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8 Breakthrough Innovations Saving Our Ocean  

By Matthew Mulrennan

This post by Matt Mulrennan originally appeared in National Geographic's Ocean Views.

Our ocean remains the greatest mystery on planet Earth. The ocean takes up 70% of our blue planet, yet we've only explored 5% of it. The ocean suffers from many urgent grand challenges - we don't know enough about the ocean, too much pollution is going in, and too many fish and other animals are coming out.

Thankfully, ocean-related technology is riding the innovation wave, and we're seeing some really amazing breakthroughs in ocean health and exploration.

This World Oceans Day, we're celebrating eight amazing innovations that are helping to save our ocean.

Please share your favorite ocean innovations with #TeamOcean.

8. Snotbot

The "Snotbot" can hover above a whale to collect mucus from a whale's blow to gain valuable biological information like stress hormones, without stressing the animal.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and drones are improving biological research, monitoring coastal waters to scan for illegal activity and enforcing marine protected areas. They can also be used to make epic videos of a stampeding 'megapod' of dolphins.

7. Fishface

Fishface by the Nature Conservancy is an affordable fish identification tool being used for population assessments in Indonesia.

The technology that automatically tags you in a picture on Facebook is being applied to counting and describing fish stocks. Facial recognition and visual computing software are revolutionizing the process of counting fish and fisheries managers are using this information to make fisheries more sustainable.

6. Whale Alert App

The Whale Alert 2.0 App alerts mariners about the potential presence of whales to avoid deadly ship strikes, a leading cause of death for these protected species.

Whale Alert provides recommended routes to avoid whales and allows you to report when whales are in distress, such as being entangled in fishing gear. New innovative apps allow people to track marine debris, check fisheries regulations, visualize pollution and contribute observations to citizen science.

5. SkySails

Cargo ships with high altitude sails, like SkySails, can save 10-30% on daily fuel use.

About 90% of all global trade uses large cargo ships. The fuels burned by the global shipping fleet are a major contributor to climate change and ocean acidification, which are already harming marine life. But green shipping initiatives are saving fuel through improved hull design, breakthrough propellers, and simply slowing down ships.

4. Global Fishing Watch

Global Fishing Watch is a platform to monitor global fishing activity run by SkyTruth, Oceana and Google. It pools together historical data from a satellite-based vessel monitoring system and uses an algorithm to assess where fishing has occurred.

With advancement in tools like this for global fisheries monitoring, the writing is on the wall for taking down lots of illegal 'pirate' fishers. Argh.

3. Saildrone

Saildrone is an autonomous wind-propelled sailing vessel that can conduct scientific missions independently in rough weather for months.

95% of the ocean is still largely unexplored, and unmanned vessels are transforming oceanography by cutting down on expensive research ships that cost upwards of $50,000 per day to operate. Increasing autonomy for ocean exploration is a goal of the $7 million Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE, and team registration is still open!

2. Edible Six-Pack Rings

Saltwater Brewery has developed an edible and biodegradable six-pack ring out of wheat and barley from their brewing process. Nom.

There are 5 trillion pieces of plastics in the ocean causing $13 billion per year in damage to marine ecosystems. To solve ocean plastic pollution globally requires disruptive "moonshot" technologies in materials design for more benign packaging products, a circular economic approach that never allows plastics to become waste, as well as basic waste management in more cities and countries to stop the leakage of plastics into the ocean.

1. Live Dives

The Fish Eye Project is broadcasting a live SCUBA dive online today June 8th. You can tune in and submit questions to the diver via #LiveDive.

We are the first humans that can watch things happening live in the ocean from our computers or phones, and interact with the divers and robots. This is great for ocean exploration, and expanding access to the ocean to exponentially more people. The cutting edge in this field is high-definition, 360-degree cameras propelling footage immediately into virtual reality headsets from hard to reach habitats like the deep-sea. These interactive technologies will hopefully usher in a wave, better yet a tsunami, of new ocean explorers and innovators.

---

Matthew Mulrennan is the lead of the Ocean Initiative at XPRIZE - a commitment to conduct five ocean XPRIZE competitions, and put us on a path to making the ocean healthy, valued and understood.

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Pseudoscorpion (Micr  

Pseudoscorpion (Microbisium sp.) collected in Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, and photographed at the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics (sample ID: BIOUG14077-A08; specimen record: http://www.boldsystems.org/index.php/Public_RecordView?processid=SSGBB1807-14; BIN: http://www.boldsystems.org/index.php/Public_BarcodeCluster?clusteruri=BOLD:AAB2507)

 
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A Time To Choose  
In the new documentary Time To Choose, director Charles Ferguson posits that there is a way to change the trajectory of climate change. The tools for arresting a dismal future are already in play, being pushed forward by innovators and thinkers who recognize the pressing need.

For me, the biggest takeaway from the information-packed narrative was the unvarnished greed of a select few. Their agenda keeps the majority mired in poverty, lacking energy equity, and sick with chemically induced illnesses.

The movie is predicated on a breakdown of the prime engines of climate change:

• Burning coal, oil, and natural gas
• Urban sprawl
• Deforestation and industrial agriculture

Even novices to the subject of climate disruption are aware that the earth's temperature has risen, due to the release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. The frequency and intensity of hurricanes, droughts, and heat waves are part of the story. Supplies of fresh water are in danger, as are coral reefs and ocean life. Global sea levels have risen eight inches. If the ice sheets of Greenland totally melt, sea levels will rise twenty-three feet -- with cities from New York to Tokyo being submerged.

Estimates predict that by 2050 we will have reached the tipping point. Ferguson drives home the theme that the "next six to 10 years are crucial."

Two-thirds of global warming is the result of burning fossil fuels. A shift to renewables is essential, leaving untapped fuels in the earth.

As California Gov. Jerry Brown points out, "There will be a lot of adversaries."

Fossil fuel oligarchs, in America and abroad, have not accepted the premise. The energy industry expended $650 billion in 2013 for "exploration to identify new reserves." Currently, the annual global revenue of the six largest oil corporations amounts to $2 trillion. (The film extended invitations to company titans for interviews, but no one responded.)



Ferguson traveled to five continents to tell the stories of how average people are impacted.

Goldman Prize winner, Maria Gunnoe, who has been fighting the coal industry in West Virginia, is interviewed about the deadly consequences of mountaintop coal mining in Boone County. First, a mountain is deforested and then it is detonated spewing lead, mercury, and arsenic into the air. Over five hundred mountains in Appalachia have been destroyed this way, with a million acres leveled. Pockets of bronchus and lung cancers, as well as brain tumors, have been evidenced. In addition to local streams becoming polluted, Appalachia is the source for headwaters serving the eastern United States.

In America, coal kills tens of thousands of people. In Asia, it kills millions of people. Coal serves as the primary source of China's energy. They consume the same amount as the rest of the world, combined. Like those who live in Appalachia, rural workers are poor. They have little resources or protections against those with political power, often corrupt officials who ensure that mining deaths go unreported. Those who work in underground Chinese mines have life spans of 49 years old, ten years less than surface coal miners and twenty-six years less than the average Chinese citizen.

Yet, China is a top innovator in the renewable energy production of solar panels. Electric vehicles are also being rolled out in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen. It's predicted that by 2025, electric cars will be both competitive and cheaper to operate.

Nobel Prize winner in Physics and previous U.S.  Energy Secretary, Steven Chu, emphasizes that the cost of renewable energy is dropping and is poised to become the low-cost option. Lyndon Rive, co-founder of SolarCity, sees solar as the route to "disrupt" climate change.

While solar and wind are growing rapidly in Europe, there are over a billion people around the world who have never accessed electricity. Kumi Naidoo, of Greenpeace International, is on hand to connect the dots between the lack of electricity and global poverty, education deficits, and climate change. Pointing to Kenya, he references the use of solar power in that country as "revolutionary."

A look at how Nigeria became a "centralized petrostate" is particularly unsettling. Chevron and Shell, among others, have exploited the Niger Delta; the country became rife with corruption and inequality as "85 percent of the government revenues were dominated by crude oil." Environment lawyer and activist, Oronto Douglas, speaks about a "deeply unequal society," built on violence and environmental destruction, alongside widespread poverty. Since 1960, Nigerian oil revenues have hit the $600 billion mark. Douglas notes, "90 percent of of these dollars went to 1 percent of the population."

Architect and Urban Designer, Peter Calthorpe, has been working on sustainable urban development since 1976. "The energy the planet needs is defined by how we live," he states. He asks rhetorically if we will design sustainable cities, or continue with "high-density sprawl?"

Reevaluating how we eat and use land and natural resources cannot be overlooked. Growing grain to feed livestock for meat now takes up 30 percent of the earth's land. Deforestation in the Amazon has led to Brazil suffering water shortages. Indonesian forests are being destroyed to make way for oil palm plantations -- displacing animals and exploiting local labor for less than 4 dollars a day.

Dr. Jane Goodall exclaims, "It's pretty shocking when you think of the vast destruction of the forests."

Founder of the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Program, Ian Singleton, sums it up succinctly. "The battle is not to just save orangutans. It's a battle to save everything." In Singleton's view, it's the forests, animal species, and indigenous communities vs. the "bank accounts of the super-rich."



Citizens of the world will have to decide if they have the moral will to push back against entrenched powers and mindsets, while rethinking their own personal lifestyles.



Contact Your Governor to Protect the Clean Power Plan from Big-Money Polluters!

This article originally appeared on the website Moms Clean Air Force


Photos: Courtesy of Time To Choose

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State Electric Vehicle Rebates Need Long-term Stability: Programs in California and Other States May be At Risk  
With many environmental safeguards on the books and several major cities on their way to 100% clean energy, California is helping guide the United States to a clean energy future. One of the ways the state has been doing that is through electric vehicle (EV) promotion.

Governor Jerry Brown and the state legislature have been staunch advocates for EVs, which are much lower in greenhouse gas emissions than conventional cars, even when factoring in electricity emissions. With support from many advocacy groups, they put in place the Charge Ahead California Initiative, which explicitly outlines a goal of placing 1 million electric vehicles on the road by 2023.

One of the best ways to achieve that ambitious goal has been the state-funded Clean Vehicle Rebate Project, or CVRP, which seeks to promote electric vehicle purchases by reducing the upfront costs of EVs. The project gives consumers $2,500 for the purchase of battery powered electric vehicles and $1,500 for the purchase of plug-in electric vehicles, with an extra $1,500 for lower income customers. For a car with a sticker price of $25,000 or $35,000, a potential $2,000-3,500 rebate, plus a federal tax credit of up to $7,500, is key to making electric vehicles accessible to many Californians.

But now, the CVRP is caught in the crossfires of a political impasse: $1.4 billion CVRP dollars are on hold as an incentive for lawmakers to reach a deal that will extend California's embattled cap-and-trade system. Without the funds, the electric car subsidy, which has helped Californians purchase more than 150,000 low- and zero-emission cars since 2009, may cease to exist. If they applied for the EV rebate after June 10, California EV drivers are placed on a waitlist and may or may not receive their funds.

EV rebate programs need long-term certainty for consumers, dealers, and automakers to feel confident. Without certainty of a rebate, many consumers are hesitant to explore the possibility of EVs. Without knowing when EV rebates will expire, many auto dealers and auto makers are hesitant to invest in providing EV inventory to particular states.

Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Rhode Island must also solidify their EV rebate programs. In Massachusetts, for instance, nearly 75% of recent rebate recipients indicated the rebate was an important factor in purchasing their electric vehicles. We applaud these states for implementing these programs, but to maintain their efficacy, long-term funding needs to be established. Without careful allocation of funds, rebate programs could go the same way as Illinois' Green Fleets Program, which was suspended in 2014 due to a lack of funding.

Massachusetts and Connecticut just received boosts of $2 million and $1 million, respectively, to support their EV rebate programs MOR-EV and CHEAPR, a promising step, but these programs are still not yet funded with long-term certainty.

By setting longer terms until renewal, state policymakers can better achieve their EV deployment goals. Even though California has experienced relative success in EV adoption, the market is still considered fledgling: only 3% of vehicles on the road are currently EVs, and it's much lower in other states.

For optimal market penetration in the future, stable and long-term government incentives are needed now. For any new product that has societal benefits, consumer rebates or other incentives are an important way to shift public adoption, and cost or uncertainty should not be a barrier to anyone wishing to switch to an electric vehicle.

Sierra Club intern Caroline Heilbrun contributed to this article.

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Historic Agreement Paves Way for Alliance Between Labor and Environmentalists  
For too long, the interests of labor and environmental groups have cleaved through the Democratic Party. The transition to clean energy has stressed this relationship further: as carbon-based sources of power come under fire, the union jobs that go along with them (workers at power plants) are being replaced by low-wage, non-union positions (think solar panel installers, who frequently make minimum wage).

This trend has contributed to the hollowing out of the middle class, and has been watched with unease by those concerned with income inequality. And it frequently pits environmentalists against the labor movement - two forces that should be powerful allies in the fight against growing corporate power.

That's why last week's agreement to phase out the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant - and take care of the workers there - is historic. It provides a new model for labor and environmentalists - one that provides green power without tossing aside middle-class jobs.

Diablo Canyon currently supplies California with ten percent of its energy. And it provides good middle-class jobs, with benefits, to over 1,000 union members. But Pacific Gas and Electric, the utility that distributes the power, was concerned that California's energy policies are increasingly making operation of a base load plant like Diablo Canyon financially unsound.

Closing the plant in short order would have created havoc in the energy market and thrown over 1,000 people out of work. But environmental groups (including Friends of the Earth, the National Resource Defense Council and others) agreed that a safe and organized phase-out, one lasting over the next eight to nine years, could drive the replacement of nuclear power with other carbon-free sources (as it did at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station). And they didn't flinch at a generous retention package designed to keep the skilled, experienced, and professional workers needed for the operation and maintenance of the plant on the job.

So parties that are usually at odds - the union that represents Diablo's operating and maintenance workers, the environmental groups and even PG&E - worked out an agreement to eventually shutter Diablo Canyon, replace its energy with solar, wind and other green sources, and take care of the workers there.

That is historic. All sides had to give, but all sides were willing to accept the very good and not insist on the perfect. In my long experience in California's energy industry, I can tell you that in deals like this, the workers are often ignored. But not here - the progressive, generous treatment of Diablo's workers make this a win for labor.

Continued operation of Diablo Canyon would have been better from where I sit, but this is a pro-worker ending to a story that might well have ended poorly. And it should serve as a model for future deals. Labor and environmental groups must learn to work together, because no industry is sustainable if its workers are disposable.

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Earth To Bernie Sanders: You Are Our Only Hope  
In the tight race between Sanders and Clinton, it is the superdelegates who will decide who the Democratic nominee is. But there's one ultra-superdelegate that hasn't weighed in yet: the Earth.

Sure, the Earth isn't a person, but neither are corporations, yet they are considered people by the U.S. Supreme Court, allowing them to buy politicians and influence elections. So why can't the Earth have its say?



It may seem strange for a Canadian who works in the freight industry to chime in on the Earth's perspective of the U.S. presidential election, but hear me out.

My husband and I run a technology startup making shipping more efficient while reducing emissions from freight transportation. Last month we were honored to share our vision of a green future for freight in the G7 Summit publication, Climate Change: The New Economy.

On a more personal note, we immigrated to Vancouver, Canada from sunny California in 2003 to get away from ground-level ozone pollution that was causing severe asthma in our son. Some of our friends thought we were "Bush-dodgers", but in fact we were environmental refugees.

The Earth certainly doesn't approve of climate change-denier, Donald Trump. We don't even need to have that discussion. But what about Hillary Clinton?

I believe the Earth was pleased to see Sanders push Hillary Clinton left on environmental issues during the Democratic debates. He caused her to flip-flop on her stances on the TPP and fracking. However, considering she helped promote both around the world, and changed her position on nuclear energy several times, the Earth took her new "stances" with a grain of sea salt.

And then there was that time last November when Clinton said she'd do away with the coal industry if elected president, only to retract that statement 6 months later. Just wait until she secures the nomination and starts moving further right.

Also, don't forget that Greenpeace has documented "the campaign to elect Hillary Clinton for president in 2016 has received more than $6.9 million from lobbyists, bundlers, and large donors connected to the fossil fuel industry." They surely expect something in return.

To make matters worse, the US military is responsible for the largest and most egregious pollution of the planet. The New York Times would like to remind us, citizens of Earth, that Clinton is the only true war hawk left in the race, outranking Trump.

So without even zooming into details of Bernie Sander's leadership in the fight against the Keystone Pipeline, his anti-war and anti-nuclear positions or his extensive plans to fight the fossil fuel industry and invest in clean, sustainable energy, it comes as no surprise that the Earth would like to officially endorse Bernie Sanders as the President of the United States.

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Mountaineering ants use body heat to warm nests  
Underground army ants can keep their nests -- called bivouacs -- warm with their body heat; this social warming may enable fragile offspring to survive in chilly mountain forests, according to researchers.  
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Top 5 Reasons To Ban Oil Trains Immediately  
On Friday, June 3rd, a crude oil train traveled through the scenic Columbia River Gorge, a national treasure and one of the most beautiful spots in a country blessed with some of the most stunning places on Earth. It went slowly through the small town of Mosier, Ore. Children sat in class, no doubt looking forward to the weekend, people stopped by the post office, enjoying the rituals of small town life. Then the ground shook. Explosions rocked the area and a plume of thick black smoke snaked its way into the sky. The oil train had derailed a few hundred yards from that school, a few hundred yards from the city center. Four railcars spilled and caught fire -- and tens of thousands of gallons of burning North Dakota Bakken crude created an inferno.

This disaster occurred as Stand and our many allies in the Crude Awakening Network were preparing for the third annual Stop Oil Trains Week of Action, planning dozens of events across the US and Canada between July 6-12 to mark the solemn anniversary of the tragic Lac Megantic oil train disaster on July 6, 2013. The Mosier derailment drove home, once again, why oil trains are too dangerous for the rails. And why Stand is asking President Obama for an immediate ban on oil trains.

Here are the top five reasons Stand, joined by hundreds of groups, community leaders, and elected officials, are calling for a ban on deadly oil trains.

1. 25 million Americans live in the oil train "blast zone".
The US rail system was built to connect population centers, not move millions of gallons of toxic, flammable crude oil. But the oil industry is doing exactly that, sending explosive crude down the tracks right through our cities and by the homes of 25 million Americans. At Stand, we have mapped oil train routes with our Blast Zone map. You can use the map to see if your home, school, or office is inside the dangerous one-mile evacuation area. One clear finding from analyzing America's blast zone: vulnerable populations like environmental justice communities and school children are clearly in harm's way.

2. Oil trains can't be operated safely.
Federal safety standards won't improve oil train safety. Federal legislation, promises by the railroads, and federal regulations- weakened by years of interagency battles between the Federal Railroad Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board -- have all come to very little. Former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board Jim Hall, in a June 2016 op-ed advocating a ban on crude oil trains, put it simply: "Carrying crude oil by rail is just not a good idea." That's because it cannot be done safely. Period.

Thorough reporting by DeSmog Blog on the weak existing federal regulatory standards and the oil and rail industry's failure to meet them demonstrates there have been no improvements on the safety of the 100,000 unsafe tank cars in the US fleet. Only a few hundred of these 100,000 dangerous tank cars have been retrofitted, and cars updated to the newest tank car standard will still puncture at just a few miles an hour faster than the current tank cars.

After 2025, there may be marginal improvements in the tank cars and procedures associated with oil trains. But trains will still derail, and crude will still leak and ignite.

3. Oil train fires can't be controlled.
When an oil train derails at any speed over the puncture velocity of roughly 10 miles an hour a dozen or so cars typically come off the tracks, decouple and are thrown from their wheels. Tank cars are easily punctured, and the crude (either Bakken or diluted tar sands, both highly volatile) can either self-ignite or be sparked by a nearby ignition source.

Once the spilled oil from an oil train disaster ignites, the primary task of emergency responders is to evacuate the area due to toxic plumes, fire, and potential explosions. We write more about the difficulties here, but Bruce Goetsch, a county emergency manager in Iowa, had this advice: "Make sure your tennis shoes are on and start running." Or listen to the Washington State Council of Fire Fighters, which delivered a letter to Washington Governor Inslee on June 8 demanding an immediate halt to crude rail movement and stating that, "these fires are exceedingly difficult to extinguish, even under unusually ideal circumstances."

4. We don't need the oil these dangerous trains carry.
Oil trains in North America carry extreme fracked crude oil from the Bakken formation in North Dakota and Saskatchewan, or diluted bitumen from tar sands deposits in Alberta. We don't need any of this crude oil. According to the most recent information from the US Energy Information Administration, shipments of crude by rail represent only 2.5 percent of the 19 million barrel daily US oil demand. At the same time, the US exports more than five million barrels of oil per day. So the US is exporting ten times more than the 513,000 barrels of crude that is moving by rail each day. The crude moving by train contributes nothing to our energy supply. If we stopped all oil trains tomorrow Americans would never notice the difference at the gas pumps - but we would all be safer, especially the 25 million Americans living in the blast-zone.

5. Oil trains are taking us in the wrong direction.
The dangerous, unnecessary, carbon-intensive crude oil moving by train through North American cities and towns is a new phenomenon. Before 2008, crude oil rarely, if ever, moved by train. Oil companies see this oil as the future. We see a future where we leave extreme crude oil in the ground and use decreasing amounts of conventional oil as we transition to 100 percent clean energy.

The climate accords in Paris followed by the April 2016 United Nations resolution put the United States and the rest of the world on a clear, inevitable path toward reducing fossil fuels from our energy supply. These dangerous oil trains carrying extreme oil are, quite simply, not part of that future: they fail the public safety test, the energy security test, and the climate test.

Forty-seven people died in the Lac Megantic oil train disaster three years ago. Only incredible luck prevented Mosier, OR from being another Lac Megantic. It was a dead-calm day in one of the windiest part of the US, otherwise the fire could have spread quickly to more derailed cars, to surrounding forests, homes, and even to the nearby school. This was another close call, one of more than a dozen major oil train disasters over the last three years that could have been much worse. We need to end this unnecessary and unacceptable threat before our luck runs out.

This is not a radical request. In fact, the Governors of Oregon and Washington have asked for a moratorium on oil trains. Join them -- and Stand: Please join us in asking President Obama for an immediate ban on oil trains.

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Building Your Own Home From Open Source Blocks  
What if your next house were to cost 1/10th of the average home while sporting a long list of high-tech hyper-ecological features? With the help of the Open Building Institute (OBI), which is designing affordable, ecological housing accessible to everyone - you may be able to do just that.

In the good old days people built their own homes. My grandfather built his and lived in it with his family for decades. However, as homes and their sub-systems have become more complex along with ever more stringent building codes, few can claim to be able to replicate such a feat. OBI hopes to change that.

OBI is a new initiative that is creating a library of engineered modules and a series of rapid-build procedures to quite literally help anyone build an affordable home. The basic idea is if you can follow an instructable you should be able to follow a few of them - and if the modules are well organized and complete you could finish off a whole house with a few friends.



OBI is following the same open source methodology that has made the Internet so successful --- sharing the source code with a free license. Google and Facebook and many other Internet companies use open source software on the backend because large scale collaboration generally leads to superior technology. Open source hardware follows the same approach from electronics to 3-D printers.

There is a rapidly growing list of open source hardware projects, which are bringing millions of dollars of value to the world. Now OBI is adding 'house' to the list.

In this case, rather than sharing computer code, OBI is sharing a toolkit that is open source and available free of charge--forever. The toolkit includes a library of modular designs (think of them like building blocks), detailed instructions, software, and even the open source machines (for construction and production of building materials following the Open Source Ecology model). Users can design their own house using open source software, and can also contribute designs to the project.



Rapid Builds, Affordable Housing
The preliminary designs are stacked with high-tech ecological features including a building integrated solar photovoltaic roof, in floor hydronic heating, and a biodigester. They aim to achieve Living Building Challenge certification in 2017, which is the highest standard for eco-construction. The standard OBI house model is off-grid (a recent study indicates this may be economic for many people in the U.S.) and will have an Aquaponic Greenhouse option, which produces all the fish and vegetables that a family can eat.



OBI follows a rapid build approach where they can train non-specialists to put up the house in 5 days. If you have ever heard about an Amish barn raising you have the idea.




They have already built a demonstration home - the plans of which anyone is free to copy.


However, not everyone literally wants to build their own house. So the initiative plans to offer a turnkey build service to prospective homeowners in 2017 using an immersion training program for builders--to expand OBI build services to other locations (they are located in Missouri). They are using the now somewhat standardized Open Source Ecology Extreme Manufacturing workflow, which the organization developed over 12 previous builds at its Missouri headquarters.

Are you interested in building your own green home?

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The New Landscape Declaration: Visions For The Next 50 Years  


India's water crisis / National Geographic

Over the next 50 years, landscape architects must coordinate their actions globally to fight climate change, help communities adapt to a changing world, bring artful and sustainable parks and open spaces to every community rich or poor, preserve cultural landscape heritage, and sustain all forms of life on Earth. These were the central messages that came out the Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF)'s New Landscape Declaration: Summit on Landscape Architecture and the Future in Philadelphia, which was attended by over 700 landscape architects.

The speakers used declarations and short idea-packed talks, and attendees used cards, polls, and an interactive question and commenting app to provide input into a new declaration -- a vision to guide the efforts of landscape architects to 2066.

As the 50th anniversary of the original declaration in 1966, many landscape architects looked back to see what has been achieved over the past 50 years. At the same time, through a series of bold statements, they created an ambitious global vision moving forward. As Barbara Deutsch, FASLA, president of LAF, believes: "We are now entering the age of landscape architecture."

While not a comprehensive review of all the declarations, here are some highlights of the visions of what landscape architects must work to achieve over the next 50 years:

Landscape architects must address the "serious issues of air, water, food, and waste" in developing countries

Alpa Nawre, ASLA, assistant professor of landscape architecture, Kansas State University, called for landscape architects to focus their efforts on the developing world, where the bulk of the current population and most of the future population growth will occur. Today, of the 7.2 billion people on Earth, some 6 billion live in developing countries. There, some 100 million lack access to clean water. The global population is expected to reach 9.6 billion in coming decades, with 400 million added mostly to the cities of the global south. "To accommodate these billions, we must design better landscape systems for resource management."

Gerdo Aquino, FASLA, CEO of the SWA Group, echoed that sentiment, arguing that "in the future, there will be much more stringent regulations on natural resources" as they become rarer and more valuable. Landscape architects will play a larger role in valuing and managing those resources.

Christophe Girot, chair of landscape architecture, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, similarly saw the need for "new topical landscapes" for the 9.6 billion who will inhabit the Earth. We must "react, think creatively, and find solutions."

Landscape architects must improve upon urbanization-as-usual

Instead of pursuing idealized visions of parks that may result in "tidy little ornaments of green that make liberals feel good," Chris Marcinkowski, associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania and partner at PORT Urbanism, said landscape architects must "work with the underlying systems of urbanization and adapt them," softening them in an era when 1 billion people live in cities.

James Corner, ASLA, founder of James Corner Field Operations, pushed for accelerating urbanization in order to protect surrounding nature. "If you love nature, live in the city." He called for landscape architects to "embed beauty and pleasure in cities" in the forms of parks and gardens, because we need to make it "so that people should want to live in cities." Landscape architects must envision a denser urban world as well, and "shape the form of the future city." His vision of the future city is a "garden city" that takes advantage of the "landscape imagination." And Charles Waldheim, Hon. ASLA, chair of landscape architecture at Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and Henri Bava, founding partner, Agence TER, similarly made the case for a new "landscape-led urbanism" rooted in ecological processes.

David Gouverneur, associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania, called for applying novel approaches to the informal communities in which he works in Venezuela, where the conventional planning and design process fails. He proposed retrofitting these places through his "informal armature approach," which can create both pathways and communal nodes but also areas of flexible growth that allows "locals to invade and occupy." He argued that new forms of planning and design can better meet the needs of the hundreds of millions living in informal communities in the world.



Informal armature / David Gouverneur

And Kate Orff, ASLA, founder of SCAPE, explained how her community-centric approach "creates a scaffolding for meaningful participation that is an active generator of social life." For her, it's all about "linking the social to the ecological and scaling that up for communities."

Carl Steinitz, Hon. ASLA, professor emeritus of landscape architecture and planning at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, also called for all landscape architects to get more active at the urban and regional scales. "That's where society needs us the most."

Landscape architects must create a future for wild nature

"The landscape has been broken into fragments. We need a more inclusive approach, a new philosophical relationship between humanity and nature," said Feng Han, director, department of landscape studies, Tongji University in Shanghai. That new approach must be rooted in "just landscape planning and design."

Randolph Hester Jr., FASLA, director, Center for Ecological Democracy, and professor emeritus, University of California, Berkeley, made a similar and compelling argument, saying that "justice and beauty must be found together in the landscape." The landscape itself is a "community, with the ecological and cultural being indivisible."

A central part of achieving that just landscape planning and design approach is to better respect the other 2.5 million known species on the planet, argued Nina-Marie Lister, Hon. ASLA, professor at Ryerson University. "We must think of the quality of being for them, too." To protect their homes, landscape architects must lead the charge in "re-establishing the role of the wild." E.O. Wilson, in his most recent book, Half Earth, calls for preserving half of the planet for the other species. "That kind of goal is a blunt instrument. Now we need to design what that looks like. We need a planetary strategy that connects remnant fragments. We can create a global mosaic that will be the foundation of a next wave of conservation."



Projective Ecologies / ACTAR, Harvard University Graduate School of Design

A key part of those mosaics will be designed sustainable landscapes, said Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, FASLA, who argued that "sustainability needs to be addressed in every landscape" moving forward. "We must keep every scrap of nature" by certifying projects with systems like SITES.

And in case anyone forgot the essential message: Laurie Olin, FASLA, founder of OLIN, argued that "everything comes from nature and is inspired by nature."

Landscape architects must dramatically increase in number

Given landscape architects relatively small numbers -- there are estimated to be less than 75,000 worldwide -- Martha Fajardo, International ASLA, CEO, Grupo Verde, said each must "become ambassadors for the landscape," speaking loudly wherever they go.

But Mario Schjetnan, FASLA, Mexico's leading landscape architect, said that may not be enough and more numbers are needed. For example, while there are more than 150,000 architects in Mexico, there are only 1,000 landscape architects.

He said: "There are not enough landscape architects in the developing world. And we need a global perspective. The U.S. and Euro-centric perspective must change. More landscape architects from the developing world studying in the U.S. and Europe need to return to their countries and help."

Landscape architects must diversify themselves fast

"Minorities are woefully underrepresented" in the field of landscape architecture, argued Gina Ford, ASLA, a partner at Sasaki. "The black and Hispanic populations in the U.S. are growing." How can we address this? Ford called for the highest levels of academic and firm leadership to bring in and hire minorities. "It's not about getting warm, fuzzy feelings; it's about innovation. Diversity begets innovation. Diverse staff resonate with diverse clients. We must diversify to create a shared vision for the future."

Landscape architects must get even more political

Patricia O'Donnell, FASLA, founder of Heritage Landscapes, who is active in UNESCO, ICOMOS, and other international organizations, said the first step is for landscape architects to "show up" and engage in political debates. Then, they must "collaborate to be relevant." Working within these complex international fora, O'Donnell herself pushes for "connecting biological diversity with cultural diversity" and encouraging these organizations to value cultural landscapes. To be more relevant, she said, landscape architects should further align their efforts with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Kongjian Yu, FASLA, founder of Turenscape, may be the epitome of the political landscape architect. His work spans planning and design across mainland China, but he spends a good amount of his time and energy on persuading thousands of local mayors and senior governmental leaders alike on the value of "planning for ecological security." He called for landscape architects to "think big -- at the local, regional, and national scales" -- and to influence decision-makers.



China ecological security plan / Turenscape

Martha Schwartz, FASLA, founder of Martha Schwartz Partners, who is an active advocate and commentator in the UK, where she now lives, threw down the gauntlet, calling for landscape architects to form a political wing that will urge policymakers to fund bold research into geo-engineering techniques that can stave off the planetary emergency caused by climate change. At the same time, "we need to start a political agenda for a Manhattan project to reduce carbon emissions." Schwartz sees ASLA pushing for climate rescue over the next 50 years, helping us to "buy the time for a second chance to live in balance with the Earth." For her and others, climate action is the platform for landscape architecture for the next five decades.

And Kelly Shannon, chair of landscape architecture at the University of Southern California, International ASLA, made the case for "changing the unsustainable status quo and inspiring new social movements." Landscape architects must become "essential game changers."

Landscape architects must better leverage green infrastructure to achieve broader goals

Using their knowledge of systems, nature, and people, landscape architects must find new opportunities to regenerate poor communities that have been left out. Tim Duggan, ASLA, Phronesis, called for using green infrastructure as a wedge for creating opportunities. "In consent decree communities, green infrastructure can be leveraged to create wider urban regenerative processes." Green infrastructure, as Duggan has shown, can become the catalyst for community development.

But to make this happen in New Orleans and Kansas City, he had to "lobby change at the decision-maker level and string together innovative financing mechanisms." In other words, he had to wade into the broader economic and governmental systems to make change happen.

Landscape architects must keep design central to the human experience

Charles Birnbaum, FASLA, founder of The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF), said a "holistic view" was needed, and that landscape architects can't foresake the important role of art and design in the experience of landscape architecture by focusing exclusively on ecological values. "We need to put the value of landscape architect on the level of the artist." Harriet Pattison, FASLA, helped him make the point in this segment of her TCLF oral history project:

https://youtu.be/iGdpe2tPukA

Blaine Merker, ASLA, Gehl Studio, argued for "making humanism physical and celebrating the human condition" through well-designed space for people. "Plazas and parks increase social connection. This leads to deep sustainability and happiness that reinforce each other."

Landscape architects must generate new fields of research and design to stay relevant

A fascinating idea: what is on the margins today may be at the center tomorrow. Dirk Sijmons, co-founder, H+N+S Landscape Architects, argued for landscape architects to get more deeply involved in what may be a marginal area for them now: the transition to clean energy. He showed his work animating the energy flows of off-shore wind farms in the North Sea. "We must develop new centers for the discipline."

Landscape architects educators must "revolutionize the landscape architecture education system" and become more pragmatic

Kongjian Yu also called for the educational system to teach the aesthetic value of ecology and sustainability. "We need deep forms rooted in ecology, not shallow forms. Nature is the bedrock." Yu calls landscape architecture an "art of survival" that will become increasingly relevant as the world's problems only multiply. "We need to teach how landscapes can fight flooding, fire, drought, and produce food. We need to generate pragmatic knowledge and basic survival skills to open up new horizons."

Marc Treib, professor of architecture emeritus, University of California, Berkeley, added that "the sustainable is not antithetical to the beautiful. We can elevate the pragmatic to the level of poetry."

While these bold ideas do push the landscape architecture agenda forward, what was missing from the LAF event was some critical discussions on how to better collaborate with scientists, ecologists, developers, architects, urban planners, and engineers on forging a common vision that can increase their collective impact in the halls of power; the coming explosion of aging populations; the health benefits of nature -- and how the desire for better health could become a central driver of demand for landscape architecture; and sustainable transportation and the future of mobility. Hopefully, we'll see more on these as LAF continues to hone its vision.

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The Emotional Challenge of Advocating for Eco-Eating  

Image Credit: Huffington Post Images


I struggle. I struggle to inform my friends, my colleagues, students, and the "masses" about human interference with wildlife, climate change, and how our diet contributes to both these problems.

I have been a practicing dietitian for over 12 years now. I already understand how difficult it is for individuals to make relatively-simple changes in their diet. For example, to switch from white bread to whole-wheat.

So, asking people to make bigger changes such as reducing their consumption of animal products seems to be a truly daunting task, one that is overwhelming, and one that so far, seems to mostly evoke blank stares and inaction.

I know there are myriad of reasons why people don't change; and, I know, it's an even bigger challenge to change eating habits.

After all, "If it were easy, everyone would do it" - Tom Hanks in "A League of Their Own"

For starters, people are creatures of habit.
We like to eat what we like to eat. Diet is ingrained in us from childhood, it's culture, it's personal. So, change can feel like we are giving up a part of our self.

Another challenge may be pure ignorance.
Since there are always fish at the supermarket or the fish market, it seems impossible to believe or understand that certain fish stocks are severely in decline, or have even been decimated.

Moreover, the oceans are so far removed from our daily existence, and we don't see all the hundreds of thousands of animals that are killed as by-catch from fish nets or from fish-farms; for example, it takes 2-4 pounds of wild-fish to grow one pound of certain farmed fish!

In some parts of the world, hundreds of thousands of dolphins, sea birds, and other sea mammals drown every day from fish nets, fishing practices - including finning, or are brutally murdered by being viewed as competition for fish.

On land, if 100 animals were "accidentally" killed by accident for every five that come to market, this would likely be viewed as unethical, and completely unacceptable.

But in the ocean This. Is. Exactly. What. Happens. ALL. THE. TIME.

To make matters worse, nets and fishing gear are often left - illegally - in the ocean killing a wide-array of marine wildlife; and, plastic, is being consumed en-mass by animals, crowing out room for food, and normal behaviors.

But I just truly don't know how to make people understand or aware that these oceanic/sea-life problems exist, in a way that is meaningful to THEM.

A third possible challenge can be apathy.
Why should I change what I eat when no one else in changes what they eat?
I don't make any difference I'm just one small person.

What I've told myself is, instead of feeling that way, perhaps it would be more useful to lead by example and educate others.

However, as I have discovered, this comes with a lot of downfalls, mostly emotional; where truly you want to scream at the top of your lungs, "stop eating that fish, stop eating that beef, it damages the planet!"

A fourth challenge I sometimes come across is "pride."
Patients sometimes tell me "I've heard it all, I don't need more information."

Which brings me back to my earlier points, then why aren't you doing it? What are you waiting for?

So, what does this mean for me?

On the one hand, I look around me at the beauty of our Earth and how it is disappearing bit by bit by bit, and that we humans have a hand in this; and it makes me want to work that much harder to educate, to speak, to write, to help, to fight for the animals of our planet.

On the other hand, I am frustrated, angry, sad, and sometimes hopeless; because, I can speak until I am blue in the face, but I cannot make people change their behaviors. Only THEY CAN DO THAT.

Therein lies the rub.

I see that we need to change our ways. But we need the will to do it. We need to have the desire.
We need to have the knowledge.

And, I can do THAT. I can impart knowledge. That is my role.

To educate.
To advocate.
To support Earth.

Unfortunately however I cannot give desire, I cannot give motivation, it has to come from within.

If anyone has the recipe to make all these necessary attributes come together, please, let me know your secret.

In the mean time, I will continue to educate, advocate, and provide a "recipe" for taking that first step, that first eco-friendly bite.

See, I'm not asking you to become vegan overnight, but I am asking that you show concern, acknowledge that there is a problem, and be willing to be a part of the solution. Not just live in apathy.

For more specific meal suggestions and recipes, please refer to my previous post: "Why Plants are This Summer's "Coolest" Diet."

Contact Dana at: recipe.for.survival@gmail.com
Twitter: recipe4survival
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RecipeForSurvival/
blog: recipeforsurvival.wordpress.com

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Rip up the rule book and let NASA's Mars rover check ‘life' zone  
Contamination fears should not stop NASA sending its Mars rover to examine a nearby area that might contain water… and life, says Dirk Schulze-Makuch  
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Sexual arms race drives range expansion in UK diving beetle species  
Sexual conflict and relative mating success seems to be driving a dramatic shift in the distribution of diving beetles in the UK, a new shows.  
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Becoming Naturalists at the E.O. Wilson Biophilia Center  

At the E.O. Wilson Biophilia Center in East Freeport, Florida, children are learning about nature by experiencing it firsthand.

Developed by Walton County conservationist M.C. Davis in 2009, the Center sits on the 50,000-acre Nokuse Plantation. Paul Arthur, president of Nokuse Education Inc. and director of E.O. Wilson Biophilia Center for the past five years, describes it as an environmental education center.

“Our ultimate goal is to teach future generations about the importance of conservation, preservation, and restoration of the ecosystem,” Arthur says. “We want every student to leave a little bit of a naturalist.”

Through two- or four-day programs, the Center provides children with a “complete learning experience” that aims to give them an in-depth understanding of the Florida Panhandle's longleaf pine ecosystem, while also exposing them to the idea of conservation more broadly.

The Center's lesson plan aligns with Florida state standards and is adjusted yearly. With over 700 pages of curriculum written by its staff, the Biophilia Center targets 4^th and 7^th grade students, as standardized testing occurs in 5^th and 8^th grade. The students come to the Center from schools in its five surrounding counties—Okaloosa, Walton, Bay, Holmes, and Washington.

Each year the Center educates 5,200 students and averages more than 100 students every school day. It places a lot of emphasis on experiential learning; over 20 hands-on activities comprise 75 percent of the overall curriculum. These activities—led by team members with nicknames like Bluegill Jill, Tree Frog Tess, and Pine Tree Paul (Arthur)—include surveying with lasers to analyze topography and slope, water quality testing, and a gopher tortoise simulation class.

“My number one goal is to get students outside,” Arthur says. “We want to immerse them into the environment out here so they get excited about it.”

Their methods are working. In 2014, Columbus State University doctorate candidate Michael Dentzau conducted a two-year study on the effectiveness of the Biophilia Center. Dentzau had 4^th grade students draw pictures of Florida's environment before and after they went. According to Arthur, before visiting the Center, students had a warped view of the outdoors, drawing “snow-peaked mountains with giraffes, elephants, and gorillas.” Following their visits to the Center, the students' drawings changed drastically.

“Not only did they draw it [accurately], they started labeling it: loblolly pine, gopher tortoise, eastern indigo, wire grass, turkey oak,” Arthur explains. “That's what really blew us away.”

Dentzau also interviewed students five months after the visit. Much to the Center's delight, they still remembered what they had learned.

“These kids were rattling off information to him that was amazing,” Arthur said. “It was amazing to hear that what we do is effective.”

The Center continues to serve students in northwestern Florida and promote the values of conservationism to the local community as a whole. Arthur notes that the Center hopes to provide a “complete learning experience” so students learn more than just facts.

“People don't understand that when you mess with the food web it affects everything,” he says. “We want the students to understand how important it is that we maintain that balance for the biodiversity of the planet.”

Read more from Paul Arthur and the E.O. Wilson Biophilia Center on Voices for Biodiversity.

---

Jaime Gordon is a sophomore at Duke University. She plans to declare a major in Cultural Anthropology and a minor in Political Science, while also working on a minor in Japanese and a certificate in Policy Journalism. Born in Jamaica, but raised in the United States, Jaime has always had an interest in how the human experience differs across cultural lines. She wants to travel as much as possible in between her semesters as a full-time student. Though her particular interests are in East Asia and Francophone Europe, Jaime hopes to visit all seven continents in pursuit of novel experiences, artsy photos, and the world's best ice cream.

 
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Griffon Vulture  

My Planet Experience posted a photo:

The Griffon Vulture is a large raptor, inhabitant of the steep cliffs and rocky areas offering numerous cavities where it will nest.
The main cause of the rapid decline in the griffon vulture population is the consumption of poisoned baits set out by people. Wildlife conservation efforts have attempted to increase awareness of the lethal consequences of using illegally poisoned baits through education about the issue. It is very highly vulnerable to the effects of potential wind energy development and electrocution has been identified as a threat.
The flight of the Griffon Vulture is a real show of virtuosity. It soars during long moments, moving scarcely the wings, in an almost unperceivable and measured way.

© www.myplanetexperience.com

 
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The Jon Stewart Problem  


The heart of the progressive point of view is the idea that government has a role to play in solving some of our toughest problems. The private sector, for all the prosperity and innovation it brings, cannot do everything well.

No individual or business can clean the nation's air, protect civil rights, or keep our food supply safe, among many other tasks. And even if they could, there are many problems without a direct economic benefit to the problem solver - say, reducing poverty or stopping terrorism - so the private sector is not going to invest time and money trying to accomplish them.

That means that gaining support for progressive programs requires the public to believe government can do some things well. The more that confidence erodes, the less reason voters have to support action. Why pass a bill to clean up toxic waste or improve health care if government can't do anything right?

If you stop to think about it, there are plenty of successful government programs to support that idea: Centers for Disease Control, Medicare and Social Security, NASA, or DARPA (the agency that created the Internet), to name a few.

The best examples might be environmental laws like the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, which have made our country dramatically cleaner and healthier -- with benefits outweighing costs by 30 to 1 in the case of clean air programs.

Focus on those examples and you're reminded that many big challenges require organized national action, and that the federal government often carries them out to great effect.

But confidence in government is always on an uncertain footing. Part of that is the result of political arguments from those who want smaller government, or see political advantage in attacking "bureaucracy." Some of it comes from genuinely wasteful government programs that are, rightly, held up for public scrutiny. And some of it is the media, looking for a sensational story. We are, after all, a country built on an ideology of anti-government revolution.

So how do we ask the public to support the kind of bold policies we'll need to address big challenges like climate change -- which can't possibly be solved without government action?

First, we have to be open to making government more efficient. Some programs don't work; others can be improved. We can also insure that regular public interactions with the government leave people feeling impressed -- not frustrated. Sen. Elizabeth Warren's proposal to dramatically simplify the process of filing your taxes would remove an annual public service announcement for those who think government can't work well.

There's one more important thing we can do: stop reflectively accusing all institutions of being corrupt. It is so much a part of modern life that we hardly notice it. We assume institutions are weak or corrupt. It's a trend that was accelerated by the Daily Show and continues with its many spin-offs.

To be clear, I think Jon Stewart - like a long line of political commentators going back to Will Rogers and Mark Twain -- was funny, usually right, and very often helped push positive change. But the pressure to be entertaining forces every show like his to drop most nuance. A balanced description of government policies is not going to get much traffic on Hulu.

Critiquing government programs is absolutely vital to democracy, but blanket cynicism both is wrong and counter-productive. The truth is all people - and by, extension, all institutions they create -- are flawed. So it's always easy to find something to criticize about them. That's valuable, as long you don't judge them against an impossible standard.

If you belief something can be improved, of course you should continue to make your case. But it's not necessary to say everything is terrible to push for more reform.

You can admit the Affordable Care Act has pushed the uninsured rate below 10% for the first time while still arguing for single payer, if that's your position. You can recognize that our air is dramatically cleaner, while at the same time fighting for new mercury and smog standards to save even more lives. And acknowledging that Congress just passed a strong reform of our chemical safety system doesn't require you to stop pushing to limit hazardous chemicals.

We sometimes think we've got to paint the bleakest picture of government failure to make the case for strong policies. But because bolder programs in a democracy require a belief in government, we may be undermining our own most important goals.

On Twitter @RealKeithGaby


photo credit: Cliff

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Chevron's Garbage Fire Sale  

Photo credit: @JeremyJ_Miller

[Reposted from the Eye on the Amazon]

Chevron sending up massive flares in Richmond is not the only sign things are getting hot for the oil giant on the run from a $11 billion verdict.

On June 19th, Chevron's Richmond refinery erupted a torrent of flames and black smoke into the air and terrified local residents. The community remembers all too well when 15,000 people were sent to the hospital when that same refinery exploded in 2012. Unfortunately, since then the public hospital in Richmond has closed. They can't afford another explosion as the closest public emergency room services are now thirty to forty minutes away in Oakland.

But that's not the only thing "on fire" at Chevron lately. Similar to the company's claims that it needs massive flares to burn off excess gas, Chevron claims there's "nothing to see here" as it tries to sell off US $5 billion in assets in its Burnaby oil refinery in British Columbia. But the company's actions and track record tell a different story. Realizing it was going to lose in its legal battle and be forced to accept responsibility for deliberately dumping 18 billion gallons of toxic waste into the Ecuadorian Amazon, Chevron instead sold off all its assets and fled that country. It's been a corporate criminal on the run ever since, but the law is finally catching up with Chevron in Canada.

In September, the Ecuadorian plaintiffs bolstered by a unanimous decision in their favor by Canada's Supreme Court will begin their trial to seize Chevron's Canadian assets to cover its US $11 billion debt to the affected communities in Ecuador.

Chevron currently holds approximately US $15 billion of assets in Canada, almost all of which is at risk due to this enforcement action. Chevron refuses to acknowledge its full liability to the SEC and to its shareholders, and this latest move may give a clue as to why. Unable to replicate its customary racist attacks against Ecuador's judiciary and legal system, Chevron has to dream up new methods in Canada.

The Ecuadorians have defeated Chevron in every single legal contest which has considered the evidence of their crimes in Ecuador (Chevron's singular victory a retaliatory RICO SLAPP suit in the US notoriously forbade any evidence of contamination in its proceedings and is still under appeal). The writing is on the wall in Canada, and Chevron is trying to slip out quietly and escape justice once again.

To make matters worse for the oil giant, a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision on the use of RICO may preemptively doom its defense before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York. As respected appellate attorney Deepak Gupta wrote, the Supreme Court decision "further limits private RICO actions by requiring proof of a quantifiable, redressable and domestic injury something Chevron has steadfastly refuse to identify." The decision also made clear that the RICO statute could not be used to attack a final judgment from a foreign court, as Chevron has tried to do in the Ecuador case. Aaron Page, a U.S. lawyer for the Ecuadorians called it a "nail in the coffin" of Chevron's RICO case. He added, "Now, the Supreme Court has ruled you can't bring a RICO case, even a legitimate one, based on harm that took place abroad. This is another example of why Chevron's RICO case should have been thrown out on day one."

Bottom line on these developments: no matter how desperate it gets, Chevron can't hide its actions in Canada or its pollution in Ecuador or Richmond.

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Civil Society To Prime Minister Turnbull: Go 100% Renewable To Save The Reef  
The Hon Malcolm Turnbull
Prime Minister of Australia
PO Box 6022
House of Representatives
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600


Dear Prime Minister

RE: Crisis on the Great Barrier Reef

The Great Barrier Reef is a natural wonder. It is a global treasure, integral to Australia's reputation in the world and to your environmental and cultural heritage. We understand that it is also a lynchpin of the Queensland and national economies, providing around $6 billion to the economy and 70,000 jobs. It is also a UN World Heritage site, and you, as the country's highest elected leader, are its custodian on behalf of all Australians and the global community.

We are all devastated to see it suffer an unprecedented coral bleaching event, the worst in recorded history, fuelled by global warming. Your monitoring agency, the GBRMPA has confirmed that almost a quarter of coral has died, with up to 50% coral death in far north Queensland. Director of the ARC's Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, distinguished Professor Terry Hughes, calls it the "greatest environmental disaster in Australian history."

This disaster is international, with the bleaching of reefs worldwide, driven by global warming, threatening ecological collapse and putting the primary protein food source of up to 500 million people at risk.

This disaster requires an emergency response, Prime Minister. We urge you to visit the site of this destruction, accompanied by Australia's leading coral reef scientists. You must do this immediately, today, as you would for any other national emergency of this scale.

We hope once you have visited and seen first-hand the devastation to the reef that you will be moved to act. We are deeply concerned that your existing climate change policies are inadequate to the task. 57 eminent scientific experts have outlined essential elements of the necessary disaster response, which are priorities among the actions you must take to address climate change:

1. Cease all new coal mine and coal mine expansion approvals, and prohibit any new gas or oil developments.
   
2. Announce the rapid phase out of polluting coal-burning power stations, with a just transition plan for workers and communities.
   
3. Put Australia on the path to 100% renewable energy with the utmost urgency.
   
4. Restore the funds that you stripped from Australia's commitment to fighting poverty and climate change internationally to realise a world powered by 100% renewables.
   

The death of the corals from a significant stretch of the Great Barrier Reef must be deeply distressing to you, as it is to all of us. But it is also your opportunity to protect what remains of this irreplaceable icon now, and to safeguard it for future generations. Australians and the world are waiting for the strong leadership and urgent action that this emergency demands.

Signed:

Alexandra Wandel--Director and Vice-Chair of the Management Board at World Future Council
Bill McKibben--Founder of 350.org
Bunny McDiarmid--International Executive Director at Greenpeace International
Jacqui Rémond--National Director at Catholic Earthcare Australia
Jennifer Morgan--International Executive Director at Greenpeace International
Michael Brune--Executive Director at Sierra Club
Mohamed Adow--Senior Climate Advisor at Christian Aid
Sanjay Vashist--Director at Climate Action Network South Asia
Reverend Fletcher Harper--Executive Director at Greenfaith
Tomas Insua--Co-Founder of the Global Climate Catholic Movement
Wael Hmaidan--Director at Climate Action Network International

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Why Sustainable Development Makes Good Business Sense  
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are the fundamental cornerstone to secure future economic and business growth by eradicating poverty in an inclusive way, while protecting the environment.

It is not possible to have a strong, functioning business in a world of increasing inequality, poverty and climate change. Business has the unique opportunity to embrace the SDG agenda and recognize it as a driver of business strategies, innovation and investment decisions. Doing so makes business sense and will give them an edge over their competitors.

The SDGs offer the greatest economic opportunity of our lifetime. With an estimated investment of $2-3 trillion a year, the potential value that can be unlocked for society will be immense. In some sectors it is estimated to be worth hundreds of billions, and even more in others. This is a very high payout for this global agenda and markets are already starting to react.

We have seen this on climate action, which influence 13 of the 17 SDGs, where business that actively take into account this issue enjoy 18 percent higher returns on investment. The 2015 Paris Agreement sent a clear sign that the governments of this world are committed to decarbonize our economies and this is felt in banks, stock exchanges, and boardrooms. It is a sign that the private sector is starting to embrace the business case for a rapid transition to a low carbon world, which will be discussed this week at the Business & Climate Summit in London, but more needs to be done. This is the spirit we also need for the SDGs.

Unilever set out on that journey in 2010 with the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan, is our blueprint for sustainable growth whose goals mirror those of the SDGs. The USLP is proving that there is no trade-off between sustainability and profitable growth. We now see, for example, that our Sustainable Living brands are growing 30 percent faster than the rest of the company. These brands have integrated sustainability into both their purpose and products, and are thereby contributing to driving critical progress against the SDGs.

To give you one example -- simply by developing innovative washing products that require less water, women in developing countries need to spend less time collecting water, and have more free time for education, jobs and child care. This is especially true in parts of Africa and Asia where they can walk up to six kilometers a day to the nearest water source.

The path to get where we stand today has not been easy. We had to convince our shareholders and investors that sustainability was the way forward and could generate real value for Unilever.

Part of this process meant doing away with quarterly annual reports. Why? Because the issues we are trying to confront with our business model and through partnerships -- food security, sanitation, employment, climate change -- cannot be solved by quarterly reporting. They require longer-term solutions and value creation, and not 90-day pressures.

Not everyone was happy with that approach at first, but 85 percent of our investors now see the USLP as a driver of long-term value creation and 70 percent of our investors have held shares for more than three years -- at a time when global holding periods have become shorter and shorter. This was unthinkable a few years ago.

Purpose has always been part of Unilever's DNA. Our founder William Lever built a business around the sale of Lifebuoy soap that was not only profitable and sustainable, but also helped transform the health of the poor in Victorian Britain. It was time to re-embed this to the heart of the company.

Fortunately, we are not alone. More and more businesses are seeing the potential of a more sustainable business model, driven both by the firm belief that business can be a force for good, and by the realization that the cost of inaction often exceeds the cost of action -- notably when it comes to the growing threat of climate change and water scarcity.

Sustainability after all is no longer a niche issue. 54 percent of consumers want to buy more sustainably. Many already are. Consumers in both emerging and developed markets want it all -- high-performing products, the right price and a purpose that they can connect with.

Regrettably, however, we are not yet seeing the scale and speed we need. There is still too much reluctance by business leaders and investors to fully embrace the change to this new type of business model. The focus still tends to be on occasional corporate social responsibility (CSR), rather than embedding sustainability at the core of their business. They need to realize that the potential gains from working sustainably are huge, and that this approach needs to be more than a simple CSR exercise.

That is why the role of the Business & Sustainable Development Commission is so important. The Business Commission will quantify the enormous rewards to business that take a lead in sustainable development in all major sectors. This will help drive action at scale and speed by business, accelerating the contribution the private sector can bring to a more equitable, sustainable and inclusive world.

This is a time, like no other in history, when business needs to show the courage to adopt strategies that create long-term value for their companies and for the societies they serve. This is the time to create a brighter future for all.

This blog piece was originally written for the Business & Sustainable Development Commission website, published on 29th June 2016.

Paul Polman is CEO of Unilever and Chairman of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. You can follow Paul on Twitter @PaulPolman and on LinkedIn.

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How Food Can Save the World  
Just two weeks ago today, I was leaving one of the most enormous feasts of my lifetime. Engorged and almost bursting, I was finishing a two-day Nordic intellectual smörgåsbord at the 2016 EAT Stockholm Food Forum. A gathering of 500 of the planet's leaders in the fields of food, health and sustainability from the worlds of science, civil society, the private sector and policy -- this was a two day banquet of ideas, solutions and points of action.

The third iteration of this worldwide gathering, the concept is simple genius -- my favourite kind. Bring together innovators, leaders and forward thinkers who usually never meet but are working on interrelated, global challenges -- food systems, climate change, food security, global health and sustainable development. Put them in one room and get them to share ideas, share stories and hopefully reshape the broken systems driving our planetary shortcomings.

Jamie Oliver talked of a Food Revolution; Michael Pollan challenged the culture of food waste; Dr Francesco Branca of the World Health Organization called on the United Nations Decade of Action on Nutrition; Mark Watts presented a new urban blueprint for planetary and human health; and of course EAT Founder Dr. Gunhild Stordalen challenged the entire globe to step up, step out of our comfort zone, and cook up something new.

To summarize this two-day long lunch in a thousand words is impossible -- but instead I will provide a tasting menu of take-aways.

Here are just four game-changing ideas from Eating in Stockholm.

1. Accept complexity.

The world is complex -- beyond imagination. As someone who works at the global level in health, it is clearer every day that I know less and less. The world is more complex and interconnected than I had ever thought -- or could even imagine. Whether it's health, or food systems, or cities, or climate change -- each of these is a lifetime of understanding and yet each of these are evolving every day, and interconnected in every way.

We cannot try to understand everything, or even understand the complexity itself. We must simply accept this and instead of talking about complexity, or worse being paralyzed by it, embrace it, thrive on it, be fascinated by it -- and look beyond it.

Because the challenges might be endlessly complex, but the macro solutions can be very simple.

2. Seek simplicity.

Here is the exciting part: The complexity of connections and seemingly endless noise become manageable as "super wicked" problems converge toward solutions.

Whether it is climate change, food shortages, the global obesity epidemic, water crises, ocean sustainability, even geopolitical conflicts -- many or most are interlinked and therefore present common opportunities for co-mitigation.

The best part: many of these powerful links culminate at our food system. The way we subsidize, grow, trade, cook, process, waste, and eat food is where many of these challenges are born, amplify, globalize -- and where their solutions also lie.

In this context, we must seek these converging solutions and scale them.

Simple messages like "zero waste." We throw away or lose one-in-three mouthfuls of food each day, worldwide. Food that takes money to grow that could otherwise drive economic development and pull millions out of poverty. Food that takes water to thrive, that could otherwise stay in our aquifers and support biodiversity. Food that produces carbon to make, process and transport, carbon from a food system that already produces more emissions than any other sector, driving dangerous climate change. Seafood that could continue to sustain the ecosystems of the planet's oceans. And food that could be feeding the half a billion on our planet that go hungry each day.

The message is not about solving the 10 greatest challenges, it is simple: Zero waste. The rest will then come. And this is just one example.

3. Leverage connections.

From overwhelming complexity, to converging and focused solutions. Building on the macro links, we must next find points and platforms for driving implementation. At the EAT forum, three came through loud and clear.

The first is cities. More than half the world now lives in cities, for the first time in human history. While they may be a driver for many of the aforementioned problems, having large numbers of humans in a small space also presents profound opportunities. Through the C40 network, EAT is launching an urban food network. The idea is to connect forward-thinking cities from around the planet to share ideas, drive innovation and keep each other accountable to implementing food-focused solutions. Ensure cities become hubs of delicious health, not nutrition-driven diseases.

The second is the food system itself. We might think this means farmers -- and they are at the epicenter -- but it actually means much more. Bringing together those charged with setting trade and investment policies, those that produce food including the half a billion small-holder farmers on the planet, those that process and market and sell foods, those that transport it, those that cook and even us -- those that eat it. Thinking across the food chain from field to fork, or even fiscal to fork if you include the actors responsible for commodifying our food, is essential to making our food systems healthier, and sustainable. An action done in one link of the chain will have effects elsewhere, and so taking a "whole of food system" approach is key.

The last is the connection between the food system and ourselves -- diets. Through something we all did up to three times today, across 7.4 billion plates on this planet, we have an unprecedented opportunity for collective impact and positive change. One gram less of meat, or waste, or carbon might become 21 billion over a single daytime. We might feel like the quick fixes to our biggest challenges are beyond our reach, but maybe they're actually on our plates. Governments, organizations and individuals around the world are working overtime to find ways to build solutions into our diets, and to nudge consumers to think, talk, cook and eat more sustainably.

4. Take action today.

The final morsel of food for thought was to move from contemplation to action. It's time to quit perusing the menu, and go straight to the main course. As the United Nations declares a Decade of Action on Nutrition, as our global population moves from 50% urban to 70% urban over the coming decades, as food systems and diets become the leading risks to our planet's health, and the health of all mankind, there has never been a better -- or more crucial -- time to act.

Whether it's as an individual, an organization or a population, so much can be done today. By each of us.

Vote with your fork -- eat thoughtfully, waste less, buy food not products, limit your meat and eat a diverse range of colorful fruit and veg. Eat as a family, make time to cook with your kids, provide a flexible workspace for your employees to be able to breastfeed with confidence or finish in time to make dinner with children, encourage and support good food at the schools and workplaces around you, and use food to connect with others -- starting with your neighbors.

Finally, don't just vote with your fork -- but vote with your vote. Think about food, food policy and how food can be leveraged for collective gain when next you're at the polls. If those you can vote for aren't yet talking sustainable, healthy diets -- they soon will be. The biggest change will come through strong, effective policy to change the food environments and dietary determinants.

Food is our most powerful narrative.

When we look across our major global challenges -- and we have some very serious ones -- it can seem overwhelmingly complex to the point we lose our appetites for action. Climate change is happening around us. Water shortages affect 330 million people in India. Two billion of us wake up every day overweight and yet half a billion continue to go hungry. The Great Barrier Reef is under severe stress. Some estimate we have more plastic in our world's oceans than fish. War and conflict seem a daily presence in our media.

The world is a buzz of depressing, seemingly hopeless, diverging challenges.

But I challenge you.

Look beyond the buzz. Don't be distracted from the micro, look at the bigger picture. What becomes clear?

All of these challenges relate back to something simple. Something many of us enjoy every day. Something we all seek, obsess over, photograph and devour.

Food.

Over-consumed, often wasted, poorly managed and needlessly unhealthy. We cannot solve the world's problems, without first solving food. Or another view: food is our best opportunity for getting our planet back on track.

Bon appétit.

This column post was written by Dr Alessandro Demaio in his personal capacity. The views, opinions and positions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not reflect the views of any third party. Additionally, those providing comments on this blogs are doing so in their personal capacity, and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions or positions of the author.

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What Brexit Means For The Oceans  


Last week, voters in the United Kingdom narrowly voted to leave the European Union. The national referendum, dubbed "Brexit," had an immediate, negative impact on global markets and raised significant doubts about the future of the European Union. But whether or not one supported Brexit (Oceana took no position on the referendum), the exit of Britain from Europe is creating new uncertainties for ocean conservation.

The European Union has a Common Fishery Policy (CFP), meaning that the countries of the EU administer and regulate their fisheries as a cohesive whole. By catch weight (as reported to the FAO from 2005-2014), the 28 country EU ranks as the third largest ocean fishing entity in the world. It's also the single largest global market for fisheries and aquaculture products. The development of the CFP therefore represents one of the world's biggest policy achievements in ocean conservation. European oceans will be scientifically managed because of the CFP, with the EU prioritizing responsible policies focused on the long-term viability of European fisheries.

In the past, the UK's citizens have been constructive allies in the European battle for sustainable fishery policy. "Hugh's Fish Fight" -- a campaign by UK chef, broadcaster and campaigner Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, is one example of this. The campaign generated nearly a million (mostly British) signatures on a petition to stop fish discards. Aghast at the extent of wasted catch in European fisheries, "Hugh's Fish Fight" and the citizen activism it inspired helped lead to Europe's ban on discards.

Domestically, the CFP will no longer apply in the UK after Brexit, and it is unclear what might replace it. The Leave campaign used CFP and fisheries in general as an example of how the EU has been a destructive force for the UK. Nigel Farage, the former commodity broker who leads the UK Independence Party, staged a protest against the EU onboard commercial fishing vessels, sailing up the Thames to be photographed by the Houses of Parliament the week before the vote. At the same time, a very vocal part of the fishing industry supported Leave and will now likely try to weaken ocean protections, rejecting scientific fishing regulations as relics of the despised -- and now rejected -- EU bureaucracy.

Britain's planned departure from the European Union creates uncertainty about the future of shared fish stocks and ocean ecosystems. The UK will have to negotiate new terms for its fisheries with the EU and with other countries in whose waters they are currently fishing.

The UK's exit from the European Union will likely take years to complete, and the path forward is uncertain. However, whatever the future of the United Kingdom, I can assure you that the campaigners, advocates, scientists and leaders at Oceana will continue to push for the policies we need to restore healthy European oceans.

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Green lining? Five ways Brexit could be good for the environment  
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Our ancestors evolved faster after dinosaur extinction  
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