Highways quite literally carve up the ecosystems around us and have major effects on wildlife — including animal road deaths, separating colonies of animals, reducing breeding potential, cutting off food supply and even affecting biodiversity as a whole. So comes the idea of Green Bridges. Green bridges are protective over- or underpasses built for wildlife to cross highways safely, without running the risk of being hurt on the roads as they make their way about their daily lives. These special bridges provide small and large mammals, amphibians, insects and reptiles with a safe alternative to follow regional or trans-regional routes, while mitigating the fragmentation of their habitat and feeding/mating patterns.
Continue reading... →The process of restoring the ocean can help reduce poverty, increase food sources in coastal areas and provide income. A report designed for the UN World Ocean Conference suggests several ways humans can accomplish these goals, such as recovering and managing fisheries to revive the economy and alleviate poverty and hunger. The report, created by the Nippon Foundation — Nereus Program, highlights the issues of climate change due to global warming and how countries can work together to save the ocean and its marine life. One concern raised in the report is the rising sea levels, which are forcing fish to move to different locations, but more people are moving towards the coasts. To sustain ocean life, researchers are combining artificial intelligence (AI) with robotic technologies for efficient monitoring in places humans cannot go.
Continue reading... →Environmentalism has taken many different forms over the years. Recently, say the past decade or so, it’s been largely relaxed and passive. Now however, that’s changed in the U.S. as there’s a new administration in town that doesn’t have the same views on environmentalism and climate change as did the previous administration. No matter where you stand on politics, the last eight years were progress for our planet but they weren’t good enough. If you’re not sure where to begin to keep environmentalism alive in 2017, here are plenty of options.
Continue reading... →Despite our increasing usage of renewable energy, there are still some big hurdles to achieving sustainability. The most recent challenge, which underlines the need for increased investment in renewables, comes in the form of storing renewable energy for later use. Most of us became familiar with the concept of cryogenic storage in the Sci-Fi movies and comic books we enjoyed as kids. While this actually deals with the preservation of usable electricity instead of human bodies, the idea is very much the same. Thanks to some recent breakthroughs, scientists have found that we can freeze energy via liquid nitrogen or liquid air. A process that works by collecting the heat dissipation that occurs by exposing incoming electricity to extremely low temperatures, cryogenic energy storage is an attractive option on account of its relatively low cost and its smaller physical storage requirements.
Continue reading... →In a society that has gotten used to disposing of the last-greatest for the latest and greatest, there is one thing most Americans forget won’t be replaced by the newest, fastest gadget or application. Something as incredible and beautiful as planet Earth. After all, it’s the Earth that provides the food that we eat. What we need to consider is how we produce this food. Sustainable agriculture is the answer to a world that commonly uses pesticides and pollutants to produce the crops that we take for granted. Unfortunately, the price may be too high for the planet to pay.
Continue reading... →Construction on new buildings never stops, and with it grows a demand of sustainability options. Green construction depends on using the best materials that meet both strength and usefulness as much as it does environmental standards. There is an expected growth of green construction in demand of 11 percent in the next year, so it’s best to understand how and what’s making this happen.
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