H ALIBUT HERALD

March 26, 2009

Bits and Bites

Beyond Green Roofs: 15 Vertically Vegetated Buildings

Above photos from left to right, top to bottom: Edificio Consorcio, Santiago, Chile; Edouard François ‘Flower
Tower’, Paris; Urban Plant; Siam Paragon Shopping Center; Musée du Quai Branly

Below photos from left to right, top to bottom: Topiade Façade for Louis Vuitton (2 above photos, other LV
inspired vegetation); Zurich Airport; Ann Demeulemeester Shop by Mass Studies; Midori no Tobira; CaixaForum
Museum, Madrid; The Moss Room Restaurant; Parti Wall
READ ON & VIEW MORE PICS: http://webecoist.com/2009/03/02/beyond-green-roofs-15-vertically-vegetated-
buildings/

Dolphin bubbles
Reason # 198346 to Hydropower
LOVE, threatens BC
UNDERSTAND & Rivers, group says
PROTECT Dolphins!
Today, thousands of British
Columbians will take a stand to
Watch Video: keep the province's rivers wild.
http://holy- The project, called 10,000
cuteness.blogspot.c Voices for BC Rivers Day of
om/2009/03/dolphin- Action, is calling attention to
proposals for power projects
bubbles.html
along BC's pristine rivers and
streams.
Tenders for such projects were announced in 2002 by the BC
government as part of its clean energy plan.

Already, private operators have staked out about 600 divers and
streams for potential hydropower sources. However, such projects will damage river ecosystems, says the Wilderness
Committee, a coast-to-coast grassroots organization of 30,000 members that works to protect wilderness areas in
western Canada. One such run-of-the-river power project proposed in BC would dam and divert 17 rivers. Actually
building the project would require 200 km of new road construction, 100 bridges and hundreds upon hundreds of
kilometers of transmission lines.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE: http://workcabin.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1000&Itemid=117
 4 Radical Solutions to Packaging Waste
1. Tax Non-Standard Packaging
2. Outlaw landfills
3. Implement a Bottle Bill
4. Put the Kibosh on Single-Use Packaging

SOUND CRAZY ENOUGH TO BE GOOD? STILL NEED MORE

CONVINCING???

READ ON:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/03/4-radical-solutions-to-
packaging-waste.php

How to Grow Your Own Fresh Air:

Kamal Meattle on TED.com

Researcher and activist Kamal Meattle shows how an arrangement of

three common houseplants, used in specific spots in a home or office
building, can result in measurably cleaner indoor air. (Recorded at
TED U 2009, February 2009, in Long Beach, California. Duration:
04:04.)

New seafloor observatory provides round-the-

clock monitoring of ocean and Earth
One instrument uses sound to monitor marine life. The second instrument is an ultra-sensitive earthquake detector
READ ON: http://www.mbari.org/news/homepage/2009/mars-mobb-deimos.html

BirdLife campaigns to save migratory birds

“This campaign aims to have a major impact on
how the world perceives migratory birds. It has
the potential to unitemany different communities
to rise above the complex and difficult political,
financial and humanitarian perils facing them
today”
~Marco Lambertini, Executive Director
BirdLife International

LEARN MORE: http://www.borntotravelcampaign.com &

http://www.birdlife.org/news/news/2009/03/born_to_travel_launch.html

Hand-wash Small Hundreds of Killer Whales Seen in Gulf of Mexico

Loads With The READ ON: http://www.star-telegram.com/462/story/1277803.html
Laundry Pod
This is pretty neat, The
Laundry Pod, an eco-
friendly, oversized, salad-
spinner-like device that you
use to hand-wash your small
loads. And, presumably,
make a salad for 30.
http://consumerist.com/51
82033/handwash-small-
loads-with-the-laundry-
pod
Sick beluga whale puzzles Tacoma aquarium experts
“The beluga, Qannik, began losing interest in food on March 15”… Sound familiar?
READ ON: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008922204_webbeluga25m.html

How surfing the web can save the environment

“software (could) be designed to crawl the web and hunt for early warning signs of ecological change, so we can react
before it is too late.”
READ ON: http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/03/how-surfing-the-web-can-save-
t.html

New bird discovered after its extinction

“After almost 120 years in the Natural History Museum collections, a new Colombian bird has been discovered, and
proclaimed extinct.”
READ ON: http://www.physorg.com/news157304550.html

Tongan Eruption, Quake, Tsunami Alert

READ ON: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/tongan-eruption-quake-tsunami/
Cluster Ballooning: 100 Helium Balloons Strapped to a Lawn Chair
“While no license is needed for cluster ballooning,
there are only a handful of pilots on – or hovering over
– the face of the planet. One of them is American John
Ninomiya, a high-flying figure in what he sees as
“something between an extreme sport and a personal
eccentricity”. Ninomiya has the largest number of
flights – around 60 to date – and the most flying time
of anyone in the business. He uses anywhere between
50 and 100 balloons, and claims to have flown to an
astonishing altitude of 21,400 feet. That’s 4 miles
high.”
READ ON & MORE PICS:
http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/featured/clu
ster-ballooning-helium-baloons-strapped-to-
chair/8823
Archival Photo

Tuk, a polar bear cub on display in 1962, photographer unknown.

Library News
New Books
• Dolphin Mysteries: Unlocking the Secrets of Communication by Kathleen M. Dudzinski and
Toni Frohoff (2008)
• Operation Orca (replacement copy) by Dan Francis and Gil Hewlett (2007)
• Watching Giants: the Secret Lives of Whales by Elin Kelsey (2009)

New Movies:
• Galapagos: the islands that changed the world; BBC Video/National Geographic (2007)
• NOVA: Warnings from the Ice; NOVA, 1998

Events

More exciting events here: http://www.vanevo.ca/events01.html

Check out videos of past lectures here:

http://www.sfu.ca/cstudies/science/darwin.htm
Design the Next Vancouver
'FormShift Vancouver' contest invites new ideas for a vibrant, greener, denser city.
A new competition invites the world to help Vancouver imagine itself as not
only a denser city, but one more green, livable and exciting to the eye.

And though the contest welcomes entries from the best architects in B.C. and
beyond, you don't have to be in the business of designing buildings or
neighbourhoods to enter and win.
READ ON: http://thetyee.ca/News/2009/02/23/FormShift/?utm_source=mo
ndayheadlines&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=230209

CONTEST DETAILS: http://formshiftvancouver.com/

LEARN HOW & SIGN PETITION HERE: http://e-activist.com/ea-

campaign/clientcampaign.do?ea.client.id=104&ea.campaign.id=2968
http://www.swaporamarama.blogspot.com/
Earth Hour goes darkly this Saturday night
The WWF sponsored Earth Hour event calls on you to shut the
lights for an hour this Saturday at 8:30 pm local time. This is
one of the most compelling experiments of recent times, an
exercise in political will. The event will take place around the
world in an effort to help stop global warming, curb sea level
rise, and perhaps even prevent the shut down of global
thermohaline circulation. Feel the power. Will you go darkly?

If you can convince your high school, lab, university, or

research institution to outen the lights, take a before and after
picture like the one above, and send it in. We’ll post it here with
credit to you and your school. Hopefully a space shuttle or
satellite is planning to take a picture of particpating cities,
which number in the hundreds.
READ ON: http://deepseanews.com/2009/03/earth-hour-goes-darkly/
OFFICIAL SITE: http://www.earthhour.org/home/
Classified