3,000 Sea Turtles Dead in Baja

The UC Santa Cruz report concluded that the North Pacific loggerhead turtles washing up in Baja are dying due to fishing activity. Turtles are accidentally caught in nets, hooks and other fishing gear. The Baja turtles are experiencing the highest stranding rates related to fishery activity in the world.

The North Pacific loggerhead travels 7,000 miles from Japan to Baja’s Big Sur to feed for as many as thirty years before returning to Japan. In the past 10 years, the number of female turtles nesting in Japan has dropped by fifty to eighty percent.

Because you want to change the world: so superstruct

With the mere goal of revisioning the future, the creators of superstruct (Kathi Vian, scenario director Jamais Cascio, and game director Jane McGonigal) decided to make a game of it all. “Superstruct is the world’s first massively multiplayer forecasting game. By playing the game, you’ll help chronicle the world of 2019. But the game is more than just envisioning the future. It’s about making the future, inventing new ways to organize the human race and augment our collective human potential.

One of my favorite parts: by particpating, you become a Super-Empowered Hopeful Individual-a (aka SEHI). “By telling stories, strategizing with others, and superstructing, you demonstrate your hope that we can make a difference in our own futures.”

Not ones to over simply the issues of our future, the site is a bit complex, but here is an example of one of the video elements: 

In honor of Blog Action Day 08

The subject is poverty this year.

So let me tell you what puts a bee in my bonnet. That most of us have to pushed into a corner and not have access  to resources in order  to reusing the things we have thrown away. Since I am endless source streaming ideas, one fantasy art project is to empty an entire landfill and repurpose or properly dispose of everything. (hmmm, maybe that’s how I’ll make my first million…) Meanwhile… in Haiti they are doing radical things with their garbage. Making viable building resources out their garbage. very cool. Meanwhile…I’m planning on putting a grey watering system into my new house. Can’t wait.

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Teen Builds His Own Electric Car on $10,000 Budget

OK. I’m jealous. While I often fantasize about converting my ford focus, it could never be as cool as this hot rod. Just stumbled upon this on Green Options.

his fall, Texas teenager Lucas Laborde will be driving to school in an electric car he built himself. The 17 year old spent last summer converting a conventional gas-powered car to run on batteries. Total cost? Around $10,000.

Luke’s EV is based on a kit car, known as a Bradley GT II, which his father bought on eBay for just $5000 splashing out a further $5700 on electric conversion parts and batteries. The rest was left up to Luke’s ingenuity and technical know-how.

After 150 hours of work, Luke had hooked up eight 80-pound lead-acid batteries in the space left after removing the fuel tank, as well as several other ‘creative locations.’ He finished up with an EV capable of travelling 40 miles between charges, a top speed of 45mph, (more than enough for the local school run), and heaps of low-end torque. As Luke told reporters, “it has a lot of power.”