Improving our world Archive

A New Documentary Calls Out Drinking Water’s Impending Demise

by Tara Lohan, via AlaterNet.org

Water level in Lake Mead. Photographer: Brandy RolinThe first voice you hear in the new documentary Last Call at the Oasis is Erin Brockovich's—the famed water justice advocate whom Julia Roberts portrayed on the big screen.

"Water is everything. The single most necessary element for any of us to sustain and live and thrive is water," says Brockovich as her voice plays over clips of water abundance—gushing rivers and streams. "I grew up in the midwest and I have a father who actually worked for industry ... he promised me in my lifetime that we would see water become more valuable than oil because there will be so little of it. I think that time is here."

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Conservation Hero, Lawrence Anthony—Saving the animals

Lawrence Anthony (right)[One of the early editions of Organic Connections, published in August of 2007 carried this article on the late Lawrence Anthony. With the enchanting story appearing in various outlets about the elephants he cared for in Africa standing vigil after his death, we have reposted this piece in his honor.]

The date is March 20, 2003. Spurred on by intelligence reports of hidden weapons of mass destruction, U.S. armed forces, accompanied by those of Britain, Poland and Denmark, begin the invasion of Iraq. Along with the entire world, a man named Lawrence Anthony watches from his South African home.

But Anthony’s viewpoint is not the same as ours—he is greatly concerned over the fates of hundreds of animals trapped inside the Baghdad Zoo. Knowing what became of zoos in other war-torn areas such as Afghanistan, Kuwait and Yugoslavia—where the animals were annihilated or died from abandonment and starvation—he is particularly concerned because this zoo is the largest in the Middle East.

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Solar Windows: Turning Buildings into Energy Producers

by Dave Levitan, via Yale Environment 360

Imagine if all these glass surfaces were solar panelsIf you picture the glittering glass skyscrapers that dot America’s cities, it becomes clear why the idea of using that vast window space to generate solar power is gaining traction. In 2009 alone, 437 million square feet of windows were installed in non-residential buildings in the United States. That many square feet of standard solar panels would generate around 4 gigawatts of power, roughly the total installed solar capacity in the U.S. today.

Such potential is leading engineers and entrepreneurs to more intensively explore the idea of turning windows into solar-power producers. Solar windows, a subset of the growing field known as building-integrated photovoltaics, are based on the concept that a window doesn’t need to be 100 percent transparent, and a solar panel doesn’t need to be 100 percent opaque. Several ways currently exist to turn a window into a power-generating device, from thin-film silicon, to dye-sensitized solar cells, to tiny organic cells.

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Vermont Legislature Votes to Ban Fracking

via Environmental News Service

Fracking operation in North Dakota (Photo by Robert Johnson) MONTPELIER, Vermont, May 8, 2012 (ENS) — Vermont is about to become the first U.S. state to ban hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for natural gas.

The Vermont House of Representatives voted 103-36 Friday [May 4, 2012] to approve a conference committee report calling for the ban. The report reconciles differences with a bill banning the practice passed by the state Senate last week.

The measure now goes to the desk of Governor Peter Shumlin, a Democrat, who is expected to sign it into law.

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Going Wild to Counter Bee Colony Collapse

by Enrique Gili, via Grist.org

BeehiveIn 2009, lifelong beekeeper Dan Harvey faced an existential crisis when he lost 
much of his honeybee stock to colony collapse disorder (CCD). So the former Vietnam-era Special Forces veteran did what came naturally: He took to the deep dark woods of the Pacific Northwest, searching for answers to his predicament.

Harvey began by hunting for wild and feral bees living near his home in Port Angeles, Wash. (These bees have escaped from commercial colonies and find refuge in the tall timber and glens enveloping the Olympic Peninsula). For years, he crossbred the feral bees he captured with honeybees in order to produce hybridized hives that would be well-suited to the dank climes of the temperate rainforest region.

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Farmers Markets Are Expanding Online

by Katherine Gustafson, via Yes! Magazine

CSA delivery basketsIt isn’t always easy finding fresh, high-quality food in this country. Supermarkets with their long, complex supply chains usually offer unripe or subpar produce that leaves a lot to be desired. But the usual alternative methods of provision have distinct limitations. Luckily, technology provides one great answer to this dilemma, opening up an important new avenue for small-scale producers to connect to customers.

Only local farms can deliver the very freshest produce. But while the common methods of providing this bounty to consumers—community supported agriculture (CSA) plans and farmers’ markets—are essential components of a revitalizing fresh-food sector, they don’t always provide a sufficiently flexible or robust shopping experience.

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NSF Study Shows Plant Diversity Is Key to Productive Crops

National Science Foundation's (NSF) Cedar Creek Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) site in MinnesotaVegetation, such as a patch of prairie or a forest stand, is more productive in the long run when more plant species are present, results of a new study show.

The long-term study of plant biodiversity found that each species plays a role in maintaining a productive ecosystem, especially when a long time horizon is considered.

The research found that every additional species in a plot contributed to a gradual increase in both soil fertility and biomass production over a 14-year period.

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Battling Illness on Public Transportation

via Rice University

UV Air filter systemThe best place to enjoy a breath of fresh air may be a city bus, if Rice University students have their way. A team of graduating seniors has created a system for public transit that would continually clear the air of pathogens that can lead to tuberculosis (TB), flu and pneumonia.

The CityBusters—Joseph Spinella, Jerry Lue, Sundeep Mandava, Grace Ching and Shidong Chen, all seniors—have installed a $500 device on a METRO bus in Houston that has proven effective at killing 99.8 percent of the pathogens that circulate through the air-filtering system. The device, called FluProof, incorporates high-powered ultraviolet lamps that sterilize the air on the fly.

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America’s Teens Turning Green

Teens Turning GreenOn more than 500 campuses of middle schools, high schools and colleges, Teens Turning Green has become a life-changing experience for young people. It allows them to drastically improve lives and the environment in a wide variety of ways—including eco-based fashion, transforming our food system, and eliminating hazardous chemicals in everyday life; and through TTG’s various programs, students are able to effect real, positive change toward a healthier, greener and more sustainable world. This expansive movement was begun and is run by the mother-daughter team of Judi Shils (mother, founder and executive director) and Erin Schrode (daughter, co-founder and spokeswoman).

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Improving Solar Panel Efficiency by Imitating Leaves

via Princeton University, Engineering School

Microscopic folds increase the power output and durability of solar cells. Credit: Frank WojciechowskiTaking their cue from the humble leaf, researchers have used microscopic folds on the surface of photovoltaic material to significantly increase the power output of flexible, low-cost solar cells.

The team, led by scientists from Princeton University, reported online April 22 in the journal Nature Photonics that the folds resulted in a 47 percent increase in electricity generation. Yueh-Lin (Lynn) Loo, the principal investigator, said the finely calibrated folds on the surface of the panels channel light waves and increase the photovoltaic material's exposure to light.

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The Art of Domestic Microfarming

Jenna Spevack and one of her microfarmsJenna Spevack is an artist and designer and an art professor at City University of New York. She is also an environmental advocate, with an art exhibition titled 8 Extraordinary Greens.

The gallery show consists of a series of furniture objects converted into what Spevack calls domestic microfarms. “My art studio landlord collects objects from junkyards,” Spevack explained to Organic Connections. “I’ve taken these salvaged objects and turned them into little microfarms—outfitting them with lights and a sub-irrigated planter that I developed.” The objects include bookcases, tables and other items, neatly fitted with planters sprouting the likes of beets, chard, arugula, cress and kale.

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The Motorcycle Reinvented—Electrtic and Untippable

Lit Motors C1Lit Motors CEO Daniel Kim decided to reinvent the motorcycle as we know it today. His idea? To design and manufacture a fully enclosed, two-wheeled motorcycle that runs purely on battery power. Check out the C1-concept vehicle and its patented gyroscopic stability technology that helps prevent it from tipping over.

With a projected range of 200 miles and a top speed of 120 mhp, this vehicle has real practical uses in mind.

Lit Motors calls the C1 "The world’s first gyroscopically stabilized rolling smart phone. This vehicle combines the efficiency and freedom of a motorcycle with the safety and convenience of a car. Offering the alternated to alternatives on an exciting and safe platform, the C-1 transforms your daily commute into something to look forward to."

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Solutions to Global Plastic Pollution

by Lisa Kaas Boyle, via AlterNet.org

Plastic pollution on a beachIn the most remote places on Earth with few or no humans present... one can find substantial quantities of plastic debris.

These discouraging words introduce a new report from an international scientific and technical advisory panel entitled "Marine Debris as a Global Environmental Problem: Introducing a Solutions Based Framework Focused on Plastic." But the report is encouraging for several reasons. First, the report clearly identifies the problem so it can be the focus of solutions: the problem is plastic:

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Singapore Debuts a Park Featuring Solar-Powered Supertrees

Singapore's new SupertreesGardens by the Bay will be Singapore’s largest garden project and is central to the country’s continued development of Marina Bay. The gardens will feature two cooled conservatories—the Flower Dome (cool dry biome) and Cloud Forest (cool moist biome), as well as themed horticulture gardens, heritage gardens, and hundreds of thousands of  plants from around the world. UK landscape architects Grant Associates are responsible for all the gardens in the Bay South area.

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Gleaning a Solution to Hunger

by Sarah Henry, via Grist.org

Urban foragers in Portland. Photo by Lisa BausoForaging for food — whether it’s ferreting rare mushrooms in the woods, picking abundant lemons from an overlooked tree, or gathering berries from an abandoned lot — is all the rage among the culinary crowd and the DIY set, who share their finds with fellow food lovers in fancy restaurant meals or humble home suppers.

But an old-fashioned concept — gleaning for the greater good by harvesting unwanted or leftover produce from farms or family gardens — is also making a comeback during these continued lean economic times.

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Exploring National Parks Threatened by Climate Change

by Ted Alvarez, via Grist.org

Alex hiking in the Grand Canyon. Photo by Mike LanzaWhen writer and outdoorsman Mike Lanza realized climate change was staking a full-scale assault on our most beloved national parks, he didn’t just lament about how his kids wouldn’t get to experience them the way he did. Instead, he saddled up his entire family — wife Penny, son Nate, 10, and daughter Alex, 7 — with packs, kayaks, and climbing gear and embarked on a year-long mission to visit them all. His new book Before They’re Gone: A Family’s Year-Long Quest to explore America’s Most Endangered National Parks chronicles the adventure. He took some time to answer a few questions about our changing parks, life-list trip planning, and educating the next generation about climate change through adventures in the great outdoors.

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Disaster Resilient Construction and Sustainability

by Bill Lascher, Miller-McCune, via AtlerNet.org

UCSF building. Photo Credit: Rafael Vinoly Architects

As eco-savvy as the earthquake-prone Left Coast might be, it’s probably safe to bet that going green won’t be the first thing to come to mind when the Big One hits Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, or San Francisco.

Nevertheless, green-building advocates and disaster planners are finding common ground as they try to convince cost-conscious building owners that keeping a building operational after a punishing quake or other disaster makes economic and environmental sense. Developers and architects already earn green-building kudos for outfitting structures with solar panels and energy-scrimping lighting. Now some builders wonder whether keeping a building standing should earn them similar credit.

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Argentine Mother Causes Landmark Changes in Pesticide Rules

Sofia Gatica (center) and members of her group blockading airial sprayingSofia Gatica of Argentina is the 2012 winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize for South America.

Argentina is the world’s third largest exporter of soybeans. Every year, the industry spreads over 50 million gallons of agro-toxins—namely glyphosate, the key ingredient in Monsanto’s widely-used herbicide Roundup, and endosulfan—through aerial spraying over farmland.

While Monsanto claims there is no risk to humans, a 2008 scientific study found that even at low concentrations, glyphosate causes the death of human embryonic, placental and umbilical cells. Endosulfan is a highly toxic pesticide that has been banned in 80 countries because of its threats to human health and the environment. In May 2011, it was added to the UN list of persistent organic pollutants to be eliminated worldwide.

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What Makes a “Good” Corporation?

by Marjorie Kelly, via Yes! Magazine

Some of the partners at John Lewis PartnershipOur economic system is profoundly broken. To anyone paying attention, that much is clear. But what’s less clear is this: Our approach to fixing the economy is broken as well. The whole notion of “fighting corporate power” arises from an underlying belief that there is no alternative to capitalism as we know it. Starting from the insight that capitalism has become virtually a universal economy, we conclude that our best hope is to regulate corporations and work for countervailing powers like unions. But then we’ve lost before we begin. We’ve defined ourselves as marginal and powerless.

There is another approach. It’s bubbling up all around us in the form of economic alternatives like cooperatives, employee-owned firms, social enterprises, and community land trusts. We don’t recognize that these represent a coherent, workable alternative to capitalism, for two reasons.

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The United Nations Embraces the Economics of Happiness

by Laura Musikanski, via Yes! Magazine

Denmark and other Scandinavian countries frequently top lists of the world's happiest countries. Photo by Eddie CodelImagine you open the paper tomorrow, and the headlines are not about the “sluggish economy,” but our nation’s quality of life. You turn to the business section, and find not just information about a certain company’s profitability, but also about its impact on community health and employee well-being.

Imagine, in short, a world where the metric that guides our decisions is not money, but happiness.

That is the future that 650 political, academic, and civic leaders from around the world came together to promote on April 2, 2012. Encouraged by the government of Bhutan, the United Nations held a High Level Meeting for Well being and Happiness: Defining a New Economic Paradigm.

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Using Technology and Excess Produce to Solve Hunger

Gary Oppenheimer in his gardenLegendary broadcaster Edward R. Murrow once said, “The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer.” One of those rare people who not only see but act on what was has clearly been invisible to most of us is Gary Oppenheimer. Since he founded AmpleHarvest.org, he has been named CNN Hero, has received major media coverage, has spoken at TEDx Manhattan, has been praised by First Lady Michelle Obama, and was even invited to the White House to meet the President.

What’s it all about? AmpleHarvest.org matches the food pantries used by more than 50 million Americans living in food-insecure homes with the over 40 million people who grow fruits, vegetables, herbs and nuts in home gardens—and who often have an excess. Prior to the site, the problem was that gardeners could not find local food pantries (also called food shelves, food closets, food cupboards or food banks in some areas) to donate to, as many were not online. AmpleHarvest.org provides a central repository for these pantries so that gardeners can easily locate those nearest them.

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New Wind Turbine Produces Electricity and Water in the Desert

via RechargeNews

Eole Water's WMS1000 turbine. Photograph: Eole WaterFrench technology start-up Eole Water is on track to erect a wind turbine in the United Arab Emirates that can produce hundreds of litres of drinking water a day from the dry desert air.

Tests on a ground-mounted prototype of its water maker system (WMS), which began in October in Mussafah, on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi, have shown it to be capable of flowing 500-800 litres daily. But Eole Water believes this volume can be tuned up to levels of well over 1,000 litres with a tower-top system, and the company has hopes of scaling up the technology for use by industry and off-grid communities.

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Growing Urban Farmers in New Orleans

by Claire Thompson, via Grist.org

Nat Turner (third from left, white shirt) stands on a new compost pile with a group of OSBG interns, Americorps employees, and volunteers.Nat Turner, a former New York City public-school teacher, moved to New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward on Thanksgiving Day, 2008. He didn’t know anything about gardening — “I could barely keep a cactus alive” — but he had a vision to start an urban farm that would be a vehicle for educating and empowering the neighborhood’s youth. He’d been making service trips to the Big Easy with students, but he wanted an opportunity to dig deeper, literally and figuratively, into the city’s revitalization.

His first goal, Turner says, “is to figure out how to make the Lower Ninth food secure.” It seems fitting, then, that in a neighborhood with no supermarket, Turner set up shop in a falling-down building that had once housed a black-owned family business called the B&G Grocery. He filled a pink bathtub in the backyard with soil and planted scallions, which floated away when the bathtub flooded in a rainstorm. That was the beginning of Our School at Blair Grocery (OSBG).

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Stopping Climate Change Is MUCH Cheaper than Purported

by James West, via Grist.org

Pocket change—the actual cost of fixing the climateYou’ve heard it before: Politicians say they’d love to take action against climate change, but they’re reeling from sticker shock. A new report from the U.K.’s leading climate change watchdog refutes this oft-cited argument that climate action will herald economic Armageddon.

The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) report, with the hairy-sounding title “Statutory Advice on Inclusion of International Aviation and Shipping,” says that in 2050, the U.K.’s emissions reductions across the whole economy will cost 1 to 2 percent of the total GDP. This updates, in greater detail, the range predicted half a decade ago by the watershed Stern Review.

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The Growth of Domestic Fair Trade

by Twilight Greenaway, via Grist.org

The Farm lunch at the Gathering Together FarmAt Gathering Together Farm, in Philomath, Ore., owners Sally Brewer and John Eveland sit down with all their employees three times a week for an all-farm lunch. At the height of the growing season, Gathering Together Farm employs as many as 100 people, so Brewer and Eveland bring in employees on those days especially to cook. It’s no small expense, but it’s a way to ensure that the field crew gets face time with the irrigation crew, the office employees, and the farmers market crew.

“It’s a huge meal, and it’s part of the benefits package,” says Rose Mahoney, who helps manage the farm. “It really has a family feeling.”

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