Tropophilia

Another weekend yields to Monday. Yikes. Jarred and I have been a little distracted and preoccupied with our alma mater’s storybook run to the Elite 8 of the NCAA tournament. While heartbreaking, a close loss to Kansas tonight means we’ll both be spending less time reading articles about how great the Wildcats are and spending more time on Tropophilia. That is, as soon as Jarred returns from Detroit. In any case, let’s start the week (as usual) with a few links:

• EcoGeek is declaring last Thursday to have been “algae’s official tipping point.” Let me point to this great piece on 15 Algae Startup Companies from earth2tech, as well as news of a large-scale algae facility to open in South East Texas tomorrow. For a reminder of why I go ga-ga for the green gunk (though there are problems to be solved), here’s EcoGeek again:

“Algae is the best plant out there for converting sunlight to energy. It’s 100x better at creating usable energy per acre than corn [...] new and old companies are trying different strains of algae and different ways of growing them [as well as] using them to clean the flue gas coming out of power plants.”

• My dad was a hobby beekeeper for a number of years when I was a kid, and I’ve always remembered our bee colonies (and beeswax candles) fondly. As you may have read, commercial bee colonies all across the country are experiencing mysterious Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) resulting in as high as 70% die-off rates. Beyond Philanthropy identified CCD as an emerging opportunity for philanthropic dollars to make an impact, due to the importance of bees on American agriculture. Now Beyond Philanthropy highlights similar trouble among bat populations. Since bats play a crucial role in insect control–particularly disease-carrying mosquitoes–we should find the loss of 90% of colonies in the North East US to be cause for concern and philanthropic initiative.

• This may only be of interest to fellow North Carolinians, but BlueNC will be hosting a first-of-its-kind (in this state) online gubernatorial debate with the Democratic candidates. Regardless of your political persuasion, it’s good to see candidates engaging in good faith with online communities. Topics for this evening’s debate will include “Technology and its role in transforming government, including transparency and privacy issues,” as well as “The environmental economy, including water policy, energy policy and climate change.”

• Stunning (though not altogether surprising) news that China plans to build 97 new airports by 2020.

• Sustainablog features an excellent exploration of the environmental and social costs of bottled water, written by a policy analyst for Environmental Defense.

• For those of you who are now a year or more out of undergrad and are starting to realize just how poorly you fare in the kitchen, here’s a great site with lots of how-to videos to help you Start Cooking.

Thanks and check back this week for new material. And please keep those guest posts coming! We had a great submission from Christy last week, and we welcome your thoughts on change. Happy day of honesty before April Fools strikes tomorrow.