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A magical sunset can take your breath away. Some photographers are able to capture and even enhance the beauty of a sunset through HDR photography and tone mapping techniques. Here we take a look at some exceptional shots taken around the world just as the sun reached the horizon.

Fire in the Sky

(images via: hdrdesktop, smugmug, felloweskimo)

As the day draws to a close and the sun bends to the horizon, its light has to travel further though the atmosphere to reach us. We gradually see less blue in the sky as it lights up with firey colors, as the shorter wavelengths no longer reach us and particles in the atmosphere scatter the fleeting sunlight.

Magical Painted Skies

(images via: vi.sualize.us, pbase, martovskiy)

Sunsets transform the sky into beautiful works of art, painted with amazing colors. These incredible shots were captured in Dubai, Denmark and Russia and demonstrate that while landscapes around the world may vary, beautiful sunsets are universal. Through tone mapping techniques, these photos were given more subtle brilliance than can be seen with the naked eye.

Nearly Twilight

(images via: chrismay, hdrdesktop, apollocreedtravels, ergyth, bgphotographyandvideo)

Twilight is that magical time of day when the sun dips below the horizon, yet for a few minutes we are still able to enjoy the fading light and colors of the sunset. All too soon, the show is over, darkness envelops the sky and the natural cycle of the day is complete. At or near twilight, photographers have a wonderful opportunity to capture amazing images.

The Blues

(images via: hdrimages, porre, envyo)

Photographers who are able to capture the fading sunlight as it paints the evening sky often enhance the photos using photo manipulation techniques. Through HDR photography or photo manipulation, vivid details of the pictures become spectacular. Cobalt blue is a rare color in sunset photography, but through HDR and tone mapping techniques it can come through in amazing ways.

Sundown at the Shore

(images via: aspektdev, mcsearcher)

For many people, beaches are some of the most relaxing and beautiful places on earth. We have a fascination with the mysteries of deep waters and a love for the scenery along coastlines around the world. Spectacular HDR sunset photographs can be taken when the sun dips low and looks as though it may plunge into the water. The intense colors and reflections on the water can make coastal sunsets truly breathtaking.

Serene Sunsets

(images via: fotothing, talkphotography, esharkdesign, fourthirds-user)

As the day draws to a close, we are sometimes lucky enough to be treated to a few minutes of quiet time to relax and enjoy the sunset. Taking in the beauty of the sky in the evenings can be very relaxing and a great way to unwind after a stressful day. Our internal body clocks respond to light, and as the sun goes down we are given the natural cue that bedtime is drawing near.

Thoughts are provoked. Tempers flare at times. In this debate held by The Commonwealth Club of California dives deep into the reality of coal, renewable energy, China, the Obama Administration, and many other aspects of this hot topic.

It isn’t simply a matter of “stop burning coal, throw up more wind farms”. This panel takes a look at several different angles in this complex issue. It’s over an hour long, but it’s definitely worth listening to and sharing with friends and family.

Video after the jump

Read more about renewable energy on this green blog.

Image courtesy of NIOSH.

Saving the planet is all well and good, but unless you have a magic ring and an 80’s cartoon series it’s not your actual job.  Saving money is much more measurable, especially with recession cutting through the economy like a chainsaw at a soufflé convention, and nowadays you can do that while protecting the planet at the same time.

Eco-friendliness is often associated with happy hippies slightly less financially motivated than their own granola bars, but a few tips and tricks can help any online project manager reduce their footprint and their financial losses:

1.  Go Paperless

As a virtual task manager the paperless office is something you should already understand.  Whether your electronic office is all on your desktop, or you’ve moved onto the next step of entirely web based project management (with the enormous safety and security that brings), you should have kicked that old paper habit.

But some need hard copy like a nicotine fix, printing entire e-mails in order to highlight the relevant passage in bright yellow, stick it into a binder like the world’s most boring scrapbook, then (presumably) squirrel away all the scraps for insulation for their winter nest and hibernation.

You may not think much of the cost of paper, but you should be the sort of person thinking of the second-level effects: less printing means less laser toner cartridges, and based on the cost, those things are made out of Fabergé eggs and filled with ink squeezed from endangered octopuses.  For small businesses, or those involved in online collaboration (meaning you have to pay for your own printer), kicking the paper habit can save a lot of time and money.

2.  Working Remotely

Some say that the internet enables interaction between offices around the world, and while they’re right, that sentence means they’re still missing the point.  Web based task management systems mean that for many there’s no real point in “offices” at all, and we all turn up out of some kind of ingrained business habit.

With the proper project tools, you can effectively administer virtual tasks from anywhere in the world – including your own home.  Business culture is rapidly growing up, realizing that working from home doesn’t mean a doting granny making some temp-money by typing.  It means someone smart enough to look at a budget reading “living expenses $cost, office expenses $more cost” and realize “Hey, I can save thousands of dollars RIGHT NOW.”

If you need the eco-advantages of virtual offices explained to you, we’ll have to start from the beginning.  ”That blue thing above you is the sky”-type beginning.  Not carting yourself back and forth for two hours every day doesn’t just save your time, it saves an enormous amount of emissions – not to mention all the resources and electricity not being used by an extra office.

3.  Measure Three Times, Cut Twice, Print Once

Mistakes are bad.  This has been a Revolutionary Bet-You-Never-Knew-That Public Service Announcement.  But what’s worse than mistakes are huge, glossy, custom-ordered mistakes that arrive in crates and make even the most edge-cutting online collaborative project look like a bunch of first graders.

If you’re obeying step one above, you’ll be better equipped for real electronic error-checking.  While everything should always be error-free, of course, anything due for dispatch to the printer needs a full show of hands.  This isn’t just spelling and grammar, either – the fact that you’re managing an online project means you can’t do everything yourself.  Just because the sentence “Connect the third transistor stack assembly to the high voltage input” is grammatically correct doesn’t mean your engineer will agree its right.

Landfills are full of the thirty-thousand copies of a leaflet explaining why “Fisk & Sons Accountants” can be trusted not to make mistakes.  Even when you recycle the paper, you can’t recover the energy and the costs of creating so many unwanted items.

4.  Regular Maintenance

“Saving on servicing” is the single scariest and most shortsighted sentence in the entire budgeting arsenal.  It makes a mole in dark glasses look like an optician with a telescope.  When money is at its tightest is when you can least afford a breakdown, so don’t scrimp or save on servicing your computer equipment (or the online tools that let you keep track).  One hard drive failure can cost weeks of work, and that’s the kind of catastrophe that costs clients.

As project manager you know how terrifying the phrase “my computer crashed” is – don’t let it happen to you.  Save money in the long run by keeping your computer tools in top condition.  The better condition you keep your kit in, the less often you’ll have to expensively replace the lot, and the less utterly-unmanageable electronic trash will end up polluting the planet.  Even those few parts of your PC that can be recycled require hideously toxic technology to scrape out the few salvageable scraps, and you know that most will end up rotting and rusting in non-biodegradable stacks anyway.

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Read more about Green Businesses on WeHeartWorld.

Image: Creative Commons via OfficeNow.

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San Francisco, CA – Refuse collection has been mandatory in San Francisco since the 1930s, so perhaps it came as no surprise when the nation’s leader in recycling passed a mandatory recycling and compost ordinance on June 9, but San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom still commended the Board of Supervisors for its passage of the ordinance.

Mayor Newsom’s ordinance, co-sponsored by Supervisors Ross Mirkarimi and Chris Daly, which passed on its first reading with a vote of 9-2, requires residential and commercial business owners to sign up for recycling and composting services. The ordinance will require all residences and businesses to participate in the city’s recycling and composting services, making San Francisco the first city to require collection of compostable materials.

“San Francisco has the best recycling and composting programs in the nation, and we’ve already attained an impressive, and first in the nation, 72 percent recycling rate because of them,” said Mayor Newsom. “I am pleased with the leadership the Board of Supervisors has demonstrated on this important legislation. By collaborating with all of our stakeholders, businesses, colleagues, and citizens, we can build on our success and continue to lead the nation in recycling.”

The primary goal of the ordinance, according to Newsom, is to get recycling and composting happening in buildings that are not currently using the city’s recycling and composting services. “Many tenants want to recycle and compost,” said Newsom, “but the building does not offer the service. We’re going to change that.”

Newsom estimates that if all recyclable and compostable materials, which currently slip through the city’s fingers, ending up in a landfill, were caught by the programs, San Francisco’s rate would soar from 70 percent to 90 percent.

The ordinance specifies no fines. Newsom commented that cities with mandatory recycling and fines rarely assess such fines. The primary function of fines is to heighten public awareness and encourage compliance.

The ordinance itself will be recycled again next week as it returns to the Board of Supervisors for a second reading and final vote.

Photo Credit: Shawna Scott via flickr under Creative Commons License

According to a new study, climate change could drastically alter 88% of the waters where dolphins, whales and porpoises are found. While some species may stand to benefit from the changes, the research concluded that one fifth of cetacean species could be lost forever.

The cetaceans most at risk are colder water species and species with restricted ranges in shallower waters. All in all, as many as half of cetacean species should experience a shrinking of their habitat as the oceans warm.

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