Halibut Herald March 26

H

ALIBUT HERALD March 26, 2009

Bits and Bites Beyond Green Roofs: 15 Vertically Vegetated Buildings

Above photos from left to right, top to bottom: Edificio Consorcio, Santiago, Chile; Edouard François ‘Flower Tower’, Paris; Urban Plant; Siam Paragon Shopping Center; Musée du Quai Branly

Below photos from left to right, top to bottom: Topiade Façade for Louis Vuitton (2 above photos, other LV inspired vegetation); Zurich Airport; Ann Demeulemeester Shop by Mass Studies; Midori no Tobira; CaixaForum Museum, Madrid; The Moss Room Restaurant; Parti Wall

READ ON & VIEW MORE PICS: http://webecoist.com/2009/03/02/beyond-green-roofs-15-vertically-vegetatedbuildings/

Dolphin bubbles Reason # 198346 to LOVE, UNDERSTAND & PROTECT Dolphins! Watch Video: http://holycuteness.blogspot.c om/2009/03/dolphinbubbles.html

Hydropower threatens BC Rivers, group says Today, thousands of British Columbians will take a stand to keep the province's rivers wild. The project, called 10,000 Voices for BC Rivers Day of Action, is calling attention to proposals for power projects along BC's pristine rivers and streams.

Tenders for such projects were announced in 2002 by the BC government as part of its clean energy plan. Already, private operators have staked out about 600 divers and streams for potential hydropower sources. However, such projects will damage river ecosystems, says the Wilderness Committee, a coast-to-coast grassroots organization of 30,000 members that works to protect wilderness areas in western Canada. One such run-of-the-river power project proposed in BC would dam and divert 17 rivers. Actually building the project would require 200 km of new road construction, 100 bridges and hundreds upon hundreds of kilometers of transmission lines. ORIGINAL ARTICLE: http://workcabin.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1000&Itemid=117

4 Radical Solutions to Packaging Waste 1. Tax Non-Standard Packaging 2. Outlaw landfills 3. Implement a Bottle Bill 4. Put the Kibosh on Single-Use Packaging SOUND CRAZY ENOUGH TO BE GOOD? STILL NEED MORE CONVINCING??? READ ON: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/03/4-radical-solutions-topackaging-waste.php

How to Grow Your Own Fresh Air: Kamal Meattle on TED.com Researcher and activist Kamal Meattle shows how an arrangement of three common houseplants, used in specific spots in a home or office building, can result in measurably cleaner indoor air. (Recorded at TED U 2009, February 2009, in Long Beach, California. Duration: 04:04.)

New seafloor observatory provides round-theclock monitoring of ocean and Earth One instrument uses sound to monitor marine life. The second instrument is an ultra-sensitive earthquake detector READ ON: http://www.mbari.org/news/homepage/2009/mars-mobb-deimos.html

BirdLife campaigns to save migratory birds “This campaign aims to have a major impact on how the world perceives migratory birds. It has the potential to unitemany different communities to rise above the complex and difficult political, financial and humanitarian perils facing them today” ~Marco Lambertini, Executive Director BirdLife International LEARN MORE: http://www.borntotravelcampaign.com & http://www.birdlife.org/news/news/2009/03/born_to_travel_launch.html

Hand-wash Small Loads With The Laundry Pod This is pretty neat, The Laundry Pod, an ecofriendly, oversized, saladspinner-like device that you use to hand-wash your small loads. And, presumably, make a salad for 30. http://consumerist.com/51 82033/handwash-smallloads-with-the-laundrypod

Hundreds of Killer Whales Seen in Gulf of Mexico READ ON: http://www.star-telegram.com/462/story/1277803.html

Sick beluga whale puzzles Tacoma aquarium experts “The beluga, Qannik, began losing interest in food on March 15”… Sound familiar? READ ON: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008922204_webbeluga25m.html

How surfing the web can save the environment “software (could) be designed to crawl the web and hunt for early warning signs of ecological change, so we can react before it is too late.” READ ON: http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/03/how-surfing-the-web-can-savet.html

New bird discovered after its extinction “After almost 120 years in the Natural History Museum collections, a new Colombian bird has been discovered, and proclaimed extinct.” READ ON: http://www.physorg.com/news157304550.html

Tongan Eruption, Quake, Tsunami Alert READ ON: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/tongan-eruption-quake-tsunami/

Cluster Ballooning: 100 Helium Balloons Strapped to a Lawn Chair “While no license is needed for cluster ballooning, there are only a handful of pilots on – or hovering over – the face of the planet. One of them is American John Ninomiya, a high-flying figure in what he sees as “something between an extreme sport and a personal eccentricity”. Ninomiya has the largest number of flights – around 60 to date – and the most flying time of anyone in the business. He uses anywhere between 50 and 100 balloons, and claims to have flown to an astonishing altitude of 21,400 feet. That’s 4 miles high.” READ ON & MORE PICS: http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/featured/clu ster-ballooning-helium-baloons-strapped-tochair/8823

Archival Photo

Tuk, a polar bear cub on display in 1962, photographer unknown.

Library News New Books • Dolphin Mysteries: Unlocking the Secrets of Communication by Kathleen M. Dudzinski and Toni Frohoff (2008) • Operation Orca (replacement copy) by Dan Francis and Gil Hewlett (2007) • Watching Giants: the Secret Lives of Whales by Elin Kelsey (2009) New Movies: • Galapagos: the islands that changed the world; BBC Video/National Geographic (2007) • NOVA: Warnings from the Ice; NOVA, 1998

Events

More exciting events here: http://www.vanevo.ca/events01.html Check out videos of past lectures here: http://www.sfu.ca/cstudies/science/darwin.htm

Design the Next Vancouver 'FormShift Vancouver' contest invites new ideas for a vibrant, greener, denser city. A new competition invites the world to help Vancouver imagine itself as not only a denser city, but one more green, livable and exciting to the eye. And though the contest welcomes entries from the best architects in B.C. and beyond, you don't have to be in the business of designing buildings or neighbourhoods to enter and win. READ ON: http://thetyee.ca/News/2009/02/23/FormShift/?utm_source=mo ndayheadlines&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=230209 CONTEST DETAILS: http://formshiftvancouver.com/

LEARN HOW & SIGN PETITION HERE: http://e-activist.com/eacampaign/clientcampaign.do?ea.client.id=104&ea.campaign.id=2968

http://www.swaporamarama.blogspot.com/

Earth Hour goes darkly this Saturday night The WWF sponsored Earth Hour event calls on you to shut the lights for an hour this Saturday at 8:30 pm local time. This is one of the most compelling experiments of recent times, an exercise in political will. The event will take place around the world in an effort to help stop global warming, curb sea level rise, and perhaps even prevent the shut down of global thermohaline circulation. Feel the power. Will you go darkly? If you can convince your high school, lab, university, or research institution to outen the lights, take a before and after picture like the one above, and send it in. We’ll post it here with credit to you and your school. Hopefully a space shuttle or satellite is planning to take a picture of particpating cities, which number in the hundreds. READ ON: http://deepseanews.com/2009/03/earth-hour-goes-darkly/ OFFICIAL SITE: http://www.earthhour.org/home/

Classified