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More than 50% of water used in US beef production is dedicated to irrigating the row crops that become feed for cattle. By using new irrigation technology, farmers, can greatly reduce the amount of water needed for row crop irrigation and improve the environmental impact of the beef supply chain, the companies say. Via EcoVadis 
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A growing list of airlines and vacation spots are courting visitors with virtual experiences that offer options that nearly rival the real thing.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
An interesting twist on reducing your travel-related impacts: don't go in the first place. There are potential upsides for our carbon footprints...but downsides for our actual experiences and engagement with new vultures and landscapes.
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Calculate ecological footprints, calculators to help you determine your footprint on the Earth
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The 2014 Winter Olympics are seven times more expensive than the last Winter Games, and cost $20 billion more than the Summer Games in Beijing.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
I don't really want to be overly harsh on the Olympics, but these games seem to have morphed into something of an insane monster of an event. The lack of true sustainability related interests/programs, the willingness to outright destroy ecological communities (as with Sochi) and bulldoze over the poor and disenfranchised (as with Beijing) is becoming a bit much in my opinion. Perhaps the clearest sign that something is simply off is the disgusting amount of money that is now expected to be spent on each of these couple week ad campaigns…I mean sporting events. All kinds of expenditures are common on government or industrial activities. The issue is the cost vs. benefit. I regretfully think that we have vastly exceeded an ROI anyone could say was worth it. The last profitable Olympics was the 1984 summer Olympics in Los Angeles. And the ones in totalitarian/oligarchic regimes seem to only foster injustice. The Olympics are far from the ideals laid out in the Olympic charter.
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When most small boats are at a dock, they typically make an electrical connection to shore power, obtaining 120-VAC from the marina or dock facility. Some larger boats may connect to 240-VAC shore power. Big boats typically can't access electricity that would be needed and so run their own power generation plants when connected to a dock during loading or unloading for a day or two. They just continue to run on electrical power they generate themselves, running their often dirty, diesel engines in port. These emissions are historically not well regulated by local emissions laws as they are considered an itinerant emitter.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
The North Star is one of the first of this new breed of "plugable" cargo ships which can plug into special sockets when in port and so depower the entirety of its onboard generators.
There is an interesting episode airing on the Smithsonian Channel’s Mighty Ships series about this ship, but I can't find a full episode. I only was able to find a few snippets (like this one), none of which show the electrical coupling aspects. If you can find it, only the first 10 minutes are worth the watch (the rest is a typcial fake reality drama when no drama actually exists thing).
The Port of Los Angeles/Long Beach is moving full bore with adopting such requirements for long haul freighters/terminals amongst a host of approaches to minimize emissions (known as the Clean Air Action Plan) generally. Lastly you might be interested in both a nice example of a Life Cycle Analysis for the goings on at the Port of Los Angeles and a guide for how entities can improve their emissions.
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Hopping into a waist-high metal bathtub smaller than a shower stall, Shafer swung a faucet over his head to demonstrate how one bathes in the combination tub/shower/sink.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
Microhousing.
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The word “anthropocene” has become the closest thing there is to common shorthand for this turbulent, momentous, unpredictable, hopeless, hopeful time—duration and scope still unknown
PIRatE Lab's insight:
Good, wide-ranging discussion of the era we have all created for ourselves.
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The Traveler XL will be open for touring on Sunday, Sept. 18 in Burbank
PIRatE Lab's insight:
Pretty swank. The blonde wood is nice, but this wouldn't be a good fit for cold climes nor for areas with lots of neighbors or security concerns...too many windows.
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The environmental impact isn’t always our first thought when we plan our daily activities. That’s why we’re introducing a new series of infographics, “This vs. That: Which has the smallest carbon footprint?” We’ll take a look at the different ways everyday activities impact our carbon emissions—even things like watching the Olympics.
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Yet instead of applause, voices from across the political spectrum - Berkeley activists and Beltway conservatives, Pope Francis and even some corporate CEOs - offer a critique of economic growth and its harm to the well-being of humans and the...
PIRatE Lab's insight:
The efforts to incorporate natural capital into our economic thinking and policy are good, but much of this formal effort (as described by Gretchen in the piece) is very piecemeal and idiosyncratic to date.
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New research maps out regional differences in the sustainability of livestock.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
Don't you love it when we technical folks answer questions with "it depends."
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The Smart-weather sensor technology - expected to conserve up to 2.4 billion gallons of irrigation water over three years - will enable farmers to make more informed irrigation decisions. A good step to responsibly utilised our natural resources.