Welcome to the eKos Earthship, your one-stop-shop for great environmental diaries and series.
Be sure to follow us on Twitter! And if you can't wait for the eKos Earthship post, you can get your fill of eco-diaries at our regularly updated database.
Beneath the fold you will find today's table of eco-diaries, a letter from WarrenS (he has many), our environmental pic of the day, a couple of news items, an introduction to the eKos Rangers, and an appeal for an eKos logo/banner. Enjoy!
Today's editor: patrickz
Today's eco-diaries:
Yesterday's eco-diaries:
Also, don't forget to check out these eco-series:
(All times Eastern!)
Listed diaries do not necessarily represent the views of the eKos editors and rangers.
Note: We will be keeping an archive of the listed diaries. You can access it here.
And in case you missed it, check out MB's Green Diary Rescue!
Announcements
Introducing the eKos Rangers
In no particular order:
Regina in a Sears Kit House
boatsie
Hopeful Skeptic
RLMiller
Ellinorianne
Earthfire
A Siegel
dRefractor
Please give them some mojo if you see them, they deserve it!
Calling all artists!
If eKos is going to be a proper series, we need a banner and/or logo. I'm not artistically inclined, and my better half is incredibly busy. Please e-mail me if you are willing to help out.
Vote!
Be sure to vote in the poll to name the eKos series! I'm including a couple of names that were suggested last week, as well as the top results from the previous poll.
News Items
Biodiversity Targets Unmet from BBC
Panamanian golden frog by Brian Gratwicke
2010 is the United Nations International Year of Biodiversity. Sadly, but not unexpectedly, the signatory governments are not living up to their word. We are not doing enough to reverse what is coming to be known as the Sixth Great Extinction Event:
"Our analysis shows that governments have failed to deliver on the commitments they made in 2002," said research leader Stuart Butchart, from the UN Environment Programme's World Conservation Monitoring Centre (Unep-WCMC) and BirdLife International.
"Biodiversity is still being lost as fast as ever, and we have made little headway in reducing the pressures on species, habitats and ecosystems."
Unep chief scientist Joseph Alcamo added: "Since 1970, we have reduced animal populations by 30%, the area of mangroves and seagrasses by 20% and the coverage of living corals by 40%.
"These losses are clearly unsustainable."
Melting Sea Ice a Major Cause of Arctic Warming from Science Daily
Arctic Sunset by artic pj
No, that isn't a typo. Melting sea ice is both an effect and a cause of warming in the Arctic. Scientists had suspected the mechanism for this feedback, but now have solid proof:
Lead author Dr James Screen of the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Melbourne says the increased Arctic warming was due to a positive feedback between sea ice melting and atmospheric warming.
"The sea ice acts like a shiny lid on the Arctic Ocean. When it is heated, it reflects most of the incoming sunlight back into space. When the sea ice melts, more heat is absorbed by the water. The warmer water then heats the atmosphere above it. "
"What we found is this feedback system has warmed the atmosphere at a faster rate than it would otherwise," he says.
Melting Icebergs Cause Sea Level Rise by Science Daily
by Rita Willaert
First typos, and now violating the laws of physics? Again, the devil is in the details:
According to Archimedes' principle, any floating object displaces its own weight of fluid. For example, an ice cube in a glass of water does not cause the glass to overflow as it melts. But because sea water is warmer and more salty than floating ice, changes in the amount of this ice are having an effect on global sea levels.
The loss of floating ice is equivalent to 1.5 million Titanic-sized icebergs each year. However, the study shows that spread across the global oceans, recent losses of floating ice amount to a sea level rise of just 49 microns (μm) per year -- about a hair's breadth.
49 microns is nothing! So why are we worried about melting icebergs? I'll let the author explain:
According to lead author Professor Andrew Shepherd, of the University of Leeds, it would be unwise to discount this signal. "Over recent decades there have been dramatic reductions in the quantity of Earth's floating ice, including collapses of Antarctic ice shelves and the retreat of Arctic sea ice," said Prof Shepherd.
"These changes have had major impacts on regional climate and, because oceans are expected to warm considerably over the course of the 21st century, the melting of floating ice should be considered in future assessments of sea level rise."
BBC tells the truth, then tones it down
I have two headlines for you about the BP oil leak spill deluge:
Oil reaches coast in US disaster from BBC
Oil 'reaches' coast in US spill from BBC
The former was the top headline on the BBC News website last night, and the latter is from the same story from this morning. I'm not speculating on the motive for the shift in tone, I'm just noting that it happened. To be fair, BBC still has a headline calling it the catastrophe that it is.
A Letter from WarrenS:
WarrenS made a New Year's Resolution to write a letter advocating climate action every day. The result is over one hundred letters to congresspeople, newspapers, President Obama, and more. Warren has even been published in the New York Times and the Boston Globe.
Before we get to today's piece, Warren has an important message:
To anyone who feels like writing a letter...
...please (please!) visit my site. Find a letter or letters that suit your taste. There's music, too, not to mention India photoblogging and a bunch of other good stuff (like a funny piece about hippies).
Rearrange the sentences, reverse the order of the clauses, substitute some synonyms, tweak some analogies and call it yours.
That's how I write mine; the actual work of finding and presenting the information is done for the most part by e-kossacks like A Siegel, RL Miller, Patrickz, DWG and many others. I steal their stuff, mess with it a little bit, and sign my name to it.
As Brahms said, "Mediocre composers plagiarize. Great composers steal." Dare to be great! Steal my stuff!
Today's letter, which was inspired by a diary by Historian, was addressed to the office of our favorite anti-science nut-job and all around moran, Oklahoma Republican Jim Inhofe:
Dear Staffers in Senator Inhofe’s Office —
Let’s say a hundred health inspectors went over a restaurant. And ninety-seven of them said, "This food is unsafe; it’ll probably make you sick." Would you eat there?
Or let’s say you were buying a house, and a hundred home inspectors looked at it — and three of them said, "It’s probably okay," while the other ninety-seven said, "This building is definitely unsafe." Would you buy the house?
Or let’s say you found a lump. And a hundred oncologists looked at it. And ninety-seven of them said, "It’s cancer. Let’s get started on treatment." Would you get started on treatment, or would you go with the three who said, "Maybe not?"
Or let’s say you’re the President, and a hundred C.I.A. counter-terrorism experts came to you...and ninety-seven of them said "Al-Qaeda is going to carry off a major operation," while three of them said "It might not happen." Would you put our national security system on high alert?
I’m asking you this question rather than Senator Inhofe himself, because I don’t believe this letter will reach him...but there’s a chance one of you will read it, and perhaps wonder:
Given that the answers to the first four questions are pretty obvious, why is it that when ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that humans are causing climate change, Senator Inhofe is so strongly in favor of doing nothing?
He wouldn’t want to eat tainted food, or buy a house that was going to fall down around him, or ignore a cancer diagnosis...or put the nation at risk by ignoring a warning of a terrorist attack. Would he?
Then why is he putting our nation (and our planet) at risk now?
And, more to the point, why are you helping him do it?
Our grandchildren will not be kind to the memory of Senator Inhofe and those who assisted him.
Just ask yourself this question: What if the ninety-seven percent of climatologists are right?
Think about it. Please. For all our sakes.
Yours Sincerely,
WarrenS
Environmental Pic of the Day
by phault
Today we have a photograph of a wind turbine in the Thames Estuary. The US will soon have its very first offshore wind farm:
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today approved the Cape Wind renewable energy project on federal submerged lands in Nantucket Sound, but will require the developer of the $1 billion wind farm to agree to additional binding measures to minimize the potential adverse impacts of construction and operation of the facility.
The Cape Wind project would be the first wind farm on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf, generating enough power to meet 75 percent of the electricity demand for Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket Island combined. The project would create several hundred construction jobs and be one of the largest greenhouse gas reduction initiatives in the nation, cutting carbon dioxide emissions from conventional power plants by 700,000 tons annually. That is equivalent to removing 175,000 cars from the road for a year.
About eKos
The Idea
This project was inspired by the Earth Day @ DKos Blogathon. In case you missed it, we had 31 participating environmental diaries, all of which were linked to in the Mothership. During the event we had several requests for an eco-mothership diary series in the mould of the Earth Day effort.
The Mission
eKos is all about promoting community eco-diaries. Daily Kos already showcases several series, but sometimes the work of dedicated green diarists pass off the recent diary list hardly noticed. Our goal is to make these diaries more accessible. In the process we hope to build community and bring in a broader audience to the exceptional environmental writing here at DK.
eKos Schedule
Ideally, we would like to post a mothership diary every day. Considering most of us have busy schedules, this may be an unattainable goal. For now, we'll post as often as we can. Mothership diaries will be posted in the morning (exact time TBD) and updated throughout the day. Eventually, we may reserve one day a week to post an edited environmental diary with the eKos handle.
How eKos Works
If you want a diary included in the list, please let us know by leaving a comment. We'll do our best to search out green diaries, but are bound to miss a few. For eKos to live up to it's full potential, eco-diarists will need to post a link to the mothership at the end of their diary. This will provide readers with easy access to other recent environmental diaries.
Requirements
eKos is meant to be inclusive, but we will have standards for quality and content of listed diaries. (As long as you don't violate site rules and have a modicum of relevant, original content, you should be fine.)
'eKos' tag
If your diary gets listed, we'll ask you to add the eKos tag to your diary.
Contact
You can follow us on Twitter
If you are interested in becoming an eco-ranger for eKos, or just want some more info, e-mail ekos350atgmaildotcom