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POPSWoman Challenges Putin and Saves World's Oldest & Deepest Lake
Environmental activism is growing increasingly hazardous in Putin's Russia. With growing limitations on freedom of speech in Russia, if you oppose a state company, you can expect to come to the attention of the state security services. But Rikhvanova, a biologist and veteran environmental crusader, was devoted to saving Lake Baikal, she won even Putin's ear after organizing protests, petitions and flash mobs. (Last year her adult son Pavel was one of 20 people arrested after an attack on her group's environmental encampment). Baikal, also known as the "Blue Eye of Siberia", is the world's oldest and deepest -- and largest -- freshwater lake, home to more than 1,700 species of plants and animals, two thirds of which can be found nowhere else in the world. Rikhvanova is now organizing to block the expansion of a state-run uranium enrichment facility at Angarsk, just 50 miles from Lake Baikal, where the Russian government is planning to import nuclear waste from around the world
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POPSWhy Not Build a Lowe's Store In The Everglades? The 18,000-square-mile "River of Grass" is not a swamp but a unique and vital ecosystem. In 2000, Florida and federal government embarked on a $10 billion, 20-year project to restore the Everglades: This project would work to fix a half-century's worth of draining, diversion and other damage that development had wreaked on one of the world's most delicate but vital eco-systems, and return it to something like its original state. But post-9/11, the Everglades fell down the priority list of the Bush Administration and Congress alike. Today the project is less than half finished, years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget. Last year Congress had to override President Bush's veto of a $20 billion water preservation bill that included a sorely needed $2 billion for the Everglades. Letting Lowe's build beyond the UDB could diminish the urgency of the Everglades and welcome more developers to push their way in. This is the time to step up and push back!
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POPSThe Great Pacific Garbage Patch: Also Know As The Trash Vortex Sad Picture: No one to blame for this but ourselves. Four fifths of the plastic detritus floating over 2.5 million square miles of ocean surface arrives there from land-based run off: from stormwater, in other words: litter. Sadly - many people take the "out of sight, out of mind" approach. Plastic contamination in the world's oceans is worse than previously imagined and no amount of technology can clean it up. We are damned to a future of pollution by plastic. All succeeding generations will only see an ocean filled with trash. Net a piece of plastic, and you’ll find barnacles and small crabs clinging to it. Not a good thing for fish, birds, and mammals that mistake it for its natural food, such as eggs, jellyfish, or other sea creatures. Most of the plastic will eventually photo-degrade into small, dust-like particles to the point that it will be non-detectable to the human eye, but ingestible by sea mammals, birds, and fish—many of which we then consume ourselves.
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POPS2030 Face It: Reverberate “No Coal” Body Paint Design Winners Students were told to spread the word about the negative impacts of coal on our natural ecosystems and its role on greenhouse gas emissions. Face Color Winner: Emily Bibler, Iowa State University. Face B+W Winner and Metropolis Ad Winner: Jackie Fabella, Cal Poly Pomona. Body Winner: Miles Courtney, Pratt Institute. The Reverberate competition brought together students from a range disciplines to take direct action on the topic of climate change. 4,500 attendees participated in a variety of activities relating to global climate change - ranging from architecture to agriculture; from politics to poetics; from green jobs to green food. Through their involvement, they put their ideals into action. As future environmental stewards, these students have every right to ask: why are we all not doing the same?
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POPSTree Nation To Plant 8 million Trees in Niger: You Can Adopt One! “A people without children would face a hopeless future; a country without trees is almost as helpless.” - Theodore Roosevelt More than 90% of Niger is in a deserted zone and is the poorest country in the world: To not plant in a deserted area in Niger would be to abandon the best hope of development for the country. Tree-Nation: an online community, where members can buy their own tree and become the guardian of a tree that Tree-Nation will plant in its park in Niger. Members can play an active role in the development of the project online: contributing suggestions, sharing photos and gathering ideas in the Tree-Blog or creating their own projects. Prices range from USD 10 for an acacia to USD 75 for a baobab tree. So far, over 26,000 members have raised money to plant over 19,000 trees...with the goal of a park of 8 million trees in the shape of a giant heart, visible from space.
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POPSManmade Flood in Grand Canyon to Save Colorado River A 60-Hour Flood with more than 300,000 gallons of water released per second. 98 percent of the sediment carried by the Colorado River has been lost since Glen Canyon Dam was built in 1963: this flood should help restore some sediment and revitalize the ecosystem of the river.
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POPSWorld’s Largest Marine Reserve...Last Intact Coral Ecosystem A 164,200-square-mile ocean wilderness will conserve one of Earth’s last intact oceanic coral ecosystems. Kiribati consists of 33 islands scattered across 2,400 mi of the Pacific Ocean near the equator. It includes 8 of the 11 Line Islands, including Kiritimati (formerly Christmas Island), as well as the Gilbert and Phoenix groups and Banaba (formerly Ocean Island).
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POPSA Mobile Sea Barrier To Save Sinking Venice The project is building 78 floodgates at the 3 inlets that link the Venice lagoon to the Adriatic Sea. When the giant doors are at rest, they will be lying on the bottom of the inlet channel, invisible to the world. Each gate will be up to 92 feet long, 65 feet wide, and will weigh 300 tons. The gates allow one inlet to close and not the other so you are not obliged to close the whole lagoon. Some 37 percent of the work has been completed, and MOSE should open as planned in 2012.
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