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Tag: Nature and Our Future
Debate: What Good Are Planetary Boundaries?
Bob Lalasz is director of science communications for The Nature Conservancy.
Does Earth have limits — limits to how far we can push its natural systems and deplete its resources, beyond which we will incur major blowback?
Almost every environmentalist would answer "yes" — and have pugnaciously strong opinions about what we should do (or stop doing) to avoid crossing them. But what does science tell us about those limits? Which are really science-based? Can innovation can stretch any of them? Are they useful for motivating policymaking and behavior change?
A world-class panel of scientists grappled with these questions last Thursday's during "The Limits of the Planet: A Debate" — the final forum in this year's "Nature and Our Future" discussion series, sponsored by The Nature Conservancy and held at The New York Academy of Sciences headquarters in lower Manhattan.
The major disagreements of the evening came over whether outlining global limits for the stable functioning of nature (as opposed to tipping points for individual ecosystems) is good science — and whether "limits" are the correct approach to achieving environmental goals. On this point, not everyone was in the Bill McKibben/350.org camp.
"The evidence is incontrovertible that there are local tipping points — for coral reefs, for instance– but not so for global ones," said Erle Ellis, a panelist and associate professor of geography and environmental systems at the University of Baltimore, Maryland County. "It's not a runaway train. Ecosystems change, but it's not a domino effect. You can change all the systems on the planet. But does that constitute a global tipping point?"
The Death of 'Green' and Plan B for Science Communications
Bob Lalasz is director of science communications for The Nature Conservancy.
Maybe the most surprising thing about the demise of The New York Times' Green blog was that…so many people were surprised by it.
When I attended the ScienceOnline 2013 conference in late January — an annual gathering of digitally savvy scientists and science reporters and communicators held at North Carolina State University — everybody I talked to about Green thought its death was a foregone conclusion.
That's because the Times had dissolved its environment desk earlier that month, and paying the desk's two editors to essentially manage a blog is a rather dear expense in today's precarious newspaper environment.
Still, the Twitterverse erupted in howls when the news finally leaked out last Friday. Bora Zivkovic, the irrepressible blogs editor for Scientific American, summed up the agony:
(Background: When the Times shut down its environment desk, Bora put forth this long post outlining how its reporters who used to be on environmental beats could now evangelize with the rest of the news staff to build an environmental newsgathering ethos throughout the paper, with Green as its flagship. It was a nice theory, but newsrooms unfortunately don't really work that way — especially as more and more reporters work from home these days.)
I wasn't surprised when Green got killed, but I was still a little shocked. "Shocked" because, while I saw it coming, the idea of one of the most influential newspapers in the United States giving up its dedicated channel for reporting on energy and the environment is a particularly big tree to fall in the ever-thinning forest of mainstream U.S. environmental journalism.
You probably know the numbers by heart: More than half of all environmental reporting positions at U.S. dailies have been terminated since 2000, and the number of science sections at dailies has fallen from about 150 to fewer than 20.
(And, let's be frank: The shock for many enviros also stems from the Times' reputation as a liberal paper, friendly to environmental concerns. As the thinking goes: If even the Times can't even see fit to keep an environmental blog going, is there any hope of getting our stories back in the mass media?)
Once the shock wears off, though, what does the disappearance of Green mean for environmental science and science communications? It's more complicated than you might think.
Enjoy Osprey Cam Live!
The Ospreys Are Back!
Live views, 24/7, of an Alabama osprey nest. Record your observations and ask our ecologist about what you're seeing.
What is Cool Green Science?
noun 1. Blog where Nature Conservancy scientists, science writers and external experts discuss and debate how conservation can meet the challenges of a 9 billion + planet.
2. Blog with astonishing photos, videos and dispatches of Nature Conservancy science in the field.
3. Home of Weird Nature, The Cooler, Quick Study, Traveling Naturalist and other amazing features.
Cool Green Science is edited by Matt Miller, the Conservancy's deputy director for science communications, and managed by Lisa Feldkamp, an American Council of Learned Societies fellow with the TNC science communications team. Email us your feedback.
Innovative Science
Call for Inclusive Conservation
Join Heather Tallis in a call to increase the diversity of voices and values in the conservation debate.
Appalachian Energy Development
Where will energy development hit hardest? And where can conservationists make a difference?
Not a sci-fi movie. A true story of nanotechnology & clean water.
On the Wild Side
Bird is the Word
Latest Tweets from @nature_brains
- Game over for earth? New environmental apocalypse computer game: http://t.co/lCEX0q74CU via @onEarthMag
- Investing in nature for clean water fr. @saragottlieb on Cool Green Science: http://t.co/1GYZ6m3j1A http://t.co/3Svqocp9oc
- Can India leapfrog it's way to 100 smart cities: http://t.co/b2eo4FITGC #development HT @G_Boccaletti https://t.co/aREeQvw5k0
- Would you be willing to pay more for your water if it meant there would be less pollution?: http://t.co/1GYZ6m3j1A http://t.co/CGoRlH9gSj
- A new way to measure mangrove forest canopy height in an African blue carbon ecosystem: http://t.co/C4sJszscX1 via @RSECJournal
Blogroll: Conservation and Science
- 10,000 Birds
- Bird Freak
- Blogfish
- Carl Zimmer's The Loom
- Climate Compass
- Collide-a-scape
- Conservation Biology Institute
- Conservation Bytes
- Conservation Magazine
- Deep Sea News
- Discover Magazine Blogs
- Dynamic Ecology
- Earth Lab
- Eat More Brook Trout
- Environmental Leader
- Gary Paul Nabhan
- God of Wednesday
- Grist
- High Country News
- I, Science
- Idaho Nature Notes
- Inside Science
- Knight Science Journalism Tracker
- Mongabay
- Mother Jones Blue Marble
- New Scientist
- New York Times Green
- Not Exactly Rocket Science
- NRDC Blogs
- Orion Blog
- Peter Gleick: Significant Figures
- Pew Environment Group
- Planet Change
- PLoS blog
- Prairie Ecologist
- Real Climate
- Science Blogs
- Science Daily
- Science Friday
- Science Jon
- Science Shots
- Scientific American Blogs
- Sea Monster
- Short Sharp Science
- Smithsonian Science & Nature
- Strange Behaviors
- Surprising Science
- Ted Williams Conservation Blog
- Tet Zoo
- The Blog Aquatic
- The Tiny Aviary
- TreeHugger
- Wired Science
- Yale Environment 360


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subset: commoncrawl


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A DISASTROUS miscalculation by British safety authorities in the 1960s has condemned tens of thousands of building workers to die from asbestos-related cancers, say leading epidemiologists. What is more, even though safety regulations are tighter today than in the 1960s, builders may still face serious risks from asbestos.
Asbestos provides good heat insulation and fire protection and was used in countless British buildings until the last decade or so. But by the mid-1960s, medical specialists had shown that asbestos fibres caused asbestosis, lung cancer and mesothelioma, a fatal cancer of the lining of lung. The government banned imports of blue asbestos - the most dangerous form of the mineral - in 1972. And use of brown asbestos was phased out between 1980 and 1982. White asbestos, which is least dangerous, is still allowed in some products.
Mesothelioma generally takes about 30 years to develop and sufferers usually die soon after ...
To continue reading this article, subscribe to receive access to all of newscientist.com, including 20 years of archive content.


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The Quest3 Series siding provides the premium solution for homes that value the superior performance, beauty, and design that advanced vinyl technology delivers.
For scheduled delivery to your business or jobsite in the state of Michigan, northern Ohio, or northern Indiana
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For order items available for ground shipping anywhere in the continental U.S, place your order online here using the Add to Cart and Checkout buttons in the product catalog pages, and review our online order policies here.
This page last updated . Contact your salesperson for current pricing and availability. We make every attempt to represent manufacturers' product colors as accurately as modern web site technology allows. Nonetheless, we always recommend you refer the customer to the actual product before making a final color choice.


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Jan 17,2010
Fireplace Manufacturer, Travis Industries, Hosts 30th Anniversary Factory Event
Showcasing New Products, Latest Technology and Recent Hearth Industry Legislation
Read more..
Jan 19,2010
Let's step back to Travis Industries humble beginnings
as they share it's history of how it all started
Read more..
Travis Industries is proud of our outstanding team of employees who manufacture award-winning hearth products and are the heart of our company. Joining the Travis team as a MIG welder, painter, CNC machine operator or one of the many careers to choose from, provides you an opportunity to work with the best in the industry. We are committed to providing equal opportunity for all individuals who are seeking employment. The objective of our hiring procedure is to select the most qualified individual for the job. We encourage you to provide us with complete and accurate information that demonstrates your qualifications to perform the duties of the job you are applying for. Travis Industries will consider submitted applications active for 180 days at which time a current application will need to be completed. Travis Industries provides a drug-free work environment and a drug pre-employment screening test will be required. Please check our current job openings below to see if your qualifications match with our current needs.
Travis Industries does not currently have open positions, however, we are still accepting applications for future opportunities. Thank you.
Travis Industries Human Resources
12521 Harbour Reach Dr
Mukilteo, WA 98275


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On March 17, Eastern's Concert Chorale performed at Carnegie Hall. The chorale is composed of students, faculty and community members. This was the fifth time that the group has sung at Carnegie Hall.
David Belles, associate professor of music and conductor of the Concert Chorale and Chamber Singers, served as conductor for the concert. The chorale performed John Rutter's "Requiem" as part of a choral ensemble with choirs from Connecticut, Arizona, California and Kentucky. "It's not every day that we get the opportunity to sing in such a renowned place as Carnegie Hall," said Concert Chorale member and music major Renae St. John. "I was happy to perform Rutter's works, which I personally enjoy. They're composed in such a way that they are easily accessible to all kinds of choirs, regardless of skill level or membership."


text: READ THIS FIRST The letters in the chapters that follow are reprinted exactly as they appeared in the Times. Even when a thought was not clearly stated, the letter is still copied in its entirety. Misspelled words and missing punctuation marks remain unaltered inasmuch as it is impossible to tell whether the error was made by the author or the typesetter. Since most errors are not significant enough to cause the reader difficulty in understanding the writer's intent, they stand as written, without the use of sic. Where absolutely necessary, the present editor has inserted a correction at the appropriate place within the letter using this style of bracket {-Ed.}. That bracket was also used if a portion of the letter was {illegible}. Brackets of this sort [ ] within a letter or in the editorial postscript at the end of the correspondence were inserted by the Times editor. Where ( ) was used, it was either so written by the letter's author or inserted by the paper's editor. The date that a letter appeared in the Times is inserted in this type of bracket and in this form: {Times, Jan. 4, 1886, p. 3} It appears above the reprint of the letter. The letter's title, which appears just below the date of the paper, is the title the Times editor put on the letter. For various reasons, this anthology was prepared using Wordstar, a now obsolete software program. In order to more easily put the text on the web site, it had to be converted to ascii. In so doing, several features were lost: italics, bold face, etc. Perhaps in the future the Wordstar version can be distilled easily into a form that will permit those features to be saved, at which time they will replace this version. Each chapter is written with the assumption that you have already read the preceding chapters and general introduction. Consequently, some names will be mentioned without any identification since they have appeared earlier in the volume. Only the opening introductory chapter is footnoted. For the most part the historical material included in the subsequent chapter and letter introductions is from recognized sources and is therefore not footnoted. The date and page number, however, appear on all letters. No attempt has been made to sanitize the letters. "Nigger Alley" has not been translated to "Negro Alley," although it should be noted that the city council minutes used the latter term, nor is the writer who used the pseudonym "A Chinaman" renamed "Asian American." One of the great features of a cyberbook is that errors, whatever their nature, are not permanent. {How many scholars and students, having read in Glenn Dumke's "Boom of the Eighties" that Santa Fe and the Southern Pacific engaged in a fare war that cut the cost of cross-country tickets to a dollar in 1887, have repeated the error in his date?} Readers are encouraged - URGED! - to report errors, factual or otherwise, that they find in this anthology. Keep in mind that errors in the letters have been intentionally left there, although it is possible that a few mistakes at the computer keyboard have imposed on our correspondents of the 1880s some grammatical errors for which they are not responsible. The more likely problem is that factual mistakes occur in the introductions. If so, please report them to this e-mail address: email@example.com or to: Ralph E. Shaffer History Dept. Cal Poly Pomona Pomona, CA 91768 In addition, if a reader can identify any of the anonymous letter writers, and one reader already has, or wishes to offer a comment about any of the material covered in the anthology, please do so at either of the above addresses. At some point in the near future, an additional section will be added to this anthology: an index to all {or as many as have been found} of the letters printed in the Times, 1881-1889. Comprised of well over 2000 letters, it will actually be a three part index: by date, by author and by subject. In the long run, that may turn out to be the most valuable part of this project. Until that time, scholars researching Los Angeles in the 1880s are welcome to use the above addresses to inquire if there are letters that might be of value to them. {Postscript: all three indexes are now part of this anthology.} And now to the letters. If you are a casual reader rather than a scholar who has a special interest in a particular topic, you might prefer to begin with either of the two "Miscellaneous" chapters or "Crazy Shaw," all of which are near the end of the volume. Otherwise, pick the topic that appeals to you and click on it. Thanks to "Tara," Emily Bennet, Jesse Butler, Ralph Hoyt, Frederick M. Shaw, J. C. Sherer and all their fellow Angeleno correspondents of the 1880s, who have left us an indispensable look at life in Los Angeles during that exciting decade. In the future no one will be able to write authoritatively about the city as it then existed without consulting them.


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The following is an archive of a post made to our
'vox-tech mailing list'
by one of its subscribers.
Hi guys,
Would like any feedback if possible. Am from out of
town so I won't be able to go to the InstallFest on
Sunday (I commute from Vallejo).
Any ideas on how to rescue my D: partition? Otherwise
this weekend I will repartition and reformat.
--- Peter Jay Salzman <firstname.lastname@example.com> wrote:
> ok to reply to vox-tech. he's now on the list.
> set wrapmarge=7
> pete
> ----- Forwarded message from
> firstname.lastname@example.com -----
> Was installing Mandrake Linux 7.2 on my computer,
> but
> it didn't have g++
> (since I chose one of the default setup options), so
> removed the linux
> partition and installed using Expert mode. Linux
> installed perfectly. BUT,
> I also had two 4.5 gb Windows partitions, C: and D:,
> on the computer. Both
> my DOS boot disk AND Windows refuse to acknowledge
> the
> existence of my
> D: partition (Sector not found errors), and C: takes
> a
> long time to boot (hard
> disk sounds like it is trying to read a bad sector)
> but the STRANGE THING
> is, I can still access my D: drive in Linux, as
> /mnt/win_d. So far I'm
> trying an evacuation, transferring all important
> files
> from D: to C:, and planning to burn a copy before I
> nuke everything and repartition/reformat.
> What happened exactly? What stumps me is that Linux
> can still access my
> D: partition fine. I don't want to re-format and
> find
> out that the same
> problem will crop up later... is it possible that
> Linux damaged the hard disk system and I need to
> low-level format? (Linux Expert Mode asked me if I
> wanted to use 32-bit file access, I said NO since it
> said it might cause data corruption).
> Thanks,
> Mike Darrett
> ATTACHMENT part 2 application/pgp-signature
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Manuel the donkey will be star turn at Coffinswell Christmas fayre
Posted: November 19, 2012|
BELL ringers of Estuary Bells will open the Coffinswell and Daccombe Christmas fayre at St Bartholomew's Church, Coffinswell, on November 25.
There will be plenty on sale including art works and crafts, local produce, Christmas decorations and much more.
There will also be a raffle with prizes including dinner for four courtesy of the Grand Hotel, Torquay, and gift vouchers for Wilkinson and Mole Valley Farmers and theatre tickets.
Live music from Abbotskerswell Choir, Kingskerswell Junior School and Coombeshead College Soul Band will feature, plus an appearance by Manuel the 'Christmas' donkey.
Admission is free, although donations are welcome. Money raised will go to St Bartholomew's Fabric Fund and future village events.
The fayre takes place from 2pm until 5.30pm.


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Moderators: Tonyblack, Jason, Toothy
MasterIggy wrote:
Spam is everywhere these days! Now it's hitting mobiles!
Orginal post: mobile spam
Jan Van Quirm wrote:No wonder pandas have so much trouble breeding - and shouldn't that female be in front?
Hi there Zebbo Mooty
Jan Van Quirm wrote:Waste of time when you're on the brink of extinction - get right down to it straight off is the only way
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