Ice Breaker Arctic Ocean wallpaper
Mangrove-dependent animals globally threatened
More than 40 percent of a sample of amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds that are restricted to mangrove ecosystems are globally threatened with extinction, according to an assessment published in the July/August issue of BioScience.
….Between the early 1980s and 2001, between 19 and 35 percent of the world’s mangrove forest area was lost.
If the current rate of mangrove loss continues they’ll be completely gone in about a hundred years. Some vertebrate inhabitants of mangroves have glands with the ability to excrete excessive salt. An adaptation that might be of some benefit to humanity by way of medical research.
A Green Way to Dump Low-Tech Electronics. Generally people have been very responsive to recycling their old TV because of the digital signal change over, but laws vary state to state. Some national consistency would make things easier for consumers and further benefit the environment if there were national standards. Its interesting to note an electronics industry spokesman’s complaint that manufacturers should not be held responsible for proper disposal. This is a cultural/business attitude that has never accounted for the actual or complete costs of its products. They feel they are not responsible for the costs of their products to society at large. Thus one of the reasons we have built in obsolescence, toxic chemicals draining into out rivers and ground water and the electronics industry has not been motivated to use more recycled materials or make their products easier to recycle. Consumers get the benefit of a slightly lower prices at the check out, but end up paying for it by way of health problems related to dangerous chemicals and ever expanding landfills maintained with taxes and/or fees. It might not be a great movie, but a great part of the satire in Idiocracy(2006) was a future civilization living surrounded by mountains of waste.
