This article, by Simon Leufstedt, was published on August 19th, 2008 at greenblog.com
Research by the University of Gothenburg shows that more than 400 marine zones around the world has such “a great lack of oxygen in soft seabeds that fauna and fish have been harmed.” The research made by the Swedish University also shows that the dead soft seabeds have doubled every decade since the 60’s. Read more »
Believe it or not, items swept off in storm drains and gutters generally end up in rivers and oceans, and are not sent to any sort of filtration plant first. And while some communities have screens over their storm drains, a lot can still get through. According to the Ocean Conservancy, 100,000 marine mammals and turtles, plus over a million seabirds, are killed each year by trash in the ocean. So make extra sure your litter makes it to a proper trash receptacle and not onto the street.
According to Positively Green magazine, “75% of the 65 million beverage bottles consumed each day by Americans end up in landfills where they can take 1,000 years to break down!” There are recycling bins around Curious - please take the extra second to use them.
Coastal Cleanup of beaches around the world:
- Cigarettes and cigarette filters - 1,971,551
- Food wrappers and containers - 693,612
- Caps and lids - 656,088
- Bags - 587,827
- Plastic beverage bottles - 494, 647
- Cups, plates, forks, knives, and spoons - 376, 295
- Glass beverage bottles - 349,143
- Cigar tips - 325, 893
- Straws and stirrers - 324, 680
- Beverage cans - 308,292
Total Top 10 Debris Items Worldwide: 6,088,027
Coskata is an Illinois company that produces biofuel without using food crops. They convert municipal and agricultural waste (especially tires and glass) into energy. According to Plenty Magazine, “with more than $10 million invested and a third round projected at $50 million more, Coskata plans to make one gallon of cellulosic ethanol for less than one dollar, using less than one gallon of water. The company’s demonstration plant is slated to open in 2009.”
Gordon Graff, a student in the Master of Architecture program at the University of Waterloo, has designed a 58-story skyscraper farm called Sky Farm for downtown Toronto which would produce enough food to feed 35,000 people. Considering that the world population is expected to reach 9 billion in coming decades (and we’d need an area larger than Brazil to feed all those extra people by traditional methods), it’s not a bad idea. The original site has since been taken over for condos, so the new plan involves 6-10 story neighborhood farms instead. Graff maintains that all of the technology necessary to make his plans a reality is already available, but his Sky Farms have been slow to gain real-world financial backing.
Meanwhile, Columbia University Health Scientist Dickson Despommier’s New York City Vertical Farm is facing similar obstacles. Scott Stringer, New York borough president, is eager to start a pilot project (at an estimated cost of about $20 million). Hopefully we can push it through, since there’s approximately zero dollars set aside in the $300 billion farm aid bill that passed this year for experimentation with alternative farming practices.
From PlentyMag:
Living Catalogs
Soaring extinction rates and declining biodiversity have spurred international projects that collect, store, and analyze life, and use those findings to aid in conservation. In February, the Encyclopedia of Life went live; currently the online database contains few entries, but the goal is to cover all 1.8 million known species. On the same day, the Global Seed Vault opened its doors, aiming to stockpile seeds to preserve crop diversity. The San Diego Zoo’s Frozen Zoo has lofty aspirations to cryogenically preserve genetic material from every animal on the earth to conserve genetic diversity. And one of the most ambitious projects yet, the Consortium for the Barcode of Life, is developing technology to quickly and accurately identify creatures by a genetic sequence, much as supermarket scanners distinguish products with Universal Product Codes.
Carbon Labels are similar to nutritional labels on food - they tell the consumer, in grams of CO2 equivalent, how much green house gas emissions went into the manufacture and transportation of a product (in some cases the label includes end of life cycle emissions as well). The labels allow consumers to make shopping decisions based on the global warming friendliness of a product.
As carbon labels become more wide spread there will be a greater consensus of standards and formatting, but for the time being, here are some of the companies pioneering the way:
Timberland rates shoes; Bagir rates suites; in the UK, PepsiCo’s Walkers potato chips are rated; and Tesco supermarkets have labeled 20 items, including orange juice, potatoes, washing detergents and lightbulbs.
Industrial designers, as well as animators, use 3D software for modeling. Traditionally a product designer might be responsible for choosing color, shininess, and material, but Alias is developing a custom 3D tool that would allow the designer to see the ecological impacts of her decisions (in terms of toxicity, ease of disassembly, energy use, etc) as well - in visible format right on the screen. Having the design be eco-informed from the beginning, instead having engineers come into the process at a later stage and retroactively talk about the sustainability of the product, is a huge step forward in shifting the way we all think about the planet and our interaction with it.
For more info check out WorldChanging: A User’s Guide to the 21st Century; edited by Alex Steffen
Have you ever wondered what the little stickers on fruits and vegetables mean? I never have! But I found out this morning, and it’s actually pretty useful.
If the sticker has a 4 digit number it is not organic.
If it has a 5 digit number beginning in 9 it IS organic.
If it has a 5 digit number beginning in 8 it is genetically modified.
The mnemonic device offered by Positively Green magazine is this: 9 is fine, 8 we hate, 4 is a bore. I am going to be checking this out all the time now!
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August 29, 2008 10:35 pm | 
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