. via Organic Food Industry Gains Clout On Capitol Hill, Causing Tensions Within Congress.

Alyson Beaton’s adorable Lille Huset Dollhouses are miniature dollhouses that kids can create, color and customize as a simple, rewarding craft activity. Translating into “little house” in Norwegian, the Lille Huset dollhouses are simple enough for kids to assemble, and can be stacked and arranged to create entire miniature cities. Even better, the dollhouses are eco-friendly—made from 100% recycled paperboard and printed in the USA with a certified carcinogenic free printing process. READ MORE Permalink | Add to del.icio.us | digg Post tags: Alyson Beaton, children's activities, dollhouses, green toys, Kids Crafts, Lille Houses, Lille Huset

This is the world that I am so happy to live in. Let’s keep working together to make our world the best place it can be! Thanks to Pat Payne for sharing this: video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player

While the overall warming is about 0.16°C per decade, there are three ten-year periods where there was a hiatus in warming, as the graph above shows, from 1977 to 1986, from 1987 to 1996, and from 2001 to 2012. But at each end of these periods there were big jumps. We find exactly the same sort of flat periods in climate model projections, lasting easily up to 15 years in length. by Kevin Trenberth via The Conversation Has global warming stalled? This question is increasingly being asked because the local weather seems cool and wet, or because the global mean temperature is not increasing at its earlier rate or the long-term rate expected from climate model projections. The answer depends a lot on what one means by “global warming.” For some it is equated to the “global mean temperature.” That keeps going up but also has ups and downs from year to year. More on that shortly. Why should it go up? Well, because the planet is warming as a result of human activities. With increasing carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, there is an imbalance in energy flows in and out of the top of the atmosphere: the greenhouse gases increasingly trap more radiation and hence create warming. “Warming” really means heating, and this can exhibit itself in many ways. Rising surface temperatures are just one manifestation. Melting Arctic sea ice is another. So is melting of glaciers and other land ice that contribute to rising sea levels. Increasing the water cycle and invigorating storms is yet another. But most (more than 90%) of the energy imbalance goes into the ocean, and several analyses have now shown this. But even there, how much warms the upper layers of the ocean, as opposed to how much penetrates deeper into the ocean where it may not have much immediate influence, is a key issue. The ups and downs of global temperature My colleagues and I have just published a new analysis showing that in the past decade about 30% of the heat has been dumped at levels below 700m, where most previous analyses stop. The first point is that this is fairly new; it is not there throughout the record. The cause of the shift is a particular change in winds, especially in the Pacific Ocean where the subtropical trade winds have become noticeably stronger, changing ocean currents and providing a mechanism for heat to be carried down into the ocean. This is associated with weather patterns in the Pacific, which are in turn related to the La Niña phase of the El Niño phenomenon. The second point is that we have found distinctive variations in global warming with El Niño. A mini global warming, in the sense of a global temperature increase, occurs in the latter stages of an El Niño event, as heat comes out of the ocean and warms the atmosphere. The ocean’s temperature is also affected by volcanic eruptions, which also affect the perceptions of global warming. Normal weather also interferes by generating clouds that reflect the sunshine, and there are fluctuations in the global energy imbalance from month to month. But these average out over a year or so. Another prominent source of natural variability in the Earth’s energy imbalance is changes in the sun itself, seen most clearly as the sunspot cycle. From 2005 to 2010 the sun went into a quiet phase and the warming energy imbalance is estimated to have dropped by about 10 to 15%. Some of the penetration of heat into the depths of the ocean is reversible, as it comes back in the next El Niño. But a lot is not; instead it contributes to the overall warming of the deep ocean. This means less short-term warming at the surface, but at the expense of greater long-term warming, and faster sea level rise. So this has consequences. Global warming is here to stay Coming back to the global temperature record, one thing is clear. The past decade is by far the warmest on record. Human induced global warming really kicked in during the 1970s, and warming has been pretty steady since thenR

Opine away. Via cartoonist Stephanie McMillan

If your walls are looking a bit bland, how about lighting them up with this glamorous LED wallpaper by Mestyle? Spotted at ICFF at during New York Design Week, this innovative application of LEDs caught the eye of the Inhabitat Team with its subtle but stylish glow. The illuminated wallpapers are available as a collection of 22 unique designs, each depicting a different theme. Read the rest of Lights Up Your Walls with Mestyle’s LED-Embedded Wallpaper Permalink | Add to del.icio.us | digg Post tags: green home decor, green interiors, Handcrafted Wallpapers, High Tech Wallpaper, ICFF, International Contemporary Furniture Fair, LED lighting, LED wallpaper, Mestyle, Modular Lamp, new york design week