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The Difference Between Green Furniture and Sustainable Furniture
Many furniture companies claim their products are "green," a designation usually referring to material sourcing. Maybe their sofa frames are made out of dumpster-sourced scrap metal or their cushions are filled with used ticker tape. Responsible material sourcing is important, but it does not necessarily make something sustainable; that is, able to exist in perpetuity from an environmental and resource consumption standpoint.

To be sustainable, furniture should be high quality and support a lifestyle with reduced energy and resource needs. You can have a piece of furniture made of the most responsibly sourced materials out there, but if it falls apart in a short time and winds up in a landfill, or if it is designed in such a way that it can only fit into a carbon-spewing, resource-gobbling McMansion, it's not sustainable.

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When it comes to sustainability, size does matter. Here's why:

One of the best ways, if not the best way of reducing our carbon footprints and natural resource consumption is to reduce the physical footprints of our homes.
Smaller homes produce less operational carbon emissions, (e.g., heating and cooling) than larger homes and are less resource intensive to build.
Smaller homes tend to discourage excessive consumerism mitigating that behavior's attendant environmental impact.
Smaller homes typically support denser, more transit friendly communities, which, by their very nature, allow for a reduction in associated transit emissions.

Location, Location, Location

When thinking about sustainable housing, the name of the game is location, location, location. An EPA study found that an energy efficient single family suburban house plus a fuel efficient car can cut your carbon footprint by 34% as compared to a conventional, single family, suburban house and a car with average fuel economy. While this is a significant improvement over a standard single-family home, the same study found that living in an energy efficient multifamily house (i.e. housing with two or more units such as a townhouse or apartment) with access to public transportation reduces your carbon footprint by 62% - and that still assumes car ownership.

As one would expect, multifamily housing units are typically smaller than single-family houses. The median size of a new multifamily unit is 1,074 square feet, whereas the median size of a new single family home is 2,467 square feet. But with a smaller - albeit more environmentally-friendly - footprint can come some challenges regarding functionality, especially as a household grows or changes over time.

Let's face it, it's the desire for - or perceived need for - more space that frequently drives people out of central, transit-friendly locations in search of more square footage. Since housing in most urban cores is considerably more expensive than suburban housing on a per square foot basis, moving to a larger home in a central location can be cost-prohibitive.

This is where Resource Furniture comes in.

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Increase Function, Not Footprints

All this is to say that furniture is only as sustainable as its setting. Space-maximizing furniture solutions from Resource Furniture can remove some of the reasons that people move further out in search of more space, by increasing functionality without increasing the physical footprint. Every product from Resource Furniture is not only manufactured using highly sustainable methods and materials, but also provide the same level of comfort and functionality as conventional furniture pieces and they are designed and built to last. Each of nine Resource Furniture showrooms offers a vast selection of multifunctional, space-saving furniture solutions that allow people to live comfortably and luxuriously in a truly sustainable setting.

By multiplying the function of a single space, combining rooms, making existing spaces work more efficiently, and utilizing high-quality multifunctional furniture, less square footage is required. Needing less space, one can live more centrally, drive less, walk more and consume fewer resources. In other words - live a sustainable life, not just a green one.

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Consumer Protection is Solar's Top Priority
In a recent Huffington Post blog, "Protecting Consumers: Making the Solar Industry a Safe and Fair Marketplace," former Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard makes some important points on solar consumer protection that we can all agree with.

Unfortunately, he neglects a key piece of context. The solar revolution is sweeping America and bringing a choice of clean, reliable and affordable solar power to millions of Americans, the vast majority of whom are fully satisfied with their solar systems.

I agree whole-heartedly with Goddard's points that consumers deserve to be well-informed regarding their choices to go solar. They also shouldn't have to deal with the rare cases of misrepresentation of energy savings made by a few rogue solar providers, whom should be behind bars. Let's face it, every single industry in America has a few bad apples.

But that's no reason to condemn an entire industry. Especially one that employs more than 208,000 Americans and supplied more new power generation capacity to America in the first quarter of 2016 than all other fuel sources combined. In fact, this is why the FTC held its educational workshop and dubbed it "Something New Under the Sun": to learn more about competition and consumer protection in the new, fastest-growing source of electricity in America.

At SEIA, we want to see consumers and companies benefit by choosing solar. Consumers deserve accurate information and companies should have opportunities to grow using sound business practices. To that end, we proactively created a suite of consumer protection materials, working with states, consulting with the Federal Trade Commission and Federal Communications Commission, and winning the accolades of the Better Business Bureau. The goal is to make sure consumers are fully informed.

Mr. Goddard states that SEIA's new Consumer Guide to Residential Solar, reviewed by dozens of consumer protection specialists and posted on state websites as a resource, is a "good place to start, but would be better with some enforcement mechanisms."

We're way ahead of him. Last year, SEIA's Board of Directors put into force the first national Code of Conduct for the solar industry, along with a complaint resolution and enforcement process by which every one of our 1,000 SEIA member companies must abide. Today, any American can easily submit a claim to SEIA for examination and enforcement. SEIA stands ready to work with state and federal regulators to ensure justice is served.

We also built and released disclosure forms - similar to HUD-1 statements for home purchases -to give consumers a snapshot of the key terms in a contract, as well as free standard lease and power purchase agreement templates to boost transparency. What's more, we're building out a full suite of educational programs for consumers, including hot topic alerts, a just-released community solar consumer protection guide, and Spanish language versions of key documents due out this summer to reach even more Americans. And all of these materials are available free of charge.

Placing consumer protection first is our industry's top priority. The residential solar industry depends on good consumer experiences because referrals are the number one source of new business. It's unfortunate that some critics focus myopically on the rare instances of poor behavior in an industry that's installing more than one hundred solar panels per minute across America for very satisfied consumers.

A larger danger to consumers is red tape from well-intentioned regulators based on knee-jerk reactions to guard consumers from new products without first checking the laws already on the books. Today, all fifty states have consumer protection, fraud and contract laws on the books that provide strong protections to consumers. Combined with federal consumer laws, these state policies prohibit misleading savings claims, bar unwanted phone calls, require leases to disclose payment schedules, and more.

In Arizona, for instance, instead of enforcing existing law, legislators enacted purported consumer protection legislation that killed residential solar in the state. The Arizona proposals crushed law-abiding small businesses, sent thousands of good jobs out of the state and eliminated solar as a consumer choice.

Putting consumers first is both a legal and business imperative for the solar industry. When a consumer looks to solar as a competitive source of electricity, SEIA is committed to ensuring that consumers have all the information they need to make a smart decision. Let's also make sure that the fear of progress doesn't lead government agencies to strip consumers of the power of choice.

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Sacrificing Green for Green
Sacrificing green for green. That's what cutting down woodland and using farmland to erect solar power systems is about.
Solar energy is great! We have solar panels on our more than century-old saltbox house in Sag Harbor on Long Island and it is marvelous seeing the utility meter going backwards as the panels generate plentiful electricity.
But on Long Island and elsewhere there is a push to clear forests and exploit agricultural land for solar systems--sacrificing green for green.
The forests that would be eliminated provide a home for many animal species and birds, they absorb carbon dioxide, provide aquifer protection and places for people, especially on crowded Long Island, to find peace and for recreation.
Using farmland--the most precious of all land--for solar facilities is outrageous.
An especially outrageous example of this in Long Island's Suffolk County involves the most historic farm in all the county--the Suffolk County Farm and Education Center in Yaphank--and a push by some county officials to erect a massive solar system on 25 acres of agricultural land at it.
The Suffolk County Farm is that beautiful farm one can see just to the south of the Long Island Expressway west of the William Floyd Parkway exit.
It is living testimony to what all of Long Island once was--and much of it still is. Suffolk, the eastern half of Long Island, remains one of the top counties in New York State in value of its agricultural produce. The county's pioneering Farmland Preservation Program, initiated in 1974 and since emulated around the United States, is emblematic of Suffolk's commitment to save farmland.
The farm was an adjunct to the county's almshouse or poorhouse that opened in 1872, land on which its indigent residents could grow their own food. Since 1974 it has been operated by Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County as, notes the state's "I Love NY" website, "A model farm education facility and also a real working farm." It's a tourist attraction--and so important for youngsters in Suffolk, particularly those from its suburban communities, a place for them to visit and learn about cows and chickens and how food is grown on the earth.
The farm is not very large, a little over 200 acres in total. The solar system would go up on this earth, be run by a private company and send electricity to county offices in Yaphank.
Fortunately, the Suffolk County Council on Environmental Quality, established in 1970 as the environmental watchdog of county government, tabled action last month on the bid to use the farm for a solar facility. The application will come back this month. Among the issues: the farmland on which the solar panels would be placed was specifically put in a category of protected farmland by the county in 2003.
The push to build the solar facility at the Suffolk County Farm comes amid other "utility-scale" solar schemes in Suffolk, among them, a 72-megawatt set-up for which 350 acres of coastal forest in Shoreham would be destroyed, and a 9.5 megawatt facility on 60 acres of a sod farm also in Shoreham. Meanwhile, in Long Island's Brookhaven and Riverhead Towns, laws have been enacted barring large-scale solar facilities on farmland.
Solar is a stupendous energy source. As Reuters recently reported: "Solar power is on pace for the first time this year to contribute more new electricity to the grid than will any other form of energy."
Inventor Thomas Edison is credited with saying nearly a century ago: "I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power!" And this was way before, in year after year in recent decades, the efficiency of solar panels (their ability to convert sunlight into electricity) has skyrocketed while their costs have plummeted. Solar is now totally economic. And the sun doesn't send bills.
There are hundreds of thousands of houses on Long Island the roofs of which could provide usable platforms for solar power. There are thousands of industrial buildings on top of which solar panels could be placed. There is an ocean of parking lots where solar panels can be installed. The solar panels at the parking lots at Suffolk government's Hauppauge and Riverhead centers point to that.
Solar panels are being placed on highway medians and along highway right-of-ways.
There are roads aplenty on Long Island.
Many "disturbed" locations on Long Island are suitable for solar. There are, indeed, many, many acceptable sites. Woodland and agricultural land must not be sacrificed.
As Edward Romaine, supervisor of Long Island's Brookhaven Town, has declared: "We must not trade green for green especially when one of those greens is money and not the environment."

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The End of Coal
Presidential candidate Hilary Clinton is not an energy expert. She probably has some such person on her campaign staff, but she didn't need them when she told the unfortunate truth to a West Virginia audience. She said, "We're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business." This occurred at a round table forum in March in Kentucky, hosted by CNN. The statement was made in the context of proposing to replace these jobs with renewable energy jobs, and was not made as a policy prescription, more as a statement of fact.

Was she right? What is the future of coal in the US, and more broadly in the world?

It is not easy to make a case for the coal mining (and burning) industry. Coal mostly is used in electric power plants, and has been historically for a hundred and thirty-four years, since Thomas Edison built the first electric plant, the Pearl Street station in downtown Manhattan, in 1882.

Using coal as a fuel has advantages: the combustion technology is straight-forward, it is far easier to burn coal in large boilers and move the electricity around than it is to have coal deliveries to every home and business with a small furnace. It is plentiful; there is a huge reserve available in the US, and much in a number of other countries. There has never been an "OPEC of coal" because of this dispersion of the resource. But over time the disadvantages have begun to chip away at the market.

Let's start with production. Being a coal miner is a dirty, damp and dangerous occupation, particularly underground mining. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, mining is the second most dangerous occupation in America. And just to answer the obvious question, depending on how you calculate, either commercial fishermen or loggers hold the prize for most dangerous US job.

But concern for worker safety is not driving coals' decline--it's a combination of competitive economics and environmental concerns.

Burning coal in power plants has become more and more expensive as more environmental control hardware has been required over time. First it was electrostatic precipitators to take out the particulates n the exhaust, then scrubbers for the SO2 and now technologies to remove mercury and other trace metals. The final step, currently on hold due to litigation, is the Federal proposed requirement - the Clean Power Plan - to decrease the CO2 emitted from burning coal, given its impact on global warming. And since coal is almost all carbon, this is a real problem. It is even more challenging because no cheap or easy way exists to separate the CO2 from the other gasses going up the stack of a coal plant. The most recent effort to solve this challenge, the Kemper plant in Mississippi, has gone from an initial budget of $2.9 billion, to a current estimate of $6.7 billion. And it is neither finished nor working, two years after it was supposed to be on line.

But it may be natural gas and solar that really finishes off coal.

Plants powered by natural gas are cheaper to build and run, and produce far fewer traditional pollutants, and only about forty percent of the CO2 of coal. The fracking boom has driven gas prices below $5/mmbtu for the last five years, and frequently below $2.00. This has made gas a better economic choice in competitive markets. And recent solar prices in utility scale applications--even below 3 cents a kwh in Abu Dhabi a month ago--make electricity from new solar plants cheaper than just the operating cost of coal plants. The CEO of AES' largely coal US plants, Ken Zabgrebski, recently remarked at a recent energy conference in Arizona that the future was clearly solar.

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And the rest of the world? China is the largest producer of coal anywhere, with production for 2009 estimated at three times that of the US. But even here, the pressure of unbreathable air in Beijing and other large Chinese cities, and the demands of climate change mitigation have resulted in a startling turn of events: in 2013, China added more renewable energy capacity to its grid than it did coal, and by a ratio of about four to three. And in Germany at 2 PM on Sunday May 15, solar and wind combined to supply "almost all" of Germany's power needs, 45.5 out of 45.8 Gigawatts. This happened in a power system that as recently as 2013 derived 45 percent of its electricity from burning coal.

It is not pleasant to watch wrenching change. It is less pleasant to be on the wrong side of it, especially when the impacts include joblessness for people who have made a decent living from mining coal. But technological advances, the working of markets and the requirements of the widespread consensus on environmental needs occurring simultaneously are difficult to withstand. Just ask any of the 28 US coal companies who have gone bankrupt in the last seven years, including Peabody, the world's largest coal company.

Merle Haggard sang, "It's dark as a dungeon way down in the mines." The same is now true in every coal company boardroom.

R.F. is the former CEO of AES and the author of Stories from the Middle Seat: The Four-Million-Mile Journey to Building a Billion Dollar International Business.

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Ever sat on a beach and wondered what's across the ocean? It may not be what you think.

Have you ever sat on a beach on wondered what's across the ocean?

If you think you can answer this question just by looking at a map, read on. You may be surprised.

To ask the question more concretely, what's across the ocean from New York? It doesn't really matter what beach in New York you choose, but just to be specific, let's go with Montauk, NY. It is at the tip of Long Island and has a clear, unobstructed view of the Atlantic ocean.

To figure out what's across from New York, the first thing you might do is take out a map, follow a straight line eastward, and conclude that the answer is Europe, or more precisely Portugal.

Of course there is not just one answer. When looking out across the ocean, there are any many directions you could choose, each of which would lead you to a different location. But in this case, surprisingly, Portugal is not one of them.

Europe is not across the ocean from New York... but Australia is

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When you stare across the ocean from a beach in Montauk, or anywhere in New York, this map shows what's on the other side (excluding some smaller countries that unfortunately did not fit).

No matter which direction you look, you're not facing Europe.

That's partly because the coast of Long Island is angled southward. But there is also something else going on.

If you stand on the beach and turn your head all the way to the left, the direction you're facing is north east. Common sense would seem to dictate if you sail in that direction (north east), you should end up somewhere north east of where you began. Namely, you should end up in Europe.

In reality, if you were to point your ship north east from New York and sail straight ahead without turning, you would land in Morocco, which is to the south of New York.

Stranger still, when you stand on a beach in New York, one of the countries directly across from you is Australia.

If you were to sail through the orange Australia section in the map above, without ever turning the ship, you would eventually hit Australia's southwestern coast. And as you land, you would be approaching from the south.

Sailing from New York to Australia in a straight line

Because we're used to looking at the world on a flat surface, our perception of Earth's geography is distorted in many ways. In this case, it is the concept of straight lines that throws us off.

Technically, there are no straight lines on a globe, since the surface itself is curved. The shortest distance between any two points, the closest thing to a straight line, is known as a great circle arc.

Over short distances, straight lines on a 2-dimensional map are the same as great circle arcs on a 3-dimensional globe. But over long distances, the relationship breaks down as the Earth's curvature comes into play.

If you've ever followed the path of a long international flight, you already know the shortest distance between two points on the Earth's surface looks curved. The same effect applies here.

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Though the lines in the map above appear curved, all of them are actually straight lines (great circles) on the 3D globe.

Looking at it from a different perspective

I spent a good while looking at this on Google Earth convincing myself it was correct.

If you have any doubt whether it's possible to sail from New York to Australia along a straight line, the video below shows what it looks like in 3 dimensions.

There is also a 2-dimensional way of looking at these lines that clears up what's really going on. The image below shows the Earth from a top-down perspective, using an azimuthal map projection, with New York in the center.

From this view, you can see the lines do appear straight.

You can also see clearly that the U.S. East Coast as a whole does not face toward Europe at all.

What's really across across the Atlantic ocean?

If you were to stand on a beach on the U.S. East Coast and look directly east, here's what's really across the ocean.

"2016-07-12-1468362671-2304406-acrossatlanticocean.png"

Credit

Inspired by this map from the Washington Post, which shows what's across the ocean based on lines of constant latitude. For an even more precise look at what's across from every individual beach, see these maps by Andy Woodruff.
All 2D maps were made with QGIS using imagery from Natural Earth. The 3D globe is from Google Earth

This post originally appeared on Metrocosm

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Artist Kindra Crick Remembers Her Grandfather, Nobel Prize Winner Francis Crick

Francis Crick, shared the Nobel Prize in 1962 for discerning the structure of DNA. It was perhaps the most important biological discovery of the past century. But then Crick became fascinated with the nature of consciousness, an imprecise and controversial field at the time, and moved from England to La Jolla, CA, to the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. His granddaughter Kindra Crick, a cell biologist and artist who created the DNA sculpture called "What Mad Pursuit" for the billion dollar Crick Institute in London, recalls those heady times of early science on La Jolla's Mesa, "The Miracle Coast."

Intellectual Capital: How did you come to the Salk?

Kindra Crick: The summer after my freshman year at Princeton University I was trying to decide my major so my granddad, Francis Crick, arranged for me to be an intern in a neuroscience lab where he worked. This was so I could to learn the nitty gritty of research. In Dr. Martyn Goulding's lab, I helped perform experiments running DNA gels and watching neural tube development (cells that ultimately form the brain and spinal cord) under the microscope.

Intellectual Capital: What was the Salk like then?

Coming from Seattle the Salk was bathed in sunshine. The labs seemed busy even during the summer and there were a number of stimulating lectures. One was on a computer-learning program that could determine the gender of both chimps and humans from a photograph. After training it would even rate a face on how masculine or feminine it was. There was good camaraderie and the labs surrounding mine would get together on Fridays for drinks and barbecues on the weekends. I played on the lab's softball team.

My granddad had made the move to the Salk in 1976. With this came a shift in the focus of his own research from work in molecular biology in England at the Medical Research Council to the brain and consciousness at the Salk in California. Then 60 years old, he wanted to tackle a problem that had been a lifelong interest, the brain. He wanted to move the field that treated the brain like a black box, where one only gained insight from resulting actions, to a field that would uncover the mechanism and functions that lead to how humans perceive the world, what happens during sleep and the elusive actions inside our skull that constitute our conscious world upon waking.

Intellectual Capital: Which scientists impressed you?

I vividly remember a long lunch with Dr. V.S. Ramachandran who spoke enthusiastically about his work with patients with phantom limbs who sometimes experienced excruciating pain in a hand or arm that was no longer present. He had discovered that with the use of a simple mirror he could instruct amputees to look at the mirror image of their working hand, which appeared to take the place of the missing one, and unclench it to relieve their phantom pain. My granddad was an attentive listener and would occasionally probe with a targeted question, but I realized a few years later when reading Dr. Ramachandran's book 'Phantoms in the Brain' that we had discussed many of the central themes and imaginative experiments in that book.

Another scientist that made a lasting impression was my granddad's long-time collaborator, Christof Koch. He would come by the house often while I was there, and they would discuss and debate the way the visual system worked in the brain. A conversation that stood out was how one perceived the blueness of blue. At first, I didn't understand the question, although it seemed like such a simple one. We walked through the basics of wavelength and the mechanisms of the eye with its cones and rods. And then we jumped into the visual cortex and the more abstract part of the question which was why at a particular wavelength our perception changes and we have a name for this color and there is a quality to that color that is a sensation separate from its name and the objects that we perceive to be blue. A quality missing, for example, from something outside our realm of seeing, like ultraviolet. One can describe everything about ultraviolet, but with our naked eye it does not possess a sensation of color like blue does, in our mind.

Intellectual Capital: What was it like living with Francis and your grandmother Odile Crick?

My grandparents lived in a quiet cul-de-sac near the top of Mount Soledad in La Jolla. I stayed in a large guest room which had its own entrance with French doors opening onto the deck and pool. People came over for dinner and lunch, but there were no large parties at the house that summer, as my granddad had been having slight heart problems. We did attend a few parties that summer, the most memorable being the one to celebrate the 85th birthday of Bradley Smith, the noted Life magazine photographer. Intellectual musings tended to be at smaller gatherings and over leisurely lunches by the pool, and most of the guests my grandparents entertained were photographers, painters or scientists.

Intellectual Capital: Do you visit the Salk now? How have things changed?

Not only did Francis end up tackling the problem of consciousness himself, collaborating with Koch, but he was slowly and deliberately recruiting some of the best and brightest to unlock the black box of the mind. For example, my granddad gathered with a small group of scientists who called themselves the Helmholtz Club. This group brought together scientists from various research fields as neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, psychophysics, computer science and engineering. All had an interest in the study of the visual system and of higher cognitive functions relying on visual perception such as visual consciousness. I believe one of the reasons San Diego and The Salk have become a hub of neuroscience research today is based partly on the work and vision of the scientists who attended those monthly meetings. The study of the brain is a burgeoning field and we are right in the middle of it. I have been told by many of my granddad's peers, that he was a tremendous inspiration and influence.

Intellectual Capital: And talk of your own art, its roots or themes--

At Princeton, I embraced the study of molecular biology but balanced it with my passion for drawing and painting by developing visuals and materials for campus theater. Biology itself is a visual subject, rich with a tradition in observation and communication through art. I still enjoy research, but I feel most driven when I am making art. My early experiments with the marriage of art and science came while at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In my paintings, I incorporated imagery from my observations under the microscope in the lab where I had worked on [breast cancer genes] BRCAI and BRCA2. Cancerous fibroblasts would envelop my canvas in layers. The birth of my daughter and my obsession with the new research on the biological basis of love fully crystalized my passion for merging science and visual expression. A series of prints and paintings questioning the science and symbolism of one of our most basic drives, love, soon followed. Now I create work that gives visual expression to the wonder and process of scientific inquiry.

Intellectual Capital: And your approach to your new sculpture--

I was invited to paint 'What's in My DNA?' on a seven-foot double helix-inspired sculpture.
This sculpture was part of Cancer Research UK's campaign to raise awareness for the soon-to-be-finished Francis Crick Institute in London. Twenty-one sculptures were created by world-leading artists and designers, including Ai Weiwei, Zaha Hadid, and Benjamin Shine, based on what's in their DNA.
My sculpture, What Mad Pursuit, explores the creative possibilities achievable through the intermingling of art, science and imagination in the quest for knowledge. The piece is inspired by my grandparent's contribution to the discovery of the structure of DNA. My grandmother, Odile Crick, was the artist who first drew the iconic image of the double helix molecule.
Half of my double helix sculpture is a chalkboard layered with the patina of science. I christened the chalkboard by writing, erasing and rubbing in the dust the words from some of my favorite scientists, including Oliver Sacks. What I left visible for the viewer to discover are handwritten notations from my granddad's letters and his many chalkboards. The complementary helix strand is a flourish of vibrant blue bordered by a golden helix. The abstracted growing forms that spread and mutate up the sculpture can be seen as cellular life or as a metaphor for infectious ideas.

Intellectual Capital: Why "Mad Pursuit?"

I took the title 'What Mad Pursuit' from the title of my granddad's 1988 memoir and essays on scientific discovery. My granddad chose that title from a line in the Keats poem "Ode on a Grecian Urn." It is a nice banter between art and science and speaks to the mad pursuit of both, and sold earlier this year at Christie's London, at an auction that raised $500,000 for the Francis Crick Institute, a leading center of biomedical research and innovation due to open in 2016.

Cold Spring Harbor,100th Anniversary of Francis Crick's Birth. Clockwise from bott. left, Mike Crick, Anne Churchland, Kindra Crick, Bob Olby, Jim Watson (original Nobel,) friend, Liz Watson, Ludmilla Pollock, Yours Truly. I had the salmon.

TO VIEW THE MAKING OF KINDRA CRICK'S SCULPTURE, "WHAT MAD PURSUIT," PLEASE CLICK: http://www.kindracrick.com/dna/

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Climate Change This Week: Massive Worldwide Tree Die-Off, Selling Solar Surges, and More!
Today, the Earth got a little hotter, and a little more crowded.

"2016-07-13-1468381195-948262-MissiongoldeneyedtreefrogamazonbrazilSourcewww.theguardian.comccr336.jpg"

Saving BUB, Beautiful Unique Biodiversity, like this Amazon tree frog, is another reason to conserve carbon storing forests. Source www.theguardian.com

Forests: the cheapest way to store carbon

"2016-07-13-1468381246-5689577-redwoodtreesforestSourcewww.resetsanfrancisco.orgccr337.jpg"

The Giants Nearby my home in California. I love them. Source www.resetsanfrancisco.org

OO California Redwoods: The Ultimate Carbon-Storing Forests in the World a new study finds.

"2016-07-13-1468381288-1952319-amazonrainforestwildfirenrGuarantedoNorteBrazilCreditDadoGaldieriatAPccr337.jpg"

Amazon Burning Credit Dado Galdieri at AP

OO El Niño, Climate Change Are Making The Amazon Dry And Flammable says researchers at NASA and the University of California, Irvine.

What were once considered once-in-a-century events are increasing as global warming takes hold.

Just in the past decade, the Amazon suffered from two record drought years (2005, 2010), and massive fires thought to have been mostly caused by humans.

Related Headline:

OO Dry Amazon Could See Record Fire Season forecast researchers.

OO 2015 Southeast Asian Fires Emitted Most Carbon Since 1997 - blanketing the area in thick haze and, producing emissions higher than in the whole of the European Union, say scientists.

OO Millions Massive Die-Off of Trees Worldwide Tied to Climate Change is occurring in California, the US Southwest and Europe, adding to further climate change as their decomposition releases climate-changing gases.

The link is from current extreme droughts of the sort expected under continued climate change.

When we harm forests, we harm ourselves.

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HOT NEWS

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Orange Areas average 28 degrees C. Source www.independent.co.uk

OO Humans Have Caused World's Warmest Seas To Surge In Temperature, scientists say, via greenhouse gas emissions that have created the giant 'Indo-Pacific Warm Pool', the largest area of warm water in the world that stretches 9,000 miles along the equator.

The Indo-Pacific Warm Pool, where the water averages more than 28 degrees Celsius, has increased in size by about a third in 60 years.

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SOCIAL REPERCUSSIONS

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The Fate Of Future US Babies? Zika infected pregnant women often give birth to tiny brained babies, whose lives are often short , and for their parents, tortuous. Source bn.thetodaypost.com

OO Zika In Florida: 10 New Cases Confirmed
Amid Concern Over US Sluggish Response - although all infections were acquired overseas, hundreds of infected people in Florida heighten the chances of creating an infected pool of mosquitoes.

This pool could then create an epidemic of zika in Florida that could spread further in the US.

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OO Summer Of Fire: Drought Transforms Southern Sierra into a tinderbox of an estimated 66 million dead trees in the southern Sierra Nevada.

Related Headline:

OO Wildfires Engulfing The West Coast Are Fueled By Climate Change experts warn, and require new strategies.

"2016-07-13-1468381692-2641269-wildfirefoughtwchemicalairdropplaneTDCccr337.jpg"

Run: A new wildfire burning through bone-dry grass, shrub and timber has forced the evacuation of dozens of homes in a mountain community.

OO California Wildfire Prompts New Round Of Evacuations

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Study in Toxic Green Source www.miamiherald.com

OO Florida Takes Economic Hit:
Toxic Algae Drives Away Tourists - the massive bloom smells like "death on a cracker"; the last time such a big bloom occurred, it took months for the estuaries to recover.

Both rising water temperatures and poorly regulated pollution guarantees more of these.

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OO 1 In 10 People May Face Malnutrition As Fish Catches Decline around the world both from lack of protein and critical micronutrients like iron and zinc.

So declining fisheries pose major risks for global health, scientists warn.

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HOUSTON, WE'VE GOT A WATER PROBLEM...

"2016-07-13-1468382218-7986945-monsooncloudsLucknowIndiawikipediaccr271.JPG"

The Vital Monsoon: When Will It Come? Wikipedia

OO Climate Change Warming Asian Waters, Altering Monsoon - making it more erratic and unpredictable.

It's an ominous problem for 70% of India's 1+ billion citizens, who need reliable monsoon predictions
to decide when they will sow their seeds and harvest their crops.

"2016-07-13-1468382266-8086337-IndusriverSourcewikipediaccr337.jpg"

The Not So Mighty Indus Wikipedia

OO Stressed Indus River Threatens Pakistan's Water Supplies - the river supports the lives of 300 million people, and supplies Pakistan with less water than it did 50 years ago, particularly in the spring and summer, researchers have found.

Meanwhile, demand for water is projected to rise sharply.

OO Murders, Violence On Rise As Parched India Battles For Water - Northern and central India continue to suffer thorough severe drought and oppressive heat.

Police in several regions are reporting a rise in violent - and often deadly - clashes over water.

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MEATY PROBLEM

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You Want To Eat ... ME??! Source TakePart

OO Meat: An Unhealthy Habit - accumulating evidence indicates that meat, particularly red meat, is just a disaster for the environment - and not so great for human beings, too.

OO This Is What Your Hot Dog And Burger Are Doing To The Planet When Americans fire up their grills on July 4th, they dump up to 882 million pounds of carbon pollution into the atmosphere--the equivalent of burning almost 2,200 railcars of coal.

Okay, I can hear it now - "What -- now you're attacking my hot dog?"

It does all add up - BUT what will really make a difference is whether you vote for leaders who will act on preventing further climate change.

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GOOD IDEAS

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Blowing Interference Credit Christian Steiness

OO Creating More Efficient Wind Farms -
Based on Schools of Fish - Takeaways:

Large offshore turbines disrupt air flow
creating interfering wakes of slow moving air behind them;
Thus, turbines in rows behind them harvest less energy;
Large size forces turbines to be spaced widely, further reducing energy harvesting.

"2016-07-13-1468382433-2755357-staggeredformationinfishschooltoshareturbulenceCourtesyRobertWhittleseyccr337.png"

Fish School Us On Wind Power - a piscine school is a demonstration of animals adapted to maximizing their swimming efficiency. Courtesy Robert Whittlesey

Fish in schools show staggered formation,
And use neighborly turbulence to swim more efficiently;

"2016-07-13-1468382493-2808165-staggeredpairsofcounterspinningturbinesharvestmoreenergythansinglyCreditJohnDabiriandMatthiasKinzelccr337.png"

Staggering Counter Spinning Turbines ups efficiency. Credit John Dabiri and Matthias Kinzel

Staggering smaller, shorter wind turbines
In pairs of opposing rotations,
Increases wind energy harvesting 10 times, researchers found.

OO Transport Emissions Are Rising - Time to Tighten Standards

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Source renewableenergyideas.org

OO Apple, Patagonia, Google, and Others Are
Expanding Into Solar Power - not just through solar panels on their roofs, but through:

Rooftop projects to massive plants (Google)
Giant solar plants and selling excess energy from their roofs (Apple)
Solar panel leasing on other rooftops (Patagonia)

Patagonia is also showing other companies how to expand into the solar power business.

Walmart, Macy's, Costo, and Ikea are some of the biggest users of solar power to power their businesses in the US - is it just a matter of time before they start selling solar electticity?

OO 'Tesla Solar' Wants to Be the Apple Store for Electricity - providing the solar rooftop systems, the batteries to store the solar power, and the electric cars that use those batteries. And offering it all in a convenient, economic way to customers.

"2016-07-13-1468382580-5211751-billgatesSourcewww.huffingtonpost.comccr337.jpg"

Educating Bill Gates Source www.huffingtonpost.com

OO Let's Upgrade Bill Gates' Climate Reading List - Bill is under the delusion that we need clean energy "miracles," because he believes the flawed arguments of Vaclav Smil.

Luckily, Bill and Vaclav are wrong. It's time to update Bill.

OO Canada: Govt Think Tank Pushes Nation to Think Beyond Oil Dependence

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THE "NEW COAL"
COULD CREATE A HOLE
IN ANY CLIMATE GOAL

"2016-07-13-1468382647-4768447-gasmethaneflareinoilfieldNorthDakotaCreditTimEvansonatflickrccr328.jpg"

Natural Gas: Not All That Clean Credit Tim Evanson at flickr

OO Leaking Coal Seam Gas Fields May Blow Hole In Emissions Goals - a growing chorus of voices from Australia and overseas is warning that any perceived benefits of burning natural gas for energy could easily be lost with just small leakages of the potent climate changing gas.

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SPEAKING OUT

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Stephen Hawking Source www.strangenotions.com

OO Stephen Hawking: Pollution And 'Stupidity'
Still Biggest Threats To Mankind - he notes: "Six years ago, I was warning about pollution and overcrowding, they have gotten worse since then. The population has grown by half a billion since our last interview, with no end in sight."

"2016-07-13-1468382772-5434059-womanconcernedandwarmingworldmapCreditStephaneMaheatReutersccr330.jpg"

Credit Stephane Mahe at Reuters

"Greenhouse Gases Must Be Substantially Reduced." Major US scientific organizations told Congress.

OO Top U.S. Science Organizations Hammer Congress on Climate Change--Again
Scientists implore action and note rising bipartisan demands for action as heat waves and wildfires worsen.

Related Headline:

OO Science Organizations Again Urge Congress To Take Climate Change Seriously in a letter signed by many major US groups.

It pushes back against climate denial and calls for policy solutions to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

OO 31 Scientific Bodies Tell US Congress: Climate Change Is Real and to get real on climate change.

As many as 180 Congressional members are thought to be skeptical of human-caused climate change.

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OO After 6 Years Of Working On Climate At Harvard,
I Implore It To Show The Courage To Divest

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Source thomasnet.com

Clean It Up Fast for a smooth energy transition and stable economies, says Moody's.

OO Major Credit Giant Calls For Rapid Paris Climate Deal Approval

The giant, Moody's has called on countries to speed ratification of the deal.
This will lower the risks of a damaging transition from fossil fuels -
And calm markets.

Moody's pledges to use the UN climate pact as benchmark for rating companies.

OO Canada: Court Overturns Major Pipeline Approval issued by the previous federal cabinet two years ago.

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CLUELESS LEADERSHIP

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"Men Argue; Nature Acts." Voltaire, 1769

OO The World Has The Right Climate Goals --
But The Wrong Ambition Levels To Achieve Them - pledges will not meet targets. Takeaways:

195 nations agreed to pledge to cut emissions to prevent a 1.5 C rise in world temperature.
this would prevent most of the gravest tipping points, e.g., the disappearance of the Arctic ice cap.*

countries' actual pledges to cut their emissions just aren't ambitious enough to keep the world within the "safe" climate range that lies at the core of the Paris agreement, shows a new analysis.

"The window for limiting warming to below 1.5 °C with high probability and without temporarily exceeding that level already seems to have closed," the study notes.

*an important planetary thermal shield preventing even more heat from being absorbed by Earth. A 1.5 C rise would not prevent severe threats to coral reefs, or major melting in Antarctica.

OO What Would It Take To Achieve The Paris Temperature Targets? To keep the Earth from heating a further 2 C would require net zero emissions to be reached by 2085 and considerable amounts of negative emissions, researchers say.

That is, humans would need to remove significant amounts of emissions already in the atmosphere.

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Credit Tom Tole at the Washington Post

OO Richest Nations Fail To Agree
On Deadline To Phase Out Fossil Fuel Subsidies - campaigners say hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies for fossil fuels are undermining efforts to tackle climate change.

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GOOD CLEAN NEWS

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OO India To Get Over $1 Billion From World Bank For Its Solar Goals

OO U.S. Hardens Royalty Rules On Fossil Fuel Production - Takeaways:

Rules had not been updated since 1980s;
Old rules let companies pay 50+% lower royalties when selling to affiliates;
A significant percentage of companies did this;

New rule: companies must pay royalties on sales to the first unaffiliated customer;
Royalty revenues to taxpayers should increase significantly.

OO Exxon Is Now Lobbying for a Carbon Tax to combat climate change, and has supported one since 2009.

It's also is lobbying the rest of the American industry, and Capitol Hill.

The 2015 Paris Agreement, aimed specifically at keeping most fossil fuel reserves in the ground, has prompted the company to increase its efforts recently to convince the rest of the industry to get on board.

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OO Minnesota: A Wind Power Utility Makes Wind Power Reliable - Xcel Energy developed:

a constantly updated, reliable forecasting system, and
smart technology that allows turbines to turn on and off automatically in response to changing forecasts.

Resulting savings are passed on to its customers,
to date yielding about60 million in savings for an investment of3.8 million.

Its wind production displaces approximately 11.7 million tons of CO2 emissions annually, too.

Now that's good news!

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NATURAL REPERCUSSIONS

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Red Knots In A Bind Credit Greg Breese, US FWS

OO Rapid Climate-Driven Loss Of Breeding Habitat
For Arctic Migratory Birds - a study suggests 66-83% of Arctic shore bird species will lose the majority of their currently suitable habitat by 2070.

Rapid climate change in the High North strongly affects where species are able to breed and disrupts migratory connections globally, say the authors.

Credit roadrunner_876 at photobucket.com

As Long As The Zebras Are There lions' meals won't be disrupted. Credit roadrunner_876 at photobucket.com

OO Wild Meat Eaters Are Less Disrupted by Climate Change
Than Their Plant Eating Prey - says a new large study.

This makes sense: many plant eaters are not adapting well to shifting plant seasons.

OO Thanks To Climate Change, The Arctic Is Turning Green NASA scientists show with views from space especially as the northern regions rapidly warm. And then there's wildfires....

Related Headline:

OO Human-Induced Greening Of The Northern Land Surface is occurring a new study shows.

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CLIMATE LEADERSHIP

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Source www.huffingtonpost.com

OO Hillary Clinton's Ambitious Climate Change Plan Avoids Carbon Tax - But she:

vows to produce a third of the nation's electricity from renewable sources by 2027;
will spend billions of dollars to transform the energy economy;
will install a half-billion solar panels by 2020, upping the current number 7x;

will give 60 billion to states and cities to develop more climate-friendly infrastructure,
will put the US on track to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 % from 2005 levels by 2050.

And, she says, she could achieve all that without new legislation from Congress.

OO US Senate Panel Backs $500 Million For Global Climate Fund - in a rare show of bipartisanship. More shows, please!

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Source Office of the Prime Minister, Canada

OO US, Canada, Mexico Agree Climate Partnership - the "three amigos" set targets to get half of electricity from clean sources and cut methane emissions 40-45% by 2025.

OO US, Canada and Mexico Pledge 50% of Power from Clean Energy by 2025

OO Obama's New Clean Energy Goal For North America: 50 % By 2025

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OO Conservative To Fund Republicans Who Back Climate Change Action - with least $5 million through to back five Republican congressional candidates who have supported taking action on climate change.

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FOSSIL FUEL FOLLIES

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You Want Me to Drink... THAT? Source activistpost.com

OO California: Freshwater Formations Are Being Drilled, Fracked - as oil and gas development overlap with groundwater sources; monitoring is clearly needed. Let's consider some safeguards, say the authors.

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OO US Coal Baron Promises Huge Layoffs --
Then Tells Workers To Vote Trump - problem is, coal mining jobs aren't coming back - even under President Trump.

OO Falling Gas Prices Are Driving Consumers Back to Bigger Vehicles

"2016-07-13-1468384335-8106363-IndonesiacoalmineSourcewww.businesstimes.comsgccr337.jpg"

When They Go Away, Who Will Pay? Source www.businesstimes.com

OO Indonesia Faces Environmental Time Bomb After Coal Bust - thousands of mines are closing in Indonesia's tropical coal belt as prices languish and seams run dry.

But almost none of the companies have paid their share of billions of dollars owed to repair the badly scarred landscape they have left behind.

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FIXING CLIMATE CHANGE

@@ A Simple And Smart Way To Fix Climate Change given by Dan Miller in 2014 at a Ted talk suggests a way to profit as we tackle climate change, by finally charging those who sell and use fossil fuels - and distributing the revenues back to all of us.

The strategy is sure to speed transition to clean renewable energy. What's not to like? Check it out!

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ELECTION YEAR:

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If You Don't Vote For Climate Action, You Can Forget The Rest - in a climate-changing world of famine, drought, rising seas, giant storms and heat waves, there will be no security in jobs, health, wealth, or national safety. There will be chaos ensuing from increasing crises and disasters. Vote.

OO Global Warming Policies We Set Today Will Determine The Next 10,000 Years - of global warming, a new study shows -- and whether our civilization survives or not: history shows that harmful climate change has destroyed civilizations before.

This time, it could be worldwide. Let's keep "The Hunger Games" in the realm of fiction.

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If we do not grow sustainably,
Our children will die inhumanely.

@@ Myth vs Truth: The Huge Value of Contraception is an incisive, heartfelt recognition of the value of contraception by Sarah Brown, CEO, The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy

Unintended Pregnancy Costs US Taxpayers:

Unintended Pregnancies Cost US Taxypayers Nearly $11 Billion Yearly
-the Guttmacher Institute

Teen Childbearing Alone Cost US Taxpayers $9+ Billion In 2010
And the costs of raising a child usually ensures decades, if not a life, of poverty for its mother.
- US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Help prevent unintended pregnancies in your community:
publicize where women can access affordable contraception.

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They can go here to find locations:

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And there are many more actions you can do, right here.

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SOLAR KEEPS SAILING

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OO Here Comes The Sun: US Solar Power Market Hits All-Time High after a rocky start.

@@ What Rooftop Solar Looks Like In Watts, Los Angeles, CA Women participating in a unique solar installation training program in Los Angeles's Watts neighborhood are bringing power to the people, and empowering themselves.

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Check it out here, right now!

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There is, of course, much more news on the consequences and solutions to climate change. To get it, check out this annotated resource list I've compiled, "Climate Change News Resources," at Wordpress.com here. For more information on the science of climate change, its consequences and solutions you can view my annotated list of online information resources here.

To help you understand just what science does and does NOT do, check this out!

Every day is Earth Day, folks, as I was reminded by these wildflowers I photographed one spring. Making the U.S. a global clean energy leader will ensure a heck of a lot more jobs, and a clean, safe future. If you'd like to join the increasing numbers of people who want to TELL Congress that they will vote for clean energy candidates you can do so here. It's our way of letting Congress know there's a strong clean energy voting bloc out there. For more detailed summaries of the above and other climate change items, audio podcasts and texts are freely available.

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-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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Food Waste on the Farm
Food waste doesn't just come from your plate or the back corners of your refrigerator. Food waste starts at the farm- whether that farm covers hundreds of acres or some space on your terrace. Growing and harvesting food is not a 100% efficient process. The fate of excess lettuce is one classic example. Lettuce is one of the first things you plant in the spring. It comes in lovely shapes and colors and you plant it at a time when the whole notion of gardening is fresh and full of promise. That often means that you plant too much. Round about July that excess lettuce starts thinking that perhaps the reason you haven't harvested it is that it was destined for greater things than simple salads. The lettuce starts to bolt- meaning a center stalk grows tall and the leaves get bitter. The lettuce is attempting to turn into a tree. Maybe the lettuce has heard about Christmas in July. This happens to commercial farmers as well as to amateurs. Some examples from friends and the neighborhood are below.

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At the farm these 'trees' are typically just plowed back into the soil. That can happen in your garden as well. Adding organic matter back to the soil is a good thing. But it isn't the best thing to do with food that could be eaten. Realize that it takes a lot of energy and effort to produce food. The New York Times made this clear with a pictorial showing how much water is used to grow various crops in California:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/05/21/us/your-contribution-to-the-california-drought.html?_r=0. Lettuce trees do not grow by water alone. All plants also require nutrients- the big three being nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K). Those are the three numbers that you see on a bag of fertilizer.

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Nitrogen is typically applied at between 100 and 200 pounds per acre. While gaseous nitrogen is plentiful in our air (atmosphere is 77% N2 gas) it takes a lot of energy to turn the gas into a form that plants can use. Most of our fertilizer N is produced using the Haber - Bosch process (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process) at a cost of about 4 pounds of CO2 for each pound of nitrogen. About half as much energy is used to produce the P and K. Phosphorus fertilizer comes from calcium phosphate rocks. We used to have large reserves in the US in Idaho and Florida. Now the biggest world reserves are in and around Morocco and China (http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/Pnadw835.PDF) with Saudi Arabia also having significant quantities (http://www.mining-technology.com/features/featurea-kingdom-of-riches-saudi-arabia-looks-to-strike-it-rich-with-mining-sector-4382267/). Wasting the food means that you are also wasting the water and the nutrient it took to grow.

Soils are not so picky about the type of organic matter that they are fed. They are just as happy getting plant roots as edible leaves. They don't mind slime. The same can't be said for people. But even if you have excess romaine your neighbor may not. Feeding others with your bounty is one way to put the excess to optimal use and expand your social circle. On a commercial level this is much more difficult but can still be done. Excess from farmer's markets and fields can be donated to food banks or left for gleaning projects. Gleaning means going into a field after harvest and getting what the farmer did not. It was the subject of an 18th century painting by Jean Francois Millet and has been making a comeback in the US http://www.npr.org/2011/01/20/133059889/gleaning-a-harvest-for-the-needy-by-fighting-waste.

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While you can give your extra lettuce to friends and neighbors before it bolts, this type of generosity is harder to justify for a farmer who needs to make a living from selling his/ her produce. Gleaning and donations are good for the world but not as good for the bottom line. Tax incentives to encourage gleaning and other rules that limit liability for farmers who allow gleaners on their land are ways to do that: http://modernfarmer.com/2015/12/gleaning/. So share your lettuce before it can think of turning into a tree. New rules and incentives will hopefully let farmers do so too.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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A Hard and Heartbreaking Week

I don't know anyone who didn't find last week both hard and heartbreaking. Two more incomprehensible fatal police shootings of African Americans followed by a horrific and deadly attack on police officers at a peaceful protest in Dallas. Seven senseless deaths fed the fear that our nation is sliding toward a chasm of hatred and violence. Although violent crime has actually been declining in most of America for decades, it did not feel that way last week.

I've written before about why the Sierra Club supports Black Lives Matter. We believe that all people deserve a healthy planet with clean air and water, a stable climate, and safe communities. That means all people deserve equal protection under the law. We all have the right to a life free of discrimination, hatred, and violence. People of color deserve that. Police officers deserve that. LGBTQ people deserve that. Muslims, too. This is the America portrayed in my children's textbooks. But if our country isn't keeping this promise to our nation's most vulnerable citizens, don't we all lose? As we saw again so painfully last week, the plain, inescapable fact is that African Americans are not receiving equal protection.

Racism in our society ― and the fear, ignorance, and misunderstanding that accompanies it ― is a direct threat to our environmental progress. The Sierra Club's mission is to “enlist humanity” to protect the planet. To combat climate change, we need to build an economy powered by 100 percent clean energy for everyone. But how can we come together to do this when racism threatens to tear us apart? How can we rise to the challenge of creating clean energy prosperity ― where communities of color, which have suffered the heaviest burden of carbon pollution, really benefit ― when we're sinking to our deepest fears about each other?

The Sierra Club is just one out of more than a million U.S. nonprofit organizations. But after spending the past six years working and collaborating with thousands of staff, volunteers, and supporters, I've learned that the Sierra Club is much more than that. It's a community. A community of people who want to see a better world today, tomorrow, and a hundred years from now. The Sierra Club is filled with smart, passionate people who know how to listen to each other, learn from each other, and work together for positive change. A community like that cannot ― must not ― turn its back on its brothers and sisters who cannot walk the streets of their own country, their own neighborhoods, without the ever-present fear that they could be singled out just because of their skin color. By the same token, we can't turn our hearts from the good cops doing a dangerous job who feel misunderstood and at risk themselves as they seek closer relations with the communities they serve.

But in the face of such grief, what can we do? We can engage, all of us. Combating racism isn't an armchair exercise; just like creating a new protected area or replacing coal with clean energy, it demands passion and engagement. Sierra Club members, volunteers, and supporters know how to organize as well as anyone. That same ability to reach across differences to create a coalition to stop fracking? Let's apply those skills to dismantling racism on the way to 100 percent clean energy for all. Our solidarity with principled allies? Let's extend that to Black Lives Matter and take the pledge to “not allow ourselves to be divided.” We can't pretend that race doesn't matter on environmental issues, because the communities that care most about our issues ― and are disproportionately affected by environmental woes ― are communities of color.

Talk to your friends and family openly about race. Talk with fellow environmentalists about why it matters to us and how we can do more to address it. Read books and articles about racism. Seek out workshops and trainings about white privilege and racial justice. Work with others in your community who are addressing racism. Join with others who are marching for justice.

One more thought: Last week's violence was a consequence of America's worst idea ― rejecting the humanity of other human beings. But at the heart of the Sierra Club's mission is what's been called one of America's “best ideas” ― that parks, nature, and wild places can help us find and celebrate our common humanity. I believe that we as a community have something else to humbly offer ― a rededication to sharing that idea with our friends and neighbors and colleagues. Now, at a moment when every one of us could use some help from the healing power of nature, let us resolve to never forget that it is for everyone to enjoy, that it can help anyone, and that it should be accessible to all.

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Stratos by Vitaliy Sokol

Leading Lines by Andy Yeung

Innovation Tower designed by Pritzker-prize-winning architect Zaha Hadid. Kowloon, Hong Kong http://www.andyyeungphotography.com

Balade Urbaine by Matthieu Chaboud

elephant by Boogie Boogie

elephant

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Castle by Robert Adamec

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Combination of 2 exposures. One from the sunset, the other from later that night. This picture represents what goes on in my head and in my dreams.

Fork shadows by Enrico Salvadori

sometimes also an object of common use as a fork can become attractive.

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