Valhalla is a growing tribe of storytellers out to proliferate freedom culture by igniting a global passion for sustainability, self-reliance, and collaborative action.
In a normal year, when California’s record drought isn’t sapping reservoir levels around the state, clearing some debris from an outlet valve of a 5,800-acre reservoir like Mountain Meadows wouldn’t spell catastrophe.
But this year, for thousands of fish left without water to swim in, it did.
The reservoir is located just south of Lassen National Forest in the Northern California town of Westwood. It’s been a popular fishing hole for recreational anglers and an important source of energy for nearby residents.
Owned by Pacific Gas and Electric Co., the reservoir sits at the top of the energy company’s hydroelectric dam system, connected by the Feather River. On Sept. 13, Mountain Meadows Reservoir, also known as Walker Lake, was already sitting at dangerously low levels when a maintenance crew reportedly cleared out a clogged drainage valve.
By the next morning, the water was gone. All that remained was a field of dead fish and angry residents asking what happened.
“We’ve been in a really bad drought, so that’s really the main contributor to this whole thing,” said Nils Lunder, director of the Mountain Meadows Conservancy group based in Westwood. “But this was also a poorly managed situation.”
Instead of keeping outflows to a minimum early in the year and letting the lake fill up, Lunder said PG&E kept the lake level low. And with little to no snowpack, inflows over the summer were basically nonexistent.
PG&E spokesman Paul Moreno told CBS News that the company had stopped using the dam for power and had been running outflows at the minimum allowed levels since March. The draining was an unfortunate consequence of the times.
“It’s the situation we worked hard to avoid, but the reality is we’re in a very serious drought, and there’s also concerns for the fish downstream,” Moreno said.
With scientists linking California’s severe drought with human-caused climate change, dried-out reservoirs like Mountain Meadows could become the norm. Water concerns are leading to adaptations in industry and home life, with farmers, residents, and regulators taking steps to reduce use and preserve a resource that is projected to become scarcer as temperatures increase.
For Lunder, the empty reservoir is a chance to start over. For the first time, representatives from PG&E and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife will meet with community members to answer questions about what happened.
“Before this, we didn’t have the representation we needed as a community,” Lunder said. “Hopefully, with talking about our concerns, we can avoid this situation in the future.”
Liquid water likely exists on the surface of Mars during the planet’s warmer seasons, according to new research published in Nature Geosciences. This revelation comes from new spectral data gathered by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), a spacecraft that studies the planet from orbit. The orbiter analyzed the chemistry of weird dark streaks that have been known to appear and disappear seasonally on the Martian surface. The analysis confirms that these streaks are formed by briny – or salty – water flowing downhill on Mars.
NASA has advertised these findings as the solution to a major Mars mystery: does the Red Planet truly have liquid water on its surface? Researchers have known that water exists in ice form on Mars, but it’s never been confirmed if water can remain in a liquid state. The space agency is claiming that we now have that answer.
NASA has advertised these findings as the solution to a major Mars mystery
This isn’t the first study to suggest liquid water is present in some form on Mars. Scientists have theorized for years that Mars was once home to a large ocean more than 4 billion years ago. And recent findings from the Mars Curiosity rover suggest that liquid water exists just underneath the Martian surface. The discovery of water on Mars has almost become a joke among planetary scientists. Alfred McEwan, a planetary geologist at Arizona State University who also worked on this research, wrote in Scientific American that the studies have become extremely commonplace: “Congratulations-you’ve discovered water on Mars for the 1,000th time!” he joked.
Today’s findings seem to offer more direct evidence of liquid water than most, though the study only confirms what NASA has long suspected – that flowing liquid water forms the strange, dark streaks that have been observed on Mars. These streaks – called recurring slope linae – were first observed by the MRO spacecraft in 2010. The lines are blackish and narrow at less than 16 feet across. During the warmer seasons, the streaks grow thicker and longer; they then fade and shrink at times when Mars is colder.
This led scientists to believe years ago that perhaps water and salt were involved in the creation of these lines. “[The streaks] loved forming at temperatures that were right for liquid water to exist,” study author Lujendra Ojha, a graduate student at Georgia Tech, told The Verge.
The average temperature on Mars is a frigid -80 degrees Fahrenheit, but on a summer day near the equator, the temperature can reach up to 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Ojha and his team speculated that when conditions are warm enough, liquid water filled with perchlorates – a type of salt – flow downhill on the planet’s sloping geological features. Together, water and perchlorates form a brine solution, which has a much lower freezing point than water. This allows the brine to stay in a liquid state even when temperatures grow colder. Ultimately, the streaks are the leftover salt deposits from these briny flows, Ojha believed.
The new study published today offers direct evidence that liquid water is indeed involved. Using the MRO’s imaging spectrometer, the researchers studied the chemical makeup of the recurring slope linae. The visible-infrared spectrometer, which can determine the composition of minerals by observing them in different light wavelengths, showed that the dark streaks were indeed composed of hydrated salts that have molecular water in their crystal structure. “What that seems to be telling us is that water plays a key role in the formation mechanism of these features,” said Ojha.
Water strengthens the possibility of finding microbial life on the Red Planet
As for where this water is coming from, Ojha noted there are three possible sources. The perchlorates may be pulling water out of the Martian atmosphere when the air grows particularly humid. The water also may be from a subsurface reservoir of ice that turns into liquid when it comes in contact with the salts. There’s even the possibility of an aquifer that is generating the water needed for the briny flows.
Whatever the source, Ojha said the evidence is unambiguous proof that liquid water exists on Mars. And if so, that strengthens the possibility of finding microbial life on the Red Planet. The presence of liquid water on Earth is intimately linked with the formation of life, so the odds are better than ever that extraterrestrial organisms are nearby in our Solar System.
The European Union’s largest grain grower and exporter has asked the European Commission for France to be excluded from some GM maize crop cultivation under the new scheme, the farm and environment ministries said in a joint statement.
As part of the opt-out process, France also passed legislation in the National Assembly that would enable it to oppose the cultivation of GM crops, even if approved at EU level, on the basis of certain criteria including environment and farm policy, land use, economic impact or civil order, the environment ministry added.
Widely grown in the Americas and Asia, GM crops have divided opinion in Europe. France had already banned cultivation of U.S. group Monsanto’s GM maize, saying it had serious doubts that it is safe for the environment.
Monsanto says its maize (corn) is harmless to humans and wildlife.
The EU opt-out, agreed in March, allows individual countries to seek exclusion from any approval request for GM cultivation in the 28-member bloc or varieties already cleared as safe by the EU.
Monsanto’s MON810 maize is the only GM crop grown in Europe, where it has been cultivated in Spain and Portugal for a decade, but other maize crops are in the process of being approved at EU level.
One of them is an insect-resistant maize known as 1507. Its developers, DuPont Pioneer and Dow Chemical, have been waiting nearly 15 years for the EU executive to authorize its cultivation in the bloc.
The French request concerns nine GM maize strains. Producers also include Switzerland’s Syngenta, a spokesman for the environment ministry said.
Germany also intends to make use of the new EU rules to stop the growing of GM crops, documents seen by Reuters showed last month.
The European Commission is responsible for approvals, but under the new rules requests for opt-outs also have to be submitted to the company making the application.
Monsanto has said it will abide by requests from Latvia and Greece to be excluded from its application to grow a GM crop in the EU but accused them of ignoring science.
(Reporting by Sybille de La Hamaide, Gus Trompiz and Valerie Parent; Editing by Jane Merriman and David Goodman)
“The worldwide transition from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy is under way …” according to the Earth Policy Institute’s new book, The Great Transition.
Between 2006 and 2012, global solar photovoltaic’s (PV) annual capacity grew 190 percent, while wind energy’s annual capacity grew 40 percent, reported the International Renewable Energy Agency. The agency projects that by 2030, solar PV capacity will be nine times what it was in 2013; wind power could increase five-fold.
Electric vehicle (EV) sales have risen 128 percent since 2012, though they made up less than 1 percent of total U.S. vehicle sales in 2014. Although today’s most affordable EVs still travel less than 100 miles on a full battery charge (the Tesla Model S 70D, priced starting at $75,000, has a 240-mile range), the plug-in market is projected to grow between 14.7 and 18.6 percent annually through 2024.
The upward trend for renewables is being driven by concerns about climate change and energy security, decreasing solar PV and wind prices, rising retail electricity prices, favorable governmental incentives for renewable energy, the desire for energy self-sufficiency and the declining cost of batteries. Growing EV sales, also benefitting from incentives, are affecting economies of scale in battery manufacturing, helping to drive down prices.
Sun and wind energy are free, but because they are not constant sources of power, renewable energy is considered “variable”-it is affected by location, weather and time of day. Utilities need to deliver reliable and steady energy by balancing supply and demand. While today they can usually handle the fluctuations that solar and wind power present to the grid by adjusting their operations, as the amount of energy supplied by renewables grows, better battery storage is crucial.
Batteries convert electricity into chemical potential energy for storage and back into electrical energy as needed. They can perform different functions at various points along the electric grid. At the site of solar PV or wind turbines, batteries can smooth out the variability of flow and store excess energy when demand is low to release it when demand is high. Currently, fluctuations are handled by drawing power from natural gas, nuclear or coal-fired power plants; but whereas fossil-fuel plants can take many hours to ramp up, batteries respond quickly and when used to replace fossil-fuel power plants, they cut CO2 emissions. Batteries can store output from renewables when it exceeds a local substation’s capacity and release the power when the flow is less or store energy when prices are low so it can be sold back to the grid when prices rise. For households, batteries can store energy for use anytime and provide back-up power in case of blackouts.
Batteries have not been fully integrated into the mainstream power system because of performance and safety issues, regulatory barriers, the resistance of utilities and cost. But researchers around the world are working on developing better and cheaper batteries.
In midday trading in London, Shell’s share price was down 1.7 percent in a weak overall market after opening on news that the company will cease exploration in the Alaska Arctic.
But an industry analyst told The Wall Street Journal he believes Shell’s investors will generally be happy with the development.
“Investors don’t want Shell to deliver more [capital expenditures] into Alaska,” Bernstein research analyst Oswald Clint told WSJ. “I imagine investors will be OK with a $1 billion hit versus tens of billions in the future.”
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Sunday night story:
Royal Dutch Shell will cease exploration in Arctic waters off Alaska’s coast following disappointing results from an exploratory well backed by billions in investment and years of work.
The announcement was a huge blow to Shell, which was counting on offshore drilling in Alaska to help it drive future revenue. Environmentalists, however, had tried repeatedly to block the project and welcomed the news.
Shell has spent upward of $7 billion on Arctic offshore exploration, including $2.1 billion in 2008 for leases in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska’s northwest coast, where an exploratory well about 80 miles off shore drilled to 6,800 feet but yielded disappointing results. Backed by a 28-vessel flotilla, drillers found indications of oil and gas but not in sufficient quantities to warrant more exploration at the site.
“Shell continues to see important exploration potential in the basin, and the area is likely to ultimately be of strategic importance to Alaska and the U.S.,” Marvin Odum, president of Shell USA, said in The Hague, Netherlands. “However, this is a clearly disappointing exploration outcome for this part of the basin.”
Shell will end exploration off Alaska “for the foreseeable future,” the company said, because of the well results and because of the “challenging and unpredictable federal regulatory environment in offshore Alaska.
The Burger J well drilled this summer will be plugged and abandoned, Shell spokeswoman Megan Baldino said. The two rigs mobilized by Shell for its Chukchi work, the Polar Pioneer and the Noble Discoverer, will be heading south, along with the support vessels, she said. “We’ll begin demobilizing now,” she said late Sunday. That process will take “as long as it takes to do it safely,” she said.
Baldino said no decisions have been made yet about Shell’s workforce, and she did not have figures on Sunday night for total employees and contractors. But the pullout will mean “lower staff” numbers, she said.
Shell’s decision to cease offshore Arctic exploration affects both the Chukchi and the Beaufort. Its leases in the Chukchi are scheduled to expire in 2020 and most of its Beaufort leases are scheduled to expire in 2017, according to a status report from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
Margaret Williams of the World Wildlife Fund in Anchorage, called the news of Shell’s withdrawal stunning.
“That’s incredible. That’s huge,” she said. “All along the conservation community has been pointing to the challenging and unpredictable environmental conditions. We always thought the risk was tremendously great.”
Environmental groups said oil exploration in the ecologically fragile Arctic could lead to increased greenhouse gases, crude oil spills and a disaster for polar bears, walrus and ice seals. Production rigs extracting oil would be subject to punishing storms, shifting ice and months of operating in the cold and dark. Over the summer, protesters in kayaks unsuccessfully tried to block Arctic-bound Shell vessels in Seattle and Portland, Oregon.
“Polar bears, Alaska’s Arctic and our climate just caught a huge break,” said Miyoko Sakashita, oceans program director for the Center for Biological Diversity, in a statement. “Here’s hoping Shell leaves the Arctic forever.”
Monday was Shell’s final day to drill this year in petroleum-bearing rock under its federal permit. Regulators required Shell to stop a month before sea ice is expected to re-form in the lease area.
The U.S. Geological Survey estimates U.S. Arctic waters in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas contain 23 billion barrels or more of recoverable oil in total. Shell officials had called the Chukchi basin “a potential game-changer,” a vast untapped reservoir that could add to America’s energy supply for 50 years.
Shell had planned at least one more year of exploration with up to six wells drilled.
A transition to production could have taken a decade or longer.
Shell had the strong backing of Alaska officials and business leaders who want a new source of crude oil filling the trans-Alaska pipeline, now running at less than one-quarter capacity.
Charles Ebinger, senior fellow for the Brookings Institution Energy Security and Climate Initiative, said in an interview that a successful well by Shell would have been “a terribly big deal,” opening an area that U.S. officials say contains 15 billion barrels of oil.
While oil prices have dropped significantly in recent years and nations have pushed for cleaner energy sources, analysts predict that the world between 2030 and 2040 will need another 10 million barrels a day to meet growing demand, especially in developing countries, Ebinger said.
“Areas like the Arctic are one of the areas that, if we’re going to be able to do this, we need to examine,” he said.
Shell in 2012 sent drill rigs to the Chukchi and Beaufort seas but was not allowed to drill into oil-bearing rock because the containment dome had been damaged in testing.
The company’s vessels suffered serious setbacks getting to and from the Arctic.
One drill vessel broke loose from its towline in the Gulf of Alaska and ran aground near Kodiak Island. Owners of the leased Noble Discoverer, which drilled in the Chukchi and is back this year, pleaded guilty to eight felony maritime safety counts and paid a $12.2 million fine.
That was proof of Shell’s Arctic incompetence, critics said.
Odum called drilling off Alaska’s coast the most scrutinized and analyzed oil and gas project in the world and said he was confident Shell could drill safely.
Alaska Dispatch News reporter Yereth Rosen contributed to this report.
Welcome to The Academy Full disclosure- I didn’t join Superhero Academy through the normal means. The instructor, Marc Angelo Coppola, held my interest for other reasons, but I’ll get into those later. Regardless, now that I’m in it, I wouldn’t have changed this part of my life for any other option. Ultimately, what got me …
With rumors about the return of the surfers craze, the hippie love machine might just be coming back! The Herbie-like purr of the motor coming down the drive will be replaced by an electric engine that can be charged at home. If you live under solar panels, this will be a move in a very green direction.
Since its launch in the early 1950s, the Volkswagen Westfalia Camper has been an enduring classic, an icon of cross-country adventures and the traveling lifestyle. Production ceased in 2003, but speaking to Autocar at the New York Auto Show earlier this year, board member Dr Heinz-Jakob Neusser revealed that the company is soon to unveil a concept Camper that would revive the classic van as an electric vehicle.
As of the posting of this article, the below van was for sale in Florida for $4,000
Neusser revealed that the Camper concept design features a small electric motor to power the front wheels, with battery packs stored under the floor. As for its styling, Volkswagen is being careful to retain the Camper’s iconic looks-Neusser explained to Autocar that it will feature three key design cues “First the wide, solid, D-Pillar, second the boxy design of the center section and, thirdly, the front end must have a very short overhang. The distance from the A-pillar to the front end must be very short.”
VW has teased a couple of different, new Campers in recent years-in 2001 they debuted a Microbus concept, and in 2011, the Bulli. Both provide clues as to what the latest concept may look like, and there’s no certainty that an electric Camper will go into production, but Neusser noted, it could make it onto the market if it has an attractive enough cost base.
Is this too good to be true? Is Neusser teasing us with hopes of an unlikely possibility? Well as many an empty dream has been found at the end of a craigslist search for the old classic, and the costs of used parts and chassis continues to rise off the charts! Unfortunately the new electric model of the hippy-classic is still a concept car, and releasing it to the masses depends largely on manufacturing cost. As Outsideonline points out, “the company has a track record of teasing hippy-bus diehards with promises of re-initiating the VW factory lines with updated versions of the classic vehicle, including the 2001 Retro Microbus and 2011 Bulli. Still, it’s worth noting that neither of these versions hold a candle to the original design.” Rob Hoffman of The Plaid Zebra says ” If Volkswagen does revive the old bus from the dead, we can only keep our fingers crossed that it maintains the original aesthetic, rather than slapping the VW logo on a Yaris and trying to make it cool, like the aforementioned 2011 concept.” See what else he had to say…
We’re all looking for stories of hope – that the world can be changed, that we are not limited by our culture, our backgrounds, our histories – and few stories are as inspirational as that of Lucy Naipanoi, a grandmother of Maasai, one of the last hunter gatherer tribes left on the planet. With the …
Much of South America’s Amazon rainforest will continue to be clean, lush, and green-thanks in part to a country on the other side of the world.
In 2008, when the Amazon was facing a severe deforestation crisis, Norway, a country made rich from oil and gas production (and the biggest donor to protect tropical rainforests), pledged $1 billion to the government of Brazil if it could slow down the destruction. Doing so would protect the forest’s wildlife and also enormously reduce climate-harming greenhouse gas emissions, which are produced when forests are burned to make way for human development.
Brazil has more than risen to the task. By enforcing strict protection laws, promoting education efforts, and withholding loans to local counties that clear too much of the forest, the country has scaled back its forest destruction rate by 75%. It’s estimated that Brazilian farmers and ranchers have saved more than 33,000 square miles (roughly 53,100 square kilometers) of forest-equivalent to 14.3 million soccer fields-from being cut down.
This week, an applauding Norwegian government said it will pay out the country’s final $100 million-rounding out its $1 billion promise-to Brazil at a December UN summit on climate change. In a statement, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the deal an “outstanding example” of international collaboration on sustainability.
Brazil’s blazing success in deforestation reduction is, indeed, a model for other countries-particularly the others that occupy the Amazon rainforest. Its Norway-subsidized efforts have translated into the largest emissions cut in the world, preventing roughly 3.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions. That’s, by the way, how much America would save by taking all the cars off its roads for three years.
Called the Veil Nebula, the debris is one of the best-known supernova remnants, deriving its name from its delicate, draped filamentary structures. The entire nebula is 110 light-years across, covering six full moons on the sky as seen from Earth, and resides about 2,100 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus, the Swan.
This view is a mosaic of six Hubble pictures of a small area roughly two light-years across, covering only a tiny fraction of the nebula’s vast structure.
This close-up look unveils wisps of gas, which are all that remain of what was once a star 20 times more massive than our sun. The fast-moving blast wave from the ancient explosion is plowing into a wall of cool, denser interstellar gas, emitting light. The nebula lies along the edge of a large bubble of low-density gas that was blown into space by the dying star prior to its self-detonation.
Liliana and Luisa Terán, two indigenous women from northern Chile who travelled to India for training in installing solar panels, have not only changed their own future but that of Caspana, their remote village nestled in a stunning valley in the Atacama desert.
“It was hard for people to accept what we learned in India,” Liliana Terán told IPS. “At first they rejected it, because we’re women. But they gradually got excited about, and now they respect us.”
Her cousin, Luisa, said that before they travelled to Asia, there were more than 200 people interested in solar energy in the village. But when they found out that it was Liliana and Luisa who would install and maintain the solar panels and batteries, the list of people plunged to 30.
“In this village there is a council of elders that makes the decisions. It’s a group which I will never belong to,” said Luisa, with a sigh that reflected that her decision to never join them guarantees her freedom.
Luisa, 43, practices sports and is a single mother of an adopted daughter. She has a small farm and is a craftswoman, making replicas of rock paintings. After graduating from secondary school in Calama, the capital of the municipality, 85 km from her village, she took several courses, including a few in pedagogy.
Liliana, 45, is a married mother of four and a grandmother of four. She works on her family farm and cleans the village shelter. She also completed secondary school and has taken courses on tourism because she believes it is an activity complementary to agriculture that will help stanch the exodus of people from the village.
Caspana – meaning “children of the hollow” in the Kunza tongue, which disappeared in the late 19th century – is located 3,300 metres above sea level in the El Alto Loa valley. It officially has 400 inhabitants, although only 150 of them are here all week, while the others return on the weekends, Luisa explained.
They belong to the Atacameño people, also known as Atacama, Kunza or Apatama, who today live in northern Chile and northwest Argentina.
“Every year, around 10 families leave Caspana, mainly so their children can study or so that young people can get jobs,” she said.
Up to 2013, the village only had one electric generator that gave each household two and a half hours of power in the evening. When the generator broke down, a frequent occurrence, the village went dark.
Today the generator is only a back-up system for the 127 houses that have an autonomous supply of three hours a day of electricity, thanks to the solar panels installed by the two cousins.
The indigenous village of Caspana lies 3,300 metres above sea level in the Atacama desert in northern Chile. The 400 inhabitants depend on small-scale farming for a living, as a stone marker at the entrance to the village proudly declares. Now, thanks to the efforts of two local women, they have electricity in their homes, generated by solar panels, which have now become part of the landscape. Credit: Marianela Jarroud/IPS
Each home has a 12 volt solar panel, a 12 volt battery, a four amp LED lamp, and an eight amp control box.
The equipment was donated in March 2013 by the Italian company Enel Green Power. It was also responsible, along with the National Women’s Service (SERNAM) and the Energy Ministry’s regional office, for the training received by the two women at the Barefoot College in India.
On its website, the Barefoot College describes itself as “a non-governmental organisation that has been providing basic services and solutions to problems in rural communities for more than 40 years, with the objective of making them self-sufficient and sustainable.”
So far, 700 women from 49 countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America – as well as thousands of women from India – have taken the course to become “Barefoot solar engineers”.
They are responsible for the installation, repair and maintenance of solar panels in their villages for a minimum of five years. Another task they assume is to open a rural electronics workshop, where they keep the spare parts they need and make repairs, and which operates as a mini power plant with a potential of 320 watts per hour.
In March 2012 the two cousins travelled to the village of Tilonia in the northwest Indian state of Rajasthan, where the Barefoot College is located.
They did not go alone. Travelling with them were Elena Achú and Elvira Urrelo, who belong to the Quechua indigenous community, and Nicolasa Yufla, an Aymara Indian. They all live in other villages of the Atacama desert, in the northern Chilean region of Antofagasta.
“We saw an ad that said they were looking for women between the ages of 35 and 40 to receive training in India. I was really interested, but when they told me it was for six months, I hesitated. That was a long time to be away from my family!” Luisa said.
Encouraged by her sister, who took care of her daughter, she decided to undertake the journey, but without telling anyone what she was going to do.
The conditions they found in Tilonia were not what they had been led to expect, they said. They slept on thin mattresses on hard wooden beds, the bedrooms were full of bugs, they couldn’t heat water to wash themselves, and the food was completely different from what they were used to.
“I knew what I was getting into, but it took me three months anyway to adapt, mainly to the food and the intense heat,” she said.
She remembered, laughing, that she had stomach problems much of the time. “It was too much fried food,” she said. “I lost a lot of weight because for the entire six months I basically only ate rice.”
Looking at Liliana, she burst into laughter, saying “She also only ate rice, but she put on weight!”
Liliana said that when she got back to Chile her family welcomed her with an ‘asado’ (barbecue), ’empanadas’ (meat and vegetable patties or pies) and ‘sopaipillas’ (fried pockets of dough).
The primary school in Caspana, 1,400 km north of Santiago. Two indigenous cousins who were trained as solar engineers got the municipal authorities to provide solar panels for lighting in public buildings and on the village’s few streets, while they installed panels in 127 of the village’s homes. Credit: Mariana Jarroud/IPS
“But I only wanted to sit down and eat ‘cazuela’ (traditional stew made with meat, potatoes and pumpkin) and steak,” she said.
On their return, they both began to implement what they had learned. Charging a small sum of 45 dollars, they installed the solar panel kit in homes in the village, which are made of stone with mud roofs.
The community now pays them some 75 dollars each a month for maintenance, every two months, of the 127 panels that they have installed in the village.
“We take this seriously,” said Luisa. “For example, we asked Enel not to just give us the most basic materials, but to provide us with everything necessary for proper installation.”
“Some of the batteries were bad, more than 10 of them, and we asked them to change them. But they said no, that that was the extent of their involvement in this,” she said. The company made them sign a document stating that their working agreement was completed.
“So now there are over 40 homes waiting for solar power,” she added. “We wanted to increase the capacity of the batteries, so the panels could be used to power a refrigerator, for example. But the most urgent thing now is to install panels in the 40 homes that still need them.”
But, she said, there are people in this village who cannot afford to buy a solar kit, which means they will have to be donations.
Despite the challenges, they say they are happy, that they now know they play an important role in the village. And they say that despite the difficulties, and the extreme poverty they saw in India, they would do it again.
“I’m really satisfied and content, people appreciate us, they appreciate what we do,” said Liliana.
“Many of the elders had to see the first panel installed before they were convinced that this worked, that it can help us and that it was worth it. And today you can see the results: there’s a waiting list,” she added.
Luisa believes that she and her cousin have helped changed the way people see women in Caspana, because the “patriarchs” of the council of elders themselves have admitted that few men would have dared to travel so far to learn something to help the community. “We helped somewhat to boost respect for women,” she said.
And after seeing their work, the local government of Calama, the municipality of which Caspana forms a part, responded to their request for support in installing solar panels to provide public lighting, and now the basic public services, such as the health post, have solar energy.
“When I’m painting, sometimes a neighbour comes to sit with me. And after a while, they ask me about our trip. And I relive it, I tell them all about it. I know this experience will stay with me for the rest of my life,” said Luisa.
This reporting series was conceived in collaboration withEcosocialist Horizons.Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes
We’re mostly familiar with wool as a material for sweaters and socks (or perhaps for eco-friendly biobricks), but English designers Hannah and Justin Floyd of Solidwool are transforming this soft material by combining it with bio-resins, and turning locally sourced wool into sturdy, handcrafted furniture.
The Floyds’ intention was to revive their hometown of Buckfastleigh, which has been traditionally known for its production of wool. Their product, Solidwool, is meant to be an alternative to injection-moulded plastics and fibreglass, by using wool as the reinforcing material, and bio-resins as the binder. They use the fleeces of a particular, local breed of sheep, the Herdwick, which were once widely used by the UK carpet industry. However, demand has declined so far that this “wiry, dark and hard” wool has been unfortunately devalued, but the duo hope to change that by finding new ways to utilize and sustain the local sheep-based economy:
This wool is something special, but along the way, something has gone wrong and its perceived value has been lost. It is currently one of the lowest value wools in the UK. Once this wool was a major part of a shepherd’s income. Now the wool from one sheep sells for around 40p. But we see a beauty in this natural material and want to help see its value increase. The Herdwick flock and their shepherds are custodians of their wild landscape. We want to help them stay that way.
Working with bio-resins and wool in the past few years, the pair have come up with a composite material that they believe is a viable alternative to petrochemically based plastics found in a lot of mass-made furnishings. With a bio-based renewable content of about 30 percent, the bio-resins are diverted from the waste-streams of other manufacturing processes like wood pulping and bio-fuel production, meaning carbon emissions are halved compared to conventional resin production and no resources are diverted from agricultural crops.
Solidwool isn’t just for the chairs and tables seen in their Hembury collection; it could be used for any product like eyeglasses and knife handles. According to Design Milk, the Floyds are collaborating with other companies like Blok Knives, Artifact Uprising and Fan Optics to use Solidwool in their products.
We are liking how wool is used in a surprising and new way here to create durable and eco-friendly furniture and accessories, beyond the conventional fashion. You can see more or shop around over at Solidwool.
In what’s being called the “first real attempt to connect the dots and put it all together,” this open-access project aims to link “all biodiversity through a shared evolutionary history.”
How did life on Earth go from simple single-celled organisms to the incredibly complex human body? A number of attempts have been made to build an evolutionary ‘tree of life’ that connects the organisms on the planet, but until now, there has been no single comprehensive tree of life assembled. However, thanks to a multi-year grant from the U.S National Science Foundation, a collaborative effort from researchers at 11 institutions has produced an initial draft of this audacious project, which includes some 2.3 million species, called the Open Tree of Life.
The Open Tree of Life builds on the work of previous researchers, who have created some tens of thousands of smaller ‘trees’ for individual branches, and the result is a massive digital resource that aims to connect the threads of millions of species on Earth. The project is open-access and editable, which means that not only can anyone view the data, but can also edit or add to it, somewhat like a Wikipedia for evolutionary relationships.
“Evolutionary trees, branching diagrams that often look like a cross between a candelabra and a subway map, aren’t just for figuring out whether aardvarks are more closely related to moles or manatees, or pinpointing a slime mold’s closest cousins. Understanding how the millions of species on Earth are related to one another helps scientists discover new drugs, increase crop and livestock yields, and trace the origins and spread of infectious diseases such as HIV, Ebola and influenza.” – Duke University
Lead by principal investigator Karen Cranston of Duke University, the Open Tree of Life project is based on almost 500 previously published trees, and is significant for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is its sheer size and scope, because while many other evolutionary trees have been created, many of them have not been available previously in a digital format for download or analysis.
By making this data readily accessible and editable, it is hoped that this work will help researchers to “fill in the gaps” between what we know and what we don’t know, and to clarify and resolve conflicts in certain branches of phylogeny. It will also serve as a starting point for adding new species as they are discovered and named.
“Twenty five years ago people said this goal of huge trees was impossible. The Open Tree of Life is an important starting point that other investigators can now refine and improve for decades to come.” – Douglas Soltis of the University of Florida, co-author
The Associated Press’ style guide is a kind of Bible for many in the media, and there are plenty of journalists will tell you they’ve become so indoctrinated in its rules that they write everything from emails to texts in AP style. So, when the AP makes changes to its recommendations about a highly covered topic like climate change, plenty of people will be talking about it.
Yesterday, the AP made a change to how it recommends its reporters and editors describe the people we’ve been calling ” climate change deniers” or ” climate change skeptics.” In fact, the AP doesn’t recommend either of those terms, but instead favors either “climate change doubters” or “those who reject mainstream climate science.”
It turns out that the phrase “climate change skeptics” was a basically offensive to scientists who consider themselves skeptics. The AP explains:
“Scientists who consider themselves real skeptics – who debunk mysticism, ESP and other pseudoscience, such as those who are part of the Center for Skeptical Inquiry – complain that non-scientists who reject mainstream climate science have usurped the phrase skeptic.”
But, it turns out that those same skeptical scientists, as well as other groups that work on the issue of climate change, aren’t that enthusiastic about the AP’s recommendation to use “climate change doubter” instead. 350.org’s spokesperson Karthik Ganapathy told the Huffington Post that “doubt seems to imply a lack of clarity – and there is a lack of clarity on some things, like what the ideal solution to climate change is, but there’s zero lack of clarity on whether or not it’s happening.”
The Center for Skeptical Inquiry, which lobbied against “climate change skeptic,” likewise doesn’t like the term “doubter” but endorses “those who reject mainstream climate science.” The later phrase is clear, but sadly not concise.
Meanwhile, the AP also doesn’t recommend “climate change denier” because it has “the pejorative ring of Holocaust denier.” This recommended change has been met with more resistance.
One can make the case that “denier” has the right corrective sting to deal with people confronted with an overwhelming body of evidence that they are wrong. So often, we associate “denying” with opposing the truth, as someone who is in denial is someone who fails to see reality.
So, how are other publications handling the AP announcement? Grist says they’ll stick with the term “deniers.” Erik Wemple at the Washington Post finds the “argument that the term ‘denier’ can’t be paired with another term without tinging it with Holocaust implications” to be “specious” and seems like a “a dicey precedent.”
Of course, the debate also offers a delicious opportunity to propose other alternatives. Personally, I could go for “unhelpful climate womp womps” or “lying hypocrites who make money from the fossil fuel industry.” Feel free to add yours in the comments!
The divestment movement is really gaining steam – non-coal, non-fossil-fuel powered steam.
Investors representing $2.6 trillion in assets have pledged to cut fossil fuels from their portfolios, a fifty-fold increase from last year. At least 436 institutions have pledged to stop investing in fossil fuels – for moral or financial reasons. Large pension funds and private companies make up 95 percent of the assets, according to analysis released Tuesday by Arabella Advisors.
“If these numbers tell us anything, it’s that the divestment movement is catching fire,” said May Boeve, executive director of campaigners 350.org.
Actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who established a fund for conservation projects in 1998, also announced that he would join the movement by divesting his assets and those of the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation.
“Mainstream financial views of fossil fuels will never be the same,” Ellen Dorsey, executive director of the Wallace Daniel Fund, said at a press conference Tuesday. “It is increasingly clear that it is neither OK nor smart to be invested in fossil fuels.”
The divestment movement has two primary components: The idea that owning fossil fuel investments is tantamount to funding climate change, and the idea that the fossil fuel industry itself is poised to lose value over the long term.
“The movement has exposed the embedded vulnerabilities in the fossil fuel industries, from carbon reserves that can never be burned to wasting of company funds on continued exploration for new fossil fuels that can never be used,” Dorsey said. “You are increasingly risking the value of your portfolio if you stay invested in fossil fuels.”
Another analysis found that Massachusetts’ pension plan lost half a billion dollars in the last fiscal year through its fossil fuel investments, ThinkProgress reported Monday.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, as the divestment movement’s reach expands, its geographic footprint does, too. Since last year, the number of divesting foundations based outside the United States has increased from 20 to 34 percent, according to Tuesday’s report. Likewise, the number of universities has expanded from 14 to 40, now representing $130 billion in assets.
“When an organization divests, there’s an acknowledgment of the seriousness of climate change and an acknowledgment that some of these [fossil fuel] companies bear some of the responsibility and could be viewed as part of the problem,” Will Lana, a partner at Trillium Asset Management, told ThinkProgress. “It takes a lot of courage for an institution to recognize that, even if it’s clearly the case,” he added.
That’s a far cry from divesting. But the smaller move appears to have been spurred by Pope Francis’ visit to the United States this week. The pope has been outspoken in the need to act on climate change, which has alienated some U.S. Catholics. Georgetown University, another Catholic institution, has already voted to divest from coal.
In addition to DiCaprio, 2,039 other individual investors have pledged to withdraw from fossil fuel investments. And it is becoming easier for people concerned about climate change to track their money. A website launched last week, Fossil Free Funds, allows people to check their mutual funds and retirement plans for fossil fuel investments.
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