Water Spouts will speak volubly and endlessly about all the issues concerning water. The ongoing degradation, and growing scarcity, of the water supply here in the US, and the rest of the world. The continued absence of potable water in so many parts of the world. The work being done by NGOs, and charities, in the third world, to help alleviate the situation. The emphasis on WASH ( Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene ) so health and healthy water are maintained. "Water Spouts" will spout it all out.
Winner will watch NASA science unfold firsthand during the launch of a new rocket in January 2013
This Earth Day, NASA is launching a competition for anyone who's ever wanted to send the planet a love letter.
The U.S. space agency announced this week that beginning this Earth Day (April
22), it will start taking submissions for its second annual Earth Day
video contest. Planetary science buffs-turned-shutterbugs, or vice
versa, will get the chance to produce and edit short videos showing off
their creative perspectives on our home planet — all to win a uniquely
NASA prize.
In a press release, NASA said that its science "has changed how we
think about exploring the Earth or even how we see the Earth."
To celebrate the Blue Marble,
the agency is asking video producers to shed a little light on just how
that science may have influenced their own views. That might mean
viewing the Earth with a little humility, such as regarding it as a
pinpoint of light as seen billions of miles away by the Voyager probes. Or maybe with a sense of the planet's constant change, such as appreciating the churning winds of an El Niño event.
Last year's winning video, for instance, meditated on Earth's seemingly unique ability, at least as far as this solar system is concerned, to host life.
NASA directs participants to keep their entire video short, no more
than two minutes long.
They also ask that those that enter draw from its
wide catalog of visualization tools, which include videos shot from the
International Space Station in orbit around the Earth and computer simulations of weather events.
The winner of the contest, who will be announced after the
competition's close on May 31, will have the chance to watch NASA
science unfold firsthand during the launch of a new rocket in January
2013, part of the agency's Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM). Think of it as a gala Hollywood event just for space nerds.
As the 42nd
Anniversary of Earth Day approaches, people are becoming frustrated
with the failure of governments to take any steps toward protecting and
preserving the environment. The Earth Day 2012 campaign is designed to
provide people with the opportunity to unite their voices in a call for a
sustainable future and direct them toward quantifiable outcomes, using
vehicles such as petitions, the Billion Acts of Green; campaign, and
events.
Earth Day 2012 will act as a launch pad for growing the environmental
movement and will put forth a bold declaration demanding immediate
action to secure Renewable Energy for All and a sustainable future for
our planet. The movement will be comprised of individuals of every age
from all corners of the Earth, and will call upon local, national, and
international leaders to put an end to fossil fuel subsidies, embrace
renewable energy technology, improve energy efficiency, and make energy
universally accessible.
Throughout the month of April 2012 and on Earth Day (April 22), Earth
Day Network and its wide range of partners will organize and promote
events to help Mobilize the Earth. In addition to organizing Earth Day
events around the world, Earth Day Network will run the following
campaigns:
Individuals, organizations, businesses and governments can voice
their support for the campaign by performing environmental actions and
lending their names to this global referendum demanding change. Our
goal is to reach one billion actions by the United Nations Conference on
Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in June 2012. We will present this
accomplishment at Rio +20 and use it as a lever to address the UNrsquo;s
inaction and inspire leaders to reach a global agreement at the Rio+20
Conference.
For those of us who have made conservation our life’s work, Earth Day can be something of a bittersweet occasion.
On the one hand, it is a time to celebrate the successes of this
vital movement; this year at Conservation International, we are marking
our first quarter-century of protecting nature for the well-being of
humanity. On the other hand, it is a time to be humbled — and similarly
inspired — by how much more work we all have to do. It seems that now,
42 years after the first Earth Day, the times are a-changing as much as
they ever were.
In many ways, April 22, 1970 feels like a world away. The Beatles
were on the verge of releasing what would become their final album, “Let
It Be.” Apollo 13 had just returned to Earth. The Fall of Saigon lay
five years in the future.
And what we have come to know as the modern environmental movement
was born — a year after the Santa Barbara Channel suffered a massive oil
spill, a year after the Cuyahoga River famously caught fire, a year
after the spirit of unrest and protest of the 1960s culminated in three
historic days on Max Yasgur’s farm in upstate New York. The human
assaults on the environment — and, in truth, on ourselves — no longer
could be ignored. The United States Environmental Protection Agency was
created. Amendments to the Clean Air Act soon followed, as did the Clean
Water Act and the Endangered Species Act. These milestones represented
not only real and important progress, but the beginning of the
mainstreaming of environmental awareness as well. The conversation was
begun, and it continues to this day.
But 1970 was more than just a different time. It was, in a very real
sense, a different world altogether. Consider this: At the time of the
first Earth Day, the global population was roughly half what it is
today. Some 3.6 billion people called our planet home, most of them
living in rural areas. Fast forward to the present day and you’ll find
that the human race has doubled its numbers in little more than the span of one generation.
And now, for the first time in history, the majority of the more than 7
billion people on Earth live in cities, with the trend toward
urbanization showing no signs of slowing. In the next 40 years, we can
expect our numbers to grow to 9.2 billion, with some 2 billion people
entering the burgeoning global middle class and with nearly 4 out of 5
of us living in urban areas.
This unprecedented growth comes with a great cost; we will need to double our supplies of food, water
and energy over the next four decades to meet the rising demand — all
at a time when the pace of our consumption would require two Earths to
support us. And with the disproportionate impact of cities — which
consume two-thirds of our energy and cause 70 percent of greenhouse gas emissions — we can expect to see the climes a-changing, too.
But there is another cost, arguably invisible but no less real in its
consequences. Urbanization and the rapid pace of development are
fostering a false sense of disconnection from the natural world within
us, as we grow ever more removed from the sources of our food, water,
energy and material goods. Yet this is an illusion, and one we cling to
at our own peril.
In fact, we have never been more connected to each other, and we have
never been so in need of a healthy planet to ensure our own well-being
and prosperity. For it is in the health of our natural ecosystems — our
forests and grasslands, our rivers and oceans — that we will find the
resiliency we need to adapt to a changing climate and secure the invaluable goods and services of nature.
Nature, quite simply, is everything. It is the source of life. It is
our foundation and our nourishment, our comfort and our treasury. And it
is only by accounting for the full, comprehensive and irreplaceable
value of nature in our decision-making that we can secure the future of
human societies. It is a message we will carry with us to the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio — and beyond.
On the eve of this Earth Day, I am encouraged and delighted by the
progress I have seen and the beacons that lie ahead. Hopeful signs like
Conservation International’s work on the African continent, where the
support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
is allowing us to lead the development of a publicly available
monitoring system for agriculture, human well-being and ecosystem health
— one that will guide the necessary intensification to achieve global
food security while better managing the natural resources needed for
agriculture. Or our work on the global Ocean Health Index, which will create a benchmark of ocean health — and the threats that confront it — for every nation.
These are powerful tools, and together we can use them to forge a brighter future. For Earth. For Us.
Now, let’s roll up our sleeves. We’ve got some work to do.
Narrated by Harrison Ford, "Can't Close Our Eyes" outlines the threats
we face from destroying the world's natural life support system and the
reasons we still have for optimism.
