If you are 13 or older and have a genius tip or idea for generating energy or saving it, enter BC Hydro’s Invent the Future contest at http://www.inventthefuture.ca/
The deadline is November 8, 2009.
There are awesome prizes – but if you win, watch what you spend your prize money on.
In Colchester (Essex, England), a real life superhero has taken root. The identity of the Human Shrub remains secret while the Shrub brings life to the neglected planters of Colchester. The guerrilla gardener is supported by many people and, well, not supported by many politicians.
(link to article)
What sort of ecological superhero will you be?
Woodland farms (also known as forest gardens) are an agricultural concept which copies a self-sustaining forest ecosystem except that it is made to produce a variety of food that is easily harvestable. Woodland farms have a lot of different things going on in them to maximize sustainability, efficiency, and productivity but they are all simple, natural, and work together seamlessly.
Monocultures are how farming is usually done today. A huge field is planted with one thing, wheat for example, and everything is done with machines.
There are probably plenty of other reasons why monocultures are a bad idea. Now here’s why woodland farms, a type of polyculture, are better:
It is essential in woodland farming that the plants work together. Strategic planting designed so that the plants benefit each other is called companion planting. Certain plants have useful traits such as repelling insects, enriching the soil, trapping water in the soil, providing something for climbing plants to climb, etc. Some specific plants/plant types are very important in a woodland farm for that reason.
Every farm needs pest control and woodland farms are no exception. Lots of wild animals will happily help you with this—you just need to provide them with homes. Such as:
Edible Forest Gardens: and invitation to adventure (the Natural Farmer)
Plants for a Future—a database of useful plants (woodland farming section)
Edible Forest Gardens: the ecology and design of home scale food forests
Wind turbines, hydro dams, turbines that run on steam from geothermal, nuclear, fossil fuels, biomass, etc. All of these use a spinning motion derived from rising steam, flowing water or blowing wind to generate electricity. How do they do it? You’re about to find out.
Electricity happens when electrons start moving around. Running or spinning a magnet past a copper coil makes them start moving around in the copper coil. So the axel of the spinning part is attatched to a wheel on the inside which has either the magnets or the copper coils on it. The other component stands still.
The electricity created by the copper coil will flow through wires attatched to either end. You can charge a battery (do not ever try charging a battery unless you have an extensive knowledge of electronics or a kit or something because if it is overcharged it could explode), run a motor, turn on a light, etc. A gigantic wind turbine or a hydro dam (which also uses a turbine) can hook up to the grid and power a whole neighborhood!
Coral reefs are masses of natural structures composed of skeletal material from by reef-building (or hard) corals, small organisms that grow in shallow water. Corals are found in both temperate and tropical waters. Reefs, however, can only form within about 30° of the Equator. They leave their exoskeletons when they die and the tide movement slowly layers them to form many different types of coral. The corals can only grow within 30 meters (100 feet) of the surface of the water where the temperature is above 16° .
Some people mistakenly call corals polyps. ‘Polyp’ describes a stage in the life of a coral, and is not specific to that species. Corals are hydroids, in a polyp form.
A healthy reef normally has a lot of algae, including turf algae, coralline algae, and macro algae. The coral itself does not actually produce the amazing pigments that make it so pleasing to look at. The colour comes from an algae which has a symbiotic relationship with the coral. A symbiotic relationship is when two plants and or animals live with each other and they both benefit from the relationship. The corals provide a safe place for the algae to live, and the algae give the corals food. The algae is called zooxanthellae. Coral reefs support a huge diversity of marine animal and plant life. They are, in fact, the most biodiverse type of marine ecosystem in the world. It takes many years to form a reef, (the average growth rate being a minute 1 mm per year) yet with the new modern threats such as dynamite fishing, it can take a few seconds to destroy one.
Coral reefs are threatened in many ways. Coral bleaching happens when the zooxanthellae in the coral is killed, usually by global warming or by a chemical change in the water. When coral is bleached it turns white and dies. Dynamite fishing, as mentioned before, consists of throwing explosives into a reef, liquifying the innards of small fish and causing them to float to the surface for easy collection. Cyanide fishing is somewhat similar—dumping poison on a reef to make the fish sluggish and easy to capture. People eat the poisoned fish without knowing it. Just plain overfishing kills coral reefs even if no incredibly destructive methods are used. Reefs are very valuable, even in non-environmental fields; medicine, tourism, and of course the fishing industry.
Everyone has seen pictures of wind turbines— those sleek, white, three-bladed giants, usually standing in a group in a green field. When you hear about wind turbines, unless those are specifically implied, that is not what should come to mind. They are noisy eyesores which, though producing renewble energy, take a ton of energy to build. Also, it is not sustainable to have a whole field of them , spaced so widely apart so they have turning space. It comes to mind that they have similar problems to monoculture farming, for example: Monocultures (crops of only one plant) use up only the water and nutrients from a specific soil depth, and only the space from a specific height. Likewise, that type of fixed-height wind turbine uses only the space and the wind from a specific height.
There are many cutting edge wind technologies out there; most of them are silent, beautiful, able to be installed in an urban setting, and do not kill migratory bats and birds. The majority of these cost hundreds of dollars and can power a whole house.
Another option is making your own turbine, maybe even from recycled materials for that extra greenness. There are many places you can find instructions. MAKE: magazine, Instructables, and many more locations on the ‘net. Sometime I’m even going to post wind-turbine making instructions right here on the CAN website!
If you want to learn about the inner workings of wind turbines— ALL turbines, in fact, click here.
Who cares about sea grass? You should. Sea grass is an incredibly important environment for all kinds of marine life. Not only does it support the fising industry with the large quantities of fish it is inhabited by, sea grass processes waste that is dumped into the sea, cushioning the blow on the local marine environment. The grass reduces erosion in coastal areas by contributing to the stability of ocean-bottom sediments. It is even a feeding/nursery ground for fish, shellfish, and larger sea life, including creatures that live in coral reefs (coral reefs are another example of a highly threatened, biodiverse ecosystem which contributes tremendously to many aspects of society).
The first comprehensive global assessment of sea grass losses (a fancy phrase for a study on shrinking seagrass beds, or ‘meadows’) showed that 58 percent of seagrass beds are shrinking. The study also showed that, since 1990, the amount lost from each marine meadow annually has gone from 1% to a staggering 7%.
A co-author of the study, James Fourqurean (a professor at Florida International University), claims that the reason sea grass is dissapearing is that it likes the same type of water that people, especially tourists, like: shallow, sheltered areas. Sea grasses are most common in bays and around river mouths, also epicentres of human activity. Though the grass can deal with, in fact clean up, some degree of pollution, when the dredging and dumping is too much, it dies.
“Globally, we lose a seagrass meadow the size of a soccer field every thirty minutes,” are the words of another co-author of the study, William Dennison of the University of Maryland.
The scientists also said that global warming ‘is predicted to have deleterious effects on seagrasses.’
There are ways to help seagrass recover. In Florida, USA, treated wastewater being dumped into caused sea grass to begin dissapearing until the method of treating wastewater was changed and the grass recovered.
This is an example of how we have the technologies and solutions to many of the issues we (as a global community) face, we just need some more motivation to implement them.
The other day I noticed something that even adults don’t usually realise. When you buy a product that uses no elecricity or batteries, yet it does something, you need to consider where the energy comes from. To do this, you need a basic understanding of energy. (skip the next bit if you think you already get it)
Energy is never created or destroyed. The amount of energy in the universe is exactly the same as it ever was in the past or ever will be in the future. The thing with energy is it is always changing forms. There are a few forms of energy:
Some energy transformations are obvious, like current electricity can be used to create heat, light, sound, kinetic energy, etc, and plants, through photosynthesis, store energy from the sun in chemical form. Kinetic energy, when combatted by friction can create heat (try rubbing your hand together fast—it is more difficult than moving them the same speed while they don’t touch, but it creates heat). Burning chemical energy usually creates heat and light, and some machines turn the rising heat into kinetic or electric energy by catching it in a turbine. Now that you sort of know the basics about energy, I will move on to what this article is really about.
A good example of what I said in the first paragraph is SodaStream. SodaStream is a company which produces home soda makers— devices with a chamber of compressed carbon dioxide to which you can attatch a bottle of water and, with the press of a button, carbonate it. The seltzer (soda water) can then be flavoured with many ready made flavours sold by SodaStream.
SodaStream claims to be ‘The Earth’s Favourite Soda.’ Not to say they aren’t; they are certain to save a lot of cans and bottles from the landfill. However, don’t make the mistake of thinking that, since the machine uses no electricity or batteries, it is more environmental. Although Sodastream does not directly list this fact as one of their environmental virtues, it is, discreetly, on their ‘Environment’ page. And someone on teensygreen, the blog where I heard about SodaStream, did make that mistake (which is why I decided to write about it).
So what is not environmental about using no electricity, you ask. Well, think back to how energy works. It comes from somewhere! The energy that powers SodaStream home soda makers is from the compressed carbon. The CO2 is under pressure because it is squished so tightly, so when there is an opportunity it squirts out. But obviously, for the CO2 to contain stored energy, it must have come from somewhere. And, surprise surprise, somewhere down the production line electricity compressed the carbon. So it does use electricity!
In fact, if it used electricity more directly, SodaStream may be made more environmental. Then it could take CO2 out of the air, where it is harming the environment and put it in the soda. Also, that way, the machine would never run out and need to be replaced.
I found this article on Inhabitat. A 15-year-old kid made a system that covers all the basic needs of a community in the third world in a entirely sustainalble, algae-powered system called VERSATILE. Not only is this system very interesting in itself, it shows what amazing things kids just like you can accomplish when you try.
In fact, if you do have some incredible eco-inspiration, don’t hesitate to post an Innovation! It is just like a normal post except it is all about something you invented (and is in the Innovations category)
Searther (formerly blackle.org) is a way of getting news about the environment that is reliable, diverse, but not overwhelming or depressing. There is a points system and it is almost like a game, and there are also secrets in the site that you can find using clues. It is well done and continues to improve. And if you search with thier browser instead of using Google, you basically are giving money to an environmental cause without paying anything! Check it out, but take the points with a grain of salt. Getting other people to join doesn’t really help the environment very much, and neither does rating their articles. Remember to help the environment directly and in your everyday life.
There are almost 500 great articles on Searther. If you are not interested in the five articles in the ‘news reel’, insert “http://www.searther.org/readArticle.php?id=” into your browser’s address bar and follow it by a number from 1-450.
By the way, you can’t rate or comment on articles that are not in the news reel. So don’t think you can get 2,250 free points.
As I said in a previous post, I made a solar oven out of a cardboard box (well, actually two cardboard boxes, a sheet of plexiglass, newspaper, black paint, and tape) and wanted to try it out.
To test the oven I got one of those super unhealthy cookie dough rolls from the store (So I wouldn’t be too disappointed if they didn’t work out). I covered the bottom of the oven with wax paper and spooned the cookie dough onto it. Wow, that dough was so greasy! Then I covered it with the sheet of plexiglass and set it in the sun on my roof deck. I propped it up a bit so it was angled towards the sun.
The cookies took somewhere from two to four or possibly five hours to cook. There was so much grease that it went through the wax paper and got all over the bottom of the oven. When I opened the oven, I picked up a cookie and the bottom stuck so I ate that one and let the rest cook for about another hour and a half. By then the cookies where equally done and the bottoms still stuck. It was because I had used wax paper instead of an oiled tray (which I will do next time), not because they were undercooked.
The oven works by using the aluminum foil covered flaps to reflect heat from the sun through the acrylic cover where it is absorbed by the black paint and trapped by the cover. According to Kyoto Energy, it can heat up to 100°C, but probably only in, say, 40° weather (it was designed for third-world countries near the equator, not for Vancouver).
Says Michael Pollan, journalist and author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, as well as his newest book, In Defense of food. These seven words are his guidelines for a healthy diet, but, as he said, his publisher was looking for 60,000 words not a post card.
Fortunately, it is a lot more complicated than that. At the talk I went to which took place on UBC Farm, Pollan pointed out how people who eat for health and are obsessed with their health are less healthy than people who eat for community or identity or pleasure. He also pointed out the connection between healthy soil, healthy plants, healthy animals and healthy people. The same things that make our environment healthy also are beneficial to our own health. Industry tries to make us eat more so they can sell more food, but in almost any culture you can find some ancient saying warning against this; eat until you are 80% full, eat until you are 75% full, etc. Even the prophet Muhammad said that a full belly is one that is one third food, one third drink, and one third air.
Things you can do to make a difference with food are:
Buy from farmers markets.
Eat food for the food not for the nutrients.
Show corporations that you care by voting with your fork. (making good choices as a consumer when you buy food)
Show your political leaders that you care by voting with your vote too.
Read the book to find out more!
We need better schools, schools that prepare kids for their lives in the unknown.
A school should…
A school should not…
Ozone molecules are made up of three oxygen atoms. Rebuild the ozone layer by sucking the oxygen atoms together to form ozone molecules! The ozone layer is really becoming better but will only stay like this if we keep up with low-pollution industries and don’t put too many pollutants into the atmosphere.
Of course, we can’t really rebuild the ozone layer one molecule at a time; the best way to help the ozone layer is
not to damage it in the first place!
A cardboard box won £50,000 (almost $90,000 Canadian) in the Financial Time Climate Change Challenge. It beat many inventions, including ‘a food additive that stops cows from passing wind.’ Of course, it was more than a cardboard box— it was a solar oven. Able, according to Kyoto Energy (the company that made it), to boil water and bake bread by heating up to a maximum of 100°C. There was a rough description on the site, and following the guidelines I made one myself. So far I have melted a piece of wax in it, but I will try baking cookies or something in it this weekend.
This is the game with the squirrel monkey that teaches you about the environment. The topics are not entirely full and there is one bug with the water topic. Climate change is complete. Consumerism and Tropical Rainforests are reasonably complete. Try clicking between the ‘Tropical Rainforests’ and ‘Temperate Rainforests’ buttons. Something neat might happen.
Made in Scratch
Why are permeable sidewalks (sidewalks that allow water to drain through them) a sustainable option?
With normal sidewalks, water washes off all of the chemicals that lie around on our roads and sidewalks. Then all this dirty water goes back into the water system. If the sidewalk is permeable, water filters through it dispersing the chemicals in a way the environment can cope with them and returning, clean, to the water system.
Our sidewalks collect air pollution that was taken out of the skies by rain, rubber and other materials that make the soles of our shoes (ever wondered where the soles of your shoes go when the wear away?), they collect gasoline from cars and they collect loads of other nasty stuff.
Permeable sidewalks help to preserve water, our #1 most important and crucial resource. Without it we would never have come about, and without it we are in serious trouble.
Biomimicry is basically developing technology that mimics, or copies, what we find in nature. There are many examples of this, some are old ideas and some are very modern. The first ideas to build flying machines came from birds, but that was a long time ago. Now people are coming up with ways of making solar panels that mimic photosynthesis (the process through which plants produce food using sunlight and water).
As well as inspiring amazing inventions, biomimicry is also a source of practical solutions to everyday problems. One example of this is how when concern arose of calcium buildup causing blockage in water pipes, the solution was found in shellfish. The shellfish build up their shells from calcium, and because their shells stop growing at some point they are able to stop the calcium buildup using proteins. This, when applied to the water pipes, worked.
Biomimicry does not always involve things in nature that are visible to the unaided eye. The use of cell-structure geometry has both aesthetic (pleasing to look at, beautiful), ergonomic (made for comfort), and economic (saving money) virtues.
Perhaps nature offers us the knowledge of how to protect it if we care to look.
The spirit bear, or Kermode bear, used to just be a legend. It has been discovered that these bears are real; yet also we learned that they are on the brink of extinction from, like many other animals, habitat loss.
Spirit bears are a genetically unique sub-species of black bear. In every ten spirit bears one is white and the rest are black. White spirit bears range from creamy-white to light silvery-blue. White spirit bears have a darker patch on their back. A spirit bear cub can be white even if both parents are black.
Spirit bears eat basically the same things as ordinary black bears: salmon, nuts, berries, and small animals. They live in only one small corner of British Columbia, which also happens to be the world’s largest unprotected area of intact temperate rainforest. The gigantic old growth trees of the spirit bears’ home are, in part, tribute to the bears themselves. The reason is their messy eating habits; the spirit bears leave little bits of the salmon they eat near the river, and when the nutrient-rich shreds decompose they fertilize the soil.
The rainforest where the spirit bears live is now threatened by logging. If the plans go through, the pristine forests will be replaced by unsustainable monoculture plantation forests, and all hope will be lost for the creature that, in the words of Simon Jackson, is the panda bear of British Columbia.
Simon Jackson, protector of the spirit bear since age 13, has started a worldwide coalition of young people who want to save the spirit bear. Check out the website at spiritbearyouth.com.
Guerrilla gardening is essentially beautifying and/or producing food from places that are neglected. Usually they are city property. An example of guerilla gardening is growing flowers on those strips of grass along sidewalks.
Yesterday I went to a conference called Growing Citizens: Gardening as a catalyst for civic engagement. One of the speakers talked about the Strathcona Community Gardens. The gardens began when people in the poorer part of town asked to start a garden, were refused by the government, and went ahead anyways. After years of making the gardeners fight to keep the gardens, the government now takes credit for their work. But the gardeners don’t really care that much, as long as they have somewhere to grow their food.
Seed bombs are a very easy way of planting something in an inaccessable place or very quickly (like half a second). Imagine you are walking across a street, the little raised grassy thing in the middle is in need of flowers, and what do you do? You reach into your pocket, pull out some little seed bombs and toss ‘em. Then a lasting, ultra- slow motion explosion of flowers takes place. Easy as organic pie.
I have taken on seed-bombing as a project with the CAN club at Tyee. As the project progresses, I will post tips, formulas, and information so you can do it too.
Energy Hog (the kid’s part) is an animated website in the form of a game where you can learn how to become an official energy hog buster. You have to beat 5 games and when you are done you get a printable certificate. Only five major energy hogs are covered (with some notes on how to prevent other things from being energy hogs) but it is still good if you don’t know a lot about energy hogs. Just do not take the games and the pictures literally!
Or you can walk, run, jog, scooter, skateboard, take transit, unicycle, or skip to school (as opposed to skip school). Encourage your friends and family to do the same, substituting ‘work’ for ’school’ where necessary. The official Bike to Work Week is from May 11 to the 17th, but if you start now you’ll make a bigger difference.
The CAN club at Tyee is starting a poster campaign to try and get as many people in our school as possible to get to school without using cars for a week, and maybe longer. We are coming up with all kinds of neat scoring systems that will add extra motivation. I’ll be back soon with pictures and more details.
Scratch is a programming language— sort of. It has a super user-friendly interface, is designed to be easy for kids as young as six years old and still be fun for adults. All you have to do is snap ‘blocks’ together. You can use it to make 2D games, movies, simulations, and all kinds of other stuff. Then, you can post it on the Scratch website and other users put comments and ‘love-its,’ which are a form of rating system. All of the games can be downloaded and built on by other users, and Scratch automatically gives the original creator credit. As if this isn’t awesome enough, you can embed your games in your website.
If you make an environmental game in Scratch, get the embed code and make a post on this website. Switch your editing mode to ‘HTML’ and paste in the embed code. Then put your post in the Games category, and it will show up on the Games page.
Scratch is FREE. You can download it from the website. There is lots of helpful stuff on the website to help you get started.
I am working on a game with a monkey that teaches you about environmental issues such as climate change and consumerism, which will hopefully be up within the month. You can check out the preview on my website.
Especially one who is not making people happy, not contributing to world peace, and not truly trying to protect the environment. If they are doing a good job, encourage it. In Elizabeth May’s “How To Be An Activist ” pamphlet, here are four of the ten getting started points, the ones which apply to this sort of activism.
And here are a few things I would like to add:
Good luck !
Email your friends, talk with your family, if people know what’s going on they at lest have an opportunity to do something about it. Just like it says in the first action on the Get Involved page, Inspire Others: “If you inspire one person, you have doubled your positive impact on the planet. If you inspire four people, you have quintupled it. If you inspire 100 people, you are awesome.”
If you CAN, be awesome!
Your dish-and-clothes-washing water goes somewhere! In fact, it sometimes goes into a drinking water source for for both humans and wildlife which is often also a whole wildlife habitat. Sometimes it is filtered and directly re-circulated into the tapwater system. So watch what you put in it.
Also, any soaps/cleaners you use in your home will have an effect on the people living in it. Toxic and synthetic chemicals in cleaners can emit fumes that are health hazards and often smell bad on top of that.
If you feel like you’re too lazy to make your own biodegradable, natural, and environmentally/human friendly soaps and cleaners, Ecover sells them. Otherwise, I will provide you with some recipes I found for household cleaners (no body soaps, though, you’ll have to do your own research on that)
You can make your own dish soaps and household cleaners with a few simple ingredients and recipies that I found in my co-op newsletter, specifically an article about natural cleaning products for a green home by Tanya Petterson. The following ingedients and recipies are in her words with a few very minor changes because I think Tanya put it the best way:
RECIPIES:
Lemon-Scented All-Purpose Cleaner
1 tbsp borax
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 cup hot water
Mix ingredients in a spray bottle (the lemon scent lingers). Use for cleaning bathroom and kitchen surfaces, as well as other water-safe surfaces. Discard any remaining cleaner and make a fresh batch next time.
Toilet Bowl Cleaner
1 cup vinegar
1/2 cup baking soda
Pour the vinegar directly into the toilet bowl and let stand for 30 mins. Sprinkle baking soda onto toilet brush and scour. To keep bowl fresh, pour 1 cup of vinegar into the toilet bowl once a month and let stand overnight.
Furniture Polish
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup vinegar
2 tsp lemon juice
Mix in spray bottle. Spray liberally on wood surfaces and wipe dry.
Drain Cleaner
For slow drains, use this drain cleaner once a week to keep drains fresh and clog free.
1/2 cup baking soda
1 cup white vinegar
1 gallon boiling water
Pour baking soda down the drain, followed by vinegar, and allow mixture to foam for several minutes before flushing the drain with boiling water.
All-Purpose Scrub
1/2 cup baking soda
1/2 of a lemon
Coat the lemon with baking soda and scrub with the lemon itself. Use a damp rag to wipe away any residue.
Mold + Mildew
2 cups distilled white vinegar
Pour vinegar into spray bottle and spray on infected area. The smell will dissipate in a few hours (open a window to speed up the process). For areas with persisent mold problems, use tea tree oil instead of vinegar, combining 2 drops of tea tree oil with 1 cup of water in a spray bottle. A natural antiseptic and fungicide will kill most types of mold and help prevent new growth.
All-Purpose Cleaner
1/2 cup vinegar
1/4 cup baking soda
2 liters water
Mix vinegar and baking soda with the 2 liters of water. Store and keep. Use for removal of water deposit stains on shower stall panels, bathroom chrome fixtures, bathroom mirrors, etc.
Enjoy!
Have you ever wondered what to do if you find a sick, injured or orphaned wild animal? You can learn now at:
http://www.wildliferescue.ca/todo.shtml
It’s great to be able to help wild animals. And I’m sure the animals think it’s great too!
We Are What We do is a “New movement inspiring people to use their everyday actions to change the world.” I bought their book, Change the World for Ten Bucks, and it is really great. I am going to start a series of posts for their actions and for ones I come up with. You can visit their website at:
wearewhatwedo.ca
or suggest an action at:
suggestions@wearewhatwedo.ca
Inspired by this, I decided to start a series of posts for these actions. You can come up with your own actions and post them, too! (but try to make sure there are no number repeats, and please put them in the ‘World-Changing Actions’ category.
My website, Cobwebs and Seaslugs, had this out-of-place page of kids activities and stuff (my website is mostly research I have done on different environmental issues). So, I moved it over and renamed it as ‘resources’ and it is currently the longest and likely the most interesting/useful. As well as that, I made a game called Save-The-Tree-Pong where you controll a shield and have to protect the tree from axes that fly at it.