Over the last few days, there has been intense interest in our consensus paper and The Consensus Project website. The fact that the paper has been reported widely in mainstream media across the world is an important step towards reducing the gaping chasm between public perception…
Crowd-Sourcing Helps Map Global Emissions
Climate science researchers from Arizona State Univ. are launching a first-of-its-kind online “game” to better understand the sources of global warming gases. By engaging “citizen scientists,” the researchers hope to locate all the power plants around the world and quantify their carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
The game has officially begun and is housed on a website called “Ventus.” Ventus (the Latin word for wind) has a simple interface in which users enter basic information about the world’s power plants. By playing the game, people around the globe can help solve the climate change problem.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/videos/2013/05/crowd-sourcing-helps-map-global-emissionsLooks like a nice project.
A group of volunteers have given up their time over the last few years to answer the question, once and for all, as to whether the “science is settled”.People will generally defer to the judgment of experts, and they trust climate scientists on the subject of global warming.To resolve this question once and for all, we reviewed the abstracts (paragraph-long summaries) of over 12,000 peer-reviewed scientific papers published between 1991 and 2011 with the keywords “global warming” and “global climate change.” Our team was comprised of a citizen science team of two dozen volunteers from around the world. Team members’ home countries included Australia, USA, Canada, UK, New Zealand, Germany, Finland, and Italy.
Most of the ratings were done by a dozen team members, who each read more than a thousand abstracts in their spare time over the span of several months. Analysing the data and writing the paper took close to another year after that. We didn’t receive any funding or compensation for our efforts; it was entirely a voluntary effort driven by the desire to settle the issue of scientific climate consensus once and for all.
World Environment Day, June 5th
By Jessica-Africa Correspondence:This year, the world environment day, June the 5th, is set to be a…
the final straw: a future for food (documentary)
What is the future of food? This question is at the center of a multi-billion dollar industry, seeking to find the most economically profitable answer. It’s slightly amusing then, that that on a few small farms tucked away in the mountain valleys of Japan and South Korea, we found a very simple answer to this very perplexing little question.
The simple answer is found in the way we view food production, nature, and our place in the world.
Since November 2011, Patrick Lydon and Suhee Kang (from USA and South Korea, respectively) have conducted dozens of interviews with farmers in East Asia who were inspired by the late Masanobu Fukuoka, founder of the Japanese “Natural Farming” movement.
“These Japanese and Korean farmers offer a compelling way of thinking about food.”
Yet, far more than just a sustainable farming method, natural farming offers a way of thinking which might just help build a bright future for economically thriving, happy, and sustainable communities, no matter if you are a farmer or a city dweller.Current Status: In Korea (Jan - Mar 2013)
Projected Release Date: Fall 2013learn more about the final straw: http://www.finalstraw.org/index.html
Seoul Farmers Market
Photographer
Patrick Lydon – pmlydon.com
Image Notes
Seoul’s activist-turned-mayor, Won Soon Park has been taking a hacksaw to many controversial big-industry projects, and in their wake he’s been making some strong efforts to concentrate on local sustainable development and to “go green” in this city of 10 million people. One of the first steps to bringing healthy, local industry to a city, is of course, to establish farmers markets.
Local Food
Although the city has dozens of large outdoor food markets, this is Seoul’s first official farmers’ market, sponsored in part by the city. Although many American cities have multiple such markets, Seoul has been in the dark in this respect for several decades. The Seoul Farmers Market, held at Gwanghwamun Square every Saturday form 11am – 4pm, brings the area’s local farmers directly in touch with citizens, and includes local entertainment, cooking demonstrations, and a fresh food court.see more photos at http://sociecity.com/beat-on-the-street/lettuce-in-the-city
