Celsias Expert Articles

Anticipating Change: Building a Sanctuary for the Future

Located on a historic rise the southern coast of Singapore, the Po Ern Shi Temple (or Temple of Thanksgiving) is a shining example of what can be achieved with a group dedicated to social and environmental objectives.

Back in 2000, the directors at this forward focused Buddhist temple identified key trends that were shaping their future. Among these were an aging population, changing congregation needs, an increased cost of energy and water across Singapore, geological and geographic concerns, dependence on foreign oil, and of course, climate change. Taking this list to task, they set out to construct a new, purpose ...

Final Wilkins Ice-Sheet Breakup Looms

By Johnny Rook, editor of Climaticide Chronicles

The European Space Agency (ESA) announced today that new Envisat Asar photos show new rifts have formed in Antarctica’s Wilkins Ice Shelf. The ice shelf, which is connected to two islands, Charcot and Latady, is the anchor for the ice sheet behind it. The rifts threaten the stability of the ice shelf which owing to previous breakups this year has been reduced to a narrow finger of ice. For information on the previous breakups see: UPDATE: Bridge to Wilkins Ice Shelf Faces Imminent Collapse

Photo above from the European Space Agency.

The ...

Wastewater to Feed the World?

Wastewater To Feed The World?

As available land area shrinks and human population soars, the demands on available land and water are generating a significant new interest in urban farming. But in many areas of the world, urban farming relies on using a resource which is both a blessing and a curse - wastewater.

For thousands of years, farmers living in and around cities have irrigated their crops with contaminated water. Not only because they had no choice, but because the excreta and urine present in the runoff from settlements actually added nutrient value to the soil and improved plant growth ...

Time to Lead

On the 11th of December 2008, European political leaders will decide what their response to global warming is going to be. Last year, they agreed to a 30% cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. Now, with the downturn in the economy, that deal is under threat with only a 20% proposed reduction.

As a result, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and World Wildlife Fund, through the coordination of the Climate Action Network (CAN), formed the campaign 'Time to Lead'. Time to Lead is a movement that urges European citizens and organisations to act by contacting local legislators and issuing ...

One Shot Left

The latest science suggests that preventing runaway climate change means total decarbonisation. By George Monbiot.

George Bush is behaving like a furious defaulter whose home is about to be repossessed. Smashing the porcelain, ripping the doors off their hinges, he is determined that there will be nothing worth owning by the time the bastards kick him out. His midnight regulations, opening America's wilderness to logging and mining, trashing pollution controls, tearing up conservation laws, will do almost as much damage in the last 60 days of his presidency as he achieved in the foregoing 3000(1).

His backers - among ...

Fixing the Climate: “On the Scale of WWII but Longer”

By Johnny Rook, editor of Climaticide Chronicles

James Hansen and Joe Romm

A few days ago, Dr. James Hansen of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and perhaps the world’s leading climate scientist, released a draft of a paper entitled Tell Barack Obama the Truth–The Whole Truth (PDF).

In response, another highly respected scientist, physicist and former acting assistant secretary of energy for energy efficiency and renewable energy in the Clinton administration, Joe Romm responded to Hansen on his blog Climate Progress with the post: An Open Letter to James Hansen on the real truth about stabilizing ...

Making the Environment Real

Having just come through an election in Canada in which I was a Green Party candidate, and in which the anti-science, anti-environment Conservative government was re-elected, gave me cause to wonder what happened to my pro-environment Canadians. "The environment" was the #1 concern of Canadians not so long ago - before "the economy" trumped it.

So why didn't Canadians vote Green - not a single Green Member of Parliament was elected, again - or at least green: the major opposition to the Conservatives, the Liberals, proposed a "Green Shift (stolen from the Green Party and watered down), in which income tax would ...

The Cement Industry: An Underreported Source of Mercury Pollution

Guest Column by James Pew, Attorney for Earthjustice

There are nearly 150 cement kilns operating in the U.S. In 2006, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency - the federal agency required to protect us from harmful toxic air pollutants like mercury -estimated cement kilns pump nearly 12,000 pounds of mercury each year, based on voluntary estimates companies reported to the EPA's Toxic Release Inventory. Because cement plants had no obligation to control or even measure their mercury pollution, however, there was no way of knowing exactly how much mercury these facilities actually emit.

Earthjustice and the Environmental Integrity ...

GM Foods, or How to Forge a New World Order

Nowadays, most people like to blame outgoing U.S. President George Bush for the ills of the country. In fact, much of Bush's policy originated under former president Bill Clinton. A case in point is genetically-modified, or GM, food.

Under Clinton, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) staffers and executives like Michael R. Taylor, who also worked with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, were responsible for abandoning the precautionary principle in favor of indirect but obvious corporate sponsorship.

Taylor, who is currently a senior fellow and director of the Resources for the Future (RFF) Center for Risk Management, served ...

Growing Movement Debunks Greenwashing Ads

Do you know when you're being greenwashed?

Does your blood pressure go up when you see those disinformation ads (you know, the ones by the American Petroleum Institute, American Coalition for Clean Coal Electicity, Conoco, Dow Chemical, Shell, BP, General Motors, Chevron, etc?), which are usually narrated either by some enthusiastic, idealistic company scientist telling you about how excited she/he is to be working on some project that will enable us to hand a better world to our children, or a montage of serious, but gently smiling faces, which stare resolutely but insipidly into the camera while uttering ...

Green Your Home: The Complete Guide to Making Your New or Existing Home Environmentally Healthy

Editor's Note: Today we are glad to bring you an excerpt from Green Your Home: The Complete Guide to Making Your New or Existing Home Environmentally Healthy by Celsias writer Jeanne Roberts.

Making your home "green" means making it environmentally friendly. A
green home is good for you and the planet. The result is sustainability.
Sustainability is the science and art of occupying the planet in such a way
that the needs of the current inhabitants are met without compromising
the needs of future inhabitants.

Unfortunately, sustainability implies limits. Half the power produced in
this country is generated by ...

Body Burdens and the Kid-Safe Chemicals Act

Like many parents, in 2005 I was horrified to hear of the cord blood research that uncovered over 200 pollutants already present in babies' bodies at birth. Even more disturbing were the possible health implications of those chemicals:

"Of the 287 chemicals we detected in umbilical cord blood, we know that 180 cause cancer in humans or animals, 217 are toxic to the brain and nervous system, and 208 cause birth defects or abnormal development in animal tests. The dangers of pre- or post-natal exposure to this complex mixture of carcinogens, developmental toxins and neurotoxins have never been studied." - Environmental ...

Friday Linkfest Edition 71

Good News

Obama's EPA and Interior Department face high expectations in reversing Bush's war on the environment.
US government backs away from oil and gas drilling near Utah's national parks.
The EU is drafting the ground rules to minimize the impact of biofuels on forests, specifying which biofuels, production areas, raw materials and production methods can be used to meet upcoming EU renewable energy goals.
11 pilot whales were saved after a mass stranding in Australia. Unfortunately the other 53 were not as lucky.
A Spanish graveyard joins the fight against global warming by placing hundreds of ...

The Public Gets What the Public Wants (Again)

Click for full view Courtesy: Throbgoblins

A few thoughts for alternatives to the Black Friday shopping frenzy:

National Day of Listening: StoryCorps is declaring today a national day of listening. Ask friends, neighbors or family members to tell you about their lives.
Volunteer: Make today a family volunteer day. Bring food to a local pantry, grab some trash bags and clean up a local park, go stop by a nursing home and visit with some of the residents.
Eat leftovers, read books, play cards, go hiking, work in the garden, go to the museum. The key is to ...

Do Environmental Initiatives Work?

No, some say, because the minute the economy gets rocky (as it is now), the cost of preserving the planet is seen as too expensive.

Others say yes, arguing that these initiatives may contract and expand based on economic signals, but always deliver some benefit even in the worst of times. A prime example is the Montreal Protocol, put into effect in January of 1989.

The Protocol was initially worded to end production of certain substances believed to be causing depletion of the ozone layer, the protective shield around earth that prevents ultraviolet (UV) radiation from reaching the planet's ...

Hydrogen Powered House

In the United Kingdom near West Midlands, a house is being powered by a unique energy source: a hydrogen powered fuel cell. Hydrogen is currently being explored as a green alternative to current energy sources. It seems promising because it's readily abundant in nature, and gives off virtually no carbon emissions when used, unlike fossil fuels.

The refrigerator sized fuel cell, created by a German company called Baxi Immotech, produces about 1.5KW of electricity and about 3KW of heat. According to researchers, that's about 75% of the energy used by an average homeowner. The remaining energy needed ...

Don't Throw Away Your Bike! It Can Stimulate Economic Growth

Recently my apartment complex left a note on my door that our community bicycle cages were being cleaned out of all abandoned bikes. They requested that I come to the office to get a tag for my bike so it didn't end up in the dumpster. Dumpster? Really? I thought of the dozens of abandoned bikes I had seen languishing by themselves in the bike cage covered by a few centimeters of Los Angeles soot and dust. Dirty yes. Damaged no. Dumpster worthy? Not at all.

Immediately I jumped on the computer to find a solution to save the ...

Canada's Great Bear Rainforest

Running along Canada's Pacific coast from Vancouver Island to the southernmost point of the state of Alaska is a 19-million-acre swath of land that has never been improved, developed, exploited, earmarked or even fully explored.

The fact undoubtedly has developers and energy company execs chomping at the bit, but the animals living there - the wolves, bears, fox, deer, elk, goats, martens, squirrels, caribou, eagles, sea lions, birds and fish - are likely ecstatic in their isolation. Anyone who has studied earth's environment realizes that the works of man are, almost always, antithetical to nature, and the only way to ...

Pro-Logging Protestors Riot in Brazil

At last week's Governors' Global Climate Summit, Governors from the U.S., Indonesia and Brazil signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to reduce forestry-related greenhouse gas emissions. It was an historic event and the first state-to-state, sub-national agreement focused on reducing emissions from deforestation and land degradation. There was much applauding over the agreement as the signatories represent more than 60% of the earth's forested land.

This week, the political realities of trying to prevent deforestation were brought into stark relief as a mob of 3000 angry people in Brasilia, Brazil attacked government offices and went after environmental ...

Great Lakes Wind Could Supply One-third of U.S. Electricity

No sooner was the Great Lakes Basin Compact approved in October of 2008 than wind turbine consortiums and manufacturers started talking about the potential of Great Lakes wind to deliver massive amounts of clean energy to the Upper Midwest.

Their hopes and statistics are based on several wind distribution maps. The first, a government-sponsored wind mapping system, shows eastern Wisconsin having the greatest potential. A Wikipedia resource confirms this, and adds the Upper Peninsula area in Michigan as having wind speeds from 12 to 15 miles per hour offshore, with winds exceeding 20 miles per hour on Lake Michigan itself ...