tagged w/ ECOSYSTEM
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Nonprofit investigative journalism outfits are breaking new ground. Can they sustain themselves?
May 14, 2010 |
At a story meeting for California Watch, the nonprofit investigative news startup, employees sit around a conference table as Robert Salladay, the organization’s senior editor, begins to describe the findings of a six-month investigation by one of his state capital reporters. “It gives me chills,” Salladay tells the group. “Each paragraph could be its own story.” Robert Rosenthal, the founder of California Watch, peers over his glasses at an open laptop, then nods in agreement. “The reporting is so amazing,” he says.
This is a sweet moment in any investigation, a charmed time that used to feel familiar in newsrooms, back when editors could afford to detach reporters for a few months of digging. Corey G. Johnson had used his shovel well. The California Watch reporter amassed twenty boxes of documents—so many that one government agency he’s probing set up a private office for him to go through the material. Now Johnson was laying it all out for his editors, certain he had uncovered something important.
The editors agreed; this was big. But then the conversation veered in a direction unfamiliar to traditional newsrooms. Instead of planning how to get the story published before word of it leaked, the excited editors started throwing out ideas for how they could share Johnson’s reporting with a large array of competitive news outlets across the state and around the country. No one would get a scoop; rather, every outlet would run the story at around the same time, customized to resonate with its audience, be they newspaper subscribers, Web readers, television viewers, or radio listeners. California Watch’s donors—at this point, a handful of high-powered foundations—expect it to publish high-impact investigative journalism about California as widely as possible.
“If we do six hundred schools [in a mapped database] . . . could we get KQED to come work with us?” Rosenthal asked.
“Maybe The Sacramento Bee or The Orange County Register could help with graphics,” suggested Louis Freedberg, California Watch director.
“Could we ask Long Beach to do the history . . . pull some stories and photos from their files?” asked Rosenthal, adding that perhaps they should enlist a few college students to help with on-site interviews. pbs was interested in the story, as were each of the television networks, Rosenthal said, ticking off a list of colleagues he’d already contacted to share the story’s gist.
“Okay. There are a lot of balls in the air here,” warned Mark Katches, California Watch’s editorial director. “How are we going to keep track of all this?”
California Watch is one piece of what Charles Lewis, the well-known founder of the Center for Public Integrity, calls “an emerging ecosystem of investigative reporting.” Nonprofit investigative news centers aren’t new; Lewis founded the Center for Public Integrity back in 1989. The Center for Investigative Reporting was launched even earlier, in 1977; it is the parent of California Watch and shares its offices in Berkeley. Rosenthal is CIR’s executive director and has overall responsibility for both it and California Watch.
More at the link:Nonprofit investigative journalism outfits are breaking new ground. Can they sustain... more
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Mon May 17, 2010 4:59 PM EDT
By The Rachel Maddow Show
(Times-Picayune graphic)
Years before the Deepwater Horizon disaster, before the underwater volcano of oil threatened to create a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, scientists recognized another dead zone in the Gulf. The New Orleans Times-Picayune won a Pulitzer in 1997 for documenting the devastation around the mouth of the Mississippi River. The 7,000-square-mile dead zone was caused by algae blooms, feeding on agricultural and sewer runoff, that deplete the oxygen in the water.
http://www.pulitzer.org/archives/6010
Ten years later, the Times-Picayune found this dead zone was still growing:
"You reach a point where you've shifted the ecosystem to a completely different domain, and the recovery from that may be impossible," said Don Scavia, a professor of natural resources and environment at the University of Michigan and former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist who led one of the first federal studies on the dead zone in 2000. "There will be a time where the critters that typically occupy the sediment in those areas can no longer recover."Mon May 17, 2010 4:59 PM EDT
By The Rachel Maddow Show
(Times-Picayune graphic)... more
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Over-fishing means UK trawlers have to work 17 times as hard for the same fish catch as 120 years ago, a study shows.
link :Over-fishing means UK trawlers have to work 17 times as hard for the same fish catch... more
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suzane
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added this
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2 years ago
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Oyster Creek Generating Station, the nation's oldest nuclear power plant, refuses to install state mandated cooling towers. It threatens to shut down instead.
Located in Forked River, New Jersey, on the Oyster Creek, the power plant supplies enough energy to power about 600,000 NJ homes. The plant also employs 700 employees in the area. It's cooling system, dating back to 1969, kills 2 billion shrimp, tens of thousands of fish, crabs and clams each year. Oyster Creek is a tributary of the Barnegat Bay, the body of water separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Jersey shore's beloved barrier islands. The director of the NJ Sierra Club said that "the plant is the biggest source of thermal pollution on the bay", which disrupts the temperature of the ecosystem.
The cost of a closed-cycle cooling system (which would call for cooling towers with water vapor coming from them like in many other power plants) is very high. It would cost $700-800 million and take seven years to build, but the plant's license ends in 2029 so the cooling towers would only be in use for 12 years.
I live in this town.. So I don't know. It would be bad if the plant shut down. Not only would the state lose all kinds of money, their would be huge initial fish kills at the change in temperature! I'm not an advocate of the power plant, but if it's going to be so stubborn. Won't building cooling towers make even more jobs, for 7 years? The Barnegat Bay ecosystem deserves more than excuses from Exelon.
Article at link:
http://pressofatlanticcity.com/news/top_three/article_a74b51ba-31e4-11df-bc15-001cc4c002e0.htmlOyster Creek Generating Station, the nation's oldest nuclear power plant, refuses... more
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"proponents of rewilding--a relatively new ecological idea that stresses the restoration of animal habitats and the importance of migration corridors--argue that healthy ecosystems need large carnivores'."proponents of rewilding--a relatively new ecological idea that stresses the... more
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Two excerpts:
"Enthusiastically she explained how she worked the land using natural techniques, learning, for example, to use cattle dung as fertiliser and cassava and plantain leaves to maintain moisture.
'We used the hoe to check that the soil was humid before spreading the organic fertiliser…We also found that if there was garbage on the ground, the soil would stay dry even if it rained,' recalled Loaiza, just one of the 1,100 peasant women involved in the changes in the land and agricultural production brought about by Manos de Mujer"
" 'A human-made desert. For the past 5,000 years it was a tropical dry forest, with trees standing as high as 15 metres,' Múnera said"
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49875
Exemplary, trying to recover their ecosystem.
Desertification will take over unless we halt deforestation, cattle ranching and the greed of these corporations.
Power to the people!
Spread the word.
TAKE ACTION:
http://www.actnow.com.au/Action/Take_action_on_deforestation.aspx
Join Organic:
http://current.com/groups/organicgreen/Two excerpts:
"Enthusiastically she explained how she worked the land using... more
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Government, timber industry, and conservation representatives have reached broad agreement on how to manage Oregon's forests east of the Cascade Mountains. These tracts of pine and juniper (and the streams that flow through them) must be restored due to prior mismanagement and shortsightedness. Thankfully, reasonable people are discussing options without screaming at each other.Government, timber industry, and conservation representatives have reached broad... more
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6762640/Global-warming-caused-by-suns-radiation.html
Global warming is caused by radiation from the sun, according to a leading scientist speaking out at an alternative ‘sceptics conference’ in Copenhagen.
As the world gathered in the Danish capital for the UN Climate Change Conference, more than 50 scientists, businessmen and lobby groups met to discuss the arguments against man made global warming.
Although the meeting was considerably smaller than the official gathering of 15,000 people meeting down the road, the organisers claimed it could change the course of negotiations.
Professor Henrik Svensmark, a physicist at the Danish National Space Center in Copenhagen, said the recent warming period was caused by solar activity.
He said the last time the world experienced such high temperatures, during the medieval warming period, the Sun and the Earth were in a similar cycle.
Professor Nils-Axel Morner, a geologist from Stockholm University, said sea level rise has also been exaggerated by the “climate alarmists” using computer models.
He said observational data from lake sediments, coast lines and trees show sea levels have remained stable.
Professor Cliff Ollier, another geologist from the University of Western Australia, also said the environmental lobby have got it wrong on ice caps. He said the melting of ice sheets is caused by geothermal activity rather than global surface temperatures.
Professor Ian Plimer, from the University of Adelaide, claimed carbon dioxide from volcanoes rather than humans is driving warming as part of a natural process.
Graham Capper of Climate Sense said manmade global warming was a myth and scientists who said otherwise were lying. :
"There are people who know they are lying and do it simply for money and others who think they are doing good," he said. "But they not good scientists."
The Sun has cycles and seasons just like the Earth. Remember, the Solar System is a Heliocentric Model. Earth is subject to the Sun's behaviors and there's nothing we can do about it, no matter how many times Al Gore tells you the sky is falling.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6762640/Global-warming... more
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The amount of wild animals caught or eaten each year is close to or possibly even exceeding the species’ maximum yield levels. One day, they’ll be driven to extinction due to human intervention. The extinction of these animals will cause us losing our rich biological system forever.The amount of wild animals caught or eaten each year is close to or possibly even... more
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"Google's algorithm for ranking web pages can be adapted to determine which species are critical for sustaining ecosystems, say researchers.
According to a paper in PLoS Computational Biology, "PageRank" can be applied to the study of food webs.
These are the complex networks of who eats whom in an ecosystem.
The scientists say their version of PageRank could be a simple way of working out which extinctions would lead to ecosystem collapse.
Every species is embedded in a complex network of relationships with others. So a single extinction can cascade into the loss of seemingly unrelated species."
Hopefully this will help bring political support to the protection of our ecosystem.
Join Organic:
http://current.com/groups/organicgreen/"Google's algorithm for ranking web pages can be adapted to determine which... more
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Plomomedia's environmental focus brings original music and the imagery of San Francisco (including its 2007 oil spill) to the sampled voice of Janine Benyus, author of "Biomimicry" as she likens man-made technology to other natural processes. "Our technologies are natural," she states. "The question is: how well adapted are they?"
Footage shot from 2007-2009 at San Francisco's Sutro Park, Ocean Beach, Land's End, and elsewhere along the coast.
_________________________
about Janine Benyus:
Janine Benyus is a natural sciences writer, innovation consultant, and author of six books, including her latest − Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. In Biomimicry, she names an emerging discipline that seeks sustainable solutions by emulating nature's designs and processes (e.g., solar cells that mimic leaves, agriculture that models a prairie, businesses that run like redwood forests).
Janine has cultivated a deep knowledge of the natural world, beginning with direct observation in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, continuing in habitats from Maine to West Virginia where she worked as a backcountry guide, and now, in her home wilds of Montana.
In addition to her biomimicry work, Janine teaches interpretive writing, lectures at the University of Montana, and works towards restoring and protecting wild lands. She serves on a number of land use committees in her rural county.
Janine has received several awards including the 2009 Champion of the Earth award in Science & Innovation from the United Nations Environmental Programme, Rachel Carson Environmental Ethics Award, Lud Browman Award for Science Writing, Science Writing in Society Journalism Award, Barrows and Heinz Distinguished Lectureships, and has been honored as one of TIME International's Heros of the Environment.
An educator at heart, Janine believes that the more people learn from natures mentors, the more theyll want to protect them. This is why she writes, speaks, and revels in describing the wild teachers in our midst.
Janine's international keynotes have introduced tens of thousands of people to biomimicry, including Amana-Key Executive Leadership Training, American Institute of Architects, American Institute of Chemical Engineers, California Resource Recovery Association, Cambridge University's Centre of International Studies and the Environment, Canadian National Roundtable for the Economy and the Environment, Design Futures Council, Global Business Network, Health Care Without Harm, the Prince of Wales' Business & the Environment Programme, National Textile Center, President's Council on Sustainable Development, Schumacher College, Stanford Graduate School of Business, and Wharton School of Business. She also hosted and co-wrote a two-hour public television special based on her book, which aired on "The Nature of Things with David Suzuki" in 71 countries.Plomomedia's environmental focus brings original music and the imagery of San... more
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One of the main components of the system is an anaerobic digester that converts treated onion plant waste into biogas. That gas is then conditioned and turned into methane, the main component of natural gas. Then the natural gas is fed into a 600-kilowatt fuel cell from Fuel Cell Energy to make electricity.
Gills Onions estimates that the $9.5 million project will have a six-year investment pay back. Among the financial benefits are reducing its electricity bill by $700,000 a year and $400,000 annual savings from handling onion wastes, which used to be spread on their land. The project also received $499,000 from a state waste-to-energy research programOne of the main components of the system is an anaerobic digester that converts... more
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"Most polluted or damaged ecosystems worldwide can recover within a lifetime if societies commit to their cleanup or restoration, according to an analysis of 240 independent studies by researchers at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. Their findings will appear in the June edition of the journal PLoS ONE.
The Yale researchers found that forest ecosystems recovered in 42 years on average, while ocean bottoms recovered in less than 10 years. When examined by disturbance type, ecosystems undergoing multiple, interacting disturbances recovered in 56 years, and those affected by either invasive species, mining, oil spills or trawling recovered in as little as five years. Most ecosystems took longer to recover from human-induced disturbances than from natural events, such as hurricanes.
"The damages to these ecosystems are pretty serious," said Oswald Schmitz, an ecology professor at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and co-author of the meta-analysis with Yale Ph.D. student Holly Jones. "But the message is that if societies choose to become sustainable, ecosystems will recover. It isn't hopeless.""Most polluted or damaged ecosystems worldwide can recover within a lifetime if... more
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Emperor penguin colonies will face extinction if the warming trend of the last 50 years continues over the next century.
Despite dwindling concern among Americans about climate change, the warming climate continues to change life for animals, particularly at the Earth's poles. In a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, biologists report that the penguins are in trouble.
"To avoid extinction, Emperor penguins will have to adapt, migrate or change the timing of their growth stages," they write. "However, given the future projected increases in [greenhouse gases] and its effect on Antarctic climate, evolution or migration seem unlikely for such long-lived species at the remote southern end of the Earth."
Across the world, it's becoming clear that some species are better than others at adapting to a changing climate. Some breed faster, making genetic changes easier. But there is a more subtle form of adaptation called phenotypic plasticity which is used to describe how animals use the genes they have to change their behavior.Emperor penguin colonies will face extinction if the warming trend of the last 50... more
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lvp
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added this
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3 years ago
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Marquette, MI - Northern Michigan teens are continuing their mission to protect pollinators during 2009 by helping butterflies & restoring native plants to areas of the Upper Peninsula.
The best know, pollinators are bees - like honey bees & bumble bees.
Billions of these bees are dying across the world in a syndrome called Colony Collapse Disorder.
Bees are disappearing & it’s not clear why - although human impact on the environment are among the suspected causes like pesticides & global warming. A world without bees would mean world without food, as was dramatically pointed out in the Jerry Seinfield 2007 comedy Bee movie. Bees go on strike causing plants across the world die. That means no food, no flowers, no trees, the death of civilization. After bees, the next best pollinators are butterflies.
Marquette, MI area teens & Native American youth spent the summer of 2008 building butterfly houses that are longer & slimmer than birdhouses & are lined with bark.
Teens participating in the KBIC Summer Youth Program built & painted the houses at the tribe’s Natural Resource Department along Lake Superior.
KBIC Natural Resource Department Director Todd Warner said the Zaagkii Project is a good way for youth to become aware of their connection to natural resources & nature.
The butterfly houses offer protection to butterflies that can enter thru tiny slits.
Butterfly houses also offer rest to migrating monarchs & can be used for reproduction.
Marquette teens have planted or distributed 26,000 native plant including at the Hiawatha National Forest greenhouse in Marquette.
In the spring of 2009 some of the plants will be planted at several areas across northern MI including at Sand Point, a beach that the KBIC has been repairing from the effects of copper mining. About 100 years ago, the mine dumped copper processing waste into Lake Superior polluting miles of shoreline. KBIC capped the pollution & the native plants will be used to attract wildlife & restore the ecosystem. The Zaagkii Project was founded by the non-profit Cedar Tree Institute in Marquette that has sponsored numerous environment projects. The Zaagkii Project is sponsored by the CTI, Marquette County Juvenile Court, KBIC & the United States Forest Service.
Future videos include a look at a bee farm in Marquette County that fascinated Zaagkii Project teens.
Contributors include: Marquette Community Foundation, Negaunee Community Fund, Negaunee Community Youth Fund, M.E. Davenport Foundation, Kaufman Foundation, Phyllis & Max Reynolds Foundation, Upper Peninsula Childrens Museum, Borealis Seed Company.
KBIC Ceo Chris Swartz Jr.
906-353-6623
KBIC Natural Resource Department (NRD)
Todd Warner, Director
Evelyn Ravindran, Natural Resources Specialist
906-524-5757
Kim Klopstein, KBIC Summer Youth Program
906-201-0020
USDA USFS Milwaukee
Jan Schultz, Botany & Non-native Invasive Species
414-297-1189
Beekeeper Jim Hayward
906-475-7582
Cedar Tree Institute Ex. Dir. Rev. Jon Magnuson
906-228-5494
http://www.cedartreeinstitute.org
Mqt Cnty Juvenile Court:
http://www.co.marquette.mi.us/probate.htm
Mqt/Neg community foundations
http://www.mqt-cf.org
U.P. Children's Museum
http://www.upcmkids.org
Bee Movie Jerry Seinfeld & DreamWorks Animation
http://www.beemovie.com:
http://monarchwatch.org
Monarch Author Lynn M. Rosenblatt
http://www.monarchbutterflyusa.com/Magic.htm
Austin, Texas Honeybee video: Johnnie Hargrave
Photos: Richard Burkmar; Paul Billiet & Shirley Burchill
Wikipedia photos: Tübingen-Hagelloch, Björn Appel, Warden, Debi Vort, Kristof Van der Poorten, John Severns, Waugsberg, Kenneth Dwain Harrelson, Derek Ramsey, John O'Neill
http://zaagkiiproject.wordpress.com
http://www.miningjournal.net/page/content.detail/id/519835.html?nav=5001
http://indiancountrynews.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5028
http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/archive/28395844.htmlMarquette, MI - Northern Michigan teens are continuing their mission to protect... more
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(Washington, DC – October 29, 2008) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is collaborating with the National Geographic Society and the World Resources Institute to develop tools that will help to fully account for the value of ecosystem services.
Ecosystem services are the goods and services people obtain from natural systems. These benefits include clean air and water, erosion and flood control, soil enrichment, food, and fiber.
EPA's Ecological Research Program in the Office of Research and Development will collaborate with the National Geographic Society to develop better ways to map ecosystem services and communicate these maps to the public. Researchers will create maps displaying those services to help decision makers in communities, states, regions, and tribes understand the total costs and benefits of proposed land uses.
EPA will also team with the World Resources Institute to gain a better understanding of the ways in which decision makers in the private and public sectors use tools and information on ecosystem services. As part of the partnership, EPA scientists will share scientific tools to help businesses quantify ecosystem services and develop economic and environmental solutions.
"These partnerships will help transform the way we respond to environmental issues by illuminating the links between our own actions and the impacts on nature's services," said George Gray, assistant administrator for EPA's Office of Research and Development. "With this improved understanding, decision makers can better plan for a healthy, sustainable future."
EPA relies on quality science as the basis for sound policy and decision-making. EPA's laboratories and research centers, and EPA's research grantees, are building the scientific foundation needed to support the Agency's mission to safeguard human health and the environment.(Washington, DC – October 29, 2008) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency... more
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* A major United Nations study determined that the meat industry generates 40 percent more greenhouse-gas emissions than all the cars, trucks, SUVs, ships, and planes in the world combined.
* Researchers at the University of Chicago concluded that going vegan is 50 percent more effective in combating the climate crisis than switching to a hybrid car.
* The official handbook of the Live Earth concerts that Gore helped organize acknowledges that not eating meat is "the single most effective thing" you can do to reduce your climate change impact.
* A major United Nations study determined that the meat industry generates 40... more
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