August 30, 2011
Climate Insights 101
Climate Insights 101 - an online, free course developed by the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions at the University of Victoria in British Columbia
"We all have a role to play. We are all part of the solution."
View the introduction.
June 20, 2010
Webbys 2010
The ceremonies have come and gone, but it's still worth our time to look over the list of Webby awards in 2010 whether our interest is web design or just finding interesting, useful sites.
14th Annual Webby Awards Nominees & Winners:
Big wins:
Best practices: Twitter and NPR
Social networking: Twitter
Copyrighting: New Yorker and NY Times
Business Blog: Mashable
Cultural Blog: Mashable
Community: Flickr
Events: Ted
Guides, ratings, reviews: Metacritic and CNet
Health: WebMD Consumer Health News
Lifestyle: All About Birds from Cornell and Epicurious. (I would choose the birds)
So much more.
Such as - Waterlife created by the National Film Board of Canada - The story of the last great supply of fresh drinking water on earth. This is the companion site for the documentary film by Kevin McMahon released in 2009. This site won the Webby Award for Documentary, Single Episode
June 03, 2010
Wolfram Alpha does climate
Computing Climate Data from Around the Globe, Wolfram Alpha (june 3)
Wolfram Alpha announces a new capability nearly every week in its blog. Today - climate data.
"You can now query for and compare the raw data from different climate model reconstructions and studies, as reported in peer-reviewed journals and by government agencies, many of them covering more than a thousand years of history. "
December 20, 2009
Arctic Sea Ice Melting
Something's rotten under the Arctic cap, Catherine Farley, Toronto Star (Dec 19)
Scientists now predict that the Arctic passageways will be without ice in the next decade.
"NASA scientists reported earlier this year that Arctic ice has thinned more than 60 centimetres in four years, while the volume of old ice has dropped 40 per cent. The smaller the mass, the faster it melts."
This will have serious consequences for the world's climate. The article links to other articles and videos where you can learn more about the extent of the melting.
December 08, 2009
Google and Climate Change
Climate Tools for Copenhagen and Beyond, Google Official Blog (Dec 7)
At least Google is paying attention - "So in honor of this important event, we've built a number of new tools to give delegates — and you at home — easy access to useful information to help visualize and explore data and issues relating to climate change."
Google has worked with World Wildlife and with Greenpeace.
Watch videos, and take tours through Google Earth.
December 05, 2009
Google Earth Informs Californians
Google Earth explores climate risks to California, Business Week (Dec 3)
Bravo Google. It has created a new tool for Californians to use that shows "how warming temperatures, rising sea levels, precipitation shifts and more frequent, intense wildfires impact their environment."
"The feature, called CalAdapt, was one of the recommendations of a 200-page state report detailing how California should prepare for climate change."
More information about CalAdapt is at the California Climate Change portal. You can try the prototype of the tool there as well.
Google - could you please create something like this to educate the Prime Minister of Canada and his cabinet?
November 29, 2009
Green Consumer
New GreenPlanetSearch 3.0 when you want to search Green, Altsearchengines (Nov 29)
GreenPlanetSearch combines graphics, very interactive interface, video articles (and advertisements) to interest the eco-minded consumer.
"“Our eco-search results will blow people away with a whole new level of relevancy and reliability,” says Michael Haney, Founder/Co-CEO and Chief Technology Officer. “Rather than overwhelm you with a grossly inflated number of green search results, our double-vetted search engine provides instant, eco-weighted results based on what YOU’RE looking for — not what some ‘green washing’ marketer wants to sell you.”"
One could spend some time here enjoying the graphics, but it's a bit thin on content, and at least two areas don't come up: Education, and Home Living > Clean and Green. There is a search box which does work and produces several results for cleaning products.
It's possible that these results come from sites that ask to be listed rather than being selected by editors. Some cleaning product sites I saw were light on information and heavy on advertising.
November 05, 2009
Assess Your Energy Use
Save some energy (and cash) this winter by Don Reisinger, Webware (Nov 4)
US home owners have many tools they can use to do home audits and make decisions on purchases to lower energy use. Canadians can use these to plan as well.
October 25, 2009
Temperature Rising
The UK is serious about the upcoming conference in Copenhagen. It has a site Act on CO2penhagen outlining the "UK Government's ambition for a global deal on climate change".
It has launched an interactive map showing the impact of an increase of 4 degrees C worldwide.
"The map – launched at the Science Museum by Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, Climate and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, along with the UK's Chief Scientist, Professor John Beddington, was developed using the latest peer-reviewed science from the Met Office Hadley Centre and other leading impact scientists. The poster highlights some of the impacts that may occur if the global average temperature rises by 4 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial climate average."
This is a selection of what is expected.
"The impacts on human activity shown on the map are only a selection of those that may occur, and highlight the severe effects on water availability, agricultural productivity, extreme temperatures and drought, the risk of forest fire and sea level rise."
http://www.actoncopenhagen.decc.gov.uk/content/en/embeds/flash/4-degrees-large-map-final
Canada will be most affected by permafrost thawing (happening now), forest fires (every year) and reduced crop yields, not to mention boatloads of refugees.
August 04, 2009
Climate Change
"The WB Climate Change Portal is intended to provide quick and readily accessible climate and climate-related data to policy makers and development practitioners.
The site also includes a mapping visualization tool (webGIS) that displays key climate variables and climate-related data."
June 18, 2009
Green Tweets
Mashable's Top 75+ Green Twits to Follow: NTEN Orgs Represented in a Major Way, NTEN (June 17)
NTEN - a nonprofit technology organization - picked up a posting at Mashable of 75 environmentalists to follow through Twitter. NTEN was one of them.
In this post, NTEN listed 10 green organizations from the Mashable list.
See the longer list of - people, organizations, and blogs - who have twitter streams.
May 11, 2009
Search Me Stacks
SearchMe, the visual search engine, displays results in thumbnail pages, easy to read and easty to click through to the next. It's a meta-searcher in that you can move smoothly form web, to video, to images and blogs. Gather your picks into a Stack, and share that collection with others.
Postscript Dec 29, 2009 - Searchme ran out of money in mid-2009 and closed. Pity.
An Arresting Video
A Cautionary Video About America’s ‘Stuff’, By LESLIE KAUFMAN, New York Times (May 10, 2009 )
More school classes are watching the Story of Stuff created by Annie Leonard about man's wasteful and harmful practices in extraction, production, and consumption. There are detractors who say it is anti-capitalist (!). But it is winning support to be put on the curriculum.
"It has also won support from independent groups that advise teachers on curriculum choices. Facing the Future, a curriculum developer for schools in all 50 states, is drafting lesson plans based on the video. And Ms. Leonard has a contract with Simon & Schuster to write a book based on the video."
It's shocking to learn that existing textbooks are very poor on environmental education, and say little about climate change. Man is perversely blind to impending crisis.
View the video at http://storyofstuff.com/ and spread the word.
April 22, 2009
Earth Day Actions
How to reduce your impact on the planet by Don Reisinger, Webware (Apr 22)
Don Reisinger has "picked five sites that provide a framework for how to live your life in a way that's better for the environment. Whether it's car-pooling or simply eating the right foods, you'll find ways to be a more responsible Earthling."
April 06, 2009
Too Much Stuff
Story of Stuff - excellent web site with a movie on what's wrong with the linear materials production process - from extraction to waste - and at the heart is mindless and purposeless consumption of stuff. This was mentioned by Andy Barrie on CBC Metro Morning.
January 15, 2009
PEW's Green Wave Trend
Pew Center on the States has a section on Trends to Watch that affect policy making in the US states.
"Trends to Watch starts with an overview of eight major economic, technological, social and environmental trends and issues likely to be profound determinants of the prospects of states in the next 10 years. The story of each trend provides broad context and offers answers to such questions as: What is my state facing? What should I be thinking about?"
Green Wave about climate change is one of the big six. It has data visualization tools for comparing states according to emissions, energy consumption, transportation and other aspects of climate change.
December 02, 2008
MSNBC's Climate Change
Climate Change - special series from MSNBC
Excellent research and presentation from MSNBC on climate change.
The interactive multimedia presentation provides an overview through a map of the world with images from Microsoft Virtual Earth and some video segments. Information icons dot the map for video segments on problems in each of those areas.
There are also slide shows on environmental topics, and interactive displays to learn more about the processes and effects.
This is probably largely aimed at high-school level student (some material is from Encarta), but anyone with just a rough awareness of the issues will learn more about the facts and concerns.
November 30, 2008
DeepDyve for Cleantech
Search engine dives into cleantech by Sara Stroud, Sustainable Industries (Nov 17)
More news about DeepDyve (formerly Infovell) -- "the startup says it is expanding its focus from life sciences and patents to cleantech and energy, and will begin indexing material on such topics in late 2008."
"Targeting information-savvy users, DeepDyve claims to dig into unstructured online material, including technical and scholarly publications, databases and proprietary information. The company has also partnered with publishers—mostly of academic journals— to index materials. Users will still have to purchase articles from the publishers, Park says; but he notes that DeepDyve’s query system offers a greater assurance that an article would contain the sought after information."
ReadWriteWeb reviewed DeepDyve (Nov 11) -- DeepDyve: Indexing the Deep Web - and called it "an interesting technical experiment".
October 10, 2008
Twitter's Green Feeds
Tracking 'green' news as it grows, with Twitter by Elsa Wenzel, Webware (oct 3)
Twitter can be used to follow just about anything. This article lists the green, environmental feeds.
"Here are some of the "green" feeds we keep up with on Twitter. Some simply provide instant links to freshly published stories, while others mix in commentary and personality. Check out who they're following to find even more feeds."
July 24, 2008
Climate Change Reports
The Canadian government commissions reports on climate change and then buries them.
A report by Health Canada on the health impacts of climate change was promised for the spring 2008 and then on July 3rd said it would be posted online. It hasn't yet but watch for it at the Health Canada website: Human Health in a Changing Climate: A Canadian Assessment of Vulnerabilities and Adaptive Capacity
Natural Resources Canada issued From Impacts to Adaptation early in 2008. NRCan does have a speaker series - Climate Change Impacts & Adaptation: Speaker Series 2008 with links to presentations. The report is at http://adaptation.nrcan.gc.ca/assess/2007/
See Globe and Mail editorial - Give them their due (July 24)
May 22, 2008
Shopping Green
Greener One: A crowdsourced 'green stamp' By Rafe Needleman, Webware (May 21)
Greener One is to be a "crowdsourced database of green attributes for consumer products.""
Done as a wiki and in beta. Promising as a source for information on the "greeness" of products. Categories include cars and trucks, electronics, home and garden, office, personal care.,
February 29, 2008
Business Week Green Biz
Business Week has a Green Biz blog (these are popping up everywhere)
Of interest: "Climate change is already forcing polar bears south and triggering bird migrations earlier than ever. Now the US Geological Survey reports that that Burmese pythons are spreading through the state of Florida, and may make their way as far north as New Jersey as the climate warms over the coming century."
Washington DC could see itself wrestling with two kinds of pythons - the lobbyists and the reptile.
February 28, 2008
Green Business - Canadian B2B magazine
Green Business Magazine (http://www.green-business.ca/)
"Green Business, a new business-to-business magazine from CLB Media Inc., explores a broad range of issues related to energy, the environment and emissions."
+ Interactive rich-media digital edition (free) - turn pages electronically
+ Print editions for delivery in Canada and the US ($)
+ e-newsletter
There are several prominent business sponsors such as PriceWaterhouseCoopers for the digital edition. Will also see ads from McCarthy Tetrault, GE Ecoimagination, and Canadian Standards Association.
The well designed website has industry news, video news releases (such as How to select Fuel-Efficient Vehicles: EnerGuide (News Canada)), and links to companies and information sources.
Dr. Keith Neuman, Group Vice President-Public Affairs at Environics, writes a bi-monthly column for the Green Business magazine. His latest column was Good Guidance: What will it take for consumers to act on their environmental concerns? (Feb 27, 2008)
February 04, 2008
Learn More About Climate Change
Heating Up for Global Warming Research and Policy By Kaeti Stoss and Frederick W. Stoss, Online (Feb 2008)
Online Magazine has provided free access to its feature article on climate change resources. There are a great number of resources here.
+ potential and actual use of social networking groups to promote awareness and encourage action. Includes a Facebook group for "advancing technology as a solution..."
+ small selection of blogs
+ non-profit sites - mainly educational
+ climate skeptics and naysayers (find out who they are)
+ groups working on solutions, information about action
+ faith-based initiatives
+ education resources
+ terminology - keywords to use in searching.
February 02, 2008
Green Guide
Internet Scout featured The Green Guide
http://www.thegreenguide.com/
"Going "green" can be a challenge but it doesn't have to be. National
Geographic created this site to provide the public with information about
various green-friendly products, services, and so on. The homepage presents
users with a "Tip of The Week", a selection of picks from the editors of the
site, and a number of articles on topics such as wind farms,
environmentally-friendly cleaning products, and conserving water. The "Green
Home Makeover" area is worth a look, as visitors can learn about working on
different rooms in the house, including the living room, the laundry room,
and the bathroom. Finally, the site includes links to a clutch of weblogs,
including "Home Green Home" and "The Ecopolitan". [KMG]"
Lots of good material here - using insulation in attics, insulating the water heater - run searches.