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- 13 Magnificent Renewable Energy Successes and Failures
Last week, EcoWorldly hosted a renewable energy festival, highlighting energy projects and issues around the globe. Here, with links back to the original articles, are some inspiring successes and dismal failures in renewable energy as they were explored by our team of international environmental writers. To keep up with all international environmental news and views from EcoWorldly, subscribe to our RSS feed.
- Zucchini -A- Plenty
I wrote a while back of the Plant a Row for the Hungry program and felt like I could really contribute, so part of the planning for the company garden was specifically designated for donation. As I called around to the local food banks I found that several of them would not take fresh garden produce, after a few calls I found one not far from my office that would be happy to take the garden excess. Well this week we hit paydirt on the zucchini front, after those in the company took what they wanted for the week, I boxed up the rest of our harvest and took it to the food bank, they were happy to receive the donation and I assured them that I would be back with more soon.
Our company vegetable garden is approximately 1500 square feet and it doesn’t take to much effort by any one individual to maintain and harvest and all are able to benefit from the fresh food. It has been a great way to work together and provide for a portion of our needs.
As I returned home this afternoon I knew that my home garden also had a bit of a zucchini excess, I was delighted to see this scene:
If you have some garden excess and don’t have any enterprising market gardeners in your family consider donating to a food bank.
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- Obama Is The Man Organic Cotton Tees
Obama lovers can wear their presidential endorsement on their sleeves—literally—with pro-Barack T-shirts from Obama Is The Man, the brain child of Aron Kressner of Vivavi.
Made from 100 percent organic cotton and printed with water-based inks, the shirts come in six different sizes, in both men's and women's styles. (How's that for democratic?) Better still, a buck from each sale goes to the Obama campaign. You can even view videos made by people who are promoting change in their own live...
- California Fails to Pass Chemical Ban in Baby Products
I’m a big fan of California. I’m almost as far from the state as I could be, here in Vermont, but I usually wholeheartedly agree with the environmental and public health decisions made by the California legislature to protect their citizens.The ban on phthalates for one. The chemical and toxin labeling law (hence all those “May Cause Cancer in the State of California” labels you see all over cheap goods from China). And the higher fuel efficiency standards, which have considerably reduced smog. Then, they were poised to ban BPA (bisphenol A and PFOA (a chemical in food wrapping). No dice.
What happened? In a close vote, the California legisture voted not to ban BPA and PFOA.
- REACTIVATE!! Atomized, virtual gardens.
The REACTIVATE!! exhibition at the at the Espai d' Art Contemporani de Castelló, near Valencia (Spain), being an almost endless source of wonders i tried to cover last week (see REACTIVATE!! Part 1, Urban reanimations and the minimal intervention and REACTIVATE!! Part 2, Instant urbanism), i still have a last story in my magic bag to share with you:
Some of the projects presented in Castellon were commissioned by the contemporary art center to engage in a site-specific fashion with the theme of 'remodeled spaces and minimal interventions.'
The most poetical installation was created by ex.studio, two Barcelona-based Mexican architects Patricia Meneses and Iván Juárez with an impressive portfolio chock-full of projects that investigate and experiment with new ways of relating space with society.
Designed as minimal spaces for auto-reflexion, the Refugios Urbanos are 6 suspended semi-transparent pods that temporarily invade the building of the EACC and its public space.
Looking like chrysalids, the flexible structure can only contain one person. Its very delicate walls allow the inhabitant to enjoy privacy as well as a softly blurred view of the surrounding world.
Refugios Urbanos proposes new ways to inhabit and imagine space where people are both part and parcel of the city and isolated from it in order to better contemplate it.
A second project worth its weight in blog ink is María Navascues, Ramón Francos and Celia García's Atomish Garden
It all starts with the Pet Garden! At the opening of the Reactivate!! exhibition, visitors were invited to adopt a piece of garden. Each of them would take home a plant or plot of land to take care of it. Like real pets, owners can take them along for a walk in the street. They also require a lot of care and attention.
The flower pot comes with a code giving pet owners access to the Petgarden website that gives them all the necessary instruction to pamper their botanical pet. Besides, they can share with other woners the story, health news and adventure of the plant on a blog. Current technologies enable thus the various parts of this 'atomized garden' to form a community able to stay in virtual but close proximity.
All images courtesy of Espai d' Art Contemporani de Castelló.
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(Posted by Regine Debatty in Arts at 4:50 PM)
- Museum of Jurassic Technology
I first came across the name of this extraordinary place in one of the BBC's Imagine-documentaries about German director Werner Herzog, who asked to be met in what he called one of his favorite places in Los Angeles, The Museum of Jurassic Technology. After locating it in Culver City, BBC's Alan Yentob remarks: "I begin to understand why Herzog likes it here. The exhibits in the museum cross the line between fact and fiction, between reality and imagination."
Front of the museum in Culver City, Los AngelesThe collections of the museum, which was founded in 1989 and is being curated by David Hildebrand Wilson and Diana Wilson, span over three little buildings and consist of pieces from about a dozen sub-collections which are often centered around a certain subject such as belief and knowledge or personalities like Athanasius Kircher and their work. But, unlike what one might expect of a technology museum, throughout all of the exhibits, the boundaries between history and fiction, magic and reason, narrative and scientific method are in fact completely fluid (and the curators pleasurably make no effort to make things more clear, even indulge in elaborate descriptions and allusions that make it even more mysterious).
Many of the pieces consist of wonderfully crafted models and often amazing analog visual tricks for superimposing images. As a result, the whole space turns into a magical wunderkammer like I've rarely seen it, and probably one of the most astonishing approaches to the culture of art and technology on the planet. A few examples from the collections:
Duck's BreathTell the Bees...Belief, Knowledge and Hypersymbolic Cognition, is one of the newest additions and reflects on the relationship between ancient beliefs and recipes and how some of them still bear importance today. Yet, the application of lithium for neurological illnesses sits right next to the practice of letting children breathe in the cold breath of a duck or goose.
An especially intriguing practice refers to bees, which were understood to be related to and a manifestation of the muse from which comes the bees alter identity of the muse's bird. And, the practice of telling of the bees of important events in the lives of the family has been for hundreds of years a widely observed practice and, although it varies somewhat among peoples, it is invariably a most elaborate ceremonial. The procedure is that as soon as a member of the family has breathed his or her last a younger member of the household, often a child, is told to visit the hives. and rattling a chain of small keys taps on the hive and whispers three times: "Little Brownies, little brownies, your mistress is dead."
The Conversion of St. Eustace at MentorellaAnother collection, titled The World is Bound with Secret Knots, is devoted to the life and work of 17th century Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher, who dedicated himself to his parallel obsessions with magnetism, musicology, astronomy, archaeology, and linguistics, Kircher researched and compiled enormous amounts of data, invented innumerable optical, magnetic, and acoustic devices, composed music, poetry, and imaginative fiction. Created with the Karl Ernst Osthaus-Museum in Hagen, Germany, the exhibit consist of many gorgeous pepper's ghost-style dioramas which illustrate Kircher's range of fascinations and inventions, especially in relation to his theory of magnetism being the invisible force that binds all the universe together.
Garden of Eden on WheelsOne part of the permanent exhibition focusses on Geoffrey Sonnabend, who in his three volume work Obliscence, Theories of Forgetting and the Problem of Matter, departed from all previous memory research with the premise that memory is an illusion. Forgetting, he believed, not remembering is the inevitable outcome of all experience. Sonnabend believed that long term or "distant" memory was illusion, but similarly he questioned short term or "immediate" memory. On a number of occasions Sonnabend wrote that there is only experience and its decay, by which he meant to suggest that what we typically call short term memory is, in fact, our experiencing the decay of an experience.
The Sonnabend Model of Obliscience
Sonnabend believed that this phenomenon of true memory was our only connection to the past, if only the immediate past, and, as a result, he became obsessed with understanding the mechanisms of true memory by which experience decays. In an effort to illustrate his understanding of this process, Sonnabend, over the next several years, constructed an elaborate Model of Obliscence (or model of forgetting) which, in its simplest form, can be seen as the intersection of a plane and cone.As with many pieces in this exhibition, it's practically impossible to find out whether Geoffrey Sonnabend even ever existed, but then again that's part of it all. As Herzog puts it: "Inventions [in every sense of the word] have a deeper reach, a deeper stratum of truth quite often than we'd like to admit. And that's the beauty of the museum here."
Many more photos here, and an interview with David Wilson.
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(Posted by Regine Debatty in Arts at 4:47 PM)
- Researchers Claim “Green” Catalysts Can Clean Up Toxic Pollutants
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon have discovered environmentally-friendly molecule catalysts that can be used to clean up a variety of toxic substances including waste water and fuel.
The catalysts, known as Tetra-Amido Macrocyclic Ligands (TAMLs), could replace current industrial practices used in cleaning up environmental hazards.
TAMLs are made up of common elements of biochemistry—carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen around a reactive core. They are usable at very low temperatures and form strong chemical bonds.
- Middle School Student Invents Ingenious Water Saving Device
When By Kids For Kids (BKFK) and The Weather Channel launched the Going Green Challenge to inspire kids to come up with neat inventions to help make an eco-difference there’s little doubt that the field was an open one. With a myriad of issues in need of resolution, the grand prize winner, Elizabeth Rintels, 12, of Keswick, Virginia, came up with a “Water Watcher” invention that helps monitor water usage in an ingenious way....
- How to Go Green: Back to School Guide, Olive Oil Mashed Potatoes and 5 Eco-Event Tips
:: Beat the back to school blues with a splash of green! Consult our How to Go Green: Back to School guide.
:: Take comfort food to healthier heights with this fresh-from-the-farm Olive Oil Mashed Potatoes recipe.
:: Follow these five uplifting and energizing tips to give green conferences, parties and gatherings more zest.
...
- India Sets Aside 40% of Regional Wasteland for Jatropha Biodiesel Production
By 2012, a large portion of India’s Uttar Pradesh region will be converted into Jatropha, a non-edible oil-seed crop that can be grown on marginal land.
40% of recently set aside “wasteland” in India’s populous norther region will be put into Jatropha production in the next few years, according to sources within the country. That makes for an estimated 26,721 hectares (about 66,000 acres) of land that will be converted into biodiesel crop production.
- 1 Block Off the Grid Rolling Out California’s Largest Community Solar Initiative
San Francisco-based 1 Block Off the Grid (1BOG) announced today that it is teaming up with Real Goods Solar for a 100-home solar campaign in the city. 1 Block Off the Grid is an initiative set on driving renewable energy adoption for residential use through the use of education, private finance, and community purchase programs.Essentially, the organization uses the power of community as a bargaining chip to make solar more accessible to homeowners.
With this initial solar campaign, 1BOG was able to negotiate up to 48% off 2 kW solar systems from the market price for its participants. According to 1BOG Founder and Managing Partner Sylvia Ventura, 2 kW is the average size of a home-based solar system in San Francisco.
- Google Gets Behind Geothermal, Invests Over $10 Million in Research
Geothermal energy is probably the greatest potential renewable energy source with the least amount of public awareness. It certainly spends much less time in the public gaze than wind, solar or biofuels. Recently the US Department of Ene...
- 10 Steps Bill Clinton Believes the US Government Should Do for a Clean Energy Future
photo by Theirry via flickr
I find it more than slightly ironic that the National Clean Energy Summit is being held in Las Vegas, a city that on environmental grounds and water usage alone probably should not exist, but nonetheless it’s happening. Yesterday evening Bill Clinton opened the event will a speech which, among other things, outlined what he believes the US government should do to support renewable energy.
At the Federal level these are his recommendations:
And my comments, where warranted, in italics.
...
- Danke!
We just got our fall catalog from our German publisher, and look what they put on the cover:
We were so excited that we could hardly tear our eyes off it, until we saw pages 1-4:
Thanks to Worldchanging readers and contributors in Germany for your support of our book! In appreciation, we dove into our archives for some of our best recent posts on German innovations and leadership:
The Autobahn's Future and One-Liter Class Racing
Decoding the World's Best Energy Policies
The Afterlife of German Coal Mining
Enjoy! And if you'd like your own copy of the book, click here.
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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in About Worldchanging at 2:01 PM)
- Organic Fragrance Mists :: A Bottle Of Olfactory Bliss.
Made with sustainably farmed ingredients grown exlusively in Hawaii, these Malie Organic Aroma Mists are to-die-for. The scents are all steam-distilled directly from indigenous plants and flowers to produce a hydrosol that is the very essence of the source. Plumeria smells exactly like burying your face in a franjipani bloom; the coconut is fresh; the vanilla is local and indigenous; mango nectar smells juicy and freshly peeled; Koke’e is straight out of the rain forest. Because the mists don’t contain any of the chemical binders that make the scent last a long time on your skin, you do have to spray more often. Small price to pay if you think about it for not spritzing yourself with endocrine disruptors and petrochemicals. Designed for use around the home, for freshening linens, and you. The best thing about them? You can spray liberally and often … DELICIOUS.
- “Watch for Bikes” Sign Not So Helpful
Via PhotoBasement
Bike Paths
World's 10 Best Biking Trails
That's the Bike Path? Good Luck!
Mexico City to Build 186 Miles of Bike Paths by 2012...
- Could Camelina Sativa be a Biofuel Miracle Crop?
While jatropha is taking off as a biofuel stock, camelina sativa is garnering some attention of its own for its potential as a biofuel that would work with, not against, food crops.
The pros of the plant include that it doesn’t require much rainfall, yields crops double that of soy beans, produces an oil resistant to colder temperatures, and the leftovers after the oil is extracted makes for good livestock feed. Additionally, it can be grown in rotation with wheat crops, helping to increase wheat yields by 15% while producing up to 100 gallons of camelina oil per acre. Since it produces industrial oil, and not food oil, yet leftovers can be used as food for animals that become food, it would go a long way in reducing the debate swirling around food crops as biofuel. Those are some pretty attractive pros.
The cons include growers not knowing much about the plant, and not a lot of field testing has been done on it (Montana State University is working on more studies on that). However one feels about growing crops to fuel machines, advocates of biofuel may be turning to this plant as an option for a high-yield crop that doesn’t get in the way of other important food crops like wheat.
Via Biofuels Digest, CheckBiotech
- 75 Grams: The Carbon Footprint of One Bag of Potato Crisps
photo by tokyofortwo via flickr
In an effort to raise awareness of global warming, Japan is planning to label a range of consumer goods to show the amount of greenhouse gasses emitted in their manufacture, delivery and disposal. The project, the exact scope of which has yet to be finalized, is expected to begin in April 2009, AFP reports.
Labeling products with their carbon footprint could be a good way to make people more aware of the environmental impact of things...
- Gold, Silver And Green?
The Summer Olympic Games in Beijing kicked off on August 8 amidst competition, national pride and a Blue Sky day. Well, a ŒBlue Sky day‚ according to Beijing standards. The Detroit Free Press reports that only one percent of China‚s urban dwellers breathe air that is safe according to European norms. Accordingly, many athletes are training outside Beijing, and some have caused a stir by <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/06/sports/olympics/06masks.html?...
- casa cristián biehl, daniel rojo arquitecto
Located in Colina, Chile. I like the use of bamboo poles for the porch roof screen, and the simplicity of the concrete pier footings.
(...)
Read the rest of casa cristián biehl, daniel rojo arquitecto
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Post tags: Chile, houses
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