Environment

Vertical Hydroponic Farms feeding urban communities.

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Dickson Despomier,

a proponent of urban vertical hydroponic gardens, poses the problem as such:

By the year 2050, nearly 80% of the earth’s population will reside in urban centers. Applying the most conservative estimates to current demographic trends, the human population will increase by about 3 billion people during the interim. An estimated 109 hectares of new land (about 20% more land than is represented by the country of Brazil) will be needed to grow enough food to feed them, if traditional farming practices continue as they are practiced today. At present, throughout the world, over 80% of the land that is suitable for raising crops is in use (sources: FAO and NASA). (1)

The current centralized system of agriculture creates a significant negative effect on worldwide carbon emissions. Urban cities with densely populated areas are a prime example, given their lack of land available conversely need for imported foods. According to John Hendrickson of the Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems, fresh produce in the United States traveled an estimated 1,500 miles (2). Urban Vertical Hydroponic Farms (VHF) can change that.

One of the challenges with urban farming is access to sufficient affordable land. In a growing number of urban centres (e.g. Vancouver), by transforming vacant commercial or industrial land into a farm the property owner receives a tax break on their property taxes of 40-60 percent (3). By employing VHF technology the farm can achieve yields of 3+ times that of traditional soil gardening (6).

We propose that communities across North America transform vacant land and existing gardens in their neighbourhoods to high density outdoor vertical hydroponic farms (VHF) by using a non profit association with the following goals:

  1. Provide a source of fresh local healthy food to their community
  2. Increase a community’s capacity to grow their own food
  3. Reduce a community’s carbon footprint
  4. Create jobs with living wages for marginalized people in communities

What actions do you propose?

Feasibility

It is estimated that for every kilogram of beef, 15.23 kg of CO2 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are produced (4). A kg of produce transported in the current agricultural farm system produces approximately 2.6 CO2 kg GHG emissions. Those carbon emissions are produced during the transportation of foods from farms to tables assuming an average 2,500 km traveling distance (5). Urban VHFs have the potential of reducing those carbon emissions by: encouraging less meat consumption, recycling nutrient rich water using minimal electricity (a 290-396 GPH 28 watt pump using up to 90% less water than alternative farming) and decentralizing distribution from urban VHFs located on vacant land in high density population areas.

The pictures used in this proposal were taken over the course of three years, by a group called Green Guys on the Drive (6), located in Vancouver, British Columbia who currently operate East Vancouver’s only community supported hydroponic urban vegetable farm. They have 11 CSA members who each pay $200 at the start of the season to receive their share of the farm’s weekly harvest which is sufficient for 2 people. They currently have one farm tended to by three co-founders, Brandon, Win and Dan. The farm consists of three VHF units with a total capacity of 320 plants and a footprint of 34 ft2. This works out to a density of 9.4 plants/ft2 which is more than 3 times the density of traditional soil based planting for lettuce (a leafy green) (7). Green Guys on the Drive produce on average 15 lbs of produce every week beginning with the first harvest in May and the last at the end of October (seedlings are started in March and transplanted into the VHFs in early April and throughout the growing season) Some examples of variety include lettuce, spinach, kale, pac choi, basil, and mustard. Green Guys on the Drive is non profit and all labor is volunteered from the founders and the community. Membership fees are used to pay for the capital costs of each VHF and the operating costs (nutrients, electricity etc…).

The efficiency of being able to stack plants vertically per square foot of ground is multiplied 3-10 times – depending on how high one can safely farm in their backyard and the particular setup. This is a crucial advantage of vertical farming to conventional backyard gardens. Green Guys on the Drive has demonstrated that a single farm can have an impact on a local community’s carbon footprint by reducing meat intake (presumably since vegetables are readily available and pre’paid’) and carbon costs of food production and transportation. The problem then, is how to build, grow and maintain numerous communities, with farms as hubs, within a city that utilizes VHF’s to further reduce carbon emissions.

Vertical hydroponic farms are gaining interest around the globe as business models are being tested to prove profitability. However, research is primarily being done in large-scale indoor facilities that can operate year round, as is the case in one of the first industrial applications of vertical farming at the Paignton Zoo Environmental Park in the United Kingdom. Vertical farming in backyards has also been done on small scale hobby farms numerous websites and Youtube instructional videos creating a niche community.

Green Guys on the Drive hope to serve as a catalyst to help communities across North America to increase their capacity to grow their own food while reducing their carbon footprint by transforming vacant land in their communities into high density outdoor VHFs. Green Guys will accomplish this by establishing multiple successful urban farms within the Greater Vancouver area and then use the revenues to create an online knowledge centre (perhaps partnering with openAG) to help communities across North America to do the same.

Getting Started

In the first year Green Guys will establish a pilot urban farm within Vancouver employing similar technology to what they use now only at a larger scale. This will allow Green Guys to refine the process and business process for growing at scale and whose successful operation will help acquire additional funds through grants and land to then construct a full scale urban farm.

In the second and third years of operation Green Guys would establish multiple urban farms within the Vancouver area in high density population centres and/or high traffic locations. This would allow the Green Guys to sell directly to community members on their way to and from work. In subsequent years Green Guys will utilize the proceeds from their established urban farms to create an online knowledge centre whereby interested communities can learn how to grow their own fresh local food while reducing their community’s carbon footprint.

Gathering Interest

The target audience of this campaign will be people who understand the immediacy of global warming. We would contend that that audience consists of scientists, engineers, climatologists, and more generally, academics. If this project were presented to MIT faculty and students, hopefully they would be interested in sharing knowledge and participating in a a pilot urban farm in 2016; perhaps in association with MIT CityFARM and/or OpenAG. The Center for Sustainable Food Systems located at UBC Farm is another possible partner located close to the Green Guys’ existing garden. A larger variety of contributors would allow for greater open source knowledge available to volunteers. For example, an engineer might be able to maximize harvests by advising the front line volunteers/employees how to best grow their vegetables in their unique climate, situation, and backyard or rooftop.

Goal of First Year

The goal of this first year is to construct a pilot farm in the Vancouver area. More specifically the Green Guys will:

  1. Leverage results from current urban CSA farm to secure grants from the City of Vancouver and the Vancouver Foundation to fund pilot farm and to build large scale urban farm during second year.
  2. Partner with the University of BC to have a masters student conduct a field study/research project on the farm (UBC gets research data, Green Guys gets someone to operate the farm for free.)
  3. Build relationships with interested organizations (Vancouver Urban Farming Society, Vancouver Farmer’s Markets, UBC Outdoor farms, City of Vancouver, etc).

September – December 2015

During these months the design for the pilot farm would be created that would incorporate as much as possible the current VHF CSA’s existing infrastructure. This would then be used to develop a detailed operating plan and budget. Given the pilot farm would produce enough produce on a weekly basis to feed more than 50 people the produce would be sold at local farmers markets. Any additional funds required to build or operate the farm would be acquired through applying for grants from the City of Vancouver and the Vancouver Foundation.

A partnership would be established with the Sustainable Food Systems at UBC Farm through which Green Guys on the Drive would get access to free and/or subsidized labour to operate the pilot farm and UBC would get data on a sustainable food system.

January – February 2016

The focus of these months would be the construction of the pilot farm and establishing retail space at local farmers markets through which to sell the produce. Seedlings would be started in the green house mid February to be ready for harvest at the start of May.

Possibilities for Expansion

Thus far this proposal has focused on shifting the agricultural system of Vancouver, BC from imported to local neighborhood sources. The early years would focus on developing a VHF model for independent groups or organizations to emulate in other neighborhoods, cities, or countries on a small (as in the case of a backyard garden) or large (as in the case of an vacant gas station lot) scale urban farms. However, to enact the greatest impact possible we must draw on diverse resources and existing infrastructures that are unified by the same goal of decentralizing the agricultural system in urban areas.

Update: Since the creation of this proposal, the Green Guys on the Drive have begun discussions for the retrofitting of a rooftop garden at their local YWCA to incorporate a VHF unit. The goals would be to improve the community’s capacity to grow their own local vegetables, provide fresh greens and herbs to local families in need, and reduce the carbon footprint of the community.

The inclusion of an apartment building rooftop in the first year could serve many purposes. First, it is a space often used for aesthetic purposes and contains vegetation but rarely for the purpose of feeding residents and very rarely using such an efficient setup as VHFs. Second, by giving a VHF to an apartment building free or at cost as a test case, we can test the feasibility of this system to grow vegetables in the place that needs it most; densely populated city centers. In the case of the YWCA, fresh herbs and vegetables can be given to the needy at a minimal cost and impact to the environment.

If the end goal is to enact large scale change to the existing agricultural infrastructure, cooperating with other organizations with similar goals is crucial to having a focused, unified approach to improving climate change. As experience is gained in the early years creating efficient VHFs, the Green Guys hope to collaborate with many local gardens/farms to do the same upgrading their conventional soil based gardening.

A decentralized and diversely sourced agricultural system such as this proposal would require a robust web solution to connect farmers to consumers, potential farmers to resources (i.e. knowledge centre), and investors to farmers. Fostering an online, inclusive, community-driven culture could potentially be a large factor in expanding internationally. It would also allow consumers to find the closest farm, farm market, or community garden from which to participate or purchase fresh vegetables from. In association with programs like openAG, the Green Guys on the Drive will also contribute to learning materials, an open source urban farming knowledge centre, and simplifying construction/maintenance of VHFs in an attempt to lower the barriers to urban farming.

Who will take these actions?

Green Guys on the Drive will provide the experience and help plan, build, and farm.

Volunteers will help build, operate, and maintain the VHFs, and offer various skills

CSA members will support climate change by purchasing shares in each season’s harvest

Professors and graduate students will provide knowledge, input, and research

Where will these actions be taken?

Initially these actions will begin in local gardens located in Vancouver with enough volunteers to ensure farms can operate through the spring, summer, and fall. However, the scalability of this project lies in each community’s ability to operate independently of other communities once the basic knowledge for maintenance is met. This is an excellent opportunity for open source agricultural projects like OpenAG to serve as a knowledge base to amateur/novice volunteers. The goal is to sprout as many urban farms as possible, with basic infrastructure laid out to self sustain, in as many densely populated cities as possible across the world.

How much will emissions be reduced or sequestered vs. business as usual levels?

Impact of pilot farm = 740 kg CO2e/year (8)

Impact of urban farm (assuming 8000 square feet or size of vacant gas station) = 33,634 kg CO2e/year

4 urban farms established in Greater Vancouver by 2020 = 132,314 kg CO2e/year

30 urban farms established worldwide using a similar model by 2020 = 1 million+ kg CO2e/year

(8)

What are other key benefits?

Vegetables are relatively cheap for the consumers.

Readily available vegetables will hopefully reduce meat consumption, leading to additional carbon gains.

VHFs use water efficiently; a growing concern in areas faced with drought as a result of global warming.

Encourage community involvement.

Potential to feed homeless if there is excess.

Data can be gathered for future projects and OpenAG.

Knowledge base is established for community members to independently create their own urban VHF.

What are the proposal’s costs?

Construction Costs

The cost to construct the pilot farm that would produce enough produce for fifty people is estimated at $10,000.

Maintenance and Operation Costs

The maintenance and operation costs per season (7 months) plus assuming a labourer 24 hours per week at 20 dollar per hour $14,560.

Total Cost

The total cost for the year would be: $27,560.

Revenue

6 lbs per unit per week at 30 weeks per season and 8 units would produce 655 kg.

At price $30/kg

Revenue = $19,650

Total Funding needed for first year: $7910

Time line

Short Term

The first two years will include the construction of 1 large pilot backyard farm and 1 large-scale farm. 1st year will be run strictly by volunteers (including the Green Guys) for the purposes of market research, building of volunteer base, and recovering investment costs of construction through sold shares. Throughout all stages municipalities, non-profit organizations, universities, and possibly a crowdfunding round will be sought for grants and investments.

Medium Term

Processes will be streamlined and methods documented to assist with ‘opensourcing’ agriculture to urban communities. A web platform will be created to facilitate volunteers connecting and getting involved in other ways.

Long Term

A headquarters will be established at a building or warehouse near downtown Vancouver, to pursue long term growth and a large-scale urban farm in a city center, funded by profits, donations, and grants.

Related proposals

Resilient Agriculture with Hydroponic Carbon Capture (HCC) / gas2green

Suburbia as source of food and regenerator of resources / SU allotment gardens

References

  1. Dickson Despomier. The Problem. <http://www.verticalfarm.com/>
  2. John Hendrickson. 1996. Energy Use in the U.S. Food System: a summary of existing research and analysis. <http://www.cias.wisc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/energyuse.pdf>
  3. City of Vancouver Business vs. Recreational/Non-profit Tax Rates. Retrieved on July 13, 2015 from: <http://vancouver.ca/home-property-development/business-and-other.aspx><http://vancouver.ca/home-property-development/recreational-and-non-profit.aspx>
  4. Environmental Working Group. 2011. Meat Eater’s Guide to Climate Change + Health. <http://static.ewg.org/reports/2011/meateaters/pdf/methodology_ewg_meat_eaters_guide_to_health_and_climate_2011.pdf>
  5. Food Transportation Issues and Reducing Carbon Footprint. Wayne Wakeland, Susan Cholette, and Kumar Venkat. 2012.
  6. Green Guys on the Drive. Facebook group. <https://www.facebook.com/GreenGuysTheDrive?fref=ts>
  7. B. Rosie Lerner and Michael N. Dana. Apr 2009. Consumer horticulture, Leafy Greens for the Home Garden. <http://www.hort.purdue.edu/ext/ho-29.pdf >
  8. Green Guys on the Drive. Table for Carbon Savings of VHF Units. <http://imgur.com/0KztBBM>

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Japan’s Abandoned Golf Courses Are Being Transformed Into Solar Power Farms!

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The Kyocera Corporation is transforming an abandoned golf course into a solar power farm, with ambition to partner and repeat the same sustainable work elsewhere in Japan.

Incredible news: An abandoned and bankrupt golf course is being transformed into a solar power station by the Kyocera Corporation.

Last week, the business announced it would turn the former golf course in Kyoto into a 23-megawatt solar farm; the artist’s rendition is shown above.

Once the solar power farm is finished and online (in 2017), it will generate enough electricity to power 8,100 homes.

But the Kyocera Corporation has no intention of stopping there: it aims to join with several other companies and build a second 92-megawatt solar plant on a golf course that was never completed in Kagoshima Prefecture.

As the Independent shares, there are plenty of golf courses than can be converted in the future. In the 1990’s, Japan experienced a sudden “golf boom,” and ended up constructing more than 2,000 new courses in just a few years. But since the fad has passed (some might say as quickly as it started), many golf courses have gone bankrupt and now hundreds exist – abandoned – across the countryside.

solarss.jpg

Thankfully, golf courses are the perfect place to build solar farms. The wide-open spaces receive plenty of sun making them prime real estate for the installation of solar panels.

Perhaps other countries will also follow suit with this innovative way of re-purposing abandoned golf courses. Because many courses shut down in the US during the 2008 recession, cities in Florida, Utah, Kansas, and Minnesota are discussing ideas for turning many of those into solar power stations as well. It seems the owners recognize the potential for selling to energy companies and are looking to put their abandoned courses to good use.

Share your thoughts on this new s in the comments section below!

7 Graphs That Show Which Climate Records Were Broken In 2014

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BY RYAN KORONOWSKI

The state of the world’s climate is complex enough that it takes 413 scientists from 58 countries half a year to completely summarize a year’s worth of data.

And 2014 was a doozy.

According to the the American Meteorological Society and NOAA, the “State of the Climate in 2014″ report, several markers measuring the earth’s climatic trends set historical records. This is the 25th year that scientists have provided this report, and it was full of hundreds of pages of detailed atmospheric and oceanic summaries of what’s happening to our air, land, and water.

“The year 2014 was forecast to be a warm year, and it was by all accounts a very warm year, in fact record warm according to four independent observational datasets,” the report said. The reason: “the radiative forcing by long-lived greenhouse gases continued to increase, owing to rising levels of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and other radiatively active trace gases.”

The world’s experts know that climate change is happening, and why, and provide reports like these every year spelling out the impacts in excruciating detail.

“The variety of indicators shows us how our climate is changing, not just in temperature but from the depths of the oceans to the outer atmosphere,” said Thomas R. Karl, director of NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information.

For those without the time to peruse nearly 300 pages of scientific summaries, here are seven records that fell in 2014.

Heat

CREDIT: NOAA/BAMS

Though the world knew this back in January thanks to NOAA data, the report confirmed, and elaborated upon, the certainty around the record broken by 2014 as the hottest year on record.

With the glaring exception of the eastern North American continent, many countries – more than 20 – broke high temperature records last year. Much of Europe and Mexico had their hottest years, while Australia, Argentina, Uruguay, and much of Africa came close.

“Australia’s annual mean temperature anomaly, with respect to 1961-90, was +0.91°C, making 2014 the third warmest year for the country since national temperature records began in 1910,” the report said. The year before, 2013, was the hottest year on record.

With emissions continuing and El Nino coming on strong, it should not be a surprise that 2015 looks to easily break 2014’s global average surface temperature record.

Sea Levels

To convey the surreality of their findings, G.C. Johnson and A.R. Parsons, the authors of the Global Oceans section of the report used a tactic uncommon in climatology. Haikus. Haikus for sea level rise and rising temperatures.

Not quite El Niño,
North Oceans’ fluxes, warmth shift,
dance with weird weather.

Seas warm, ice caps melt,
waters rise, sour, rains shift salt,
unceasing, worldwide.

Measuring average global sea level is fantastically complex stuff. Winds can move large volumes of water around, temperature shifts can make the ocean shrink in some places and not others, while the daily tides, currents, and other variables conspire together to sabotage an accurate reading. So experts use a variety of different measurements and data streams to get something accurate and useful. And it told them that 2014 broke another sea level record.

CREDIT: BASM

“Owing to both ocean warming and land ice melt contributions, global mean sea level in 2014 was also record high and 67 mm greater than the 1993 annual mean, when satellite altimetry measurements began,” the report said.

Sea levels do not rise when icebergs or ice sheets floating in them melt – the water has already been displaced. Melting land ice does make sea levels rise, and this is the cause of sea level rise that most people know. However, the heat being pumped into the oceans from the greenhouse effect not only increases the temperature, it also causes the water to expand, which makes sea levels rise.

Hot Days, Warm Nights

CREDIT: NOAA/BAMS

“The year 2014 experienced a relatively large number of warm days,” the report said. The worldwide anomaly was the midwestern United States, which had a steady flow of Arctic cold keeping things chilly. Similarly, the world saw more warm nights and fewer cool nights outside of the Midwest.

Most of Europe had excessively large numbers of hot days and nights – daily maxima and minima. Several countries set records for warmest annual values.

“These continuous warm anomalies contributed to 2014 seeing the largest frequency of warm days and nights on record: on a continental average over a quarter of days (and nights) had temperatures in the warmest 10% of the climatological (1961-90) temperature distribution,” the report said.

The winter minimum in most of Alaska was also the warmest on record, which helped it break its regional heat record.

Storms In Hot Water

“Across the major tropical cyclone basins, 91 named storms were observed during 2014, above the 1981-2010 global average of 82,” the report said. “The Eastern/Central Pacific and South Indian Ocean basins experienced significantly above-normal activity in 2014; all other basins were either at or below normal.”

By many accounts, however, 2014 was a weak year for tropical cyclones, especially compared to the large number of strong storms in 2013. But the strong cyclones of 2014 were often extremely powerful.

Of the 91 named storms, seven became Category 5 systems: Marie and Genevieve, Cyclone Gillian, and then Super Typhoons Halong, Vongfong, Nuri, and Hagupit.

“The rate of typhoons that reached super typhoon status in 2014 was 67%, exceeding the previous record rate of 58% in 1970,” the report noted. Usually, only 23 percent of normal typhoons can hit super typhoon intensity each year.

CREDIT: BAMS

One factor at play is extremely high ocean surface temperatures.

“But it was the oceans that drove the record global surface temperature in 2014,” the report said. “Although 2014 was largely ENSO-neutral [EL Niño Southern Oscillation], the globally averaged sea surface temperature (SST) was the highest on record.”

Disappearing glaciers

“In higher latitudes and at higher elevations, increased warming continued to be visible in the decline of glacier mass balance, increasing permafrost temperatures, and a deeper thawing layer in seasonally frozen soil,” the report said. This was particularly dramatic in Greenland. Warm temperatures melt ice faster than snowfall can replenish it, and darker melt pools on the top of the glaciers absorb more energy from the sun than frozen white ice.

This has been going on for decades, and the rate has been accelerating:

The World Glacier Monitoring Service received preliminary data from Argentina, Austria, Chile, China, France, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States. It indicated that for the 31st consecutive year, the world saw no “positive annual balances,” of the water stored by glaciers. Specifically, the earth saw the loss of 0.853 meters of water equivalent – “the equivalent depth of water resulting from snow or ice melt.”

Since 1980, that cumulative mass balance loss hit 16.8 meters in 2014.

Pollution

The report said carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide all hit record concentrations in the atmosphere last year, as they have for essentially each year beforehand.

“Carbon dioxide increased by 1.9 ppm [parts per million] to reach a globally averaged value of 397.2 ppm for 2014,” the abstract began. “Altogether, 5 major and 15 minor greenhouse gases contributed 2.94 W/m² of direct radiative forcing, which is 36% greater than their contributions just a quarter century ago.”

CREDIT: BAMS

Some climate watchers are familiar with the Keeling Curve, which has plotted the carbon dioxide concentration readings taken from the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii since 1958. In 2013, the tracker passed above 400 ppm for the first time in recorded history, and each year since, more days have been spent above that symbolic number.

Using other measurements to supplement the data, the report estimated that the 2014 global average was 397.2 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere, a 1.9 ppm bump from 2013. This year, the number will continue its inexorable climb, unless global emissions slow significantly.

One graph unknown to most is the methane concentration graph, let alone the nitrous oxide graph. Those, according to the report, show a similar upward sweep. The CFC graph at the bottom alone displays a slow decline in atmospheric concentrations because the world came together more than 25 years ago to address the hole in the ozone layer CFCs were creating, and agreed on the Montreal Protocol. This limited CFCs’ use in aerosols and other products. They were largely replaced, however, by HFCs, which are also extremely potent greenhouse gases.

The CFC graph shows what a successful emissions reduction regime might look like for the other greenhouse gases.

Seaweed That Tastes Like Bacon Could Be Great For The Environment

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CREDIT: Stephen Ward, OSU Extension and Experiment Station Communications

Last week, researchers at Oregon State University announced that they had successfully patented a new strain of red marine algae, known as dulse, that grows extremely quickly and could serve as an excellent source of plant-based protein.

It also, according to researchers, tastes exactly like bacon when it’s fried.

That last fact was enough to set the food world into a tailspin, inspiring a flurry of media coverage touting dulse as a ” super seaweed,” ” the holy grail of seafood,” and ” the unicorn.”

Finding a nutrient-rich alternative to bacon is certainly good news for health-conscious eaters – but an increase in seaweed farming across the United States would be really good news for environmentalists, too.

I think we were at the right place at the right time, where there’s more and more interest in using aquatic plants for human food

Charlie Yarish, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Connecticut, has been a seaweed farmer for decades, cultivating strains of kelp in the coastal waters of Connecticut and Long Island. And apart from being a tasty product with a robust international industry ( 25 million tons of seaweed are harvested annually around the world), Yarish thinks seaweed is a particularly exciting crop because of its ability to extract nutrients from aquatic ecosystems. Basically, seaweed doesn’t just grow in the coastal waters that humans are pumping full of pollutants – it thrives in those environments.

“You’re dealing with a crop that doesn’t require fresh water, it does not require arable land,” Yarish told ThinkProgress. “We’re starting to see in western cultures there are some very interesting attributes of seaweed that fit our needs. One of the major problems that coastal managers have has to do with managing nutrients.”

In 2010, 39 percent of the United States’ population lived along the coastline, bringing with them industry – like agriculture – that pumps coastal waters full of nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorous and contaminants like mercury and lead.

Nitrogen, primarily from agricultural fertilizers, is an especially common nutrient in coastal waterways, but an overabundance of nitrogen in coastal waters encourages phytoplankton growth and algal blooms, which deplete oxygen from marine ecosystems. Unconstrained nutrient runoff from agricultural areas can lead to coastal dead zones – areas completely void of oxygen – that can rob communities of economic gains from fishing and shellfish harvesting.

“That’s just not good for the environment,” Yarish says of marine dead zones. “Economic values decline for coastal communities and the very resource that people want to live by is starting to be degraded.”

But seaweed farming can help reverse an imbalance in nutrients through bioextraction – the process of taking up nitrogen and other nutrients and converting them to living tissue (in the form of edible seaweed). It’s what’s known as an ecosystem service, where living organisms provide a beneficial service to the environment.

“If you use the right seaweeds, you can actually start extracting nutrients,” Yarish said. “In areas where you have excess nutrients, that’s an opportunity. We’re doing an ecosystem service, and creating crops.”

The right kind of seaweed is a tricky question – and where the potential for dulse to become a sustainable substitute for bacon both succeeds and falters. All seaweed, according to Yarish, extracts nutrients as it grows. The problem is a matter of scale.

“There are limitations on how much you can produce,” Yarish said. “A kelp farm can produce far more biomass than Palmaria [the scientific name for dulse].”

You’re dealing with a crop that doesn’t require fresh water, it does not require arable land

Dulse is a red, lettuce-like algae that grows naturally in the coastal waters of the Pacific and Atlantic. For 15 years, Chris Langdon, an aquaculture researcher at Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, Oregon, has studied dulse, trying to figure out a way to make the nutritious algae grow quickly enough to become commercially viable feed for abalone, a type of edible sea snail. In 2004, he obtained a patent for a particularly fast-growing strain that can double its weight in just 10 days. But a year and a half ago, Chuck Toombs, a business professor at Oregon State University suggested that Langdon might want to stop trying to grow dulse for abalone, and start growing it for humans.

“I think we were at the right place at the right time, where there’s more and more interest in using aquatic plants for human food,” Michael Morrissey, director of Oregon State University’s Food Innovation Center, told ThinkProgress.

Langdon, along with Morrissey and others at the Food Innovation Center, reached a historic moment with dulse in January, when they were able to have it declared a specialty crop by the Oregon State Department of Agriculture – something that has never happened for a seafood. Under the specialty crop status, the team could apply for a grant to expand their dulse research, whittling down a list of over a hundred potential dulse products to two finalists – a cracker and a salad dressing – that they hope will hit retail shelves in the fall.

Unlike the kelp that Yarish grows along the Atlantic coastline, Langdon and his colleagues grow dulse in cultured tanks of seawater. That allows them to fine-tune the nutrient content of the water and grow dulse year round, but it also constrains their ability to scale their dulse operation to a commercially-viable size. But, if Western palates find the smoky taste of dulse appealing, there’s no reason that dulse couldn’t be integrated into coastal seaweed farming schemes – improving the diversity of seaweed farms across the United States. Maine Coast Sea Vegetables – a seaweed farming company that produces about 100,000 pounds of sea vegetables annually – already grows dulse in Maine’s coastal waters as part of its operation.

“If they got something that tastes like bacon, they added value for that particular red seaweed,” Yarish said. “It’s all part of the equation. Diversity is important, diversity harbors unique attributes of genomes that can respond to environmental pressures.”

Besides nutrient runoff, ocean acidification is another environmental pressure that’s expected to alter marine ecosystems in the future. As the ocean begins to absorb more and more of the carbon dioxide that humans are putting into the atmosphere, the pH of the water is expected to decrease, making the world’s oceans more acidic. For organisms like shellfish, that could be a problem, because acidic waters means shellfish have to work harder to produce their shells, leaving them with less energy to fight disease or find food.

But like excess nutrients, Yarish said, seaweed has also shown an ability to thrive in waters with greater concentrations of carbon dioxide.

“Algae are the winners when it comes to ocean acidification,” he said. “They have the ability to extract more CO2 out of the water, and therefore lowering the pH of that water.”

To Morrissey, finding a hardy strain of seaweed that has the potential to adapt to the changing environment is an exciting discovery for a food system that is grappling with how to sustainably feed the more than nine billion humans that are expected to live on earth by 2050.

“Seaweeds or aquatic plants have been in the background, but I think they need to come to the foreground and be present as an important component in this mix,” he said. “They are fairly easy to grow, you can grow them in terms of production of biomass, its some of the fastest growing food on the planet, and people need to look at that and take advantage of it.”

199 Things You Can Compost

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If you’ve ever wondered what kind of things you can compost, you’re not alone.

We’ve compiled a room-by-room list of more than 200 compostable items. While we understand some of these items are best left to individual preference and might not be right for your compost pile or compost bin.

Still, we hope this list provides you with scavenger-hunt-like fun and help you think creatively about what else you might be able to compost. (In fact, if you think of other things we should add to the list, we hope you’ll tell us about them!)

Note: Keep in mind that you will want to chop up food/plant seeds so they won’t grow in your compost pile and shred large items such as cardboard, pizza boxes, and newspapers.

Without going on too long with an introduction, here’s the list, organized by area of the house.

1. Apple cores

2. Avocado pits

3. Stale coffee beans (ground up for best decomposition)

4. Broccoli stalks

5. Burned toast

6. Cellophane (real cellophone, not plastic!) bags or wrapping

7. Cereal boxes

8. Chopsticks

9. Citrus rinds

10. Coffee filters

11. Coffee grounds

12. Cooked rice

13. Corn cobs (allow extra composting time)

14. Corn husks

16. Crushed egg shells

17. Expired jelly

18. Expired yogurt

19. Fish bones (ground up)

20. Fish skin

22. Food-soiled paper

23. Fruit leaves (cherry, strawberry, raspberry, peach)

24. Grape wastes

26. Liquid from canned goods

27. Loose tea leaves

28. Melted ice cream

29. Moldy bread

30. Moldy cheese

32. Cardboard egg cartons

34. Old herbs

35. Old pasta

36. Olive pits

37. Onion skins

38. Paper cupcake/muffin cups

39. Paper egg cartons

40. Paper grocery bags

41. Paper napkins

42. Paper tablecloths

43. Paper towels and towel rolls

44. Pizza boxes

45. Popcorn kernels

46. Potato peels

47. Pumpkin seeds

49. Sesame seeds

50. Shrimp/lobster/crab shells

51. Soggy salad

53. Soy/rice/almond milk

54. Stale cereal

55. Stale crackers and chips

56. Stale grains

57. Sunflower seeds

58. Tea bags (and string)

60. Used paper plates (non wax coating)

61. Vegetable and fruit peels

62. White paper bakery bags

63. Winter rye

64. Wooden toothpicks

Kid’s Bedroom

65. Aquarium plants

66. Bird cage droppings

67. Brown paper lunch bags

68. Chewing gum

69. Cotton clothes

70. Cotton shirt threads

71. Fish food

72. Flat soda

73. Hamster/rabbit bedding (including soiled)

74. Homework assignments

75. Juice boxes (those not coated with plastic or containing foil)

76. Latex balloons

77. Linen bed sheets

78. Paper mache

80. Pizza crust

81. Stale candy (without wrapper)

82. Stale cookies

83. Stickers

84. Wool socks

85. Brewery wastes

86. Christmas tree

87. Cigar stubs

88. Contents of vacuum cleaner bag

89. Cooled fireplace ash

90. Dust bunnies

91. Natural silk curtains

92. Nut shells (not walnuts)

93. Organic tobacco waste

94. Rotting Halloween pumpkin

95. Wine and beer

96. Wine corks (allow extra composting time)

97. Wrapping paper roll

98. Crepe paper streamers

99. Dead flies

100. Dead houseplants

101. Dried/fresh flowers

102. Hemp baskets

103. Holiday wreaths

104. Outdated seeds

105. Rawhide dog chews

106. Stale catnip

107. Trimmed plant leaves

108. Yarn scraps

109. 100% cotton sanitary napkins (including used)

110. Cardboard cotton swabs

111. Cardboard tampon applicators (including used)

112. Cotton balls (100% cotton)

113. Cotton towels

114. Dryer lint

115. Electric razor trimmings

118. Latex and sheepskin condoms

119. Loofahs (made with organic materials)

120. Old potpourri

121. Price tags

122. Pure soap scraps

123. Tatami mat

124. Toenail clippings

125. Toilet paper roll

126. Urine (not if you are using medication)

127. Used fabric softener sheets

128. Used tissues

129. ATM receipts

130. Catalogs and magazines (not heavily inked)

131. Confetti from a three-hole puncher

132. Envelopes (without plastic window)

133. Leather belt

134. Leather wallet

135. Leather watch band

136. Newspaper

137. Non glossy business cards

138. Non glossy junk mail

139. Paperback books

140. Post-it notes

141. Shredded documents

142. Stale protein/nutrition bars

143. Ticket stubs

144. White glue

145. Acorn shells

183. Worms (make sure composter has no bottom so they can escape if compost is too hot)

184. Burlap sacks

185. Cardboard boxes

186. Dustpan contents

187. Eraser rubbings

188. Latex gloves

189. Matches

190. Natural fiber rags

191. Pencil shavings

192. Power tool manuals

193. Rope and twine (made from natural fibers)

194. Ruined jeans

195. Sawdust (only a little bit at a time)

196. Sea sponges

197. Unpainted sheetrock

198. Used masking tape

199. Wood chips (paintless, not very many)

Marley Protecting Jamaica’s Rasta Villages

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Bob Marley’s granddaughter has become involved in a campaign to protect the site of Jamaica’s first Rastafarian community, it appears.

Donisha-Prendergast

Donisha Prendergast and other supporters are occupying a tabernacle – a Rastafarian place of worship – near the village established by Leonard P Howell in the 1930s, according to the Jamaica Gleaner.

The campaign wants the property – a hilltop called The Pinnacle west of the capital, Kingston – to belong to the Howell family and the community.

No black person in Jamaica owned property, nothing compared to Pinnacle

Monty Howell, Jamica Observer

Prendergast told the newspaper: “We are not going anywhere, one by one we are filing in, we are going to camp out and reason.”

It appears that the Rastafarian community may have no title to the land, but they claim they are entitled to use it due to their historical and cultural connection to the site.

A quarter-acre plot on The Pinnacle has been declared a national monument, the Jamaica Observer says. But the campaign is calling for the whole area to be preserved.

The dispute over ownership on The Pinnacle has been the subject of long-running controversy, with Howell’s descendants fighting court cases against local developers.

Howell’s son, Monty, says papers proving the family’s ownership of the land were destroyed during the 1930s and 1940s because the island’s then-colonial authorities thought it “presumptuous” for Howell to own it.

“No black person in Jamaica owned property, nothing compared to Pinnacle,” he told the Jamaica Observer. “They tried everything to chase my father off that land.”

The case is heading back to the courts in Jamaica this week. (3 February 2014)

Democracy: Can We Do It Ourselves?

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This is a solid, thought provoking documentary covering a relevant economic topic in-depth. The question of capitalism’s grip on the modern world is highly relevant today and the film questions if we should be pushing for a democratic co-operative way of doing business, showing case studies of businesses who are surviving as democracies within a …

Read more

The Biggest Cleanup In Human History – Ocean Cleanup

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The Ocean Cleanup project was sparked a few years back when teenager, Boyan Slat conceived an A-For-Effort design that went absolutely viral, until those mean online skeptics got hold of hearing it and Boran shared a seat beside Solar Roadways. Have no worries, hope is here. Fortunately the concept was proven absolutely feasible! At Asia’s largest …

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Costa Rica Becomes The FIRST Nation To Ban Hunting!

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After Congress unanimously voted to ban hunting in 2012, it became illegal to poach wildlife in Costa Rica.

Do animals feel pain? Should they have rights like humans? These questions and others have been asked before on TrueActivist, and increasingly the response is that an individual should be honored – no matter their species – for who they are and what they might offer to the world.

We also recently reported that in the wake of controversy over the poaching of endangered animals, a number of airlines are now also refusing to ship hunting trophies.

Which is why we highly suspect you’re going to love the news – albeit a few years old – of Costa Rica becoming the first country to ban hunting!

As The Huffington Post reports, in December of 2012, Congress unanimously voted to ban hunting as a sport in the Latin American country. It was in 2010 that the popular initiative was proposed to Congress, with an accumulated 177,000 signatures calling for a ban on hunting.

Under the new law, those caught hunting will face up to four months in prison or fines of up to $3,000. Smaller penalties were also included in the reform for hunters who steal wild animals or keep them as pets. Among Costa Rica’s most treasured and sought-after species are jaguars, pumas, and sea turtles; but thanks to the new legislation, they are now much safer.

With a population of 4.5 million people and an ecosystem that boasts more than 500,000 species, the diversity of Costa Rica is what attracts tourists from all over the world. In fact, tourism is the country’s number one industry.

Said environmental activist Diego Marin, who campaigned for the reform, to local radio:

“We’re not just hoping to save the animals but we’re hoping to save the country’s economy, because if we destroy the wildlife there, tourists are not going to come anymore.”

However, not all foreigners are interested in catching some waves or taking a leisurely stroll through the country’s gorgeous parks. Some are most interested in capturing exotic felines to sell on the black market, or are in pursuit of securing rare and colorful parrots to sell as pets elsewhere.

It is to be noted that there are limits on the ban. The legislation does not apply to hunting by some indigenous groups for survival, or to scientific research.

Still, as a very environmentally conscious country, Costa Rica’s initiative will likely boost conservation efforts and maintain its diversity for years to come.

“Costa Ricans think of themselves as “people who are in a very good relation with the environment,” said Alonso Villalobos, a political scientist at the University of Costa Rica. “And in that way, we have made a lot of progress. We have a stronger environmental consciousness.”

(Photo: ForceChange.org)
(Photo: ForceChange.com)

What are your thoughts on this news? Share your comments below.

Is Antarctica Ice Melting or Growing? Watch This NASA Video and See for Yourself

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You might have seen the news from NASA last week: Antarctica’s Larsen B Ice Shelf could disappear before the end of the decade.

But even while the Antarctic land ice disintegrates down south, and Arctic ice contracts further up North, climate change denier s are touting the record extent of Antarctic ice and using that to claim that climate change isn’t even happening.

“It is certainly a warning. The conclusion is inescapable.”Antarctica’s Larsen B Ice Shelf could disappear before the end of the decade. NASA – National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Posted by Climate Reality on Friday, May 15, 2015

What’s really going on with the polar ice caps?

In short, there’s a difference between sea ice and land ice. Antarctica’s land ice has indeed been melting at an alarming rate.

Land ice-also called “glaciers” or “ice sheets”-is ice that has accumulated over time on land. Sea ice is frozen, floating seawater.

Overall, the Antarctic sea ice has been stable-but that fact doesn’t contradict the evidence that our climate is warming.

The ice sheet-land ice-that covers most of Antarctica is melting at the rate of about 159 billion tons every year in recent years. When land ice melts, it flows as water into the ocean, contributing to sea-level rise. Antarctica’s melting land ice poses a direct threat to the hundreds of millions of people living on islands and near coasts.

Here’s more about why this is the case-and how glaciologists know this isn’t normal-from our friends at Yale Climate Connections:

What can you do?

First, get informed so that you can respond when you hear misinformation about the ice caps. Visit Skeptical Science for a complete debunking right now, and don’t forget to speak out when you see climate myths perpetuated.

Then, attend a Climate Reality Leadership Corps training to learn more about what’s really happening with our planet-and what you can do to build powerful momentum for solutions. Our next training is July 9-10 in Toronto, Canada.

The Climate Reality Leadership Corps is a global network of more than 7,600 activists working to educate and empower communities in more than 125 countries to take action on climate change. Climate Reality Leaders come from all walks of life but all come with the same deep desire to make a difference and help solve the climate crisis.

By attending a focused multi-day training in Toronto with former US Vice President Al Gore and other experts and influencers, you’ll learn about:

    The science of climate change
    The direct cost of climate impacts on communities across continents
    The practical solutions available and working today
    Effective grassroots organizing for solutions

Click here to apply to The Climate Reality Leadership Corps today.

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