Posted by: Arthur Eves on May 08
I spend a lot of time thinking about how existing industries can navigate the difficult transitions to a global, more sustainable approach. There are a lot of obstacles. Two critical ones are creating a market and getting people to change their behavior and perceptions. Depending on how much you're willing to commit I have two suggestions.
This weekend in celebration of World Fair Trade Day a variety of organizations purveying fair trade coffees, teas, and crafts from around the world will be hosting events to share their wares and showcase the size of the fair trade market. (Fair trade products are typically sustainable and often environmentally sound.) It could be a chance for you to get a free cup of good coffee and learn a little bit about how the way products are produced and marketed effects ourselves and others.
Often we take vacations to experience something new and different, to experiment with who we are in a different place and environment. Active individuals who are interested in exploring what a sustainable earth-centered community might look like might consider these sustainability bike tours of Oregon or Hawaii. I've never taken the tours but I love these places and a bicycle is just the right pace to explore them--though sometimes you'll want to move slower. If you're thinking of trying to live a more ecological lifestyle this may be the way to dip your toe in. Who knows, it might become mainstream.
I'm always on the lookout for transformational travel experiences. Share yours by leaving a comment here
Posted by: Adam Aston on May 07
The ultimate solution in green biofuels could turn out to be farm animals. In other words, why bother growing grains to put through industrial chemical process to make biofuels to put in a tractor when you could just feed them to a horse, or camel? I'm not qualified to estimate the energy efficiency of such a process, but it's got to better than many of the first-gen biofuels such as corn ethanol and palm oil diesel that seem to be doing more harm than good. In India, reports the Financial Times, prices for camels are skyrocketing. Jo Johnson observes:
The shift comes not a moment too soon for a national camel population that has fallen more than 50 per cent over the past decade, to about 450,000, according to government figures. Market prices for these “ships of the desert”, which crashed with the growing affordability of motorised transport, are rising again as oil prices soar. A sturdy male with a life expectancy of 60-80 years now fetches up to Rs40,000 ($973), compared to Rs5,000-Rs10,000 three years ago, according to Hanuwant Singh of the Lokhit Pashu-Palak Sansthan, a non-profit welfare organisation for livestock keepers. Entry-level tractors cost around $4,000. “It’s very good news,” says Mr Singh...
Everything old is new again.
Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.
Posted by: Heather Green on May 07
A broad group of environmental and educational organizations are banding together and urging parents to basically yell at Congress and follow Canada in banning Bisphenol A or BPA, the organic compound used to synthesize the plastics found in things like....baby bottles.
There is no cry more difficult to avoid as a congressperson than "What about the children." And the groups say that more than 20,000 parents and consumers have signed sign petition delivered to baby bottle manufacturers demanding safer products.
Posted by: Arthur Eves on May 02
Last year I was inspired by Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma to visit Joel Salatin's Polyface Farms where I saw beyond-organic natural grass-farming in action. He uses active management techniques to facilitate natural cycles and I've never seen a healthier looking farm. He considers himself a grass farmer but raises pigs, cows, and chickens for market. There are practically no flies and no barren ground from overgrazing--and the food he raised was fabulous. His stewardship of the land earns him a healthy ROI from local markets but my ever-eager imagination applied his vision on a continental scale.
In my fantasy I see a vast permaculture grassland dotted with seasonal ponds, windmills, and roving herds of herbivores. It feels like the mythical West but this is what America's next Energy Belt could look like--a perennial prairie polyculture of mixed grasses that yields multiple harvests and energy from biomass, oil seeds, and wind and supports transient herds of herbivores.
To an unobservant eye, the prairies may look flat, brown, and endless but they are one of the most efficient energy storage and transfer systems on Earth and incredibly biologically diverse. We're only now starting to understand how supporting and working with the natural cycles can yield big payoffs -- in food, fuel, and quality of life.
Posted by: Arthur Eves on May 01
Though typical sources for energy funding may be laggards there is good news on the energy investment front. According to Chris Morrison over at VentureBeat there's been a flood of investment into Cleantech in the past few days. Kleiner Perkins just announced a $500 million Green Growth Fund for late stage investments, Al Gore's Generation Investment Mangement fund has put up another $683 million and Foundation Capital is putting nearly a third of their money ($250 million) into green energy. Private equity is also jumping in.
This money will likely go into alternatives rather than conventional energy use and may lead to game-changing breakthroughs -- or so the investors hope. Is John Galt hiding out there somewhere?
