Soil covers most of the surface of the Earth’s land. It occurred after the erosion of rocks, due to strong winds, water, ice and due to the activity of living organisms. Soil is usually suitable for plants and small organisms to grow and live. However, human activities have altered the natural soil environment of many areas, making it hostile to organisms.

Humanity deposits many toxic substances under the ground. Most of those are radioactive materials, pesticides, heavy metals and other kind of poisonous wastes. Even if they are first deposited in lakes, rivers or the sea, waters transfer most of them in the soil, when the latter absorbs water. It happens the other way round as well, as chemicals within soil are transferred with the rain into marine ecosystems.

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Here is a clever ad that says: “Save Trees. Trees Save.”

From where the advertisement comes from is unknown. If someone knows who made this ad or more background information regarding the advertisement please let us know about it by making a comment below. Thanks!

George Monbiot talks about oil-dependent countries focusing all their powers on “growth at all costs” while the world slides into recession, over at the Guardian.

“If the world is sliding into recession, it’s partly because governments believed that they could choose between economy and ecology. The price of oil is so high and it hurts so much because there has been no serious effort to reduce our dependency. Yesterday in the Guardian, Rajendra Pachauri suggested that an impending recession could force us to confront the flaws in the global economy. Sadly it seems so far to have had the opposite effect: a recent Ipsos Mori poll suggests that people are losing interest in climate change. Opportunities for energy populism abound: it cannot be long before one of the major parties abandons the pale green consensus and starts invoking an oil cornucopia it cannot possibly deliver.”

Monbiot also explains why he no longer believes in contraction and convergence. Instead he puts his hopes on a global limit for carbon pollution that Oliver Tickell proposes in his book Kyoto2.

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This is not a joke, I promise. The House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said in an press conference yesterday that he don’t think there is any wildlife in the Arctic Wildlife National Refuge (ANWR).

“We’re going to look at this barren, Arctic desert where I’m hoping to see some wildlife,” Boehner said. “But I understand there’s none there. But I’m still going to look for it. If I find any, I’ll let you know.”

Check out the video below where CNN interviews John Boehner, shortly after the press conference, while showing b-roll of actual wildlife moving around in the Arctic Wildlife National Refuge.

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The popular Prius hybrid car from Toyota Motor Corp. will be equipped with solar panels when the vehicle goes through a complete makeover as early as next spring.

The solar panels will be located on the roof and supply power to the five kilowatts needed to power the air-conditioning unit in the car. Toyota also intends to reduce the weight and thus improve the fuel efficiency even more.

This move will make Toyota the first major automaker to install solar panels in one of its car models. And the western automakers hopelessly try to catch up by offering everything besides green innovation.

In an interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now leading scientist John Holdren says the term “global warming” is wrong. He rather prefer to use the term “global disruption.”

“I don’t like the term “global warming,” because it’s misleading. It implies something that’s mainly about temperature, that’s gradual, and that’s uniform across the planet. And in fact, temperature is only one of the things that’s changing. It’s a sort of an index of the state of climate. The whole climate is changing: the winds, the ocean currents, the storm patterns, snow packs, snowmelt, flooding, droughts. Temperature is just a bit of it.”

“It’s also highly non-uniform. The largest changes are occurring in the far north in the Arctic, in the Antarctic Peninsula in the far south. It is certainly not gradual, in the sense that it is rapid compared to the capacity of ecosystems to adjust. It’s rapid compared to the capacity of human systems to adjust.”

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It came in a little cardboard mailer. Aspen/Snowmass, the resort area to the stars, where the average price of a house is $4.2 mil, sent me a CFL today. I’ll admit, I visit Aspen annually with my family and so am on their mailing list. I’m guessing that the CFL is actually their yearly pre-season gift (last year it was a calendar). So, I’ll take a free CFL, but it got me wondering… why? It looks like this is recent spate of generosity is part of A/SM’s SAVE SNOW campaign. The campaign is part of a larger environmental commitment that A/SM has going on and it shows how enlightened governance can make a difference.

As part of the campaign they have produced a transparent and valid sustainability report (downloadable at their site), an Amicus Brief to the Supreme Court on carbon dioxide regulation, they have testified in front of congress, and they purchase significant RECs.

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Prominent Australian academic Economist Professor Ross Garnaut was commissioned by the right-wing, pro-Coal, State and Federal Governments of Australia to review the economic impacts on Australia of climate change; to also examine this in an international context; and to recommend policy options.

The Garnaut Review Draft Report was published recently and has made headlines in Australia ever since. This pro-Coal Australian Climate Change Report is of major importance because Australia is the world’s biggest coal exporter and if you include the CO2 from these exports, Australia’s annual per capita greenhouse gas pollution (47 tonnes CO2-equivalent per person per year) is about 10 times that of China (5) and over 40 times that of India (1).

The Garnaut Report is GOOD in that it indicates (albeit inexplicitly) a serious climate change situation; the need to act now; and a “Cap and Trade” Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) to encourage uptake of clean energy options.

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Daniel Mittler, political advisor to Greenpeace International, said this when he was about to leave the G8 Summit in Toyako, Japan:

There are a lot empty water bottles and even more coffee cups lying around the International Media Centre at the G8. The rooms are slowly emptying out and the faces of those remaining are drained and tired. As I am sure is mine. The last three days were wasted days for addressing the global crises we face. But at least we managed to counter the predictable, positive spin leaders put on the pathetic statements they put out here. For one (of gladly many) good media stories on the united NGO reaction against the G8 climate deal click here. Our Home, the Planet needs action. All it got here, was 8 leaders’ signatures who failed to do what is needed…

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How will our coastal cities look like when the ice melts and causes rising sea levels? How can we take care and give room for the millions of climate change refugees in the future? Well, the Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut might have the answer.

Vincent Callebaut has designed a “floating ecopolis” called Lilypad. Each of these floating cities has room for 50000 people. The city will be able to generate its own energy with the help from several wind turbines, wave power and solar panels. Lilypad will also be able to collect and clean rainwater for daily use around the city.

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