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Oh crap, there it goes.

A little over three years ago, an enormous section of Antarctica's Larsen Ice Shelf collapsed and splintered into thousands of icebergs. You'd think nothing positive would come out of this (except maybe a little awareness), but you'd be wrong.

Thanks to the collapse, researchers have discovered that an "expansive ecosystem of knee-high mud volcanoes, snowy microbial mats and flourishing clam communities lies beneath the collapsed Larsen Ice Shelf in Antarctica."

This discovery, as reported by AP, was detailed this week in Eos, the weekly newspaper of the American Geophysical Union.

You can read the PDF here.

Sadly:

Now that the ecosystem has been exposed, it is imperiled by fattening deposits of sediment produced through erosion runoff from the advancing glaciers and from dying algae settling to the bottom. The sediment is not only burying the ecosystem, but it is also introducing carbon and other new chemicals into the methane-powered environment ...

Sigh -- yet another reason to prevent climate change.

City cores are, if anything, safer than the ‘burbs.

This article in Sunday's Washington Post, penned by New America Foundation fellow Joel Kotkin, is definitely thought provoking. In the wake of terrorist attacks in London and New York, Kotkin argues that the single most important challenge facing modern cities is providing basic security to their citizens. To wit ...

While modern cities are a long way from extinction, it's only by acknowledging the primacy of security -- and addressing it in the most aggressive manner -- that they will be able to survive and thrive in this new century, in which they already face the challenge of a telecommunications revolution that is undermining their traditional monopoly on information and culture, and draining their populations.

Wiith memories of 9/11 still fresh, perhaps it's natural that people should question whether cities are really safe. Terrorism is, quite obviously, a serious problem; and central cities have proven to be ready targets.

Still, I think that the article's emphasis on terrorism per se reveals an interesting and broader cultural bias about risk. There are certain kinds of risks that our culture fears more than others. Some hazards -- say, the threat of random violence, whether by ordinary criminals or by terrorists -- seem intolerable, and society demands a concerted effort to put a stop to them. Others -- say, traffic accidents -- we generally shrug off, and accept as part of the unavoidable background of modern life.

But sometimes the "unavoidable" risks are far more hazardous, and every bit as avoidable, as the ones on which we focus our attention.

Concrete

The manufacture of concrete is responsible for up to 10 percent of worldwide CO2 emissions. That's a lot. Apparently, though, the world of concrete is abuzz with innovation: Worldchanging brings us concrete that is light and concrete that is bendy, while Treehugger ups the ante with concrete that eats pollution. Who knew?

New models in Nike’s ‘Considered’ line an improvement

As Metaefficient has already pointed out, Nike has added new models to its "Considered" line of eco-friendly(er) shoes. And I have to agree with Meta's note that for the most part, these are an improvement.

Perhaps the folks at Nike read my original post!

Should nuclear fusion be considered a green energy source?

Thanks to Treehugger for reminding me to blog about the cover story of National Geographic's August issue: Powering the Future. I'm sure some Gristmillians will find flaws in some of the article's assertions and statistics, but as Treehugger Michael Richard notes, it seems to be a good introductory piece for the uninitiated.

What I found of interest was the inclusion of fusion as a possible green energy source. I did a quick search of the Grist archives and found very little. So what is it doing in a NG feature story?

Here is how the section for fusion starts off:

Fusion is the gaudiest of hopes, the fire of the stars in the human hearth. Produced when two atoms fuse into one, fusion energy could satisfy huge chunks of future demand. The fuel would last millennia. Fusion would produce no long-lived radioactive waste and nothing for terrorists or governments to turn into weapons. It also requires some of the most complex machinery on Earth.

From what I read in NG, there seems to be no downside to fusion, assuming you can actually make it work. So, I headed over to the indispensable Wikipedia and dug a little deeper.

What victory looks like

Another great essay over on Tom's Dispatch: Rebecca Solnit reflects on what victory looks like in the real world:

Greener automakers

Everybody and their uncle is linking to this NYT essay, but it seems a bit half-baked to me. If the author is seriously trying to argue that an American car company could remake itself as completely green, making only hybrids and low-emission diesel cars, in today's market, and not become a "niche player," well, he's nuts. I think American automakers have adopted a disastrously brown strategy over the last 20 years, but turning in a new, greener direction is going to take time, thought, and care.

On a related note, it's too bad the auto industry isn't more competitive, such that a niche company making exclusively green cars could get off the ground.

The energy bill negotiations are entering the home stretch.

The conferees were hard at work over the weekend and are meeting this evening at 5 pm EST to have what might be the last official meeting of the conference. All the remaining controversial items are on the table. Will Rep. Barton be able to get support for his MTBE deal? Will Sen. Bingaman's climate change language survive? How much ethanol will the country be required to use by 2012? Tune in and find out.

Missed the early episodes? Catch up with these factsheets courtesy of Rep. Waxman.

An outright thumbs down

The ads combined with the Indian proclivity to combine slightly askew English phrases made this article an interesting read. It also highlighted the fact that India is losing the battle to save its biodiversity, thanks in part to the human male's residual instincts to demarcate territory.

Attempts to introduce new species to city ecosystems are often doomed to failure.

An article in Pacific Northwest Magazine discussing Seattle's recurrent Canada goose problems got me thinking. Cities are primarily for people, and they have their own microenvironments. Some animals and plants thrive inside these ecosystems, and some do not. Creatures that can live among us already do. Attempts to introduce other species to please our sensibilities will more often than not turn into expensive failures or chronic damage-control exercises.