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The Purple Waffle plant (hemigraphis alternata) can help clean the air in your home by filtering out noxious household chemicals like benzene (found in glues, paints, furniture wax, and detergents, and cigarette smoke) and trichloroethylene (found in adhesives, paint removers, and spot removers).
Like many other houseplants, the Purple Waffle works during the day while the soil in which it’s planted works at night to remove gases and other impurities. For more information about natural air cleaners, visit sciencedaily.com.
Taking place in New York at the end of the month, the Greener Gadgets Conference tackles all of the issues surrounding energy efficiency and sustainable design, from innovative advances in packaging and product manufacturing to end-of-life recycling solutions. Save the date: February 25th.
Wind power is currently one of the great hopes for long-term sustainable energy technologies… so you might be surprised to learn how long it has been around. The earliest known windmill design dates as far back as 500 A.D., to ancient Persia, where they were used to grind grain and pump water. Reeds were bundled together to create vertical paddles that spun around a central axis. More windmill history here.
WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR? This 2006 documentary film explores the development, marketing, and systematic destruction of the General Motors EV1 in the early 1990s. This film is all the more remarkable given the number of electric cars now gearing up for production. Irrefutable evidence of the shortsighted nature of the American automobile industry.
Starting in 2010, the New Chitose Airport in Hokkaido, Japan will collect snow in the winter to cool the terminal building in the summer. The snow will be covered by heat-insulating materials, which should retain about 45% of the snow collected. The remaining snow will then be used to chill the liquid of the building’s cooling system. The process could result in a 2,100 ton reduction in CO2 emissions every year.
Hat Tip: green.yahoo.com
You can’t afford not to buy a Bantam. Successor to the American Austin, it was built from 1930 to 1934 and it got 60 miles per gallon. That’s right, 60 mpg! Better than a Prius and arguably, better looking.
Hat Tip: www.yourememberthat.com
How do you created LED light bulbs from salmon DNA? Simple. Just add fluorescent dye to the DNA and spin the DNA strands into nanofibers. Cover an LED light with the nanofibers, and presto, you can read your Kindle in the dark. So say researchers at the University of Connecticut who managed the feat in the laboratory. Cod willing, the discovery may help scale-down the price of high-end LED lighting.
Hat Tip: fastcompany.com
A revolving door in the Netherlands is being used to produce electricity for a train station coffee shop. When the door revolvdes, a generator collects its kinetic energy and stores it in a supercapacitor. The energy is used to power the cafe’s LED lights.
Hat Tip: cleantechnica.com
originally uploaded by estherase
If you despise one-use plastic bags as much as we do, here’s some news that’s totally, like, nano-tubular. A chemist has created an “upcycling” method of turning the disposable bags into carbon nanotubes. Nanotubes technology is pretty new, but Stanford University researchers recently coated copier paper in ink made of carbon nanotubes and silver nanowires to create bendable, highly conductive storage devices. Nanotubes could also become self-repair tools for electronic circuits in our smart phones and laptops. Here’s the scoop.
Known for its innovative nonwoven fabrics, the Landolt Group has produced an ecologically-friendly fabric called, Ice Protector Optiforce® that protects snow cover from heat and UV radiation. An area just below the summit of Switzerland’s Gemsstock mountain was blanketed with 3000 square metres of the material, enabling year-round preservation of snow and ice on the skier’s departure ramp to the Gurschen glacier. Could similar “blankets” save entire glaciers – or for that matter, the snow on Kilamanjaro? Visit popsci.com for thoughts on the subject.
It cleans windows. Kills anthrax spores. Wipes out salmonella on chicken carcasses. Makes lettuce last longer. Replaces dishwasher detergent. And kills athlete’s foot. It only costs about a penny a gallon and, according to a professor of food science at the University of Georgia, ” it’s “ten times more effective than bleach in killing bacteria.” What is it? It s a simple mixture of table salt and tap water scrambled with electric current. Want to know more? Click here and behold.
Newsstand copies of the November issue of Creative Review are wrapped in a revolutionary new bag that dissolves in hot water.
CR is the first magazine to use “Harmless Dissolve,” a new packaging material created by British firm, Cyberpac.
photo: Vince Alongi
If you were walking down the street and you saw a plastic bag lightly tumbling in the breeze, would you stop to pick it up?
photo: Bobbytee.
If you’d been with us aboard the Baylis, you would without question.
Welcome to the Derick M Baylis, a 65-foot auxiliary-powered sailing research vessel, a Prius at sea.
Chartered by Sealife Conservation, its mission is to inspire conservation of the Oceans by fostering awareness of the marine environment through research and education. On board, a mixture of open minds: a fifth grader and an ocean activist, college students and college grads, dads and daughters. The most obvious commonality is the desire to experience and learn.
Would you step out of your way to pick up that Styrofoam cup in the park?
A day aboard the Baylis would provide you with more than one reason to do it.
The Baylis has just left its slip and nets are manned on both the port and starboard sides. A candy wrapper is the first catch of the day, small, but certainly there’s not a thought of throwing it back. A simple standard has been set: if you see it, call it out, and it will get hauled in. During the trip to the sea, other debris is collected. The experience is underscored by living sea lions basking on a buoy, pelicans flying overhead, and twenty or so dolphin close enough that you can
hear them breathing and slapping the water. A drifting patch of kelp is hoisted on board and the passengers comb through the leaves looking for life’s beginning stages taking refuge in the safe haven. Tiny crabs and other little creatures are placed in beakers so they can be studied.
A torrent of plastic and other trash is impacting their lives, so while the ocean is where most of earth’s life begins, it seems to be our least-respected resource.
If you were strolling on the beach, would you salvage that plastic cup half buried in the sand?
photo: Alan.Slmak
If you knew the crew of the Baylis, absolutely, you would.
The Billabong seaplane rendezvous with the Baylis off the SoCal coast.
On board are three incredible, big-wave riders. Mike Parsons, Grant “Twiggy” Baker and Greg Long don’t look like the hell men they really are as they board the sailboat from a dinghy, calm and clearly intrigued. Each of them has surfed the largest waves in the world with that same studied character.
They understand the ocean and it’s contents. Around the globe, they have seen pristine beaches turn into dumps and witnessed a bounty of plastic bags and bottles mixed with syringes. They watch as the Baylis nets its own collection of discarded objects, using GPS to note the location.
Would you stop a boat to pick up a floating water bottle?
At this point you know the answer is yes. A manned net on the starboard side misses a plastic bottle and suddenly the boat is turning around to gather it – a 65-foot boat on a turnabout for a single water bottle. There are no complaints, only interest in the brand and where it is from. The 180-degree turn for the bobbing plastic makes a point – for if we can stop trash like this from ever leaving the land, it will never find its way to the ocean’s garbage dumps.
That plastic bag, tumbling in the breeze?
Are you going to pick it up?
There was a point in my life when I would have answered, “no.” Or perhaps I wouldn’t have answered the question at all. Today I find myself stuffing plastic bags in my wetsuit sleeve while surfing. There are funny looks from the others in the line -up until I explain that, to a turtle, a plastic bag looks just like a jellyfish. Suddenly, they understand.
Back aboard the Baylis: A chunk of Styrofoam is netted (the little foam balls that break-off are easily mistaken for food by fish and sea birds). A silver Mylar happy birthday balloon is scooped off the surface to a chorus of hilarious, helium-inspired cheers. Things change. I’ve changed. Anything is possible.
Aloha,
Steve Lawrence, greenlandoceanblue
**All unattributed photos by Steve & Madison
MyAbodo is an interactive eco-game designed primarily for kids that lets you build your own home and see how your choices impact the environment. To play, just click on the image above. You can also see houses created by others. The Tools section targets adults and includes project guides and a project planner.
It’s called Vampire Power because it involves devices with “two sharp, pointy teeth that latch into your charging (2) turn-off your wall sockets and suck blood…errr…electricity night and day.” You can begin to vanquish the vampire by turning off your electronic devices when you’re not using them. Including, yes, your computer. And remove chargers from the wall when you’re not charging. And? Click here for more.
Voltree Power, a company created by Physicist Andreas Mershin and MIT undergraduate Christopher Love, is harvesting electricity from trees which it uses to power radio-equipped sensors that can be deployed to monitor climate conditions, detect illegal radioactive materials at border crossings, and even warn of wildfires. Honest. You can read more about this remarkable technology at conservationmagazine or .xconomy.com.
This Friday’s Focus is FOOD. Nine delectable posts. And not coincidentally, you can purchase a copy of Food Inc. at your favorite purveyor of DVDs. If that happens to be Amazon, click: www.amazon.com.
According to Ulf Sonnesson of the Swedish Institute for Food & Biotechnology, if we were to swap half of the protein now supplied by meat with soy by the year 2050, we’d see [projected] carbon emissions decrease on the order of 70 percent.
Okay, let’s start with Morning Star Farms Soy Sausage Links, available just about everywhere.
Hat Tip: www.sciencenews.org and tofuttibreak.tumblr.com for Sausage Boy
This is Joel’s second appearance on greenlandoceanblue (some of you may have missed his debut in July). In any case, take a minute or so and watch it.
If you don’t have the time, take a half a minute or so and read Polyface Farms’ Guiding Principles:
TRANSPARENCY: Anyone is welcome to visit the farm anytime. No trade secrets, no locked doors, every corner is camera-accessible.
GRASS-BASED: Pastured livestock and poultry, moved frequently to new “salad bars,” offer landscape healing and nutritional superiority.
INDIVIDUALITY: Plants and animals should be provided a habitat that allows them to express their physiological distinctiveness. Respecting and honoring the pigness of the pig is a foundation for societal health.
COMMUNITY: We do not ship food. We should all seek food closer to home, in our foodshed, our own bioregion. This means enjoying seasonality and reacquainting ourselves with our home kitchens.
NATURE’S TEMPLATE: Mimicking natural patterns on a commercial domestic scale insures moral and ethical boundaries to human cleverness. Cows are herbivores, not omnivores; that is why we’ve never fed them dead cows like the United States Department of Agriculture encouraged (the alleged cause of mad cows).
EARTHWORMS: We’re really in the earthworm enhancement business. Stimulating soil biota is our first priority. Soil health creates healthy food.
Please pay a visit to polyfacefarms.com.
A unique foundation called the Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF) is determined to fight two of our planet’s most pressing issues – climate change and global poverty – with one of the Earth’s greatest resources: the sun.
SELF is working all over the world, targeting those places and issues that need critical attention, or wherever their work can have the greatest impact. In Burundi, for example, they’ve collaborated with Partners In Health to install a solar electric generating system that’s helping medical personnel treat thousands of patients suffering from HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria.
This remarkable group really is onto something – transforming the sun’s energy not only into power, but into hope. Learn more at www.self.org.
Living a greener life doesn’t necessarily relegate you to the slow lane. While many hybrids may be lacking in both looks and power, a few green car makers are working to ensure that you get where you’re going in style. You may have heard about the flashy Tesla Roadster, but the as-yet-unreleased Karma by Fisker Automotive represents a new breed of luxury hybrids, with a top speed of 150-mph. Pre-order yours today for just under 90k. Where? karma.fiskerautomotive.com.
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- Electric-Car Makers Tesla and Fisker: The U.S. Bets Big – TIME (time.com)
- Fisker Needs Good Karma to Hit This Goal (wired.com)
A company called, Evocative Design, has developed a substitute for Styrofoam. Their packaging material (called, Greensulate) is made from seed husks and the roots of a mushroom called mycelium. It’s durable and biodegradable. For more information, visit .core77.com/blog.
Three Fort Collins, Colorado researchers have found that vehicle and industrial noise is interfering with the way animals communicate, mate and prey on one another. One of them is quoted as saying that “many animal species evolved hearing sensitive enough to take advantage of the quietest conditions (and) their hearing is increasingly compromised by noise.” For example, when exposed to the sounds of highway traffic, female grey tree frogs have difficulty locating and finding calling mates.
Hat Tip: news.bbc.co.uk
No doubt there has been some slimy business conducted in downtown Boston, but nothing quite like one budding architect has imagined. In response to a Boston Globe request for imaginative redesigns for stalled building projects, nearly twenty forward thinking designers responded with a range of solutions, including a futuristic stack of pods to grow algae for use in alternative fuels.
Hat Tip: www.asylum.co.uk.
PHOTO: Team Germany, winner of the 2007 Solar Decathon, has entered this year’s competition with a cube-shaped dwelling that has a unique solar skin.
The U.S. Department of Energy is hosting the 2009 Solar Decathlon – a competition in which 20 teams of college and university students compete “to design, build, and operate the most attractive, effective, and energy-efficient solar-powered house.” You can follow the action at solardecathlon.org.
Patrick Blanc is a Parisian botanist and inventor of the Vertical Garden which relies on a new way to grow plants without any soil. Vertical gardens can be created on virtually any wall, indoors or outdoors. Watering and fertilization are automatic. Blanc’s gardens can now be found all over the world. A list of his projects (with photographs) can be found on his website, verticalgardenpatrickblanc.com/.
Hat Tip: www.thegrowspot.com
Chetwoods Associates’ Wind Dam Project employs a giant spinnaker sail suspended in a mountain gorge near Northern Russia’s Lake Ladoga. Here in abbreviated form, is the way it’s meant to work: The 17,000-square-foot Kevlar sail’s conical shape directs air to three turbines enclosed in a tube. The wind spins each turbine’s blades and turns an axle that runs into its gearbox that transforms the movement into electricity. Presto! Hat Tip: inhabitat.com.
Researchers in England are designing robots with the ability to detect chemical hazards in water. Equipped with artificial intelligence software, the 20 inch-long robo-fish will travel in schools and communicate with each other via GPS. Sound fishy? Visit fordac.blogspot.com for details.
In the not-too-distant future, “vertical farms, many stories high, will be situated in the heart of the world’s urban centers. If successfully implemented, they offer the promise of urban renewal, sustainable production of a safe and varied food supply (year-round crop production), and the eventual repair of ecosystems that have been sacrificed for horizontal farming.”
Some of the advantages of vertical farming:
* Year-round crop production
* 1 indoor acre is equivalent to 4-6 outdoor acres or more, depending upon the crop (e.g., strawberries: 1 indoor acre = 30 outdoor acres)
* No weather-related crop failures due to droughts, floods, pests
* All VF food is grown organically: no herbicides, pesticides, or fertilizers
* VF virtually eliminates agricultural runoff by recycling black water
* VF returns farmland to nature, restoring ecosystem functions and services
Hat Tip & More Info: verticalfarm.com/
Biomimicry is a new science that “studies nature’s best ideas and then imitates these designs and processes to solve human problems.” Here’s an example of biomimicry in action: the air conditioning system at the Eastgate Building in Zimbabwe, is modeled after self-cooling mounds created by termites. The termite structure maintains a constant “indoor” temperature 24 hours a day even though the outside temperature can vary up to 40 degrees centrigrade. Eastgate’s architects mimicked the termites so well that the building uses 90% less energy for ventilation than other buildings its size (saving the owners over $3.5 million in air conditioning costs. For more information, visit biomimicryinstitute.org.
An organization called, Matter of Trust, is collaborating with thousands of hair salons around the globe who donate hair clippings for use in soaking up oil spills. The effort was inspired by hair stylist Phil McCrory who began testing the oil-absorbing potential of hair after noticing the oil-soaked fur on Alaskan otters after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989. For details, click www.matteroftrust.org.
The city of Masdar – a planned community near Abu Dhabi that’s due to be completed by 2016 – is slated to become the world’s first zero carbon, zero waste city powered entirely by renewable energy sources.
The city center (which includes a plaza, retail shops, entertainment complex, convention center, and two hotels) will be covered by giant “sunflower umbrellas” which will provide shade, store heat during the day, and warm the area by night.
Hat Tip: designboom.com
Circle Biodiesel and Ethanol Corporation have created patent-pending machinery that enables inedible foods such as toxic strains of algae and Jatropha to be safely eaten by humans and animals.
“We have devised an apparatus and method for the production of humanly edible food from algae, Jatropha and other currently toxic feedstocks. Says CEO, Peter Schuh. “We believe we are in a great situation to help on the growing concern for world food production.”
Hat Tips: seeddaily.com & www.gaia.com
A company known as Humdinger is developing the world’s first non-turbine wind generator. Known as the Windbelt, the device captures energy using fluttering fabric. Windbelts are made of kite fabric and, at a cost of about $1 per watt of capacity, are also cheaper than solar panels. For more information, visit humdingerwind.com.
Hat Tip: ecogeek.org & terrapass.com.
Photo: A Windbelt prototype.
Sydney’s solar-powered ferry was put into use during the Sydney Olympics and can carry over 100 people. The “wings” double as a sail and also help the boat move through the water. The same basic technology can be used for anything from cruise ships and tankers to unmanned naval vessels.
Hat Tip: freesolarpro
At Liverpool’s John Lennon Airport, a device called the Eco-box is being used to capture human breath exhaled by travelers and convert it into fuel for the airport’s diesel vehicles and heating system. If the project is successful, the airport plans to expand the carbon recycling system to collect 289,000 gallons of fuel. But why waste our breath. Read more here.
Hat Tip: livescience.com.
Wind power is more than just a large-scale industry. Small wind turbines can be used by schools and individual homes and excess energy can even be sold back to the grid. Chad Maglaques’s 3-foot high micro-turbine, for example, can be mounted on any rooftop and plugged directly into a standard residential household electrical socket. The device is a semi-finalist in Google’s 10 to the 100th contest which offers a pool of $10 million for the five ideas that help the most people. Chad believes that, mass-produced, the turbine would cost about $200.
Hat Tip: mywindpowersystem.com.
The world’s first commercial wave farm is located in Agucadoura off the coast of northern Portugal. The farm uses snakelike, semi-submerged devices that generate electricity with hydraulic rams driven by waves. San Francisco based Pacific Gas & Electric will soon become the first U.S. utility company to commit to wave power and will hopefully being delivering wave-powered electricity to the grid by next year. Hat tip: inhabitat.com.
A group of Italian researchers are testing a robot that can collect trash on demand. The robot is called, DustCart, and he/she has been zipping through the streets of the city of Peccioli in the Tuscany region of Italy. The WALL-E clone not only collects trash but also gathers data regarding atmospheric pollutants such as nitrogen oxide and sulfur oxide. Hat Tip: inhabitat.com.
The Sky Sail was invented by a German company of the same name to help “tow” a ship through water in order to reduce fuel consumption. Resembling a large parachute, the device was tested in 2008 by the cargo ship MS Beluga Skysails on a trip across the Atlantic Ocean. Estimates of fuel savings ranged from 10 to 35%. Several ships are currently being outfitted with Sky Sails with improvements based on the Beluga voyage. Hat tip: bustachange.com. For the latest information re. Sky Sails, visit www.skysails.info.
The East Japan Railway Company is testing an experimental system that produces electricity as people pass through ticket gates. JR claims that this sort of human-powered electricity generation system may provide a portion of the electricity consumed at train stations in the future.
Hat Tip: pinktentacle.com
To help improve the environment, the city of Madrid, Spain is building an “Air Tree.” Created by Urban Ecosystem, the structure is completely self-sufficient, generating all its own power with solar cells. Surplus energy is sold to the electrical grid. Built from recycled materials and filled with plants, the Air Tree will also act as a natural air conditioner as it absorbs solar energy and produces oxygen that cools its surroundings.
Hat Tip: www.inhabitat.com
The visionary city fathers & mothers of Venice, Italy plan to use an abundant local resource to produce 50 percent of their electricity needs. The water-filled city will use two types of algae that cling to ships and regularly grow all over the seaport. The algae will be cultivated and treated in laboratories and turned into fuel which will power turbines in the city’s new 40 MW power plant. To ensure that the new power plant is carbon neutral, CO2 produced by the process will be fed back to the algae.
Hat Tip: green.yahoo.com
Researchers at Imperial College, London, are engaged in a £1m project to study, and eventually imitate, photosynthesis. The project is called, “Artificial Leaf” and its goal is to determine how leaves use sunlight to make useful molecules. The team then plans to build artificial systems that mirror the process in order to generate clean fuels such as hydrogen and methanol.
Namaste: guardian.co.uk
TRUCK FARM is a Wicked Delicate film + food project. Combining green roof technology, organic compost + heirloom seeds, we are creating a living story about growing a little food in a big city. Each “episode” is a partial excerpt of a larger film project, slated for completion in fall 2009. Visit www.wickedelicate.com to learn more, and stay tuned!
When he was 14, Andrew Angelloti got the idea to turn his 1988 Mazda pickup into an electric vehicle. The part-time lifeguard started buying parts in 2006 and finished his project in May, 2007. Powered by 20 golf cart batteries, the truck has a top speed of 55MPH with a range of 40 miles per charge. Now 18 years-old, Andrew reports that, despite the rigors of college life, he’s built a few motor controllers of various types on the small scale, digital voltage gauges, and “a few other non-EV-related items that I am equally unrightfully proud of – digital clocks, stepper motor controllers, that kind of thing.”
Namaste: www.ecofriend.org
Mr. Potato Head, originally uploaded by herobyday
A British company, Vegware, is using potatoes to create disposable items such as cutlery and tableware. Because they’re made from vegetable matter, the products are totally biodegradable. Vegware also produces take-out boxes made from sugar cane and compostable straws made from corn and other natural starches. Check them out at www.vegware.us.
Hat Tip: www.zible.com
Cow flatulence alone accounts for approximately one-third of the world’s methane emissions, a statistic that gives special significance to the news that Australian researchers have found absolutely no methane in kangaroo farts. The scientists are now attempting to transfer the unique bacteria in kangaroo stomachs to the stomachs of cows and sheep. This could significantly cut the emission of greenhouse gases from these animals and it could also increase the efficiency of their digestion.
Namaste: ecotality.com.
When seventh grader, Otana Jakpor read about potentially harmful levels of ozone emitted by common air purifiers, she created eight experiments to test their impact on human health. She discovered that some purifiers emit levels equal to Stage 3 smog alerts and her findings spurred her home state of California to become the first state to regulate ozone generators. Otana was subsequently awarded the President’s Environmental Youth Award and she is now a volunteer spokesperson for the American Lung Association.
Hat Tip: mnn.com.
Seed Hunter is a highly entertaining one-hour documentary about a topic that’s vital for the future of our planet – finding the little seeds that may help save the world from its greatest ever crisis – a global food shortage brought about by human-induced climate change.
Joel Salatin’s Polyface, Inc. is “a family owned, multi-generational, pasture-based, beyond organic, local-market farm and informational outreach in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. “We are in the redemption business: healing the land, healing the food, healing the economy, and healing the culture. Writing, speaking, and farm tours offer various message venues.”
Joel plays a major part in Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma and can be seen in the documentary, Food, Inc.
Research on cone snail toxins has shown an unprecedented potential for advances in the world of medicine* – yet another reason to protect their tropical coral reef and mangrove habitats while we can.
* E.g., Prialt, a drug based on a synthetic version of a cone snail peptide, was approved in 2004, and is believed to be up to 1,000 times as potent as morphine. In addition, the drug comes without the typical opiate side effects of addiction and tolerance buildup, and has proven very successful at reducing extreme pain in cancer and AIDS patients. Cone snail peptides have also shown potential to aid treatment of medical conditions as varied as Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, and strokes.
You can read more about the cone snail at conservation.org.
Cabin owner Medura Woods approached Sarah Nettleton with a Cabin owner Medura Woods approached Sarah Nettleton with a challenge in 1997 to transform a 950 sq. ft. 1947 cabin into a model of sustainable design. Completed in 2000, the cabin earned Sarah Nettleton Architects a Top Ten Green Projects Award in 2002 from the American Institute of Architects Committee on the Environment. The complete story of the cabin’s transformation is told via a beautiful website: tofteproject.info.
The Earthship Internship Program is open to anyone with an interest in sustainability and a willingness to work hard. People of all ages and backgrounds are encouraged to apply. Accepted interns will have the opportunity to learn Earthship building concepts and techniques while working full time alongside the Earthship contruction crew for approximately one month.
More information about Earthship Internships here.
Singer Justin Timberlake opens his new public golf course tomorrow in rural Millington Tennessee. Called Mirimichi, the course’s geothermal and solar energy systems are so efficient, 20 percent of the club’s energy will be funneled back to the Tennessee Energy Grid, and the clubhouse will be a contender for Platinum LEED status. State-of-the-art irrigation systems and re-circulating creeks will cut water use, and the property is set to receive Audubon Classic Sanctuary certification.
Hat Tip: mensjournal.com
Course details: mirimichi.com
The chemicals and heavy metals used in fireworks also take their toll on the environment, sometimes contributing to water supply contamination and even acid rain. Their use also deposits physical litter on the ground and into water bodies for miles around.
Cadmium, lithium, antimony, rubidium, strontium, lead and potassium nitrate are also commonly used to produce different effects, even though they can cause a host of respiratory and other health problems.
The good news is that scientists have come up with some healthier alternatives such as fireworks that burn nitrogen-based fuels – resulting in a cleaner burn, less smoke to obscure the color, and 10 times less barium than the standard kind. Chances are, however, that you won’t be seeing these greener fireworks until the EPA puts stricter caps on the levels of toxic chemicals used.
NOTE:
Whatever you’re doing on the Fourth, reduce, recycle, and follow the tips you’ll find here, at epa.gov.
Hat Tip: environment.about.com.
It may take 1,000 years for plastic to decompose but decompose it does, which means there must be microorganisms out there doing the decomposing. Could they be bred to do the job faster? The question was recently answered by 16 year-old Canadian high school student, Daniel Burd, who immersed ground plastic in a yeast solution that encourages microbial growth, and then isolated the most productive organisms. He kept at it, selecting the most effective strains and interbreeding them. After several weeks of tweaking and optimizing temperatures, Burd achieved a 43 % degradation of plastic in six weeks, an almost inconceivable accomplishment. More of the story here.
British university student and designer, Emily Cummins, was named Female Innovator of the Year in 2007 by the British Female Inventors and Innovators Network, and has been shortlisted for Cosmopolitan Magazine’s Ultimate Women of The Year Awards. Her latest innovation is a refrigerator that cools completely without electricity. The fridge is already in use in Africa (where she gave away the design for free).
Namaste: worldchanging.com
Who owns the rainwater that falls on your property? If you live in the American West, the answer is unclear. In many areas, state and local interests have been appropriating water for over 150 years (in Utah, collecting rainwater from the roof is still illegal unless the roof owner also owns water rights on the ground). But now, many states, driven by population growth, drought, or declining groundwater in their aquifers, are actively encouraging people to collect. Two new Colorado laws allow perhaps a quarter-million residents with private wells to begin rainwater harvesting and in Santa Fe, New Mexico, capturing rainwater is mandatory for new dwellings. More information here.
Europe’s first commercially operating power station generates 11 Megawatts (MW) of electricity without emitting a single puff of greenhouse gas. Ultimately, the entire plant should generate as much power as is used by the 600,000 people of Seville, Spain.
More information here.
We all know about shampooing oily hair, but it took Phil McCrory, a stylist from Alabama, to realize that hair was also an efficient and abundant material for collecting and containing petroleum spills. McCrory manufactures “Oil Spill Hair Mats” for that purpose with clippings mailed to him from thousands of salons across America. Hair can also be stuffed into tubes (booms) made from recycled nylons, tied together to surround and contain a spill.
And that’s not all. Hair Mats are extremely efficient for drip pans during oil changes or under leaky cars, machinery, pipelines, even as booms for storm drains.
By the way, Hair is also great fertilizer with a slow nitrogen and karetin protein release. Hair prevents weed growth, snail infestation and reduces water evaporation up to 50%.
HatTip: matteroftrust.org
Painting your roof white will reduce global warming and conserve energy, according to Steven Chu, the Nobel prizewinning physicist who now runs the U.S. Department of Energy. Chu says that if we paint all our roofs white, and paint pavements a concrete-type of color rather than black, and we do this uniformly, it would save the equivalent of 11 years of carbon emissions from all the cars in the world. More information here.
daring old man in his flying capris.., originally uploaded by torontofotobug
Odysseus, a solar airplane entered in a competition to build an atmospheric satellite that can stay aloft for five years at a time with little or no maintenance, is a 492-foot-wide folding aircraft that can cruise at 140 mph at 70,000 feet for five years straight, powered by the solar panels that cover the top of the plane.
For more details, click here.
According to The New York Times, a $350-million renovation of the largest skyscraper in Western Hemisphere will allow the building to generate (almost) all of its own power.
Chicago’s Sear’s Tower will literally take environmental sustainability to new heights with a $350 million retrofit. The green project includes the installation of solar panels on the tower’s 90th floor roof to heat water used in the building. Different types of wind turbines will be positioned on the tower’s tiered roofs and tested for efficiency. And between 30,000 and 35,000 square feet of roof gardens will be planted. Click here for more information.
Food, Inc. (Magnolia Pictures)
Director: Robert Kenner
Cast: Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser
Plot: An unflattering look inside America’s corporate controlled food industry.
Green Supreme, originally uploaded by solidskorpion.
As part of the photosynthesis process algae produce oil and can generate 15 times more oil per acre than other plants used for biofuels, such as corn and switchgrass. Algae can grow in salt water, freshwater or even contaminated water, at sea or in ponds, and on land not suitable for food production. On top of those advantages, algae — at least in theory — should grow even better when fed extra carbon dioxide (the main greenhouse gas) and organic material like sewage. If so, algae could produce biofuel while cleaning up other problems.
Hat Tips: renewableenergyworld.com & sciencedaily.com
Popular clothing maker Billabong is using a new material called ECO Supreme Suede for some of its boardshorts and swim suits. The exclusive material is made from recycled textiles and plastic soda bottles.* The company says its cool new material doesn’t sacrifice on quality.
• Approximately 10 plastic bottles are used to create one pair of boardshorts.
You can see more eco-products from Billabong at billabong.com.
LazyEnvironmentalist.com is a resource for people who want to easily and enjoyably green their lives. We recognize that one thing almost of us do everyday is shop. Consuming products is intrinsically tied to the very fabric of our lifestyles. Reducing the impact of our consumption on the planet while still maintaining the quality of our lives is where The Lazy Environmenalist comes in. Our website features informative articles, videos, and specific green product recommendations intended to help really busy people figure out which green choices to make. It’s also the online home of environmental author and television and radio host Josh Dorfman whose new TV series – The Lazy Environmentalist – airs on Sundance Channel beginning in June.
All I need is the air that I breathe, originally uploaded by inkyblacklomo.
More than 300 000 people are killed due to climate change every year, a new report on the human impact of climate change has said.
The findings also indicate that climate change affects 325 million people seriously and also results in losses of US$125 billion to the global economy. In addition, four billion people are left vulnerable with 500 million others at extreme risk. The report says human activities, including in particular emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide are recognized as its principle cause, while clearly showing that climate change is already causing widespread devastation and suffering around the planet today.
Click to learn more about: Human Impact Report: Climate Change – The Anatomy of a Silent Crisis – the first ever-comprehensive report looking at the human impact of climate change.
Engineer James Peret’s Vegawatt is the first all-in-one device that processes grease to continuously provide a building with electricity and hot water. The Vegawatt can process about 80 gallons of grease a week (standard for large restaurants) and produces five kilowatts of energy an hour, which could translate to monthly savings of $1,000. Last December, after a year of 80-hour weeks on the development, Peret, 33, installed the first Vegawatt at Finz, a restaurant in Dedham, Massachusetts, that specializes in fried seafood.
Hat Tip: popsci.com and more about the Vegawatt at vegawatt.com.
Reminding us that plants support human life, Jonathan Drori shares the vision of the Millennium Seed Bank, which has stored over 3 billion seeds to date from dwindling yet essential plant species.
Namaste: Dawn Baillie
TED Website: http://www.ted.com/
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- In praise of … the Millennium Seed Bank (guardian.co.uk)
Hat Tip: www.nmoe.org
Hat Tip: Thanks, Dawn.
Demon child, originally uploaded by MsBlueSky.
The Belgian city of Ghent has declared Thursdays meat-free. The Flemish university town of some 200,000 people has now introduced a weekly “Veggie Thursday.” The city hopes to improve public health, reduce its impact on the environment and enhance animal welfare. “If everyone in Flanders (population: six million) does not eat meat one day a week, we will save as much CO2 in a year as taking half a million cars off the road,” said an Ethical Vegetarian Association spokesperson. You can read the meat of the story here.
