Global warming could lead to more kittens
Eoin O'Carroll | 07.23.08
“Each year it seems to get worse and worse,” said Christina Gin, an animal shelter volunteer in Hayward, Calif., to the Hayward Daily Review earlier this month.
She was talking about the shelter’s surplus of kittens, a problem that animal shelters across the country face every summer. But lately, it seems that there have been more and more of the furry carnivores.
Ms. Gin blames global warming for the feline glut, and she’s not alone. The Humane Society has observed that kitten season, which usually starts in March and April, has been starting earlier and lasting longer.
The Kansas City infoZine quotes Nancy Peterson, manager of the Humane Society’s feral cat program, who explains how warmer weather sends female cats into heat: “The brain receives instructions to produce a hormone that basically initiates the heat cycle in a cat,” said Ms Peterson, “and those instructions are affected by the length of day and usually the rising temperatures of spring.” (more…)
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Where would America’s renewable energy come from?
Eoin O'Carroll | 07.23.08
As Al Gore remarked in his landmark speech this past Thursday, the United States has the potential to generate all of its electricity from renewable resources within its borders.
Scientists have confirmed that enough solar energy falls on the surface of the earth every 40 minutes to meet 100 percent of the entire world’s energy needs for a full year. Tapping just a small portion of this solar energy could provide all of the electricity America uses.
And enough wind power blows through the Midwest corridor every day to also meet 100 percent of US electricity demand. Geothermal energy, similarly, is capable of providing enormous supplies of electricity for America.
According to the Energy Information Administration, the average American consumes about 920 killowat-hours of electricity per month.
So where, exactly, will all this energy come from? And how do we get it from there into our wall outlets?
That’s where my new favorite website comes in. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory, part of the US Department of Energy, offers a wealth of data about America’s capacity for all kinds of nonfossil, nonnuclear energy solutions, including solar, wind, . (A big hat-tip to the Sietch Blog for directing me there.) (more…)
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Scientists: Vanishing wetlands could release “carbon bomb”
Eoin O'Carroll | 07.22.08
Draining marshes and other wetlands could hasten climate change, a group of experts meeting in Brazil this week warned.
Wetlands contain 771 tons of carbon dioxide and methane, said scientists gathered in the central western town of Cuiaba for a four-day wetlands-preservation conference hosted by the United Nations University and Brazil’s Federal University of Mato Grasso (UFMT). The world’s remaining wetlands hold about one-fifth of the world’s carbon, an amount equivalent to that currently in the atmosphere.
A UN University press release warns that continued destruction of these wetlands could unleash the stored carbon into the atmosphere:
If the decline of wetlands continues through human and climate change-related causes, scientists fear the release of carbon from these traditional sinks could compound the global warming problem significantly, says Prof. Paulo Speller, Rector of UFMT. Drained tropical swamp forests release an estimated 40 tonnes of carbon per hectare per year. Drained peat bogs release some 2.5 to 10 tonnes of carbon per hectare per year.
“We could call it the carbon bomb,” Paulo Teixeira of the Pantanal Regional Environment Program told Reuters. “It’s a very tricky situation.” (more…)
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PETA comes up with some really lame superheroes
Eoin O'Carroll | 07.22.08
The animal rights group PETA has released a list of the 10 most animal-friendly comic-book heroes, and boy is it weak.
Kicking off the list at number 10 is Aquaman, who is universally derided for having not one useful power. And it only gets worse: Captain Planet, the blue-skinned, green-mulleted, red-booty-short-wearing character cooked up by Ted Turner in 1990, makes an appearance at number 7. Further up the list, we get Beast Boy and Animal Man, two DC Comics characters whose only abilities are to mimic those of animals (and who understandably have some affinity for them).
And topping the list at number 1 is – get this – Wonder Man.
The list does include some legitimate superheroes, but for all the wrong reasons. Superman comes in at number 8 because he saved a kitten once in 2000. There’s no mention that Clark Kent is a vegetarian in “Superman: Birthright,” no small feat for a guy raised on a farm in Kansas. And Batman is ranked number 5 because his cape is made of pleather. Fair enough, but I suspect his ranking will plummet when the folks at PETA see “Dark Knight,” in which the Caped Crusader shows little compassion toward several Rottweilers sicced on him. (more…)
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How walkable is your city?
Eoin O'Carroll | 07.21.08
A website that evaluates how easy it is to get around on foot in the largest US cities has released its annual list of the most walkable cities.
The Seattle-based Walkscore.com uses Google Maps to calculate your neighborhood’s proximity to nearby amenities. The closer a shop, restaurant, school, or park is to where you live, the more points the neighborhood gets.
According to this algorithm, the 10 most walkable cities are:
1. San Francisco
2. New York
3. Boston
4. Chicago
5. Philadelphia
6. Seattle
7. Washington
8. Long Beach, Calif.
9. Los Angeles
10. Portland, Ore. (more…)Read entire post | Comments (one comment)
