Green Living

According to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the answer is “No.”

I found an article at National Geographic, in which NOAA has stated that Global Warming will actually decrease the amount of hurricanes and tropical storms. They say that this theory will always be something that is up to debate. In 2005 when Hurricane Katrina hit, along with 27 other tropical storms that year, the debate about Global Warming really took off. However, NOAA’s studies show that by the year 2060, these storms will be reduced by 18%. The drawback to that, is that when a hurricane or tropical storm does in fact hit, “hurricane winds could increase by about 2 percent, and rainfall within 30 miles (48 kilometers) of a hurricane’s center could increase by 37 percent.”

I started thinking about all of this when I first heard about Gustav (which has now officially become a hurricane), that is happening in Jamaica right now and making its way towards the Gulf of Mexico. I still don’t know who to believe on whether global warming is increasing these storms, but I do agree that it will be debated for a long time to come.

Ben Vander Heiden a teacher at Woodbridge Elementary School in Lodi, CA was mentioned in a recent article posted on recordnet.com for his teaching efforts towards alternative energy awareness. Ben has been taking the extra effort to show his students how important our environment is by focusing his science lessons on alternative energy over the past several years. Every year Ben’s students participate in the annual Solar Olympics submitting class inventions. The article is located on recordnet.com and is worth taking the time out to read it over. The responses from the students show how early education on energy and water efficiency can help improve the future of our environment.

How many times a day do you use Google to search for stuff? 10? 20? 100 maybe? Now think what would happen if every time you searched with Google you saved part of the rain forest. Wouldn’t that be cool? That’s exactly the idea some creative developers had when they came up with Forestle (Forest + Google).

Forestle uses Google’s Adsense for publishers to generate revenue. Translation: every time you click a sponsored ad (just like millions of people do on websites everyday) the proceeds (minus operating costs of course) are given to The Nature Conservancy to use to purchase acres of rain forest land as part of their Adopt an Acre program.

Not a bad deal. Looks like a “win-win” to me. So go ahead, start searching. Don’t forget to spread the word. The more people using Forestle the more rain forest can be saved.

Click here to search on Forestle

Photo by Christoph Diewald via Flickr.