Bruce Springsteen celebrated his 60th birthday on Friday, and landed on the cover of AARP’s magazine.
“We put Bruce on the cover first and foremost because he was turning 60,” she said. “Like the rest of America, we found that to be inspiring. Looking at Bruce, he really personifies our message at AARP that attitude matters more than age.”
Across rich and poor nations, the average cost of cutting a ton of carbon from buildings is only $25.00 US dollars, a new study says, and this energy efficiency investment pays for itself.
The worldwide building sector accounts for almost 40 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions, but it is easily the cheapest source of emissions cuts.
Even though the cancer has spread throughout Noah’s body, and he is on methadone and twice-a-day steroids to lower the pain, his courage and joy and exuberance and perseverance are miracles to witness.
The boy spent as much time at the University of Michigan’s C.S. Mott’s Childrens Hospital as he did at home. On June 4th, during an autograph session at the hospital, Brandon Inge, 3rd baseman for the Detroit Tigers, signed a picture for Noah and that night, Noah saw Brandon on TV during a Tigers game, becoming an instant fan. Noah watched every Tigers game after that and one day after his fifth birthday, during a fundraising for Mott Children’s Hospital, Brandon presented him with a signed ball.
September is Pediatric Cancer Awareness Month. If you click on the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital website, you can’t help but notice that “Cancer is the leading cause of death by disease among U.S. children between infancy and age 15.” 11,000 new cases of pediatric cancer are expected to be diagnosed each year.
Noah Scott Biorkman, a patient at Mott Children’s Hospital, was diagnosed with Stage IV Neuroblastoma in February 2007, a type of cancer that occurs in infants and young children.
He was 2 ½ years of age and after an aggressive regimen of chemotherapy, went into remission, but he relapsed last September.
Noah’s mother wrote on her www.carepages.com website that the scans showed that Noah “wasn’t going to make it.” She asked him what he would like to do. His answer was to see his favorite ballplayer again and ask him to hit a home run “just for me”, and to go to another game.
The hospital contacted Brandon’s wife, Shani, to tell her that Noah’s health was “rapidly deteriorating” and of Noah’s wish. When Brandon was told about Noah, he decided to come and visit him. In the afternoon before a Tigers home game, Brandon and Shani came to the Biorkmans’ house and stayed for over two hours.
“After Noah showed Brandon his room and his basement full of toys, they played,” Diana wrote. “Brandon signed a jersey for Noah and they exchanged friendship bracelets that Brandon is still wearing. Then, they built a pillow fort with every pillow in my house. Brandon sat in one end and Noah sat in the other. They hung out together, just the two of them” and Noah offered to share his superhero tattoos with Brandon and Shani’s two kids.
That night, Brandon hit a home run during his first at-bat. Noah’s mom wrote, “Noah jumped up and down and yelled—He did it for me! He did it for me! Then he heard his name and he gave the look of wonder and turned to my mom and said, ‘I never thought I would hear my name on TV.’”
In the moments after he homered, Brandon Inge broke down into tears in the Tigers dugout. “I lost it,” Brandon said. “I was crying. That’s never happened to me during a game before.”
The home run hit for Noah was not the first hit for an ailing child this year. On June 23, Inge visited Tommy Schomaker while he was recovering from heart-transplant surgery and that night, with “Tommy” written with a black marker on Inge’s arm, he hit a home run.
“Disney couldn’t have written a better script,” Tommy’s father admitted to an AP reporter. According to Mike Schomaker, “Kids were coming into the room with IVs, ‘Tommy, did you see your name? You’re on TV! You’re on TV!’”
Because of the time and money that the Inges donated to help fund a $750 million hospital for women and children, the University of Michigan hospital proclaimed September 2nd “Brandon and Shani Inge Day.”
Since the memorable home runs, Noah’s wishes continued to come true. He went to a few Tigers games, visited the Tigers clubhouse, gave 45 friendship bracelets to the entire Detroit baseball team, was featured with his mom and dad on ESPN, enjoyed a helicopter ride over Comerica Park before a game, and, perhaps best of all, Brandon presented to him the signed home run ball. Noah spent more time with Brandon and Shani at home, and was baptized a week before a golf outing in his honor.
Even though the cancer has spread throughout Noah’s body and he is on methadone and twice-a-day steroids to lower the pain, his courage and joy and exuberance and perseverance are miracles to witness.
Noah survived to make his Make-A-Wish golf outing on September 18th in Northville, Michigan. Although Brandon was in Minnesota with the Tigers that day, his wife, Shani, golfed with 103 others, to raise money for the Noah Scott Biorkman Foundation and Make-A-Wish.
Diana Biorkman, Noah’s mom, said at the golf outing that Noah understands his body is sick and that he will die and “become an angel.” Yet, she and her family know what a gift they’ve been given and what a miracle Noah’s life has been.
Because of heroes like the Inges, the doctors, and nurses at Mott Hospital, because of the courage of Noah’s parents and family and the support of friends, the tragedy of a little boy struck with terminal cancer has become an incredible lesson about giving and love and making wishes come true..
Arnie Goldman has been married for 24 years to wife Judy and they have three children. He is the president of a small wholesale distributor in Michigan and has written two books, Five Fathers and Outlive Me: Thirty Years of Poems and Writings.
A gecko with orange eyes, a bird that would rather walk, and a fanged frog that eats birds are among 163 new species discovered last year in the Mekong River region of Southeast Asia, WWF announced this week.
In 2008 alone, scientists identified these and other rare and unique species — 100 plants, 28 fish, 18 reptiles, 14 amphibians, 2 mammals and a bird, the reluctant flyer Nonggang babbler.
“After millennia in hiding these species are now finally in the spotlight, and there are clearly more waiting to be discovered,” said Stuart Chapman, Director of the WWF Greater Mekong Program
1,000 new species from the jungles and rivers of the Mekong area have already been catalogued by WWF from 1997 to 2007.
Even though her older sisters are engineers, when it comes to questions concerning education Holliston Logan isn’t calling on her siblings – she emails her mentor.
The Canadian senior is a participant in Cybermentor www.cybermentor.ca, a web-based mentoring program that matches girls aged 11 to 18 with female scientists and engineers, and is designed to encourage young women to consider careers in those professions.
“For the first time, an experimental vaccine has prevented infection with the AIDS virus, a watershed event in the deadly epidemic and a surprising result.”
The good news: The vaccine cut the risk of becoming infected with HIV by more than 31 percent in the world’s largest AIDS vaccine trial of more than 16,000 volunteers in Thailand, researchers announced Thursday in Bangkok.
(Read the AP story in MSNBC)
Global greenhouse gas emissions are in sharp retreat . There’s nothing like a recession to help clear the air of toxins and drive down pump prices — but we all know it can’t last. Or can it?
A lasting shift in consumer behavior could be underway, say even the gloomier of environmental prognosticators, to form the basis of a more sustainable environment.
The French wine industry is turning green. After developing organic wines, some in the business have now patented ecologically responsible wine barrels that conserve hundred year-old oaks. They require less of the noble oak tree to construct because they are double layer, with the oak only a couple millimeters thick. Also, they are more economical.
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The first fully integrated co-ed university opened yesterday in Saudi Arabia. The school, which focuses, on sciences gives all students a full scholarship plus a stipend. So far, students from 61 countries have enrolled.
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You know the old joke … how many (fill in the blank) does it take to change a light bulb? All kidding aside, the real question is … how many people does it take to clean up a broken CFL.
Be extra diligent with the Compact Florescent Lamp (CFL) light bulbs. Yes, they use 75% less energy than the incandescent light bulb and come in all sizes and shapes now. But be cautioned, CFLs require special care in handling when inserting into the socket and then extreme careful removal when broken.
So – what to do if a CFL breaks? According to the federal agency, Energy Star, first and most important – do NOT brush it up and throw it in the trash. When a CFL breaks – it releases a small amount of mercury into the air – precautions and careful cleanup are essential for everyone’s health and well-being.
UCLA researchers have discovered that a combination of drugs, electrical stimulation and regular exercise can enable paralyzed rats to walk and even run while supporting their full weight on a treadmill.
Published Sept. 20 in the online edition of the journal Nature Neuroscience, the findings suggest that the regeneration of severed nerve fibers is not required for paraplegic rats to learn to walk again. The research may hold implications for rehabilitation after human spinal cord injuries.
“Previous studies have tried to tap into this circuitry to help victims of spinal cord injury,” he added. “While other researchers have elicited similar leg movements in people with complete spinal injuries, they have not achieved full weight–bearing and sustained stepping as we have in our study.”
(Thanks to Andrew Norris for submitting the link – Read more below)
Doctors told parents of autistic child that she may never learn to speak. But music unlocked the door, when, at age five, she heard the National Anthem.
She now opens major sporting events performing her pitch-perfect rendition of the song. Gina’s social skills and schoolwork have improved too.
Read the story at CBS News or watch the video below…
After being criticized for higher credit card fees, Bank of America is reducing overdraft and other account fees for a broad swath of customer accounts and JPMorgan Chase is engaging in a similar plan.
Effective October 19, Bank of America will not charge overdraft fees for an account overdrawn by less than $10 for a single day, or more than four overdraft items in a single day.
The announcement comes a week after the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank announced a credit card, called the Basic Card, with simpler terms and interest rates.
(Continue reading Reuters report)
There is a more in depth article about recent advances at the New York Times.
Leading environmentalists are usually keen to point out the problems in the environment, but what about the good news in the last dozen years for planet Earth?
Within two years of the first Earth Day in 1970 a slew of major legislation was passed — the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, establishment of the EPA, the ban on DDT, and the reduction of lead from paint — all of which delivered monumental benefit to the environment.
But what have we done for the planet lately? Here are the top seven answers according to leading environmentalists in the field who were asked what makes them hopeful…
Lisa Jackson, the new Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, joins the majority of those I spoke to in giving the nod to the new worldwide public consensus that has developed around Global Warming.
“In the last decade the world has united around tackling climate change, which will impact people from Micronesia to the Florida Keys to the Sahara. There is a growing, global commitment to fight climate change and build a green economy. This will lead to further cooperation among nations to tackle other threats to our health and our planet – and that is truly good news for our Earth.”
Randy Serraglio, of the Center for Biological Diversity, agrees. “In the last decade a consensus has emerged within the international scientific community that global climate disruption is underway, is caused by humans, and threatens very serious consequences if we do not deal with it.” The good news, says Serraglio, is the consensus has pushed even corporations toward aggressive action to ward off the worst of those consequences.
The editorial staff at Treehugger recognized Al Gore’s Oscar-award-winning movie An Inconvenient Truth and the UK’s Stern Report as major influences. “These two events have done much more to engage the general populace to really acknowledge the environmental pressures we face than have decades of dry reporting and NGO ‘the-sky-is-falling’ campaigning.” The worldwide Live Earth concerts, staged around the world on 07.07.07, added to the “positive tipping point” for climate change to become a mainstream media topic.
The Natural Resources Defense Council says one of the top events of the decade was the EPA’s landmark affirmation this month formally announcing that global warming pollutants are a threat to public health. “By announcing that carbon and other global warming pollutants pose a threat to public health, EPA sets in motion the process of regulating those pollutants, which has to be one of the major advances in public health and environmental protection since the 1970s.”
Consensus grew out of the United Nations in 2007 when nearly 200 countries agreed to accelerate the elimination of chemicals that threaten the ozone and exacerbate global warming. United Nations Environmental Program chief Achim Steiner hailed the agreement by governments, especially China who moved quickly to ban dangerous hydrochlorofluorocarbons, as a “vital signal” in efforts to slow climate change.
“Historic is an often over-used word but not in the case of this agreement made in Montreal,” said Steiner. “It is perhaps the most important breakthrough in an international setting for at least five or six years.”
Nick Nuttall, a spokesperson for the UNEP sees a new era of commitment to green causes. “The international community has rolled out a wide range of un-brokered agreements over the years designed to tackle biodiversity loss, climate change, chemical pollution, ozone layer loss and desertification. Previously, the scale of the response had failed to match the magnitude of the challenge. But over the last 12 months some countries have begun to factor-in the economic costs of environmental degradation and seize the opportunities of transiting to resource efficient, low carbon societies. If this can be scaled up and accelerated and the three trillion dollars-worth of stimulus packages can be spent wisely and creatively, there is now the chance for a transition to a truly Green 21st century economy.”
In answering our survey, Jeff Mikulina, Executive Director of the Blue Planet Foundation and former director of the Sierra Club in Hawaii, naturally wanted to nominate the tremendous progress and growth in clean energy development — solar and wind, in particular. But, Blue Planet is not the only group (non-profit or commercial) to spring up in the past decade powered up by a mission to end the use of fossil fuels.
Treehugger also gave a nod in this direction arguing, “We have finally reached the point where renewable energy from solar and wind have hit the competitive pricing point.”
Jane Goodall, the famous Primatologist and anthropologist, thinks the fact that so many people are using their lives to make a difference, every day, is most amazing and worthy of note. Helping them make this change has been the rise of the World Wide Web.
“I believe the most most positive trend has been the rapid and organic growth of communications technologies,” says Blue Planet‘s Mikulina. “While this ‘tech” might seem antithetical to the theme of low-energy use and sustainability, the power to connect with people and share information has proven a potent tool for social change.”
It is far easier today to organize individuals and groups with shared values and direct that energy toward democratic action, especially with YouTube, Facebook and blogging. Treehugger points to the use of tools like Digg, Stumble Upon, and Twitter as critical for broadcasting seeds of motivation across a wide area. “Green bloggers are reaching an ever increasing audience, partly by working with their peers/competitors to push green stories in front of many, many eyes.”
“The ability to more easily create and share content enables more people to participate in networks, access a broader knowledge base, and engage in activities that reward the value of collective action,” said Mikulina. “Connections, information and communication, I believe, are fostering greater awareness and hope, and making our living on Earth more sustainable.” (Image above, by Ryan O. Hicks, Perdue University)
For the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the best news for planet Earth came in 2002 when WWF partnered with the Brazilian Government and others to launch the world’s largest tropical forest conservation program. The clumsily named Amazon Region Protected Areas program carves out 12 years of strict preservation and sustainable use reserves, including the establishment of over 62 million acres of new protected areas – a swath about the size of Wyoming. The final phase will be implemented beginning in 2009 and will create 50 million acres of newly protected land. Comparable to the U.S. National Park System, yet 50 percent larger, the program will surpass the U.S. National Wildlife Refuge System in sheer numbers of bird, mammal, fish, reptile, and amphibian species protected.
Effective January 1, 1996, the Clean Air Act banned the sale of the small amount of leaded fuel that was still available in some parts of the country for use in on-road vehicles. In addition, from 2001-2008, a suite of EPA diesel rules will collectively reduce diesel particulate soot and smog-forming pollution by more than 90 percent.
“This is the biggest vehicle pollution news since the removal of lead from gasoline, and will lead to the most significant national public health advance in a generation, said Richard Kassel, director of NRDC’s Dump Dirty Diesel’s campaign. “In terms of cost-effectiveness to the public health, this suite of rules is the biggest regulatory advance in the last 40 years. Collectively, these rules will, by 2030, prevent more than 21,000 premature deaths and more than $160 billion in health costs annually.”
Congress strengthened vehicle fuel-efficiency standards for the first time in 30 years with the passage of the Energy Independence and Security Act on December 18, 2007. The bill includes measures to save Americans money at the gas pump and cut down on global warming pollution. “We handed Congress an ambitious agenda at the beginning of 2007, and the bill represents real progress in achieving cleaner cars, fuels, and appliances,” said Karen Wayland, legislative director at NRDC.
The Act sets a goal for the national fuel economy standard of 35 miles per gallon (mpg) by 2020, an increase of 40 percent that would also save the country billions of gallons of fuel.
Each of the last three presidents, Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton have left a major mark on land use and conservation in the United States. Starting with Clinton, the NRDC points to his historic issuance of the Roadless Rule (Roadless Areas Conservation Rule), which protected 58.5 million acres of unspoiled national-forest land in 39 states from virtually all road building and logging.
In Bush’s final days in the White House, a stroke of his pen designated three new areas in the Pacific as Marine National Monuments to create the largest area of ocean protection in the world, measuring 195,000 square miles and preventing the destruction of some of the world’s most pristine natural resources, rich in biodiversity. The three areas include the Mariana Trench and the waters surrounding three uninhabited islands in the Northern Mariana Islands, Rose Atoll in American Samoa and seven islands along the equator in the central Pacific Ocean. Bush had created the largest protected marine sanctuary in the world once before, two and a half years earlier, preserving nearly 140,000 square miles in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. Home to 7000 marine species, at least a quarter of which are found nowhere else, the expansive Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument is larger than all US National Parks combined, stretching a distance not unlike Chicago to Florida.
Less than one month ago, Obama signed into law one of the most sweeping conservation and public land management bills in years. The legislation will protect 2 million acres of wilderness across the country, including 1,000 miles of wild and scenic rivers, by creating a national system to conserve land held by our Bureau of Land Management.
Long established environmental groups have had to evolve too. With years of litigation under their belt and societal change swirling around their computers, environmental activists and conservation organizations are realizing that to achieve fundamental and lasting change, they cannot continue to work exclusively within a narrow slice of politics and culture.
“If we are at odds with other progressive elements in society, or even if we just ignore their perspectives and concerns or fail to make the effort to gain their support, we risk undermining or stalling progress on environmental issues,” the Center for Biological Diversity‘s Randy Serraglio told the Good News Network. “Conservation groups are increasingly working in coalition with labor, human rights, and other groups to achieve the common goal of a just and healthy world.”
Mark Tercek, president and CEO of The Nature Conservancy is a believer in the maxim that necessity is the mother of invention. “We are in the midst of the kind of necessity in which the Conservancy excels and is most inventive. A glance at the highlights of the last 10 years only hint at what is possible in the coming years: conservation on a grander scale, more ambitious partnerships, an increased integration of human well-being into conservation and an expansion of market solutions across continents and the planet.”
Like EPA Administrator Jackson pointed out, “That is truly good news for our Earth.”
A dozen do-gooders get together on Valencia Street in San Francisco once a month, laden with peanut butter, jelly, bread and sandwich bags. They make the sandwiches and immediately pass them out to homeless people. No federal subsidy, no foundation, no vouchers. No official sanction from anybody…
Just a good idea that is spreading, thanks to Jory John who posted the plan on Facebook.
Over the past few months, PBJ handouts have taken place in Los Angeles; Berkeley; Phoenix; Little Rock, Ark.; Grand Rapids, Mich.; Austin, Texas; and London — there was a gathering just yesterday in Phoenix.
And, now, there is now a website…
(Read more from the San Francisco Chronicle)
Crime in New York City is going down — way down. The city is heading toward its lowest number of murders in almost 50 years, and overall crime is also down — nearly 12 percent from 2008, and 40 percent since 2001.
The trend is mystifying criminologists who say crime usually rises when times are tough.
(Continue reading AP story on Google)
Once a molten blend of steelworks and smog, Pittsburgh is newly scrubbed and promising a glimpse of a clean, green post-industrial future as the leaders of the world’s 20 most powerful economies converge here Thursday for the G20 Summit.
Learn how a young couple converted their car to run on old fryer oil from local restaurants. They save money, almost never fill up at the gas station anymore, and leave the environment cleaner.
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Chris Martin, 32, and his British bandmates have donated £1million to Kids Company, which helps underprivileged children who lack adult support.
They also plan to give music lessons.
Coldplay in 2008, by Karl Axon- GNU license
More than 60 years after a feud between brothers Adi and Rudolf Dassler resulted in the creation of the Adidas and Puma sportswear rivalry, the two companies are coming together today to celebrate International Peace Day.
Following an historic handshake between the chief executives, employees from both companies will engage in a football match, playing on mixed teams for the cause of peace.
The two firms also brought the message of peace into football stadiums during the half times of two German premier league games on Saturday.
Watch the video below, and read the story in Reuters…
