Crew News and Activity
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We Have Used Up This Year’s Supply Of Natural Resources
Today is a bad day for planet Earth. We’ve just reached Earth Overshoot Day, the date by which humanity has used up its yearly “allowance” of Earth’s natural resources – and it’s earlier than it has ever been before. Global Footprint Network (GFN) is the think tank behind Earth Overshoot Day. Each year, they work out the day in the year where humanity’s demand on nature exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year. It’s all worked out with 15,000 data points per country from datasets from the United Nations and recent scientific literature.
Mushrooms
You probably didn’t know mushrooms could be used to construct buildings and cure diseases. Mushrooms are being tested in innovative and imaginative ways to help society. Engineers, medical researchers, and designers are utilizing the natural abilities of various fungi for antibiotics, building materials, water filtration, toxic waste cleanup, pest abatement, textiles, and other purposes.
Earth, 250 Million Years From Now
Science calls it “Pangaea Proxima”. You might prefer to call it the Next Big Thing. A supercontinent is on its way that incorporates all of Earth’s major landmasses, meaning you could walk from Australia to Alaska, or Patagonia to Scandinavia. But it will be about 250 million years in the making.
City of London Bans Purchase of New Diesel Vehicles
The City of London Corporation has banned the purchase or hire of diesel vehicles for its business. The public authority, which has a fleet of more than 300 vehicles, announced on Friday it will now no longer lease or purchase diesel models when older models need replacing.
Plastic Chair Made From Our Air Pollution
Plastic surrounds us. From grocery bags and water bottles to gas caps and furniture, the petroleum-based products are ubiquitous, but the planet-warming emissions from their creation doesn’t have to be. Our chairs, bottle caps, and even laptop computer cases could all be part of the carbon emissions solution, capturing greenhouse gases within the plastic they’re made out of.
Kurt Vonnegut’s 1988 Letter to the Future
Ladies & Gentlemen of A.D. 2088:
It has been suggested that you might welcome words of wisdom from the past, and that several of us in the twentieth century should send you some. Do you know this advice from Polonius in Shakespeare’s Hamlet: ‘This above all: to thine own self be true’? Or what about these instructions from St. John the Divine: ‘Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment has come’? The best advice from my own era for you or for just about anybody anytime, I guess, is a prayer first used by alcoholics who hoped to never take a drink again: ‘God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.’
2016 to be the hottest year on record
This past May was the warmest May month in a 137-year period, breaking global temperature records, according to a report published Thursday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
WATCH: How to Let Go of the World and Love All the Things Climate Change Can’t Change
In How to Let Go of the World and Love All The Things Climate Can’t Change, Oscar Nominated director Josh Fox (GASLAND) continues in his deeply personal style, investigating climate change – the greatest threat our world has ever known. Traveling to 12 countries on 6 continents, the film acknowledges that it may be too late to stop some of the worst consequences and asks, what is it that climate change can’t destroy? What is so deep within us that no calamity can take it away?
New York and California Lead in Clean Energy
For a glimpse of what New York’s just-announced clean energy standard could mean to the state’s economy, look West.
Stephen Hawking: Humankind is the greatest threat to Earth
Physicist Stephen Hawking says pollution coupled with human greed and stupidity are still the biggest threats to humankind. During an interview on Larry King Now, the science superstar told King that in the six years since he’s spoken with the talk show host people haven’t cleaned up their act.
