There is absolutely no doubt that carbon emissions caused by excessive use of fossil fuel and our callous cutting of trees have caused global warming to creep up to such dangerous levels that it is causing a serious threat to the polar ice caps and all the animals that reside in the cold paradise.

Polar Bears have been stranded on melting ice caps and have often eventually drowned to their death because of this new climate pattern. But, ADDI has come up with a very unique concept for these stranded animals, in the form of a Lifejacket.

The Polarbears are drowning because of the ice that are melting. They have to swim up to 100 km to find food. Global warming needs to be stopped.

However, his effort is more an attempt to promote awareness in an artistic way than to actually make a realistic lifejacket and strap it onto these animals, because it would seriously hinder their ability to swim and fish and even compromise their natural camouflage.

The whole message is simple and far more significant. Stop the pollution (and be better stewards to our Planet - like Bill would say) or the day we’ll need to wear lifejackets, is not really that far away! - via Dvice

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Pollution is killing more than AIDS in Sao Paulo, says a Sao Paulo University report Air Pollution Lab.

According to the study, some nine people die each day because of pollution - which makes it some 3,500 a year. Less than half of that number of people, 1,624, die each year as a result of AIDS and traffic combined.

Sao Paulo will spend $1.5 billion on pollution-caused diseases, caused mainly by the six million cars in the city. Is it just me or that sounds like, if the cars don’t kill you in traffic, they will kill you with what comes out the back?

Nearly two-thirds of the air pollution is caused by 10% of the total vehicles, the ones that run on diesel fuel. Statistics say that there are about 150 lives lost each year due to sulfur releases from diesel-fueled vehicles and 232 deaths caused by AIDS.

Sao Paulo will adopt a “clean diesel” in 2009 hoping to reduce pollution by at least 5%. Seriously time for the “B” in Bric to clean up its act. - via Xinhuanet

Image courtesy of Auntie P

Everyone is aware that noise pollution is a source of irritability in most people. A recent study in San Francisco reveals that 1 out of 6 people living in San Francisco face risks of heart diseases, blood pressure and high stress. Any readers from SF that can comment on that noise pollution issue? Check out the video below.

The concern is not only of noise pollution from cars and trucks, which are the root causes, but also from trains, sirens and exhaust fans. A plan is being drafted with these considerations in mind so as to restructure building codes, land use regulations and transportation policy, thereby cutting down on the noise.

A second method to help reduce noise pollution would be to electrify the transportation system and use more and more hybrid vehicles that produce minimal or no sound at all. They are a more feasible choice.

Since cyclists, walkers and mass transit users cut down on the greenhouse effect and thereby creating a healthier environment, this means we should all make an effort to bring in this change. - via SFGate.com

We all know that in simple words, the Equator is an an imaginary line on the Earth’s surface approximately equidistant from the North Pole and South Pole, but what a chemical Equator is, was out of my league. But now I know …

Scientists at the University of York from the University’s Department of Chemistry, discovered an atmospheric chemical equator some 50 km wide up in the skies of the Western Pacific, which is supposed to divide the polluted air of the Northern Hemisphere from the highly polluted atmosphere in the Southern Hemisphere.

The study, which is part of the ACTIVE project (Aerosol and Chemical Transport in Tropical Convection) funded by the Natural Environment Research Council, revealed that carbon monoxide - combustion - increased from 40 parts per billion to the south, to 160 parts per billion in the north. All these were caused by extensive forest fires to the north of the chemical equator.

I’ll have be honest. I never knew that the two chemical and meteorological air masses of the two hemispheres are different, and even though it may not be that important for you and me, scientists who’ve been studying the movement of pollutants and their impact on climate change, are happy to include this theory in their model simulations that will help with pollution mapping.

If you’d like to read more about it, check out ScienceDaily.

Beijing took steps during the Olympics and before to reduce traffic.

Readers will remember Beijing’s attempt to be like NYC and the government’s move to get half of their cars off the road.

Well … Beijing’s traffic is back. These two pics show the difference.

What GP wants to know is, why can they tell some cars to stay home some of the time to save some of the pollution and not do this ALL the time?

What’s up with that?

Some 400,000 Beijingers are discussing online whether to keep the ban or not. I don’t even live in Beijing and it makes sense to me to keep as many of the estimated 3.29 million cars off the roads as much as possible.

A national holiday is coming … and more congestion will follow, which obviously will result in …

Anyone knows the answer? We all do, it’s more pollution.

Come on Beijing!

We like animals here at GP. We don’t like when they are mistreated, however. And, we don’t like when they pollute the place! Some 250,000 blue rubber ducks cooperated on a world record this year for the most plastic ducks in one place. Seriously.

Does somebody really keep track of how many rubber ducks get together in one place from time to time? Did somebody actually count the ducks? One little rubber ducky, two little rubber duckies, three little rubber duckies ….

The rubber ducks were tossed into the river by the Hampton Court Palace as part of the Great British Duck Race. The Brits need to find something else to do. The ducks are blue because last year people threw their own yellow duckies in uninvited.

There is a 2 pound entry fee and a 10,000 pound first prize for the ducky who floats the fastest. The money raised went to charity. Perhaps the start of this race can be traced back to 1992 when 29,000 rubber ducks fell overboard from a boat in the Pacific Ocean and floated about for some 15 years.

Listen and you can hear some Brits saying, “My rubber ducky is faster than yours.”

BTW, who is going to clean up this mess?

I can think of a couple of hundred reasons to drive a car instead of walk, bike, or inline skate.

Pollution, smution…

In Madrid, Spain, protesters stripped down and rode naked on bicycles to protest against the expansion of automobile use instead of riding a bike.

I’m only seeing the backside in these pix, but from what I do see, I am not that interested in what’s up front.

But, then again, I’d like to get a talking to from some of these protesters.

In the meantime, I am somewhat inclined to keep driving depending on who might ride naked to try and stop me.

image by WYGD

Daniel Burd is an 11th grader from Canada, that wants to turn his school science project into a dream come true. The guy is certain that if a plastic bag takes 1,000 years to decompose it’s because of the microorganisms behind it, and Burd thinks he has a method that will cause them to decompose in just three months.

The young scientist searched for those “guilty” of decomposing plastic bags and found two strains of bacteria that work together; the primary bacteria is Sphingomonas while the other one is Pseudomonas. Creating an industrial solution for plastic bags that would only last for three month is extremely simple. “All you need is a fermenter . . . your growth medium, your microbes and your plastic bags,” Burd said.

Though it doesn’t solve the pollution in the Pacific, this guy’s idea is a simple enough that it might just work well enough to change the world (at least a bit). He deserves congratulations and some money to continue his research and make it a real solution, instead of a project.

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Naked Bike Riders Protest Car Pollution

Lycra-trimmed, ultra-mini Salmon-Skin Bikini. Are you serious?

Source: The Record