Wildlife researchers said Tuesday that they’ve discovered 125,000 western lowland gorillas deep in the forests of the Republic of Congo, calling it a major increase in the animal’s estimated population.
(READ more in AP article via MSNBC)
A couple years ago I also reported that Gorilla populations had grown 17 percent in Uganda’s Bwindi park, home to almost half of the world’s remaining mountain gorillas during the 1990’s, with similar trends in another park.
If U.C Santa Barbara Chemist Bruce Lipshutz has his way, you may soon be buying bottles of water brimming with the life-sustaining coenzyme CoQ10 at your local Costco.
Never heard of CoQ10? Lipshutz says you’re not alone. “If you don’t know anything about it,” Lipshutz said during a recent interview, “that’s not surprising to me. Much of the public hasn’t heard of it.” But he’s on a mission to correct what he views as a major oversight. “In a sense, I’m just a messenger. People need to not only know about CoQ10, they need to take it.”
(Photo by Elan Sun Star)
“China’s quest to clear up notoriously polluted skies in time for opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games this week has been marked by gargantuan effort,” reported the A.P. And, with blue skies overhead, an environmental official said on Sunday that China is likely to continue monitoring ozone and pollution next year as part of efforts to keep anti-pollution campaigns in force after the Olympics.
In celebration of the 11th anniversary of the Good News Network this month, I will sponsor a different promotion each week — with maybe some giveaways at the end! … Beginning Aug. 1, the first eleven people to purchase a (mid-level) paid annual membership for $47.00 will also get a free “Good Happens” canvas tote bag, plus 2 months ADDED onto your subscription, for free — Display your optimism on your shoulder, and feed your soul daily for around $3.00 per month! (Sign up for a paid subscription here – or log-in and click on MY SUBSCRIPTIONS on the top right menu.)
Ford, Coca Cola, and Bayer, among other companies, actively demonstrate they care about people and the planet. Here are some examples of how corporations are contributing to society and helping the environment. Even Wal-Mart is making improvements to benefit the planet.
Ford is making available educational materials to teachers and schools as part of its Ford Partnership for Advanced Studies (Ford PAS), enhancing student learning in 26 states across 300 sites.
The Ford Motor Company unveiled in June a course of study in energy consumption and conservation. The program includes issues related to both fossil fuels and alternative energy sources—from solar to hydrogen to nuclear energy. In the new course teachers have the ability to pick and choose from four, four-week modules. The first module is an introduction to the scientific concept of energy and how stored energy is released in order to fuel human activity. The other three modules can be used interchangeably to explore science concepts, such as energy transformation or photosynthesis. They help students understand the relevance of green concepts within the world.
Teachers and schools interested in using the energy course can download the curriculum for free at www.fordpas.org.
Changing Operations to Go Green
Coca-Cola is focused on efforts to improve the environment in three areas: water use, packaging, and energy use.
Coca-Cola’s initiative called Global Water Stewardship applies new technology to improve the efficiency of its own water usage and it has seen a 4% reduction during a period where volume grew at 4%. In packaging 85% of Coca Cola’s materials are now 100% recyclable and Coca Cola is also addressing the challenge of recovering the recyclable materials out of the general waste system. For example, in Australia it is partnering with 50 local councils and a number of public venues and retail outlets to set up and run public recycling trial programs. To reduce its own energy usage, Coca-Cola has set a goal to eliminate 700,000 tons of carbon-dioxide usage by 2010, “the equivalent of taking 150,000 cars off the road.”
Interesting to note, the bulk of the Coca Cola’s energy consumption comes from vending machines and coolers, which combined, create three times as much greenhouse gas emissions as the company’s manufacturing plants, and five times as much as its entire transport fleet.
Between 1990 and 2007, the Bayer Group lowered its absolute carbon emissions by 37 percent. In June, 2008 the Bayer Group reaffirmed it’s commitment to sustainable development by announcing its absolute greenhouse gas emissions will remain at the present level through 2020 despite production growth. To achieve this Bayer has designed a Climate Check Tool for its operations. In the pilot involving just 5 German plants, Bayer identified CO2 reduction potential of roughly 10 percent and it hopes to find similar opportunities in their vast operations.
Felix Rey, a major New York handbag and accessories company founded in 2001, has joined Carbonfund.org to offset its carbon footprint and to help end the global climate crisis. Because shipping is an integral part of the business, Felix Rey is donating carbon offset dollars to offset its sea and air freight shipping. The contributions Felix Rey is making are heavily focused on reforestation projects in Nicaragua and Louisiana.
Leading catalyst maker Albemarle Corporation is continuing an aggressive focus on sustainable business practices by investing in a new process that is expected to eliminate more than 80 percent of the process-related waste at its main plant in Pasadena, Texas. The waste is associated with the production of BEM, an essential component in the manufacture of two of the world’s most widely used plastic resins. Expected to be operational in the first quarter of 2009, the new process will significantly reduce waste by recycling solvent from the process waste and making it available for reuse, and also by converting the residual solids to a material suitable for onsite disposal.
Through its real estate division Wal-Mart has committed $35 million to its partnership with the US National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to create “Acres for America.” As a form of carbon offset initiative this effort seeks “to conserve at least one acre of priority wildlife habitat for every acre developed for company use.”
Wal-Mart also has constructed three Environmental Demonstration Stores that utilize some of the cutting-edge possibilities in energy-efficient and environmentally-friendly building construction. One of these stores is the Las Vegas SupeCenter opened in March that uses new cooling technology to cut overall energy use by up to 45 percent The new Wal-Mart green stores include a recycled asphalt parking lot, a futuristic HVAC system, electric-car charging stations, high-performance skylights, and a gray-water plumbing system that “captures water from the parking lot and roof for treatment and reuse as landscaping irrigation water.”
Wal-Mart has already retrofitted energy-efficient lighting systems in approximately 800 of its stores to date, which will reduce CO2 emissions by 274,000 tons annually.
We should applaud these efforts in order to encourage more corporations to take seriously the stewardship of our earth.
Not only can these new hospital beds talk, they speak 13 languages. The beds have the brains of a computer and can communicate 30 programmed questions and commands that help care for patients who don’t speak the native tongue. (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
As they hoped, a South Carolina couple’s giant backyard pumpkin has set a state record for weight. Frank and Tina Finders’ pampered pumpkin weighed in Friday at 897 pounds, beating the previous best of 737 pounds. The newlyweds – who have matching tattoos of a flowering pumpkin vine on their shoulders – had been waiting for this moment for nearly four months, keeping their pumpkin moist and shady.
A much cheaper fuel cell could be on its way thanks to a breakthrough cathode built by Australian researchers that uses Gortex, the same material in outdoor clothing. Up until now, fuel cells needed a cathode which contains expensive platinum particles, worth around $3,500 to $4,000. The new cost-effective solution, featured yesterday in the journal Science, uses a thin flexible polymer that conducts electricity at a cost of only several hundred dollars, while producing the same amount of current as the platinum cathode. The plastic also exhibits increased stability.
In a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power into a mainstream energy source, MIT researchers have overcome a major barrier: how to store energy for use when the sun doesn’t shine.
Until now, solar power has been a daytime-only energy source, because storing extra solar energy for later use is prohibitively expensive and grossly inefficient. Researchers announced on Thursday, that by mimicking a plant’s energy storage system, they have hit upon a simple, inexpensive, highly efficient process for storing solar energy. (Right, researcher Daniel Nocera, photo by Donna Coveney )
In the mountains of northern Japan, wind, sun and even cow dung are being turned into electricity as part of efforts to turn a whole town into an experiment in renewable energy use. The town is a sprawling laboratory for the whole of the archipelago, which has almost no fossil fuels of its own and is seeking to diversify its energy sources to reduce dependence on Middle Eastern oil.
College basketball coach Ron Hunter, who raised more than 250,000 pairs of shoes for Samaritan’s Feet, speaks to ESPN’s Mike & Mike from his shoe delivery mission in Lima, Peru. Coach Hunter wanted his players to experience the poverty of the country and to share their good fortune, so he brought them along, teaching them that winning basketball games isn’t the most important thing in the world. This MUST-PLAY INTERVIEW is below! (Visit Samaritan’s Feet to donate or contribute.)
The number of AIDS deaths worldwide dropped 10 percent in 2007, as did the number of new infections in children, because of increasing access to treatment, the United Nations reported. Prevention efforts like condom use and education tripled in some countries. (2008/07/29)
Last week, an amazingly colorful array of Arab princes and Muslim clerics came together with representatives of the world’s major faiths in Madrid. While the Western media generally failed to appreciate the magnitude of the event, the Arab media understood how important it really was. Not only was this the first international multi-faith conference ever initiated by an Arab Muslim leader, it was inaugurated by the king of the Muslim world’s heartland, Saudi Arabia, where the most conservative Muslim outlook prevails.
U.S. lawmakers Tuesday offered the federal government’s first formal apology for the “fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity” of slavery and the legal segregation of African-Americans.
The resolution, passed in the House of Representatives by voice vote, ” apologizes to African-Americans on behalf of the people of the United States, for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery” formal segregation laws known as “Jim Crow.”
Lots of people wrote in telling me to link to the photo and story of the Golden Retriever nursing three newborn striped tiger cubs that were abandoned by their mother.
Editor’s note: Over the years I’ve published plenty of these inter-breed nursing situations, usually cats and dogs doing the nursing — of opossums, raccoons, rabbits, and even tigers. Humans follow the same patterns today. Some mothers abandon babies, many more looking to adopt them.
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US President George W. Bush on Wednesday signed legislation tripling funds to fight the killer diseases of AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in the world’s poorest countries, mainly in Africa. Congress approved a package earlier this month which lifted funding for the five-year program from 15 billion dollars, set in 2003, to the 48 billion dollars signed into law by Bush.
