Hitchsters is an easy-to-use website that conveniently connects travelers going to and from airports so that they can share a ride (and thus split the fare). The Hitchsters.com matching system makes riding in a car to the airport more affordable, more convenient, safer, and more environmentally-friendly.

This idea is especially great because of the fact that traveling by airplane is nothing close to eco-friendly. Hitchsters.com launched this week in the San Francisco Bay Area and they plan to expand to other cities in the near future.

Hitchsters.com helps match people looking to ride-share on the way to or from the airport (SFO, OAK & SJC) and hooks them up with a high-quality, yet inexpensive car service. By doing so a person saves on average $21/ride and reduces their carbon footprint by 30 lbs compared to taking a cab alone.

Hitchsters.com are trying to get the word out to help people save some money and save the environment a bit too. They’ve already launched in NYC and were honored last year by Time Magazine when they were named one of the “50 Best Websites of 2007″.

How it works (form Hitchsters.com website):

Log in to your MyHitchsters account, enter your trip itinerary, and select your saved location. (Not there? Add a new one to your MyHitchsters profile).

When matched, you will be notified with a text message and e-mail containing the first name and cell phone of your co-rider (nothing else is shared). As an additional safety feature, we preserve the phone numbers of all of the successful matches.

A partnering car service calls each party to arrange the ride.

If you are sharing a ride to the airport, then you will only be matched with someone else who is leaving from your area to go to the same airport. If you are sharing a ride from the airport, you will only be matched with someone who is on the same flight (no worries about late flights) and going to the same area you are.

After your trip, you will have an opportunity to evaluate your co-rider, and the limo company, with a “thumbs-up” or “thumbs-down” rating.

If you’re like me and love camping, you probably know that you do not leave your trash on site. Too bad some people forget about this.

I went camping this week with my friend and we decided to head out with the canoe on lake “trente-et-un miles” in the Province of Quebec. We found this great place on the side of the lake with a nice flat spot for the tent and a ready made fire pit. I was quite upset when I saw a bunch of trash all over the place. I mean, it’s so easy to bring a garbage bag and bring all your waste back home.

To avoid any problem with garbage you should always bring your food in reusable containers.

If you have any tips to green your camping trips please leave us a comment.

After Hurricane Isabel in 2003 and before Katrina in 2005, Annapolis made state-of-the-art plans to rebuild its city dock, raising it 10 feet higher, adding in rubber retaining walls to protect the city against flooding putting this small, historic, seaside town on the cutting edge of climate change and hurricane preparedness.

Here are some other stinging statistics:

• Approximately 1/3 of the food we eat relies on bees for pollination
• Some researchers believe that without research and protection honey bees could go extinct within ten years
• Many North American beekeepers are reporting a loss of up to 70% of their bee populations in the last two years
• According to the World Bank, food prices have risen over 80% in the last three years. Some farmers say that if beekeepers go out of business the cost of nuts, fruit, and vegetables could increase tenfold.

Here are some things you can do with your kids to promote awareness about the honey bee crisis:

• Rent Bee Movie and talk with your kids about the role the bees play as pollinators.
• Buy Hagaan Dazs Ice cream –a portion of bee dependent flavours goes to honeybee research.
• Buy honey products (to support local beekeepers)
• Visit educational websites for free lessons on honey bees
• Plant a bee friendly garden with flowers like sunflowers, lilacs, and cosmos
• Donate money to honey bee research

Einstein has been falsely quoted as saying that humans would begin disappearing four years after the honey bee. Even if it wasn’t Einstein who made this prediction more than fifty years ago, it is obvious that a disappearance of these pollinators would have a major impact on the world’s food supply. How many years would you give us?

In this story a young boy learns about a fluffy tree called the Truffula that once grew wild in a forest and provided a home for numerous Suessy creatures. A man named the “Once-ler” explains to the child how he discovered that the fluffy Truffula tree could be used for knitting “Thneeds” (objects that all people need). Despite protests from “the Lorax” the Once-ler watches his business grow and grow until the sky turns grey and there is only one seed left.

As with all Seuss books, The Lorax can be enjoyed at different levels by children and adults of all ages. This book may be the key to convincing your children (or spouse) that they don’t thneed anything new to play with this summer. Maybe they will be inspired to help you plants some seeds beneath the blue sky instead of going shopping.

Other Recommended Reading for Kids

Here are a few other kids’ stories that deal with ecological concerns. Look for these in your local libary or bookstore, and make sure to have one on hand at the end of each month for Earth Hour.

Recycle Every Day By Nancy Elizabeth Wallace
A bunny named Minna has a school assignment to make a poster about recycling.

The Great Trash Bash By Loreen Leedy.
Mayor Hippo and his animal citizens investigate the trash problems in Beaston.

The Tower to the Sun By Colin Thompson
A rich grandfather decides to build a tower so that his grandson can see how the sun once looked before air pollution took over the world.

Uno’s Garden By Graeme Base
Adorable creatures, including lumpybums and frinklepods welcome Uno into their garden. Life is beautiful until the tourists settle in and take over. What becomes of the Snortlepig?

In this story a young boy learns about a fluffy tree called the Truffula that once grew wild in a forest and provided a home for numerous Suessy creatures. A man named the “Once-ler” explains to the child how he discovered that the fluffy Truffula tree could be used for knitting “Thneeds” (objects that all people need). Despite protests from “the Lorax” the Once-ler watches his business grow and grow until the sky turns grey and there is only one seed left.

As with all Seuss books, The Lorax can be enjoyed at different levels by children and adults of all ages. This book may be the key to convincing your children (or spouse) that they don’t thneed anything new to play with this summer. Maybe they will be inspired to help you plants some seeds beneath the blue sky instead of going shopping.

Other Recommended Reading for Kids

Here are a few other kids’ stories that deal with ecological concerns. Look for these in your local libary or bookstore, and make sure to have one on hand at the end of each month for Earth Hour.

Recycle Every Day By Nancy Elizabeth Wallace
A bunny named Minna has a school assignment to make a poster about recycling.

The Great Trash Bash By Loreen Leedy.
Mayor Hippo and his animal citizens investigate the trash problems in Beaston.

The Tower to the Sun By Colin Thompson
A rich grandfather decides to build a tower so that his grandson can see how the sun once looked before air pollution took over the world.

Uno’s Garden By Graeme Base
Adorable creatures, including lumpybums and frinklepods welcome Uno into their garden. Life is beautiful until the tourists settle in and take over. What becomes of the Snortlepig?

Though it can boast of 300 days or more of sunshine each year, Marrakech only receives 4 inches of annual rainwater. As the family describes in their website, this should be a major cause of concern for olive growers. However, most native farmers take part in a wasteful practice of flooding their land. While Maryam and her husband Chris adore Marrakech and its culture, they were not comfortable with this practice: “Soon after buying our olive grove, we installed a drip system to irrigate our trees and plants. With this technique each dripper puts out about 1 gallon of water on the ground per hour. The water slowly seeps in the ground with almost no evaporation. We also use grey water for irrigation.”

Maryam admits that it is next to impossible to go fully “green” in Marrakech. She cautions guests that there won’t be environmentally friendly linens to sleep in or hybrid cars to rent. You may not even be able to recycle your cans or bottles there. However, this family is doing its best to incorporate green initiatives, and we can only hope that their local neighbors and international guests will notice their efforts and be inspired to take their own step in the green direction.

Not only does Peacock Pavilions give everyone permission to chase big dreams, this family serves as a good reminder that it aint easy being green. Yet, if we all do our part, (including our youngest tadpoles) we’ll have a cleaner pond to swim in.

Peacock Pavilions opens in November 2008 and is currently taking reservations. Why not go and hug an olive tree?

List of Green Initiatives (www.peacockpavilons.com):
To reduce electric energy consumption and carbon output, Peacock Pavilions also incorporates the following elements:

• Insulation in the walls and on the roofs more vulnerable to heat gain or loss. This step is almost always skipped in Marrakech, because of the extra costs entailed.
• Aluminum windows with air tight seals.
• Rumsford fireplaces which radiate more heat into a room and less up the chimney. We may just be the only people in Marrakech with these.
• Radiant floor heating. Hot air passes through pipes buried in the concrete floor slabs. The heat is then radiated into the room over a period of hours. This is more efficient than heating air, and nicer for the feet, too. So rare is radiant heating in Marrakech that people have been trooping though Peacock Pavilions to ask Architect Chris how to install it.
• Air conditioning through evaporative cooling. This system draws 70% less energy than conventional air conditioners and is well adapted for arid climate. Used frequently in the southwest of the US, evaporative coolers blow a mist of water over a filter and then air is passed through the filter. Air temperature can be reduced as much as 30 degrees F.
• Solar water heater panels. Hot water for our own house and our 3 bedroom Pavilion is provided by the Moroccan sun, with back-up provide by instant gas heaters (no need to keep kettle warm when no one is drinking).
• Primarily fluorescent lights. Why use 75 watts when 20 watts will do the same job? (California plans to ban sale of incandescent light bulbs by 2012. What a concept…!)

No protection for the climate
The new designation obliges the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to devise a protection plan for the bears, but limits on greenhouse gas emissions or constraints on oil and gas projects won’t be part of it. Global warming is the major factor threatening polar bears, said Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, but the Endangered Species Act is an “inappropriate” tool for setting U.S. climate policy.

“This listing will not stop global climate change or prevent sea ice from melting,” he told a news conference. “It’s not something that one continent can do by itself. We need to have the major economies of the world have these discussions.”

Kempthorne acknowledged the decision won’t be popular among environmentalists but said he can’t make a direct link between the species and carbon dioxide emissions.

Oil and gas are off the hook
The decision spares potential complications for Canadian energy projects like Alberta’s oilsands that produce a higher amount of greenhouse gases.

But the United States will no longer allow imports of polar bear trophies, likely reducing sports hunts in Nunavut, where Inuit guides charge Americans up to $30,000 to shoot one of the animals. The measure was triggered by regulations under the U.S. act, although the wildlife service concluded hunting isn’t a “substantial” threat to the bear population.

Inuit communities will suffer
Losing American trophy hunters will mean an immediate loss of about $2.5 million for five struggling Nunavut communities, said Gabriel Nirlungayuk, wildlife director for the territory’s native land claims organization in Rankin Inlet.

“As long as you’re in the oil and gas business you won’t get affected but if you’re a hunter in a small community you get hit. It’s hard to understand. These communities don’t have deep pockets.”

It’s especially disheartening, Nirlungayuk said, because the Inuit have been co-operating for decades with government biology experts to set an annual quota for the bears — about 400 in 2008. “All the work that we’ve done, it seems to be all for naught.”
There are about 25,000 polar bears in the world, up from 12,000 in the late 1960s, said Kempthorne. Some 15,000 are in Canada.

Science of prediction

But the latest science, including data from the U.S. Geological Survey, indicates they are likely to become in danger of extinction within the next 45 years due to receding sea ice. Computer models indicated the polar bear’s primary habitat will decline more than 30 per cent by the middle of the century, reducing the population by two-thirds. And sea ice trends over the last 30 years indicate the models may actually understate the change rate.

“Sound science did prevail,” said Peter Ewins, director of species conservation for World Wildlife Fund Canada. “Congratulations are due. It could have easily gone the other way.”

Canada should take note, said Ewin, and take steps to implement conservation plans for oil-related accidents before the habitat of polar bears in the Beaufort Sea is sold off for exploration on June 2. “It’s going to take strong leadership to turn it around or Canada is really going to be out of step.”

Kempthorne, who met last week with Canada’s Environment Minister John Baird, noted Canada hasn’t listed polar bears as threatened even through it has two-thirds of the world’s population.

Polar bears not endangered in Canada
The Canadian committee overseeing endangered wildlife has said it will recommend the bears remain as a species of special concern. That would give Canada until 2014 to devise a management plan to address threats to the animal’s survival, including climate change.

“Everyone of us took great notice of that,” said Kempthorne, who noted there’s no similar middle-ground category for wildlife in the U.S.

Baird is expected to make a decision on the animal’s status in Canada later this year. President George W. Bush, who recently called for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, said last month the Endangered Species Act was never intended to regulate climate change.

Kempthorne said he consulted with the White House but insisted there was no pressure on him. “At no time was there ever a suggestion that this was not my decision,” he said, adding that Bush told him: “You do what you need to do. Everyone was thankful they weren’t in my shoes.”

For the last three years, the US Department of Interior has been dragging its feet when it comes to protecting the polar bear. It has now finally listed the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. This might seem like a victory but there are enough exemptions in this listing to leave the polar bear unprotected against its biggest threat, global warming.

What happened?

After months of calculated delays and several lawsuits against them, brought by Greenpeace, the Natural Resources Defence Council and the Center for Biological Diversity, the Bush administration has listed the polar bear as threatened under the United States Endangered Species Act (ESA).

A threatened listing under the ESA is supposed to provide broad protection to polar bears. This includes a requirement that United States federal agencies ensure that any action carried out, authorised, or funded by the United States government will not “jeopardise the continued existence” of polar bears, or adversely modify their critical habitat.

However, the decision comes with a big catch: an exemption (technically known as a “4(d) exemption”) for global warming pollution. Global warming is the biggest threat facing polar bears and this exemption eliminates any real protection the listing could have provided for the polar bear. It specifically says federal agencies don’t need to consider the impact of global warming pollution on the polar bear. It gets worse: the listing also proposes a separate regulation that reduces the protections the polar bear would otherwise receive under the ESA.

This might look like a listing to protect the polar bear but it’s really just a way for the administration to protect the interests of the oil and gas industry, as well as get away without taking action on global warming.
Via: Greenpeace

What does the science say?

A decision about whether or not to list a species under the ESA is supposed to be based on the best available science. The best available, most current science on the impact of global warming on polar bears is clear: the species faces extinction because its Arctic ice habitat is melting. Sea ice melts and refreezes seasonally, but recent years have shown a smaller area of maximum sea ice in the winter. Predictions about Arctic sea ice loss have become worse with each passing year. A few years ago, scientists were predicting the Arctic Ocean could be ice-free in summer as early as 2100, then that prediction was moved up to 2050, then 2040 and 2030. Late last year, one leading scientist predicted the Arctic Ocean could be ice free in summer as soon as 2012. It seems clear that the pace of global warming in the Arctic is outrunning predictions and is happening faster than expected.

“I have been following this issue for quite some time, and I have seen firsthand the impacts of global warming in the Arctic. I’ve been in Alaska’s Beaufort Sea when the sea ice retreated so far offshore that a lone polar bear was stranded in open water, swimming for what little ice it could find in search of its ringed seal prey that were hundreds of miles away at the ice edge. That bear was not long for this world, and the image haunts me every time I read another grim report about the plight of polar bears in our warming world,” said Melanie Duchin, a global warming campaigner for Greenpeace US, based in Alaska.

In 2007, the US Geological Survey predicted that by 2050, two thirds of the world’s polar bears would disappear, including all of the polar bears in the United States. Scientists are witnessing evidence that polar bears are already in real trouble. Reduced food supplies due to global warming has resulted in polar bears actually resorting to cannibalism in the north coast of Alaska and Canada. Scientists with the US Minerals Management Service documented the drowning of at least four polar bears in September 2004, when the sea ice retreated a record 160 miles off the state’s northern coast. Just last week, scientists in Alaska reported that fewer polar bear yearlings are making it to maturity. The polar bear population in Western Hudson Bay of Canada has declined from approximately 1200 bears in 1987, to 1,100 bears in 1995, and then to fewer than 950 bears in 2004 due to ice loss. Arctic sea ice loss set a record low in 2007. This year, the sea ice melt season is already shaping up to break the record set in 2007.

Polar bears and sea ice

Polar bears live only in the Arctic and are totally dependent on the sea ice for all of their essential needs, including hunting their prey. The rapid warming of the Arctic and melting of the sea ice poses a serious threat to polar bears. The polar bear could be the first mammal to lose 100 percent of its habitat to global warming. As the ice continues to disappear, so will the polar bear. The only way to save the polar bear is to stop global warming and protect their sea ice habitat from melting away, and the only way to do that is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Once again, the Bush administration is ignoring the science that is staring it in the face: global warming is threatening polar bears with extinction. The federal government’s press release carried the headline, “Secretary Kempthorne Announces Decision to Protect Polar Bears under Endangered Species Act,” but it’s clearly mistitled. It would have been more aptly written if it had said, “Secretary Kempthorne Announces Decision to Protect Oil and Gas Industry.” Exempting global warming pollution caused by unabated oil and gas drilling spells doom for the polar bear, pure and simple.

For those reading this and thinking that, while saving the polar bear is a laudable goal, what’s more important is drilling for oil, jobs and the economy, consider these facts:

• The US will never be able to drill its way to energy independence since it has only three to four percent of global oil reserves, yet burns one-quarter of the world’s oil.
• The Arctic is a harbinger for things to come at lower latitudes. What we see now in the Arctic – unprecedented sea ice loss and species threatened with extinction – will not be limited to the Arctic. Serious global warming impacts and species’ extinction will accelerate in the mid-latitudes as it is in the Arctic.
• Stalling action now means more disruption and economic cost down the line. It’s not just about polar bears and the Arctic, the entire country will benefit if the government replaces dirty sources of energy such as oil, gas and coal with cleaner, climate friendly forms of energy like solar and wind. Conservation can go a long way toward cutting US energy needs as well.

A large quantity of nitrogen compounds emitted into the atmosphere by humans through the burning of fossil fuels and the use of nitrogen fertilizers enters the oceans and may lead to the removal of some carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, concluded a team of international scientists led by Texas A&M University Distinguished Professor of Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences Robert Duce.

The team of 30 experts from institutions around the world presented its conclusions in the current issue of the journal Science.

Human-caused atmospheric nitrogen compounds are carried by wind and deposited into the ocean, where they act as a fertilizer and lead to increased production of marine plant life. The increase in plant life causes more carbon dioxide to be drawn from the atmosphere into the ocean. This process results in the removal of about 10 percent of the human-caused carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, thus potentially reducing the climate warming potential, according to the team’s paper.

However, some of the nitrogen deposited in the ocean is re-processed to form another nitrogen compound called nitrous oxide, which is then released back into the atmosphere from the ocean. Nitrous oxide is a powerful greenhouse gas itself – about 300 times more powerful per molecule than carbon dioxide – thus cancelling out about two-thirds of the apparent gain from the carbon dioxide removal, Duce explained. “But of course, the whole system is so complex that we’re still rather unsure about what some of the other impacts might be within the ocean,” he said.

In most areas of the ocean, nitrogen is the nutrient that limits the production of plant life, Duce said. So when all of the nitrogen in an area of the surface ocean is used up, no more plant life forms in that area. The team found that human-caused nitrogen deposits account for up to one-third of the external input of nitrogen into the ocean, and this increase in nitrogen available for the production of plant life causes more plants to form, Duce explained.

Oceanic plant life is produced from marine carbon (bicarbonate) in the ocean, and that amount of bicarbonate is in equilibrium with the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. So when more bicarbonate is used up to produce marine plant life, it disrupts the equilibrium, and carbon dioxide is drawn down to the ocean from the atmosphere to restore the balance, Duce explained.

Thus, the human-caused nitrogen fertilization of the ocean removes some of the most important greenhouse gas – carbon dioxide – from the atmosphere, Duce said. This gain, however, is offset by the nitrogen compound, nitrous oxide, that also forms in the ocean due to the nitrogen fertilization and is re-emitted into the atmosphere as a powerful greenhouse gas, he added.

“If you don’t consider the impact of human-caused nitrogen when trying to model climate change, you’re missing a possibly significant part of the overall carbon cycle as well as the nitrogen cycle,” Duce said. “So nitrogen deposition is potentially a very important factor in the climate change issue.”

According to the team’s calculations, about 54 million tons of nitrogen produced from human activities entered the ocean from the atmosphere in the year 2000. The team also found that the current nitrogen emissions are about 10 times what they were in 1860, Duce said. He added that the amount of nitrogen entering the atmosphere is expected to rise in the coming decades with the increase in demand for energy and fertilizers, and the team estimates that by the year 2030, human-caused nitrogen emissions will have risen to around 62 million tons per year.

“Clearly, there is much that we do not know about the extent and timescale of the impacts of this nitrogen deposition on the oceans and the subsequent feedbacks to the climate system,” Duce said. “The implications are complex and interactive, and this is a very important issue that policy makers need to address and that scientists trying to model and understand the future of climate and climate change need to take into consideration.”

From: Science Blog