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Captured by Carbon Offsets?
(Photo courtesy of focalplane @ flickr. Used under the Creative Commons license.)
Amongst friends the other day, a group discussion over carbon offsets decamped into a group debate. Two sides formed, the debate got hot, and I tried to get out. Who knew market mechanisms could be so provocative?
The trouble began over the issue of standards in the voluntary market. Whereas offset projects undertaken as a Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) have to go through multiple stages of rigorous review, ... -
Gaming For Climate Change
(Image courtesy of John Larsson @ flickr, used under the Creative Commons license.)
The thought is absurd, at first: play a game to fight climate change. I admit -- I laughed. But that was because my knowledge of video games ends roughly with the decline of Duck Hunt.
Called Climate Challenge, and created by Red Redemption Ltd., the game offers play of a different sort. Its role-play is political, and the stakes ecologically high. The premise is that, as a European leader, you set internation... -
Lessons From Hallsands: A Warning to Slapton Ley
(Photo of the ciffs at Slapton. Photo by a.mcgahern @ flickr.)
Between the lighthouse at Start Point and the beach at Slapton Sands lies the abandoned village of Hallsands. Here, on the southern coast of England, the deep red of Devonian cliffs shear off into the sea below a patchwork of farmland. The shades of green pasture and yellow grain make a madras stitched together by hedgerows and speckled with sheep. Between the sleepy summer towns, and the second homes of the wealthy, its hard to ...
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Now Playing: Whalesongs
This past Saturday night, while eating brownies and drinking wine at my sister’s place in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, I was also swimming with whales in Hawaii.
The underwater trip (simply taken in my imagination) was made possible by The Whalesong Project, a grassroots organization “dedicated to inspiring stewardship of the oceans and the environment, and to helping ‘give a microphone’ to important voices that may not be heard above the noise of the modern world.” To accomplish this m... -
Leopold’s Land Ethic, Codified into Constitutional Law?
Two years into leftist president Rafael Correa's term, Ecuadoreans are today voting on whether to adopt a new constitution that reflects Correa's ambitious agenda. If enacted -- and all signs are that it will be -- the 444-article document would become the nation's 20th constitution.
I don't presume any particular knowledge of Ecuador's politics or to be remotely qualified to judge the overall merits of this sprawling document, but I will say that in at least one respect it appears to be a fir...
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Cities As Segregated Green Spaces
Given the practical impossibilities of counting each and every American, census data is rarely black and white. But it is always suggestive, and it has nearly always been racially charged.
And so it was with recent census data that suggested two trends. Each trend relates peripherally to the environment, reflects racial divides, and forces an ounce of justice.
According to a recent New York Times article, the great tide of "white flight" has turned. Newly released census data shows whites are... -
Photo Essay: Making Sustainable Farming Sustainable
Editor's note: this photo essay is a follow-up to Rachel Leventhal's audio documentary Searching for Farming's Future in Its Past, presented as an OnEarth Podcast in September 2007. We're thrilled to note that the piece was recently chosen by the Third Coast International Audio Festival as a winner of a 2008 "Best Documentary" award.
Last year, while working on a series of features about the impact individuals can make on their world, I spent a couple of days at Jonathan and Nina White's Bobol...
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The Price of Crossing the Ocean
What is the price of crossing an ocean?
The price has varied over time. For the millions of Irish immigrants fleeing the potato famine of the 1840s, they could buy a ticket beginning around $10. For those unlucky enough to board the Titanic, a first class ticket cost them around £870. A third class ticket cost between £3 and £8.
I too recently crossed the Atlantic. Having been fortunate enough to win a Marshall Scholarship for two years of study in Oxford, I recently boarded a Britis...
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Are We Really Going to Ride Fossil Fuels to the Bitter End?
Journalist Andrew Nikiforuk -- who a year ago gave OnEarth Canada's Highway to Hell, a memorably sharp portrait of the abomination that is Alberta's sprawling tar-sands oil field -- has a full-length book coming out next month. Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent will map out in painstaking detail the dystopia that U.S. demand for oil is fast making a reality; check out a small excerpt from the book.
Nikiforuk's OnEarth piece sticks with me, grouped in my mind with a story abou...
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Unemployment Rates Could Fall, Says New Report
While on vacation, I missed my chance to blog about the nation’s newest report on green jobs right when it was released. However, the research brings to the table a batch of conclusions so important, that they are still newsy one week later.
The report, “Green Recovery – A Program to Create Good Jobs and Start Building a Low-Carbon Economy,” is a continuation of the story that I began telling in the current issue of OnEarth magazine: that of green jobs, and how a movement toward a gre...
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