Environment Archive

It’s a greener shade of green: Britain’s first organic golf course

By Rachel Shields, via The Independent,

With their diamond-patterned jumpers, neatly pressed slacks and expensive club memberships, most golfers seem to have little in common with the unwashed eco-warrior brigade. The divide between the two groups is not just sartorial, but stems from the fact that many golf clubs use huge amounts of water, disfigure the landscape and use fertilisers and pesticides to keep their greens lush. However, this gulf may soon be bridged, as a Cambridgeshire club which boasts a full-time ecologist, not to mention a resident stoat at the eighth hole, is poised to become the UK’s first organic golf club.

Traditionally they use huge amounts of water and pesticides. But now some clubs are trying to be more eco-friendly.

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Natalie Jeremijenko: Environmental art + science

Natalie Jeremijenko: Environmental art + science

Meet Natalie Jeremijenko, a new media artist who works at the intersection of contemporary art, science and engineering. But this is no ordinary artist, by any stretch. She was recently named one of the 40 most influential designers by I.D. magazine, and her background includes studies in biochemistry, physics, neuroscience and precision engineering. Her projects—which explore sociotechnical change—have been exhibited by several museums and galleries, including the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, the Whitney, and the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt. A 1999 Rockefeller Fellow, she currently has an exhibition at New York’s Neuberger Museum of Art entitled “Connected Environments.”

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Farmer Bob Wilt: Soil biology, nutrition and taste

Farmer Bob Wilt: Soil biology, nutrition and taste

Bob Wilt has a lot of faith in the taste of his Sunset Valley Organics blueberries. He should, for over time he has discovered an amazing fact. “If I can get some of my berries into somebody’s mouth, 90 percent of the time I’ll have a new customer,” Bob told Organic Connections. “In addition to selling through stores and over the Internet, we have a stand from which we sell to the local people. The funny thing is, we are the most expensive berries in the area but we have people who will come in and buy two pounds three times a week. And it isn’t because of my bright smiley face; it’s because those berries taste good.”

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Smart cities are (un)paving the way for urban farmers and locavores

by Kerry Trueman, via Grist.org

If some sort of natural disaster or terrorist attack were to shut down New York City’s food supply chain, our supermarket shelves would reportedly be picked clean within three days. Other U.S. cities aren’t any better prepared for such emergencies, thanks to our fuelish dependence on a globalized food system.

So my husband Matt keeps a bin filled with tins of sardines under the bed in our sardine tin-sized Manhattan apartment. Plus two cans of organic vegetarian chili, and a Kelp Krunch sesame energy bar. He’s on a self-sufficiency kick, too; makes his own vanilla extract, sauerkraut, duck rillette, and cat food. I guess we’ll be in pretty good shape if calamity comes a-callin’.

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Swarms of marine turbines could ‘tap the Gulf Stream’

By Lakshmi Sandhana, BBC News Technology,

Darris White is a deep thinker.

The engineer at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in the US is currently finalising designs for a series of turbines that could be used to harness the immense energy of the Gulf Stream, flowing deep in the Atlantic Ocean.

The underwater stream roughly contains around 21,000 times more energy than the Niagara Falls and by some estimates, could potentially provide up to one-third of Florida’s electricity needs.

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An Environmental High School

“Most high school kids have trouble with education because it’s not relevant to them and their experiences and their lives,” Alison Diaz, founder and executive director of Environmental Charter High School, tells Organic Connections. “I think the main part of finding a school or creating a school is you want to develop and build schools that get kids interested in meaningful and authentic issues.

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Electricity Collected from the Air: Our Newest Alternative Energy Source?

via ScienceDaily (Aug. 26, 2010)

Imagine devices that capture electricity from the air—much like solar cells capture sunlight—and using them to light a house or recharge an electric car. Imagine using similar panels on the rooftops of buildings to prevent lightning before it forms. Strange as it may sound, scientists already are in the early stages of developing such devices, according to a report presented at the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS).

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Mobile Farm Trucks Bring the Produce to the People

By Judi Gerber, via PlanetGreen,

In the past couple of years, food trucks have become popular across the United States, in cities like Los Angeles, New York City, Portland, and San Francisco. You can find nearly every kind of food on them, from typical fare like tacos, to the more exotic like fusion Asian-Mexican cuisine, and even sweet treats like ice cream and cupcakes.

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Midwestern wine makers have it tough—but neighbors can make it tougher

By Steph Larsen, via Grist.org,

When you think of wine, you probably picture French or Italian bottles, or perhaps rolling California hills covered with Pinot Noir grapes.

I think of Iowa.

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200-Fold Boost in Fuel Cell Efficiency Advances ‘Personalised Energy Systems’

via ScienceCentric.com,

The era of personalised energy systems—in which individual homes and small businesses produce their own energy for heating, cooling and powering cars—took another step toward reality today as scientists reported discovery of a powerful new catalyst that is a key element in such a system. They described the advance, which could help free homes and businesses from dependence on the electric company and the corner gasoline station, at the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, being held here this week.

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