National Geographic - Inspiring People to Care About the Planet Since 1888. Penguins Do the Wave to Keep Warm. A List of Low-Carbon Energy and Development Planning Tools. An important series of meetings on the Climate Investment Funds, hosted by the African Development Bank, began June 20 in Cape Town, South Africa.
At one of the first events, discussion focused on how individual households, communities, cities, companies, and nations find and use tools to develop low-carbon, pro-growth, gender-sensitive, pro-access energy solutions. A key factor in this process is access to: information on technologies and policiestools to build integrated plans for the energy sector at small and large-scale. At a session on lessons drawn from energy efficiency and renewable energy experiences, I promised to share a preliminary list of websites and online tools to assist local groups and communities gain control of the energy planning process. Here it is: Low-Carbon Energy and Development Planning Tools HEAT and TRACE – This portal provides access and documentation for a number of individual models, including: Building Energy Use. Time to Clear the Smoke. In many parts of the world, a picture of a woman sitting in front of a smoky cookstove preparing a family meal remains an iconic picture of life today.
For many families, the three- stone fire or a traditional stove as a cooking device has not changed over centuries. This need not be the case, and in a growing number of nations, that traditional pattern is changing. Serious research on improved cookstoves dates back to the 1950s. However, large-scale field programs focused largely on the inefficiency of designs.
While the stoves may appear simple, the socio-cultural systems in which they operate, and their impacts on so many aspects of household and regional health and economics, is far from simple. Over the last few years, a more complete view of the full human and environmental health impacts of indoor air pollution and the global impact of the fuel and stove cycle has emerged. Rare Video: Japan Tsunami. Oldest Art in Americas Found on Mammoth Bone. The Americas' earliest known artist was an Ice Age hunter in what is now Florida, a new study confirms. Google Creates $280 Million Fund to Finance Solar Energy. Google is making its largest investment yet in clean energy, setting up a $280 million fund to finance home solar rooftop installations.
The search giant announced today it was teaming up with the Silicon Valley’s SolarCity—a company chaired by Paypal co-founder and Tesla Motors executive Elon Musk—in an effort to break down the biggest barrier to solar energy adoption: the cost. "It's a great way to support installations going into more homes," said Google spokesperson Parag Chokshi. The $280 million fund is the largest fund ever created for residential solar in the United States, according to SolarCity, which has raised a total of $1.28 billion in financing capacity during its five-year history. Sawfish Snout Has Sixth Sense, Splits Prey in Half. They may not see dead people, but sawfish use a sixth sense based in their snouts to hunt and dismember prey, new research shows for the first time.
Previously scientists had suspected that sawfish—large ocean and freshwater fish found throughout the tropics—use their saws to probe sand or mud for prey. Now, preliminary experiments suggest that the fish's long, tooth-lined saw are full of pores that can detect movements or electric fields of passing prey—acting as a sort of "distant touch," Barbara Wueringer, a sensory neurobiologist at the University of Queensland in Australia, said by email. This skill is especially handy for nosing out dinner in murky or dark waters, Wueringer said.
The saw—a cartilaginous extension of the skull—also doubles as a weapon, the new research suggests. Lateral swipes can split smaller fish in half, she observed during experiments in the lab. "We know so little about sawfish, even though these animals can grow really big"—up to 16 feet (5 meters). Female Fish Develop "Testes" in Gulf Dead Zone. This story is part of a special National Geographic News series about global water issues. A low-oxygen "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico (map) is causing sexual deformities in fish, a new study says. The Gulf dead zone occurs when agricultural and waste runoff from the Mississippi River spark blooms of algae and microbes. These organisms gobble up oxygen, starving other marine life and creating huge swaths of "dead" ocean. Best Beaches Pictures: Top Ten U.S. Shores of 2011. Photograph by Richard Peters, Alamy A great blue heron searches for fish on the incoming tide at Siesta Beach in Sarasota, Florida , in 2009.
Siesta Beach topped the list of ten best U.S. beaches of 2011 as chosen by Stephen Leatherman , a coastal scientist at Florida International University who is better known as "Dr. Beach. " Siesta's crescent-shaped beach boasts some of the finest, whitest sand in the world and has clear, warm waters that are perfect for swimming, Leatherman said. ( See pictures of the best beaches of 2009 .)
It's also one of the few beaches around the country where smoking is not allowed, which is one reason it's so pristine. "You can smoke in the parking lot but when you walk over the boardwalk, it's no smoking," Leatherman said. —Ker Than.