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Google Earth
Download Google Earth and explore our planet and biosphere like never before!

E.O. Wilson Interview
NYTimes' David Pogue interviewed E.O.Wilson at length about Pogue interviews E.O.Wilson the Encyclopedia of Life during the production of a CBS feature on the project; here is the complete interview transcript: Pogue/Wilson
New EOL Newsletter
Encyclopedia of Life has just issued their fourth newsletter with info on status and upcoming plans... Download PDF
$50 Billion Would Save the Rest of Life
"Seems like a bargain"- E.O. Wilson (view LinkTV interview)
And here is TED prize curator Chris Anderson interviewed on Charlie Rose

The Superorganism
The Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societies
E.O.Wilson, Bert Holldobler

Green Map: Tools for Open Source Mapping of Environmental Data

Download free endangered species ringtones from the Center for Biological Diversity

Meatrix: The Saga Continues
The award-winning classic "Meatrix" is just as good now as it was when it first appeared on the web a few years ago. Since then we have "Meatrix 2: Revolting", and "Meatrix 2 1/2", where our heroes save Moopheus from a factory slaughterhouse... keep up with the saga at The Meatrix.

Google News / Ecoversity

Youtube/Ecoversity

StumbleUpon / Ecoversity

Isabella Rosselini's Green Porn
Second Season
Sundance hosts the latest season of Isabella Rosselini's surprising and amusing series on creature sex. "Green Porn 2" includes whales, starfish, limpets and barnacles, and can be viewed online HERE

TED Conference videos:
A Greener Future
Inspired by Nature
Animals That Amaze
Evolution's Genius
Predictions/Warnings

TED curator Chris Anderson interviewed on Charlie Rose

Clean Tech Recruits
500 clean-tech job postings a day... (site)

Environmental Jobs Worldwide
StopDodo is a "global portal for environmental jobs and resumes" (site)

Green Jobs Links Boards:
EcoJobsOnline.com
GreenJobsToday.com
BestGreenJobs.net

The Buzz on Bees
Scientific American: a special area in current April issue with a dozen new articles on the life, death, and consciousness of bees. (SciAm/Bees)

The Story of Stuff
Don't miss this amusing survey of the consumerist reality and it's toxic consquences. (99% of our production is trashed within 6 months!)

Do You Know What You Eat?
Drug-laced corn flakes for breakfast? Taco shells infused with detergent enzymes for dinner? Take the short quiz provided by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

The Wild Horses of Newbury
Greens were filming the tragic destruction of two great old oaks of Newbury, when an amazing thing happened... watch the video

Solar Installation Links:
SolarInstallations.info
SolarConversion.info

Ecoversity blogs:
Biomagic Vortex
Heraclitus Report

Arne Naess, the esteemed Norwegian philosopher who was the founder of "deep ecology", died January 12 of this year. More on this inspired and inspiring man:
Wikipedia Arne Naess
Wikipedia Deep Ecology
Books by Arne Næss

PDF Downloads

Pathways Low-Carbon Economy
Arctic Monitoring 2009
State of Polar Research
Limits of Organic Life
Soil Ecology & the Soil Food Web
UNCCD BioChar Report
Living Planet Report
Monaco Declaration
State of the Oceans
EOL Newsletter #4
EOL Newsletter #3
EOL Newsletter #2

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Ecoversity: News, Links and Resources
If you would like to suggest a particular site, or alert us to follow-up articles, use this email

Food Supply

Michelle Plants White House Organic Garden
Michelle Obama's Fresh Food Revolution
"When Michelle Obama began planting an organic garden on the South Lawn of the White House recently, there was no doubt she was sending a message, but the message was more subversive and far-reaching than most American media coverage recognized....Fresh food tastes better and is better for you, so kids and grown-ups alike should eat lots more of it... What made Obama's message so subversive was something she left unsaid: the food most Americans eat nowadays is not fresh, tasty or healthy.
"The superiority of fresh ingredients may be obvious to Italians, but it is a truth most Americans long ago forgot, if they ever knew it in the first place. Over the past fifty years, the United States has been transformed into a fast food nation, in author Eric Schlosser's phrase. What the typical American eats is not so much food as it is highly processed food derivatives that have traveled thousands of miles since leaving the farm, losing along the way most of the flavor and nutritional value they once possessed. To disguise such losses, food manufacturers overload products with fats, salts and sweeteners, especially corn syrup--additives that, along with the massive portions typically served in the United States, help explain why nearly one in three Americans is obese... " (read more at The Nation)
MACA, the lobbying arm of Monsanto, Dow AgroSciences, and DuPont Crop Protection, and others of the same ilk, blasted Mrs Obama for not using pesticides. (story) and (here)
Willem Malten has written a post about the White House Garden at his blog, "Vortex"

The Global Food Crisis: The End of Plenty
National Geographic Special Report, June 2009
"To meet rising food demand, we need another Green Revolution, and we need it in half the time..."- and without the ecological damage the first one brought with it. (NatGeo Global Food Crisis online)

The Future of Food
Watch the documentary online at Hulu.com.

Vendana Shiva on Food Supply
Vendana Shiva, Max Keiser, and Joachim Von Braun
An Al Jazeera "Inside Story" discussion on the looming food supply crisis:
(watch video) / (part two) / (part three)

UNEP Report: The Environmental Food Crisis
"Prepared by the Rapid Response Assessment Team at UNEP/GRID-Arendal and UNEP-WCMC, the report provides the first summary by the UN of how climate change, water stress, invasive pests and land degradation may impact world food security, food prices and life on the planet and how we may be able to feed the world in a more sustainable manner..."
UNEP Report- website / UNEP Report- PDF Download

Food needs 'Fundamental Rethink'
"A sustainable global food system in the 21st Century needs to be built on a series of "new fundamentals", according to a leading food expert, Professor Tim Lang, one of the first members of the UK government's newly formed Food Council. Lang warned that the current system, designed in the 1940s, was showing "structural failures", such as "astronomic" environmental costs; Professor Lang says the the new approach needed to address key fundamentals like biodiversity, energy, water and urbanisation." (story)

Could Food Shortages Bring Down Civilization?
By Lester R. Brown
The biggest threat to global stability is the potential for food crises in poor countries to cause government collapse... (article, SciAm)

CSA: Community Supported Agriculture
A CBS report on the new business model for small farms- contracting to directly supply local families... (story and video)

MountainAir Film Festival: Theme This Year is Food Supply
Every year, Mountainfilm kicks off its festival with a full-day symposium on a critical global issue. The past two years we looked at energy and water, respectively. This year our focus is on food. Specifically, we will examine the question of how the world will feed itself sustainably and equitably in the future. Bill McKibben will be our keynote speaker and Chef Ming Tsai our emcee. To see the rest of the line up, go to (MountainAir Film Festival)

"The Science of Our Food"
A Scientific American 'In-depth Report': "From the genetics of tomatoes to building meat and stomachs in the lab, a look at the stuff we stuff ourselves with. How is science trying to improve our food, and how it tastes?" (Sci-Am special)

A Willy Wonka Who Wants to Feed the World
"He's driven by a techno-utopian vision of decentralized food in which the world's ever-growing appetites are met by a radical transformation of agriculture itself and it all begins in our kitchens..." (story)

Paying a Price for Loving Red Meat
... with some guidelines on "preventing premature deaths related to red and processed meat" ... "New findings suggest at least 1 million men and half a million women died prematurely in America over the last decade due to high meat consumption. 'In the United States livestock production accounts for 55 percent of the erosion process, 37 percent of pesticides applied, 50 percent of antibiotics consumed, and a third of total discharge of nitrogen and phosphorus to surface water.'" (NYT, 4/27)

The Breathtaking Effects Of Cutting Back On Meat
Did you know that if all Americans ate vegan for one day, the grain saved would be enough to feed all of New Mexico for a year?
A recent United Nations report titled Livestock's Long Shadow concluded that the meat industry causes almost 40% more greenhouse gas emissions than all the world's transportation systems--that's all the cars, trucks, SUVs, planes and ships in the world combined. The report also concluded that factory farming is one of the biggest contributors to the most serious environmental problems at every level--local and global...
In its report, the U.N. found that the meat industry causes local and global environmental problems even beyond global warming. It said that the meat industry should be a main focus in every discussion of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortages and pollution, and loss of biodiversity. (story)
View The Meatrix!

Ill From Food? Investigations Vary by State
Different states' reporting of contaminated food varies wildly... a study by the NYTimes.. (report, NYTimes)

Food Companies Are Placing the Onus for Safety on Consumers
"The supply chain for ingredients in processed foods from flavorings to flour to fruits and vegetables is becoming more complex and global as the drive to keep food costs down intensifies. As a result, almost every element, not just red meat and poultry, is now a potential carrier of pathogens, government and industry officials concede..." (story, NYT)... more related articles in the Times' Food Safety section.

Mexican Lawmaker: Factory Farms Are "Breeding Grounds" of Swine Flu Pandemic
Suspicion falls on the Mexican subsidiary of US 'hog giant' Smithfield Foods
(story at HuffPo) / a more extensive coverage at The Guardian

Update: Swine flu genes traced to North Carolina factory farm
Good in-depth reporting from Southern Studies on the history of this strain and CAFE hog-farm industry in the states... (story)

Democracy Now: The "NAFTA Flu"- Critics Say Swine Flu Has Roots in Forcing Poor Countries to Accept Western Agribusiness (watch online)

Bad Seed: Gov't/Corporate Takeover of U.S. Food Supply?
(story at OpEd News) also: "The World According to Monsanto" in ten parts (on YouTube.com)

New Chemical Culprit Found for Bee CCD
"In 1974, the US Environmental Protection Agency licensed the nerve gas parathion trapped in nylon bubbles the size of pollen particles..." (story)

Climate Change

Brace Yourselves for Apocalypse Now
"... it's not just ranters wearing bathrobes on street corners: Some of the most respected thinkers about science and society are issuing alarming prognostications about humanity coming to an end, with a bang or with a whimper. Martin Mittelstaedt surveys the doom patrol...
"... Mr. Lovelock has penned one of the darkest outlooks with his book The Vanishing Face of Gaia, which warns that climate change might kill most of us in a catastrophe just short of biblical-flood proportions. He forecasts that humanity's numbers may drop from the current seven billion to a billion - perhaps no more than 100 million.
"Lovelock also predicts that climate change won't be a century-long process allowing lots of time to safely adjust. The transformation to a hothouse world will be abrupt. Temperatures will jump over the course of a couple of years to a dangerous new normal that is four or five degrees higher than today..." (story)

Climate Change Hitting Entire Arctic Ecosystem-
New report from the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program
(story) ... (download report)

Brancaccio with Pati Priya On Thin Ice
Himalayan glaciers serve as regulators of fresh-water supply, in that they store winter precipitation as ice, which is then released during the hot and dry months, thus providing a constant fresh water supply to the millions of people downstream. In this excellent reportage from PBS "Now", David Brancaccio takes us to the source of the Ganges, the Gangotri Glacier, high in the Himalayas, for a close look at just what is happening to the world's glaciers, and what the implications are for fresh water supplies in Asia. Along the way, there are conversations with Lester Brown, Vendana Shiva, Conrad Anker, and Pati Priya, an Assam schoolteacher who spends half the year alone among the mountain peaks in meditation.
(watch the show) / (David Brancaccio's Travel Journal / with Priya (meeting Pati Priya)

Can Tree Save Us From Climate Change?
A Scientific American podcast (podcast, SciAm)

Future Earth
"Future Earth," a four-part series on the environment, premieres April 26 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on MSNBC. In "Future Earth: Journey to the End of the World," find out why Earth's climate machine the North Pole is melting alarmingly fast. Learn about our planet's future, and how you can stop its decline. (website)

Planet Earth
Extensive graphical presentations of data relating to all aspects of Earth's biomes and planetology; with good educational materials... (website)

Global Green Economy Can Save the Planet
A new study by McKinsey and Co, "Pathways to a Low Carbon Economy" argues that global warming can be kept below the critical 2C rise and that it is well within our means to do so. The study spells out in detail the costs of cutting damaging carbon emissions, but makes it clear that only by acting now will we avoid the worst impacts of climate change. (Pathways study at McKinsey) / (full document pdf download)

Is it Already Too Late?
James Lovelock, Gustav Speth, Lester Brown, on population growth and human sustainability. (article)

Study: Cool Spells Normal in Warming World
(story)

The Sun Goes Quiet... Very Quiet.
(story)

Harvard astrophysicist: Sunspot activity correlates to global climate change
(story)

Solar Influences Data Center
(site)

James Lovelock Interview: One Last Chance to Save Mankind
NB this interview is also posted at the CFR website as a "must read" (interview)
Lovelock says a massive biochar effort is the only thing that could save us... read more on biochar:

Biochar Update: New UNCCD Report:
"...Pyrolysis (of agricultural residues resulting in charcoal and energy production) with biochar carbon sequestration provides a tool to combine sustainable soil management (carbon sequestration) and renewable energy production. The process of pyrolysis or carbonization is known globally and can be implemented at both small scale (e.g. cooking stove) and large scale levels (e.g. biorefinery). About 50% of the carbon can be captured if biomass is converted to biochar. Charcoal enriched soils like Chernozems and in particular Terra Preta soils are among the worlds most fertile soils and prove that soil organic carbon enrichment beyond the maximum capacity is possible if done with a recalcitrant form of carbon such as biochar..." Download the full report (pdf)
Terra Preta, Biochar, and Soil Restoration

Washington Update

President Obama's Earth Day Speech (watch the speech)

Obama's Speech to The National Academy of Sciences
"We will devote more than 3 percent of our GDP to research and development. We will not just meet, but we will exceed the level achieved at the height of the space race, through policies that invest in basic and applied research, create new incentives for private innovation, promote breakthroughs in energy and medicine, and improve education in math and science. (Applause.) "This represents the largest commitment to scientific research and innovation in American history. "Just think what this will allow us to accomplish: solar cells as cheap as paint; green buildings that produce all the energy they consume; learning software as effective as a personal tutor; prosthetics so advanced that you could play the piano again; an expansion of the frontiers of human knowledge about ourselves and world the around us. We can do this." (watch the speech)

Since Obama took office, the White House has put under federal protection more than two million acres of wilderness, thousands of miles of river and a host of national trails and parks. The conservation effort - the largest in the last 15 years - came with the stroke of a pen when Obama signed the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 in late March. (ref)

White House Office of Public Liason (website)

Other News of Note

Deadly Bat Disease Spreading Fast
"The mysterious disease that's killing tens of thousands of bats in the Northeast is spreading so fast that it could reach California within five years,,." (story)

Pollution Can Change Your DNA in 3 Days, Study Suggests
Study: "Breathing in polluted air may wreak havoc on our DNA, reprogramming genes in as few as three days and causing increased rates of cancer and other diseases..." (story)

One year ago...
Scentless Spring? Flower Smells Blocked by Pollution
"Growing levels of air pollution from power plants and automobiles have reduced the potency of flower fragrances by up to 90 percent as compared with pre-industrial levels in the United States, a new study has found..." (story)

Florida "Solar City"
20,000 homes are planned for a new 'solar city' in Lee County, Florida, entirely powered by solar energy, in a joint project of Florida Light and Power and the developer. (story)

Leasing Solar Power
Pennsylvania company is offering leased solar power installations to homeowners... (story)

The Mystery of H2O
Daily Galaxy: (story) PhysOrg: (story)

Ford Truck Plant to Build Electric Cars
"The Michigan Assembly Plant, known as one of the worlds most profitable manufacturing sites during the S.U.V. boom of the 1990's, was once the hub for the Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator. The plant is expected to begin building the new Ford Focus next year, followed by production of the all-electric Focus in 2011..." (story, NYT)

Seawater Fuel Discoverer, John Kanzius, passed away.
John Kanzius, the man who discovered how seawater could burn under the influence of radio waves while researching a cure for cancer, died in February of this year. (Wiki: John Kanzius) / (video: anti-cancer strategy, and water burning)

OriginOil & Sapphire Moving Closer to Commercializing Algae Fuels
(story)

Tree Found Growing in a Man's Lung
yes... (story)

EPA Bans Carbofuran Pesticide Residues on Food
after 75 lions poisoned in Masai Mara
"...One manufacturer, FMC Corporation, withdrew Furadan from the Kenyan market after the airing of a documentary on CBSs 60 Minutes on March 29, which reported that the death of about 75 lions had been linked to Furadan poisoning in the Masai Mara..." (story)

Rocket Fuel Found in Infant Formula
(story, NYT)

Komodo Dragons Update
It has recently been learned that the Komodo dragon's bite is deadly, not because of bacterial infection, but because of venom. Makes you wonder if some dinosaurs were also venemous. Lately, Komodo dragons have gone on the attack in the villages of southern Indonesia.

and carried over from the last update...

Lizards Undergo Rapid Evolution after Introduction to a New Home
And this in the Year of Darwin!
"Striking differences in head size and shape, increased bite strength and the development of new structures in the lizards' digestive tracts were noted after only 36 years, which is an extremely short time scale, says Duncan Irschick, a professor of biology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst..." Explain this, neo-Darwinists! (View news release)

Biologists Take Evolution Beyond Darwin- Way Beyond
"... to Woese and others, change and selection need to be studied at other levels: A honeybee colony, for example, is as much an individual as a single bee. And when explaining how interacting units- bees, or bacteria, or cells- produce the qualities of the whole, change and selection alone might not suffice. What's needed is an understanding of the dynamics of complexity..." (story)

Are Planets Living Super-Organisms? World's Leading Expert Says "Yes"
"As [Maruyama Shigenori] connects the dots from astronomy to life sciences, the outlines emerge of an all-encompassing image of entire planets, which appear as living super-organisms..." Maruyama also presents an interesting theory re the "life cycle" of tectonic plates... (story)

Inevitable Minds
Kevin Kelly, writing at his blog, Technium:
"...Plants exhibit all the characteristics of intelligence, except they do it without a centralized brain, and in slow motion. Decentralized minds and slow minds are actually quite common in nature, and occur at many levels throughout the six kingdoms of life. A slime mold colony can solve the shortest distance to food in a maze, much like a rat. The animal immune system, whose primary purpose is to distinguish between self and non-self, retains a memory of outside antigens it has encountered in the past. It learns in a darwinian process, and in a sense also anticipates future variations of antigens. And throughout the animal kingdom collective intelligence is expressed in hundreds of ways, including the famous hive minds of social insects.
The manipulation, storage, and processing of information is a central theme of life. Learning erupts over and over again in the history of evolution, as if it were a force waiting to be released. A charismatic version of intelligence the kind of anthropomorphic smartness we associate with apes evolved not just in primates, but in at least two other unrelated taxon: in the whales, and birds..." (read more)
See Case Focus: Biocosm- A Living Universe?

Previous Links and Resources Pages: March-April 2009 / Dec-Feb 2009 / July-August 2008 / May-June 2008 / March-April 2008

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"In order to solve the climate crisis, we have to solve the democracy crisis"- Al Gore

Ecoversity blogs:
Biomagic Vortex
Heraclitus Report

Home - the Movie
Yann Arthus-Bertrand, celebrated French journalist, photographer and environmentalist, has created an extraordinarily beautiful film of our home planet, and the impacts our species has made upon it's life systems. The photography is gorgeous, with excellent narration and a beautiful music score. The film, produced by Luc Bresson, premieres on the internet today, June 5, in it's full length version, and can be seen in high quality full screen mode at Home Project's Youtube channel.
Read about the production, with interviews, press, etc at the Home Project website

Previous News & Links:

March-April 2009
Dec-Feb 2009
July-August 2008
May-June 2008
March-April 2008

Ecoversity: Recent Press

KUNM discussion re urban gardening with Christiana Capelle and Willem Malten, Ecoversity creative director... (download podcast)

Santa Fe Free Press 1/22/09
"A Hands on Campus" (pdf)

Santa Fe New Mexican 11/28/08
"A New Energy Frontier"

KSFR: Diego Mulligan Interviews
- March 24 2009: Diego interviews Andrew Fikiforuk, author of Tar Sands, and Dan Buettner, author of The Blue Zone, with Ecoversity's RP Harbour accompanying. (download mp3)
-Interview with Ecoversity's RP Harbour and Willem Malten, 12/30/08 (mp3)
-Interview with Alphonz Viszolay 12/16/08 (mp3)

James Lovelock interview
June 2: Diego Mulligan interviewed James Lovelock, originator of Gaia Theory, about the state of the planet now. He's not optimistic. But at 90 something, he's going into low orbit on Richard Branson's Spaceship 2 this fall from New Mexico to have a look. (podcast)

Lovelock- Follow-up Interview with Diego Mulligan on KSFR starting Friday June 12th at 5:05 pm. (more info)

ABC Earth 2100
Earth 2100
Bob Woodruff presents this ABC special envisioning human life on earth over the next century. In the first part, a more and more environmentally deranged planet, daily life is seen through the eyes of a girl born in 2009. This is a worst-case scenario, a dark and scary vision. In the second part, an alternative path into the future is charted leading to what E.O.Wilson calls "a paradise". (watch online)

US Drought Index
view website

Gaia Hypothesis
Surprisingly good summary of the Gaia Hypothesis watch here

CoolIris is really cool- an image and video based search browser in theater form. download here

Envirolink Forums
Envirolink was the first big environmental hub on the web in the mid-nineties, and is still now a tremendous resource. Envirolink.org

Online Resources

USGS: NM Water Resources/a>
USGS News Releases
USGS Biology New Mexico

Santa Fe Institute
Earth and Planetary Science Letters
Green Money Journal
Planet Green | Global Green
Wikia Green
EarthWatch | EarthPledge
Green Inc Blog
EcoHearth
The Warming