The Value of Nature

Here is Pavan Sukhdev over at TED with a thoughtful talk on the economic value of nature.

Plus an article by George Monbiot called "Why Libertarians must deny climate change" on a similar vein.

"Let us accept the idea that damage to the value of property without the owner’s consent is an unwarranted intrusion upon the owner’s freedoms. What this means is that as soon as libertarians encounter environmental issues, they’re stuffed.

Climate change, industrial pollution, ozone depletion, damage to the physical beauty of the area surrounding people’s homes (and therefore their value), all these, if the libertarians did not possess a shocking set of double standards, would be denounced by them as infringements on other people’s property.

The owners of coal-burning power stations in the UK have not obtained the consent of everyone who owns a lake or a forest in Sweden to deposit acid rain there. So their emissions, in the libertarian worldview, should be regarded as a form of trespass on the property of Swedish landowners. Nor have they received the consent of the people of this country to allow mercury and other heavy metals to enter our bloodstreams, which means that they are intruding upon our property in the form of our bodies."

Designing Healthy Communities

PBS will be airing a 4 part series by a Dr. Richard Jackson who looks at the impact the built environment has on obesity, diabetes, heart, asthma, cancer, and depression. He connects bad community design with America's burgeoning health costs, then analyzes and illustrates what citizens are doing about this urgent crisis. The miniseries will air in early 2012.


Check out the preview here and look out for the series itself.

Playgrounds Too Safe to Keep Little Kids Active

Interesting article over at medpage today, about:

"A qualitative study of childcare center providers found that safety concerns, budgetary limitations, and emphasis on early academic readiness led to children in preschool not engaging in enough physical activity."

It was noted that "Strict safety rules for equipment and low budgets at childcare centers were largely blamed for playgrounds that don't make kids feel like playing......"

And let's face it, who would want to play, day in and day out, on the play structure above, particularly if there are identical ones in all the neighbourhood parks?

Gorillas

What an experience this man had. It's gone viral so maybe I'm a little late with this.

I follow The Kid Should See This as they post such wonderful videos and saw it there.Check out their other posts. My kids love it.

New Years Resolution

This struck a cord.....

"Remember that there are only three kinds of things anyone need ever do. (1) Things we ought to do (2) Things we’ve got to do (3) Things we like doing. I say this because some people seem to spend so much of their time doing things for none of the three reasons, things like reading books they don’t like because other people read them. Things you ought to do are things like doing one’s school work or being nice to people. Things one has to do are things like dressing and undressing, or household shopping. Things one likes doing—but of course I don’t know what you like. Perhaps you’ll write and tell me one day."

C. S. Lewis, in a letter to Sarah, his godchild, on 3 April 1949

Maybe it's time for me to do more of no. 3......
Found over at Bobulate.

Wolves save trees

I know it sounds quite fantastic but apparently since they re-introduced wolves into Yellowstone Park they have affected balance of nature and trees aren't suffering with an over run of elk. With trees comes birds also.

So exciting. Article over at Good.

Happy New Year

Here's hoping 2012 is a good year to us all.