Whole Travel Blog

The United States Global Change Research Program, a joint venture of 13 federal agencies and the White House, released a study this week confirming that even if the nation takes significant measures to reduce carbon emissions, the impact of global warming is expected to become more severe in upcoming years. Some of the impacts expected are already being seen, including more powerful tropical storms and erosion of ocean coastlines.

Where's my iceberg?

Thomas Karl, director of the National Climatic Data Center at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), stated, “What we would want to have people take away is that climate change is happening now, and it’s actually beginning to affect our lives.” He did continue to say that if we implement controls and measures to reduce our environmental footprint these effects could be significantly smaller.

The study is posted here: http://www.globalchange.gov/publications/reports/scientific-assessments/us-impacts. We encourage everyone to give it a browse if you have time - it’s 188 pages but has good summaries of the effects we’re having on our planet.

As reported by the Associated Press a few days ago, the wind seems to be dying down across the United States. The cause of this apparent slowing of our winds is still very speculative, as scientists disagree as to whether it’s even happening on a significant scale. But this study does suggest that average and peak winds have been on the decline since 1973, with some stations in the Midwest reporting >10% drops over the course of a decade.

Wind turbines near Mount Carmel, Iowa, stand still in December 2008.

There are enough questions that even the authors won’t say definitively whether the trend is real or not. But, with wind energy as a potential solution to part of the global warming crisis, it’s concerning that the solution might become useless by the problem.

Help someone make their crazy idea about green innovation become a reality!  The X Prize Foundation is putting on a contest that will give $25,000 to the person who dreams up the best new green-tech idea.    The winning idea will then be the basis the next X Prize, whose winner nets $10 million, and presumably makes great progress in solving the global warming situation!  There are three videos proposing different ideas that the public gets to vote on.

The three ideas include: developing a super battery or “ultracapacitor”, giving the $10 million to the community who manages to reduce its energy usage by the most over 2 years, and creating an affordable off the grid house.  To view the entries and vote, please click here: X Prize Foundation.

A little bit more information about X Prize Foundation from their website: “An X PRIZE is a $10 million+ award given to the first team to achieve a specific goal, set by the X PRIZE Foundation, which has the potential to benefit humanity. Rather than awarding money to honor past achievements or directly funding research, an X PRIZE incites innovation by tapping into our competitive and entrepreneurial spirits.

There are many types of competitions and awards around the world, but an X PRIZE is in a class by itself. What sets us apart from other non-profit organizations is our ability to frame a challenge and incentivize a solution in a way that our efforts and funds are multiplied exponentially by the teams who strive to compete and win the prize.”

Committed to doing their part to fight global warming and reduce green house gas emissions, airplane manufacturers are vowing to become less oil dependent and transition to a 30% biofuel blend in the next three to five years. Boeing spokesperson Andrew Davis declared that, “the industry has signed up to a pledge of trying to gain carbon neutral growth, which we don’t claim at any point is an easy target to make but we have to have that kind of goal.”

The great news is that the planes won’t have to be rebuilt or altered in any way in order to use biofuels. However, the big challenge lies in fulfilling the huge demand of biofuel that’s needed to get planes green.

According to Boeing’s environmental expert, Darrin Morgan, “fueling the world’s 13,000 commercial planes with soya bean-based fuel, would require setting aside the equivalent of the entire land mass of Europe for soya bean production.”

Via The Guardian.

Shrinking beaches worldwide are not a result of global warming or pollution, but rather the disappearing beaches are due to theft for construction sites.

The sand, used in the construction process for plastering and finishing, is being stolen by the truckload in the middle of night.

As a result, not only are resort towns losing their “sandy beach” qualities, but more importantly, the dearth of sand is exposing towns and once-sheltered wildlife to harsh winds, seas, and flooding.

MSNBC gives the full report here.

While most stories involving cows focus on their methane emissions and, as a result, their inherent contribution to global warming, the New York Times shines a different light on cow manure: the possibility and practice of turning it into electricity.

Given that the amount of methane gas the average dairy cow expels per day can be as much as 132 gallons, farmers might have stepped into an incredible source of alternative energy.

The Economist published two articles last week focusing on endangered and threatened species. The first of these articles, Living on the Edge, chronicles the number of animals on the verge of obliteration, citing that “of the 44,838 species considered, 16,928 are threatened with extinction, including almost a quarter of the world’s mammals.” This is a shocking number considering the many conservation programs in place around the world.  However, it tells us that these programs aren’t doing enough.

In the Amazon alone, a piece the size of Rhode Island was deforested in the second half of 2007, making way for soybean farms and taking with it all the birds, bugs, and mammals endemic to that region. Malaysia is also clearing its forests to make room for palm oil trees to be converted into biodiesel.

Reasons for species endangerment aren’t limited to deforestation, but vary from poaching to global warming to pollution. While eco tourism, heightened awareness, and conservation efforts can help some of these cases, another tool that might help save threatened species is a new database which The Economist discusses in Where the Wild Things Are. Called the Integrated Biodiversity Assessment Tool, or IBAT for short, this online database aims to “make it easier for businesses to incorporate concerns about conservation into their planning from the beginning of a project,” thereby being able to idenitify biodiverse habitats and the species that are endemic to them, and as a result, make it easier for these business to alter their building plans to preserve ecological hotspots.

From American cyclists arriving in Beijing wearing surgical masks to front-page photos of gray, haze-obscured Olympic venues, the lead-up to the 2008 Olympic Games was congested with complaints and controversy surrounding Beijing’s poor air quality. Focusing a significant amount of energy on the faults of the Chinese government, major American media outlets featured Chief Medical Editors and Air Quality Correspondents in order to highlight Beijing’s “poor preparation” and “failed attempts” to purge smog from the city’s skyline. Throughout this process, there was little mention of the drastic and progressive measures that the city of Beijing undertook in an effort to successfully reduce pollution for the duration of the Games. Where was the praise for the 1.1 million cars removed from Beijing streets from Aug. 8 – Aug. 24? Where was the recognition for shutting down polluting factories & harmful construction? Where was the applause for lowering city-wide pollution by over 50% in a period of only one month?

Beijing's Bird's Nest Olympic Venue surrounded by blue skies!

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