Valhalla is a growing tribe of storytellers out to proliferate freedom culture
by igniting a global passion for sustainability, self-reliance, and collaborative action.

The Plan to Make California Wet By Bringing Back Beavers

by

Ending the drought in the West will require rain- not too much rain-and smarter ways to collect and store that water. But something else that can keep things moist? Believe it or not: Beavers.

According to a story in Water Deeply, a group of ecologists have a plan to help repopulate the Central Coast of California with Castor canadensis, the large beavers which once roamed the state in great numbers. (Not to be confused with their ancestors, giant beavers that were seven feet long.) The idea is that beavers are nature’s hydrologists, engineering the way that water travels through the landscape:

“Beavers aren’t actually creating more water, but they are altering how it flows, which creates benefits through the ecosystem,” says Michael Pollock, an ecosystems analyst and beaver specialist at the National Marine Fisheries Service Northwest Science Center.

Beavers were nearly eradicated by humans because they were interfering with our logging and fishing industries. But that’s exactly why beavers need to return. Rivers and streams that have been diverted by humans are designed to remove water quickly from the watershed, destroying local habitats for animals and making it more difficult for an ecosystem to recover from drought. Beavers build infrastructure which help to slow the flow of water, letting it recharge local aquifers, and preventing erosion which helps keep plants alive.

Not everyone is a fan of the Bring Back the Beaver campaign. Ecologists can’t agree where beavers originally lived, for one, so they aren’t sure where they should be reintroduced. And they don’t want to end up with an invasive species, which is what happened in South America. But some scientists aren’t waiting around for a consensus. The Yurok Tribal Fisheries Program is taking matters into its own hands, hiring humans to build their own beaver-like structures to mimic the rodents’ beneficial environmental impact. It sounds like a dam good idea.

[ Water Deeply]

Local Brazilian Start-Ups Challenge Status Quo; Experiment with New Ways of Doing Business

by

As Latin America’s largest economy and the host of the 2016 Olympic Games, Brazil is a regular fixture in international news. It’s also widely recognized for its agenda on sustainable development issues, especially for reducing deforestation and pioneering clean energy. However, progress remains uneven as the country is struggling to come to terms with one of the worst droughts in history, a chain of corruption scandals and continuing dependence on fossil fuels.

 

SustainAbility recently met with Álvaro Almeida and Rúbia Piancastelli of report:sustentabilidade, Brazil-based sustainability advisory firm and organizer of Sustainable Brands Rio, to talk about the country’s changing sustainability landscape.

Sustentabilidade Rio Brazil
Report Sustentabilidade was featured in the press and media throughout many different outlet genres. They also work with local community projects.

 

Aiste Brackley: How would you describe the current corporate sustainability landscape in Brazil? What were the dominant themes at this year’s conference?

report:sustentabilidade: With our conference, we seek to push the boundaries of conversation about corporate sustainability in Brazil, challenging ourselves and businesses to imagine what is possible. This year we decided that it was the right time to explore the topics of circular economy and innovation. While many Brazilian companies are working on reducing waste, their thinking predominantly remains embedded in linear models. We would like to challenge companies to think how the circular approach could be integrated into a business model from the very beginning. It is an entirely new way of thinking about design and production.

We also think that Brazilian businesses are ready for a more rigorous conversation about the sharing economy and business model innovation in large companies. This question is especially relevant in the context of the increasingly vibrant social innovation scene. The start-up scene is burgeoning in Brazil with many of them offering innovative solutions that large companies could potentially adopt and scale.

Could you share some examples of innovative corporate sustainability strategies by local companies?

Probably the most widely known example is that of the local beauty products manufacturer Natura. It is leading the field by setting ambitious net positive goals and planning its sustainability strategy as far as 2050. Coca-Cola and Natura are now jointly working with local açai growers in the Amazon to improve their livelihoods and reduce deforestation, a great example of collaboration between large companies.

Another interesting case is , Brazil’s largest retailer, which has also been a leader on sustainability issues. GPA has pioneered a progressive model of working with communities in the Rio de Janeiro and San Paolo neighborhoods, where its supermarkets are located.

In a way, many sustainability leadership examples in Brazil point to collaboration. Getting companies to unite their efforts, seeking synergies and common ground between parallel initiatives will be key to achieving impact.

Our surveys show that Latin America is one of the few regions where local companies dominate sustainability leadership rankings. In many other parts of the world, Unilever and Patagonia are universally seen as dominant players.

Yes, we also see that trend. We ran a survey of conference participants and Natura was overwhelmingly regarded to be the front-runner, with Itaú Unibanco and Unilever taking the second and third spots, respectively.

While we are seeing a lot of progress, for many businesses integrating sustainability into core operations remains to be a major challenge. It is often coupled with lack of a long-term vision and a focus on immediate, short-term issues.

To what extent is this absence of long-term perspective a result of relatively nascent corporate sustainability agendas? Or is it rather a consequence of the current political and economic climate?

Economic and political climate is very important but many Brazilian companies are also facing a challenge of progressing from the very basic understanding of sustainability as simply mitigating negative effects to actually creating net positive impact. I believe this transition is the next big mission for Brazilian companies.

The current economic crisis and corruption scandals have a big impact on business and especially on local companies that primarily rely on the Brazilian market. While global companies are also impacted, they are more resilient to these fluctuations. In their sustainability strategy, most multilateral corporations including Dow Chemical, Unilever, L’Oréal, rely heavily on guidance from corporate headquarters. However, in the past couple of years we have seen the Brazilian branches of some large international companies adopt sustainability strategies that are uniquely designed to address local challenges in Brazil, and that is a very welcome development.

What other sustainability issues are now top-of-mind for companies in Brazil?

Recent corruption scandals have had an effect on many aspects of life in Brazil, including business. Just like in so many other parts of the world, water scarcity is a major concern. The current water crisis is increasingly being linked by scientists to deforestation in the Amazon, another major challenge facing the country. Reducing waste is also a major issue on the corporate sustainability agenda. New environmental regulations, introduced a few years ago, are forcing companies to introduce new measures to reduce waste and rethink packaging. There is also a lot of interest by Brazilian companies in Sustainable Development Goals, with many pursuing partnerships through the UN Global Compact.

And while the Brazilian government is heavily invested in lead-up negotiations to the UN climate change conference in Paris (COP21), for most companies, the energy conversation is first and foremost about efficiency. Our economy remains to be heavily reliant on fossil fuels and hydropower and regulatory incentives are still lacking to advance other forms of renewable energy.

What is the next frontier for Brazilian companies?

Brazilian companies understand well the relevance of CSR and in the last 15 years have made a lot of progress improving sustainability management and embedding it in their governance. But I believe that the understanding of corporate responsibility remains limited. The next step for companies is to create solutions to the challenges that our society faces today and transform those challenges into business opportunities. This is the next big frontier and we are already seeing many promising examples that this transformation is under the way.

This is the third installment in a series of four blogs about Latin America. To find out more about sustainability issues shaping the debate in Latin America, view the presentation deck and listen to the recording of our mid-year Trends webinar. And, you can read our first and second installments of the series, too. For over 25 years SustainAbility has provided companies with timely intelligence and interpretation of emerging sustainability issues and trends. For more information about our bespoke trends service and how your company can benefit from it, please contact Aiste Brackley.

Air pollutants are entering our bodies through our skin, study finds

by

In heavily polluted areas, we all know that we should try to avoid inhaling whatever toxins are floating around as much as possible. That’s why when pollution gets especially bad in China, people are advised to stay indoors, and it’s one of the reasons behind the rise in surgical masks being worn in Tokyo, Japan.

But a new study has found that when it comes to certain airborne pollutants, called phthalates, our skin can absorb just as much as we’re breathing in. “We’re big sponges for these chemicals,” lead researcher, John Kissel from the University of Washington in the US, told Science News.

Phthalates are a group of ‘semi-volatile’ chemicals that are used to make plastic soft and flexible, or as dissolving agents for other types of materials, and are found in all kinds of cosmetics, fragrances, and household cleaners. Derived from oil, around 2 million tonnes of phthalates are produced across the world each year, and more than 20 different types are in common use.

Over the past 50 years, they’ve become the most widely used ‘plasticisers’ in the world, but growing concern over what prolonged exposure – through indoor air, dust, and food packaging, for example – is doing to our health has seen some types banned in Europe and the US.

Studies have shown that phthalates can end up in our bloodstream, breast milk, and urine, and they’ve been classified as ‘endocrine disruptors’, because of the way they affect our body’s hormonal systems, such as the oestrogen and androgen hormone systems.

Preliminary research has linked certain phthalates to the incidences of asthma, with a 2008 study suggesting that heated PVC fumes could contribute to development of asthma in adults, while phthalate exposure in the home could put children at a higher risk of asthma and allergies. There are also indications that exposure could lead to a higher risk of breast cancer, but the research has not yet been definitive.

Kissel and his colleagues wanted to investigate the effect of ‘dermal uptake’ – or absorption through the skin – on the levels of phthalates found in human bloodstreams. They recruited six healthy male participants, and exposed them to elevated air concentrations of two types of phthalates: diethyl phthalate (DEP) and di(n-butyl) phthalate (DnBP). According to Tim Sandle at The Latest News, DEP is used as a solvent in personal care products, such as moisturiser, and DnBP is used as a plasticiser in products like nail polish.

The six volunteers were exposed to the chemicals over a 6-hour period in a special chamber, first with specialised breathing hoods on that prevented them from inhaling any of the phthalates, and then without hoods the following week. The only other clothes they were allowed to wear during exposure was shorts, and they were placed on a restricted diet and restricted use of personal care products 12 hours before entering the chamber and until their urine was collected 66 hours later.

“Metabolite concentrations were lower when the participants were exposed to chamber air while wearing a hood, but the levels were still substantially higher than levels measured before the participants entered the chamber, indicating significant uptake of DEP and DnBP while participants were wearing a hood,” the researchers report in the journal Environmental Health Perspective.

The team found that the dermal uptake of DEP was about 10 percent higher than its inhalation intake, and the dermal uptake of DnBP was 82 percent of its inhalation intake. And the older the participant, the higher the dermal uptakes of both DEP and DnBP from the air. They said that based on the very limited sample of six, the impact of age was surprisingly strong. “The uptake of DEP by the 66-year-old is five times greater than that of the 27-year-old, while the uptake of DnBP is seven times greater,” they report.

The researchers are yet to test how wearing more than just shorts would affect phthalate levels, and yep, that sample size is tiny, but the results warrant some follow-up investigations. Skin is the largest organ in the human body, so if it’s really not protecting us against these commonly used chemicals, that’s a problem. Earlier research has shown that semi-volatile chemicals like phthalates tend to pass through the skin relatively slowly, but they could still build up to damaging levels over several years.

“[I]f the whole body is exposed, then even low rates of exposure can deliver what turns out to be nontrivial amounts of these chemicals,” Kissel told Janet Raloff at Science News.

Consumer Reports Study Finds that Nearly All Ground Beef Sold in America Has Feces in It

by

The megalithic federal bureaucracy known as the U.S. Department of Agriculture is made up of 100,000 employees who are stationed at 4,500 locations across the country. Their mission statement, in part, reads “to promote agriculture production that better nourishes Americans.”

A recent study by Consumer Reports, however, shows that nourishing Americans consists of feeding them deadly superbugs, food poisoning pathogens, and feces.

meatball sandwich ground beef feces reports
A Meatball Sub, served with mozzarella, marinara and tasty feces.

 

While it’s not surprising to the readers of the Free Thought Project that the US government could fail so miserably in their stated mission, this recent study exhibits an unrivaled level of incompetence within this behemoth bureaucracy.

Consumer Reports tested several hundred packages of ground meat from stores across America, and their findings were shocking, to say the least.

According to the report,

New lab tests conducted by Consumer Reports found that of the 300 packages of ground beef purchased in stores across the country, almost all contained bacteria that signified fecal contamination.

More than 40 percent contained Staphylococcus aureus. Almost 20 percent contained Clostridium perfringens, which causes nearly 1 million cases of food poisoning annually, many related to beef.

A significant amount also contained superbugs, bacteria that are resistant to three or more classes of antibiotics. A key reason is the overuse of antibiotics on cattle farms.

The irony here is that local organic farmers who have harmed no one, are being raided by SWAT teams for selling raw milk, eggs, or grass fed beef. Meanwhile, millions of people are getting sick and dying across the country by government-subsidized factory farms.

In The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan points out how concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), are dependent upon the cost of corn remaining low.

The government ensures these low corn prices by throwing billions of dollars a year the top 1 percent of corn farms in the United States. Since 1995, a whopping $85 billion has been taken from taxpayers and given to corn producers; all of this so you can have poop in your burger.

Aside from the horrific results of feeding corn to cows, there is also the apocalyptic problem of creating superbugs by massively dosing the factory farmed cattle with antibiotics to counter the horrendously dirty conditions in which they live.

“That practice (heavy use of antibiotics) can lead to the creation of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, a major public health problem. If you get sick from these bugs, your infection can be difficult to treat,” said Urvashi Rangan, Ph.D., director of Food Safety and Sustainability at Consumer Reports.

The consumer reports study wasn’t all doom and gloom, however. When they tested the sustainably produced, antibiotic-free, grass-fed cattle, they found that these were far less likely to have any of the bacteria.

“This study is significant, because it’s among the largest scientific studies to show that sustainable methods of raising cattle can produce cleaner and safer ground beef,” Rangan said.

Of course, “big government beef” is upset and defensive about these findings. When consumer reports contacted the National Cattleman’s Beef Association for a statement, they received this single comment from Kansas State University professor Mike Apley:

If all cattle were grass-fed, we’d have less beef, and it would be less affordable. Since grass doesn’t grow on pasture year-round in many parts of the country, feed lots evolved to make the most efficient use of land, water, fuel, labor and feed.

Amazingly enough, however, farmers can sustainably raise organic cattle to meet the market demand, without using government subsidized corn. Instead of massive amounts of chemical and mechanical inputs, the organic farmers can plan for the harsh winter months by saving the surplus from summer months.

The good news is that the demand is shifting from factory farmed cattle to sustainable and humanely raised cattle. Despite the best attempts of the USDA to regulate sustainable farms to death, they are thriving as demand increases.

Even some fast food chains are adopting this sustainable method. In December, California-based quick-service chain Carl’s Jr. rolled out the All-Natural Burger, which sources solely grass-fed beef from Austrailia.

Besides Carl’s Jr., a grass-fed burger chain called Farm Burger, has begun to spring up from coast to coast.

Besides sustainable beef, there is also the option of no beef. One of the fastest growing categories in food choice happens to be vegetarian.

In the information age, ignorance is a choice, and it seems that it’s a choice more, and more people are avoiding. While this study shows that we still have an uphill battle when it comes to healthy, non-taxpayer subsidized food, it is only a matter of time before we reach critical mass.

Lawenforcementchallengecoins.com: Get Law Enforcement Challenge Coins

by

Custom Law Enforcement Challenge Coins for Police

Law Enforcement Challenge Coins is your one-stop virtual store for amazing challenge coins. We are the manufacturers of the finest quality challenge coins for Law Enforcement Officials. The law enforcement challenge coins are highly affordable and act as a major recognition symbol for the police force.

Police force slogs to reduce the fear of crime and protect the society. Their job is quite diverse and challenging. The key priority of every policeman is to maintain the decorum of the country and serve for the safety of the citizens. They are so much dedicated to their duties, that they often don’t celebrate the happiness of life. Challenge coins are one of the best ways to boost their energy level and remind them that they are one of the most valued parts of the society. These coins will be more than a memoir; they will serve as an honor to the dedication of the police force.

Even if you are clueless about the design of the coin, you can approach us and our highly creative graphic designer will mail you the designs as per your requirements. Our custom challenge coins will leave your jaws dropped at the very first sight. Recognize the hard work of police department and appreciate them with our customized coins.

Three Ways to request your free design and quote:

The coming era of unlimited – and free – clean energy

by

In the 1980s, leading consultants were skeptical about cellular phones. McKinsey & Company noted that the handsets were heavy, batteries didn’t last long, coverage was patchy, and the cost per minute was exorbitant. It predicted that in 20 years the total market size would be about 900,000 units, and advised AT&T to pull out. McKinsey was wrong, of course. There were more than 100 million cellular phones in use in 2000; there are billions now. Costs have fallen so far that even the poor – all over world – can afford a cellular phone.

The experts are saying the same about solar energy now. They note that after decades of development, solar power hardly supplies 1 percent of the world’s energy needs. They say that solar is inefficient, too expensive to install, and unreliable, and will fail without government subsidies. They too are wrong. Solar will be as ubiquitous as cellular phones are.

Futurist Ray Kurzweil notes that solar power has been doubling every two years for the past 30 years – as costs have been dropping. He says solar energy is only six doublings – or less than 14 years – away from meeting 100 percent of today’s energy needs. Energy usage will keep increasing, so this is a moving target. But, by Kurzweil’s estimates, inexpensive renewable sources will provide more energy than the world needs in less than 20 years. Even then, we will be using only one part in 10,000 of the sunlight that falls on the Earth.

In places such as Germany, Spain, Portugal, Australia, and the Southwest United States, residential-scale solar production has already reached ” grid parity ” with average residential electricity prices. In other words, it costs no more in the long term to install solar panels than to buy electricity from utility companies. The prices of solar panels have fallen 75 percent in the past five years alone and will fall much further as the technologies to create them improve and scale of production increases. By 2020, solar energy will be price-competitive with energy generated from fossil fuels on an unsubsidized basis in most parts of the world. Within the next decade, it will cost a fraction of what fossil-fuel-based alternatives do.

It isn’t just solar production that is advancing at a rapid rate; there are also technologies to harness the power of wind, biomass, thermal, tidal, and waste-breakdown energy, and research projects all over the world are working on improving their efficiency and effectiveness. Wind power, for example, has also come down sharply in price and is now competitive with the cost of new coal-burning power plants in the United States. It will, without doubt, give solar energy a run for its money. There will be breakthroughs in many different technologies, and these will accelerate overall progress.

Despite the skepticism of experts and criticism by naysayers, there is little doubt that we are heading into an era of unlimited and almost free clean energy. This has profound implications.

First, there will be disruption of the entire fossil-fuel industry, starting with utility companies – which will face declining demand and then bankruptcy. Several of them see the writing on the wall. The smart ones are embracing solar and wind power. Others are lobbying to stop the progress of solar power – at all costs. Witness how groups in Oklahoma persuaded lawmakers to approve a surcharge on solar installations; the limited victory that groups backed by the Koch brothers won in Arizona to impose a $5 per month surcharge; and the battles being waged in other states. They are fighting a losing battle, however, because the advances aren’t confined to the United States. Countries such as Germany, China, and Japan are leading the charge in the adoption of clean energies. Solar installations still depend on other power sources to supply energy when the sun isn’t shining, but battery-storage technologies will improve so much over the next two decades that homes won’t be dependent on the utility companies. We will go from debating incentives for installing clean energies to debating subsidies for utility companies to keep their operations going.

The environment will surely benefit from the elimination of fossil fuels, which will also boost most sectors of the economy. Electric cars will become cheaper to operate than fossil-fuel-burning ones, for example. We will be able to create unlimited clean water – by boiling ocean water and condensing it. With inexpensive energy, our farmers can also grow hydroponic fruits and vegetables in vertical farms located near consumers. Imagine skyscrapers located in cities that grow food in glass buildings without the need for pesticides, and that recycle nutrients and materials to ensure there is no ecological impact. We will have the energy needed to 3D-print our everyday goods and to heat our homes.

We are surely heading into the era of abundance that Peter Diamandis has written about – the era when the basic needs of humanity are met through advancing technologies. The challenge for mankind will be to share this abundance, ensuring that these technologies make the world a better place.

Hemp For Human Consumption

by

Hi, my name is Hemp and I AM a Super-Food of the future… although I AM already here for your benefit today!! Before I explain how I literally save lives, let’s take a quick look at my general health benefits, and then further explore some profound truths that should shock you at the very least… that’s right: hemp is food 😉

I belong to the same family of plants as mulberry, and I easily survive in nearly every climate on Earth, therefore I AM a tough plant without the need for any pesticides or herbicides, making me not only an extremely useful and beneficial plant, but also extremely Gaia friendly… I look after the planet I live in and those that reside here.

I AM part of the oldest industry on the planet, going back 10,000 years and spanning all across the globe… from Columbia, to China, to North America, India, Sumeria, Mesopotamia, Persia, Central America, and of course Australia. I have been known by many names by different cultures, and there are even many towns named after me in reference to locations where I was once grown, and in many cases still do grow.

In the early 1930’s I was subject to one of the greatest media conspiracies of the 20th century, and still to this day, the humans and planet Earth are both suffering because of it… unnecessarily albeit. There is a lot that may be discussed about why “The New Billion Dollar Crop” promise of hemp was not fulfilled, although that is a discussion for another day as today we are talking about my almost too good to be true health benefits. If you are interested here is a quick video, please do bear in mind that the video discusses ‘ Marijuana‘ and ‘ Hemp ‘… two sides of the same coin really, as explained below.

Now back to non-psychoactive Hemp and all my wonderful health benefits: I naturally contain all Amino Acids and I AM the richest source of botanical polyunsaturated essential fatty acids (omega 3-6 in the correct proportion, including the rare Gamma Linolenic Acid (GLA) and Stearidonic Acid (SDA)). Polyunsaturated fats can help reduce bad cholesterol levels in your blood which can lower your risk of heart disease and stroke. They also provide nutrients to help develop and maintain your body’s cells. Foods rich in polyunsaturated fats also contribute vitamin E to the diet, an antioxidant vitamin most Australians need more of. Foods rich in polyunsaturated fats also provide essential fats that your body needs but can’t produce itself. You must get essential fats through food. Omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids are important for many bodily functions, and I AM the perfect food to provide you with all the essential fatty acids you need!

I AM high in vegetable protein (the building blocks of any living organisms).

I AM high in folate which is exceptional for women… in addition to helping create healthy fetuses; it also seems to prevent cervical cancer and can reduce osteoporosis. Folate is also great for both sexes, like many vitamins and nutrients, helps combat heart disease. It also releases serotonin, which makes it act as a mild antidepressant.

I AM high in chlorophyll, with the health benefits including strengthening of blood making organs, prevention of anemia and abundance of oxygen in the body. Loaded with antioxidant power, chlorophyll exerts beneficial effects towards various medical conditions such as cancer, insomnia, dental ailments, sinusitis, pancreatitis and kidney stones. Chlorophyll helps in normal blood clotting, wound healing, hormonal balance, deodorizing and detoxification of the body and promotes digestive health. It has healing effects on oxidation and inflammatory conditions such as arthritis and fibromyalgia. Chlorophyll has anti-aging and anti-microbial properties and helps strengthen the immune system. Be sure to read this article on chlorophyll health benefits.

I AM a rich source of phytonutrients (health-promoting properties including antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and liver-health-promoting activities).

I contain over twenty trace minerals within the edible seed, and my leaves are also edible, containing a high percentage of silica which is useful for building strong bones and beautiful skin, hair and nails… what woman, man, or child would say no to that??!! I AM also rich in fiber, and when made into tea taste absolutely incredible, whilst being an amazing antimicrobial. I AM Hemp and as you can see: I AM For Human Consumption!!

All parts of me are useful, and I may be made into virtually anything that is currently made of cotton, timber or petroleum. I may be used to produce nearly every major category of commercial product including hemp body care which includes soaps and lotions and etc… hemp textiles such as clothing and fabrics which are stronger, more durable, more insulated, more mildew and mold resistant, and easier to produce than textiles made from cotton, with natural UV protection… hemp paper with higher yields in a fraction of the time which lasts longer and improves the environment… hemp rope which made sailing possible in the first place… hemp plastics which may easily replace all the toxic petrochemical products such as paints, solvents, and the like… hemp building materials such as fiberboard, insulation, carpet, fiberglass substitutes, cement blocks, concrete, stucco, mortar, medium density fiber (MDF) composite boards… hemp fuel and hemp vehicles… I think you’re starting to see the picture of just how awesome I AM… although we are here to discuss my many health benefits for children and adults.

Leading researchers and medical doctors consider hemp to be one of the most nutritious food sources on the planet… and as already mentioned, I AM one of the best sources of plant protein and fat as found in my seed. I contain all the essential amino acids and essential fatty acids necessary to maintain healthy human life. To call me a Super-Food is an understatement… it’s in your best interests to eat me. To learn more, just ask David Wolfe or any other health food expert. Hemp is a food and medicine of the future!

OK… so by now you are bound to understand that I AM Hemp and I AM an extremely nutritious Super-Food… as you may have noticed, I look extremely similar to ‘Marijuana… that’s because essentially we are the one and the same thing with our proper and more scientific name being “Cannabis Sativa”… it’s just that as a species we have hundreds of different subspecies varieties that vary in the chemical makeup of the plant, including the cannabinoid profile… it’s the cannabinoids (85+) found in us plants that really pack a health punch as you will further see… and we will be taking a closer look at Cannabidiol (CBD) as that is the secret sauce for treating a number of ailments… The best news is that it’s abundantly available through proper Hemp consumption!!

In Australia, if the THC component of the “Cannabis Sativa” plant is more than 1%… then the ‘authorities’ classify the plant as ‘Marijuana’… however if the THC component is less than 1% then the ‘authorities’ classify the plant as ‘Hemp’… so as you can see it’s the same species of plant, just different subspecies have different cannabinoid profiles… with THC and CBD being the two main cannabinoids found within the plant.

THC is considered psychoactive and has its own health benefits and medical uses, although since we are talking about Hemp, we will not be discussing those today. Just like THC may be increased or decreased in ‘Marijuana’ plants through cross breading, the same is possible for CBD in Hemp. So what exactly is Cannabidiol (CBD) and why is it one of the most important factors for human health in today’s day and age?

Natural CBD as found abundantly in certain subspecies of Hemp, such as ‘ Charlotte’s Web ‘, is being used in certain parts of the world as an appealing treatment option for patients seeking relief from a range of symptoms and ailments… such as Dravet’s Sydnrome. ‘Charlotte’s Web’ has been proclaimed as ‘Cannabis Oil’ although the ‘Charlotte’s Web Medical Hemp Act of 2014’ clearly defines ‘Charlotte’s Web’ as Hemp as the THC component is less than 1%… it’s the medicinal CBD component that is high.

Scientific and clinical studies underscore CBD’s potential as a treatment for a wide range of conditions including (but not limiting to) arthritis, diabetes, alcoholism, multiple sclerosis, chronic pain, psychosis, schizophrenia, PTSD, antibiotic-resistant infections, epilepsy, and other disorders which may or may not be neurological. Cannabidiol (CBD) has demonstrated neuroprotective and neurogenic effects, with it’s anti-cancer properties continually being investigated at academic research centre’s in the United States of America, Israel, and abroad elsewhere. CBD is ‘THE’ dietary supplement and Super-Food of the future, available to ALL today!! I AM Hemp and I AM For Human Consumption… both as a SuperFood and a SuperMedicine!!

If you’ve read the above information and resonate with the message… then be sure to share this message and website with those that you love to help make this world we live in a better place for all… Other than tasty hemp milk for your smoothies, and fresh hemp bread for your morning toast, and hemp dressing for your afternoon salad… there are hundreds if not thousands of hemp products with the potential to positively impact the health and food industries. This final video showcases some more medicinal hemp products as being produced elsewhere, please do watch and then share this website with everyone you know… and have yourself the best day ever

How to Design a Solar PV System

by

Information and Numbers sourced from www.leonics.com

There are many types of solar systems, such as solar water heaters, solar convection fans, and passive solar systems; the main focus of this post is the Solar Photovoltaic system. This system provides a renewable source of power by converting the energy from photons that collide with the solar cells into usable energy that our appliances use.

The components of the system include the panel, the charge controller, the inverter, batteries, all of your appliances, and any auxiliary power source.

  • The panels convert sunlight to energy, although due to constraints of current technology and the laws of thermodynamics, the average efficiency of panels in the best conditions are about 15%-25%.
  • The charge controller will protect your batteries by not allowing them to overcharge which will ruin your battery.
  • The inverter converts the power from the panels from DC to AC, which is what all of our appliances, computers, phones, TVs use.
  • The battery stores the power from the panels; it is important to get a deep cycle battery that can be recharged and discharged over and over. Car batteries are the wrong kind of battery, especially if powering a house.

To get the most efficient system in terms of cost and power, one needs to first figure out how much power is used during a day.

  1. Determine your power consumption demands by doing two things. First calculate the watt-hours used by each appliance per day. Most appliances will list the watt-hours somewhere, and you just multiply that by the hours it is used. Next, all the watt-hours from all your appliances are added up, and this becomes your total watt-hours for your house. Finally you should take this number and multiply it by 1.3. This will be the amount of power your panels need to gather each day as a minimum. It is also good to overshoot this number to be sure you can gather as much as possible in the event of bad weather.
  2. Sizing up the PV system is the next part. This involves the determination of your areas Insolation, or hours of good sunlight, and the rated efficiency and watt output of your panels. In Durham, as well as most of North Carolina, we have an Insolation of about 5. This means that we take our watt-hours we determined we needed and divide it by the Insolation to determine the amount of watt-hours needed by each panel. This number is then divided by the rated output of the panels you have available, which will give you the number of panels needed. It is important to note that this number is the minimum and to prolong the life of your systems and batteries, as well as achieving better performance, extra panels should be installed.
  3. The inverter should be chosen based on the total wattage of your house. It should be rated to handle 25-30 percent more wattage than all your appliances can use at once. This will make sure that you don’t overload and bust your inverter, which can be expensive. In a grid-tied system, the inverter should be rated to the output of the PV panels.
  4. The batteries should be sized next. Take the total watt-hours per day used by the appliances and divides by 0.85 to account for battery loss. Divide this answer by 0.6 for depth of discharge, as the battery should never be discharged below 60% of its capacity. Divide this number the voltage of the battery and then multiply this number by the days of autonomy, or days you need to operate without input from the panels, and this will give you the Amp-hours of your system, or the batter capacity needed.
  5. The charge controller should match the voltage of both the panels and batteries, and should be able to handle a shirt circuit of the system.

Some basic calculations would like this:

  1. Determine Appliance Use = (18 W * 4 hours) +(60 W * 2 Hours) + (75 W *24 *0.5 hours) = 1092 Wh/day
  2. Total PV panels energy needed = 1092 *1.3 = 1419.6 Wh/day
  3. Total Wp of PV Panel capacity needed = 1419.6 / 5 = 283.92 Wp
  4. Number of panels Needed = 283.92 / 110 = 2.58 panels or 3 panels (4 panels for wiring simplicity)
  5. Inverter Sizing = 18 + 60 + 75 = 153 W * 1.25 = 191 W atleast
  6. Battery Capacity = ([(18 W * 4 Hrs) = (60 W * 2 Hrs) + (75 W * 24 Hrs * 0.5)] * 3 Days of Autonomy) / ( 0.85 * 0.6 * 12) = 535.29 Ah — So Battery should be rated 12 V 600 Ah for 3 days of autonomy

This is just the basics and a knowledge of basic electronics and the terms will come in handy.

Ending the Cycle of Violence in Israel and Palestine

by

Aziz Abu Sarah is a Palestinian born in Jerusalem, who grew up throwing stones at Israeli soldiers and fighting against the occupation. His brother was tortured and died from trauma sustained in Israeli prison when Aziz was just ten years old. Yet he now fights for peace.

I first met Aziz in 2009 at a J Street conference in Washington, D.C., and was captivated by his story. A couple friends from the Center for Ecological Living and Learning and I later had the privilege of touring Jerusalem and Tel Aviv with him as we scoped out a trip to the region.

Aziz Abu Sarah

Changing the narrative

Aziz demonstrated a passion for, and deep knowledge of the history of the area. And as a Jerusalemite, he had an intimate understanding and grasp of the narratives of both sides, Israeli and Palestinian. Aziz showed a deep love for the Holy Land and all its people, and a special compassion for those mired in prejudices, hatred, and violence. It’s just as he describes in this video: he was there once and knows what that feels like. But he’s discovered a better way.

I wish every Israeli and Palestinian could watch this video and imbibe its message. I wish each one of us who has ever wished for “justice” in the name of revenge could hear the wisdom from someone who has pursued that path and realized its ultimate futility. If we each meted out justice as we see fit, it would never end. Nor does it make you feel better to take revenge, says Aziz, only “more bitter and more empty.” I so admire Aziz’s transformation and the courageous path he has chosen to spread the lessons he’s learned as far and wide as possible.

Faiths working together for peace

Recent clashes in Jerusalem and the West Bank reveal escalating tit-for-tat violence and a heightened state of unrest, whether it’s the shooting of Palestinian protesters, multiple stabbings of Israelis, growing protests on both sides, and heated tension over the sensitive, Muslim-controlled Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

The latter, especially, is seen as evidence that the conflict is taking on increasingly religious tones, which, according to Danny Seiderman, head of Terrestrial Jerusalem, “is planting the seeds of the transformation of a political conflict, which can be solved, into a religious conflict which cannot be solved. We are seeing the ascendancy of those faith communities that weaponize faith. We are seeing the marginalization of traditional religious bodies who understand that Jerusalem is best served by the faiths working together.”

United for peace

The shift from violence to unity

All the more reason to wake up to the truth Aziz is espousing-that it doesn’t help to respond with violence. The familiar Gandhi quote, “An eye for an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind,” is particularly relevant here. Moreover, religious communities, especially, could be building on common ground and working together to solve problems through faith in God which can unite them. United Religions Initiative’s many cooperation circles in the Middle East are doing just that.

Aziz Abu Sarah is Executive Director at the George Mason Center for World Religions, Diplomacy, and Conflict Resolution and co-founder of MEJDI Tours, which leads trips to the Middle East with a dual narrative focus. He has a fabulous TED talk and a blog to follow. Most of all, he’s kind, funny, and a wonderful human being.

WORDS BY JANESSA WILDER
ORIGINALLY APPEARED ON EUPHRATES

10 Ways Healthy Eating Transforms Your Mind More Than Your Body

by

“We forget that, historically, people have eaten for a great many reasons other than biological necessity. Food is also about pleasure, about community, about family and spirituality, about our relationship to the natural world, and about expressing our identity.” – Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto.

When people turn to healthy eating, they generally do it with one goal in mind: to become healthier and skinnier. My goal was to improve my health. I wanted to eliminate my gut problems, my skin problems, minimize the rate at which I got colds and flu, and feel amazing from the inside out. I was so excited by all the health benefits whole foods could empower me with that I began my quest of healing through food.

Of course it wasn’t so easy at first. I made a lot of mistakes. When I learned that I should quit refined sugar, I switched it for brown sugar. When I learned I shouldn’t eat added sugar at all, I bought juices sweetened with Splenda. When I learned packaged juices and artificial sweeteners are even worse for you, I threw out an entire package of the aforementioned juices. It was a rocky start, but I wasn’t giving up.

I began questioning everything I decided to buy and eat and I encouraged my family to do the same. My family wasn’t as amazed by these newly found benefits as I was. At first, I would get on my dad’s nerves when I suggested him to stop buying 2-litre sodas or when I explained that Welch’s grape juice contained high fructose corn syrup.

Switching to a wholesome diet and ditching unhealthy foods got me what I initially wanted: I stopped having gut problems, my skin clarified, and my colds and flu diminished at a dramatic rate. I was healthier, but I noticed that improving my diet not only benefited my body, it created a profound change in my mindset. I became more self-loving, happier, more mindful, and more grateful.

If you’re going through a healthy eating journey, or if you’re just thinking about taking a small step towards eating better, these are 10 ways eating well can transform your mindset in a positive way, beyond the physical benefits:

1. You welcome mindfulness into your life

Healthy eating by default turns your attention towards what you consume. It makes you contemplate what you buy, what you cook, and what you bite. You’re no longer mindlessly taking sugary cereal out of a box and calling it breakfast. You become aware that every meal is an opportunity to nurture yourself with healing, delicious, and nutritious food.

This is the main shift I noticed in myself. Every food decision became deliberate and I began to purposely nourish my body with the best possible choices. Becoming aware of what you eat connects you with the moment and snaps you out of autopilot.

2. You become the boss

Once you start making better choices, you shed old patterns and behaviors. You break the status quo. Change makes you question and reject the usual order of things. This good rebellion manifests when instead of grabbing dinner at Taco Bell’s drive-through you decide to use the vegetables sitting in your fridge to make a salad, or simply go out to a non-fast food restaurant.

Every decision you make different empowers you and breaks you free from the norm.

3. You seek improvement

Once you break the status quo, you become aware of the possibilities and often seek to upgrade bit by bit. The spark of change can grow to become a fire. Maybe you switched your fries with a side of salad one day, then you decided to order a healthier meal altogether, and weeks later you decided to cook a homemade dinner for your loved ones.

Seeking an alternative to sugar made me wonder what else I was eating that had a healthier counterpart, which lead me to switch to grass-fed butter, nut milk and whole-wheat bread.

4. You share and connect more

When you experience the benefits of eating well, you want to share it with your loved ones. You want to inspire positive change around you. This doesn’t mean you start nagging or become a health nut, it simply means you share what you know and offer your friends and family a way to eat in a more nourishing way.

Offering a healthy snack at work, inviting friends over for a homemade dinner, talking to your kids about the benefits of sipping that green smoothie, and trying to get your husband or wife on board with a cleaner diet are all ways to share positive information.

Once you start sharing, you also find like-minded people who enjoy a similar lifestyle. This gives you a stronger sense of belonging.

5. You boost your self-love

Once you are motivated to make better eating choices, you accept you’re worthy of better care. Eating habits are profoundly linked to self-esteem and your sense of self-worth. That’s why people with eating disorders also suffer from emotional problems.

Choosing healthy eating is a way of taking care of yourself, of acknowledging your body is sacred and valuable, and of accepting you deserve to feel your best from the inside out. Healthy eating sparked the wish to seek out other ways to nourish myself, like exercising more and taking time to unwind my mind and body through meditation and yoga.

6. You increase your confidence

Healthy eating can boost your confidence and happiness when you set health or weight goals. You feel accomplished because you didn’t cave to that soda, because you nailed a new healthy recipe, or because you could enjoy a delicious breakfast instead of being hungry all morning. In the long term, eating healthier will lead you to your ideal weight, which can improve your self-esteem as well.

I felt amazing a couple of days ago when I decided to cook quinoa hummus cakes for the first time instead of accepting a chicken hamburger.

7. You become more grateful

When you become aware of all of the nourishing foods you have access to, feeling grateful for it comes naturally. When I realized the many options I had to eat better and improve my health, I felt immensely thankful for the opportunity to do so. People living on food stamps and earning a minimum wage don’t often have a choice. Countries with food shortages, droughts, and wars are focused on their basic survival and healthy eating is a luxury.

Healthy eating is a privilege, and I see it as so, so I’m grateful. If you have access to abundant produce and healthy products, realize you have an invaluable source of nourishment and share it if you can.

8. You become an active learner

Just because you decide to eat better doesn’t mean you automatically know how to do it. When you turn to healthy eating, your mind opens to a new field of knowledge. How do you know which ingredients to avoid? Why does this food make you feel bad? Which vegetables are more nutritious? What is gluten exactly? Is sugar that bad? What are superfoods?

Once you start caring, you seek the answers to these questions and more. You research. You ask. You feed your mind new, useful, actionable information, and enjoy the learning process.

9. You spark your creativity

Even if the microwave is the only kitchen appliance you’ve ever used in your life, healthy eating will push you to cook and create. You have to ditch that noodle cup, and take spices, legumes, vegetables, and lean meats and create nutritious meals out of that. When you start browsing easy and healthy recipes that don’t take hours to make (these are of course my favorites), you find smoothies, salads, wraps and a tons of plant-based dishes that are delicious and surprisingly easy.

Taking this first step will make you more inventive in the kitchen and you’ll find yourself thinking about food combinations that will make you excited about preparing lunch. Like Julia Child said, “You learn to cook so that you don’t have to be a slave to recipes. You get what’s in season and you know what to do with it.”

10. Your satisfaction increases

Because choosing to eat better to achieve weight or health goals is a challenging, difficult, and positive transformation, it will make you feel accomplished, satisfied, and proud of your hard work.

Seeing yourself go through the whole process, from the moment you take the first step towards a healthier lifestyle, right until you learn how to make better decisions, lose weight, learn cooking, cure your ailments or feel fantastic, will make you feel like a better version of yourself, and you’d be right. Is there a more rewarding feeling than knowing you accomplished a goal after a lot of willpower and hard work?

My journey so far in healthy eating has showed me the deep connection there is between mind and body. The way you nourish your body reflects in your mind, and anything you create in your mind will manifest in your body.

If you’re thinking about taking a step towards healthy living, or if you’re already in the process, know that it will profoundly affect your mood, self-esteem, motivation, and mentality. And it’s worth it.

How have your eating habits changed your mindset?

Please let me know in the comments below.

Homing In on the Source of Runner’s High

by

We’ve probably all heard someone exclaim, “Ah, my endorphins are kicking in!” at the end of a good run. Endorphins are famous for supposedly producing “runner’s high,” that fleeting sense of calm and euphoria that engulfs many of us after a satisfying workout.

But in fact, endorphins may be unfairly hogging the credit for making workouts enjoyable, according to an enlightening new experiment with animals. The findings suggest that endorphins have little to do with runner’s high. Instead, that euphoric feeling may be the product of a completely different but oddly familiar substance – the body’s own endocannabinoids, the chemicals that, like the cannabinoids in marijuana, lighten mood.

Endorphins first became a household word in the 1980s, when researchers found that blood levels increased after prolonged exercise. This finding made sense. Exercise can cause discomfort or pain, and endorphins are the body’s self-produced opiates, with pain-relieving properties much like morphine.

From that discovery, it was a short step to believing that endorphins must also produce the pleasurable mental sensations that many people feel after exercise.

But there is a substantial problem with that idea, and it involves the substantial-ness of endorphins. They are large molecules, too big to pass through the blood-brain barrier. They might staunch pain in the muscles, but they wouldn’t have effects directly inside the brain, where any high would originate.

So for the past decade or so, scientists have been looking for other substances that might be involved in making exercisers feel high, which led them, perhaps unsurprisingly, to endocannabinoids.

Endocannabinoids are, essentially, internally produced marijuana, or cannabis. Cannabis contains cannabinoid molecules, which are small enough to cross the blood-brain barrier and attach there to receptors, producing a floaty, hey-dude high.

In recent years, scientists have found that exercise raises the levels of endocannabinoids in the bloodstreams of people and animals, making these molecules good candidates to underlie the runner’s high.

But few studies have directly compared the effects of endorphins and endocannabinoids to determine which really makes exercise mildly intoxicating.

So for the new study, which was published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers with the Central Institute of Mental Health at the University of Heidelberg medical school in Mannheim, Germany, rounded up healthy lab mice, tested their anxiety levels by putting them in cages with pockets of darkness and light (anxious animals stick to the shadows), and then gave them running wheels.

Mice generally like running, engaging in the activity even when they are not being pursued. That suggests, researchers believe, that they gain some kind of mental satisfaction or reward from it, experiencing the mouse version of a runner’s high.

That possibility was borne out in an early portion of the new experiment, when the scientists noted elevated levels of both endorphins and endocannabinoids in the animals’ bloodstreams after running. The scientists also found that the animals were more tranquil after running, spending longer periods of time in lighted areas within their cages – something that anxious, twitchy animals won’t do – and that they were more pain tolerant when exposed to slight physical discomfort.

In general, these post-running mice were more chill than before.

But when the researchers used drugs to block the workings of some of the animals’ endocannabinoid system, so that receptors in the animals’ brains couldn’t take up the molecules, their post-run cool disappeared. The animals proved to be as anxious then after running as they had been before and very sensitive to pain.

Without a working endocannabinoid system, they developed no runner’s high.

However, when the researchers similarly blocked the animals’ response to endorphins, while leaving their endocannabinoid system unchanged, the mice enjoyed all of the soothing effects of running. They were calmer in their cages afterward and seemed to experience less sensitivity to pain.

Even without the ability to respond to endorphins, in other words, they experienced the rodent version of a runner’s high, strongly suggesting that endorphins do not contribute to the high, but endocannabinoids do.

The practical implications of these results are somewhat limited, of course, because they involve mice, not people, and tell us only what goes into creating a runner’s high and not how to ensure that we will feel that same post-run serenity.

One possible if slightly disheartening lesson of the study could be, in fact, that we may need to cover considerable mileage in order to experience a runner’s high; the mice in the study, small as they are, averaged more than three miles every day on their wheels.

More broadly encouraging, though, the results should remind us that, like mice, we were built through evolution to be in motion. Our ancestors ran to avoid danger and hunt food. For them, “reduced sensations of pain and less anxiety through long-distance running would have been a benefit,” says Johannes Fuss, now a professor at the University of Hamburg, who led the new study.

To survive as a species, we seem to have needed to run, and nature obligingly found ways to make this strenuous movement pleasurable by providing us with a runner’s high.

So the subtle upshot of the new study may be that we should run. And if we don’t feel a high, perhaps try running more, until eventually a gentle euphoria may settle in and we can turn to our running companion and say, “Ah, my endocannabinoids are kicking in at last!”

Related:

For more fitness, food and wellness news, follow us on Facebook and Twitter, or sign up for our newsletter.

D.C.’s crap is finally being put to good use: Generating clean energy

by

D.C., the American city most full of shit, is now powered by it.

The Washington Post reports that utility D.C. Water recently started using a Norwegian thermal hydrolysis system to turn sewage into clean energy. From the Post:

Here’s how it works: When you flush or send soapsuds down the drain, the contents travel through miles of pipe and ultimately reach [the Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant], off Interstate 295 in Southwest Washington. There, what looks like brown, murky water flows through screens that remove debris and then sits to allow solids to settle. Then, enormous centrifuges spin off the water and concentrate the remaining solids. (Don’t think too long about that part.)

The liquid is sent off to be treated and then returned to the Potomac River, and the concentrated sludge is pumped into large steel Cambi reactors, named for the Norwegian manufacturer. The reactors function like pressure cookers, using 338-degree steam and pressure to cook the sludge. Then it gets pumped to another tank. …

The sludge is then sent into one of four “digesters” – concrete cylinder tanks as tall as eight-story buildings – that each hold 3.8 million gallons. There, it spends about three weeks as microbial bugs nibble at it. The bugs convert the organic matter into methane gas, which is cleaned and sent to a nearby building, where turbines burn the methane gas and produce electricity. The entire system covers about five acres.

It seems gross – and probably smells like a porta-potty at a NASCAR rally in August – but the Post reports that the system will produce enough electricity to power about 10,500 homes. Plus, there’s the savings. D.C. Water says the system will save $13 million annually, and it will eventually be able to sell the byproducts as compost. This might be the least shitty thing to come out of D.C. since, well, ever.

Solar power access looking a lot brighter in California

by

An important part of all the talk around renewable energy is how we can make it accessible to everyone, and not just the fortunate few who prefer Teslas with their Dom Perignon. But in California, they’re doing more than just talking about it – they’re making it happen on a larger scale than anywhere else in the country.

On Thursday, Gov. Jerry Brown signed bill AB 693, which designates $100 million to installing solar power equipment in low-income communities over the next 10 years. Thanks to the bill, 215,000 multifamily affordable housing units will have solar panels installed. Low-income families who use solar power will also be eligible to get credit for lower utility costs.

In a press release, Strela Cervas, the co-director of California Environmental Justice Alliance, stated:

While low-­income communities and communities of color have long been locked out of the economic and environmental benefits of renewable energy, AB 693 will bridge this green divide. It will infuse low-­income communities with health and economic benefits by lowering utility bills and creating clean energy in some of the communities that have been most impacted by pollution.

AB 693 is one of three bills in the environmental justice package signed this week by Brown. Another adds two representatives to California’s Air Resources Board from communities overburdened by pollution and environmental degradation, and the third details a policy that would bring income from penalty fines directly to the same such communities.

Despite that whole massive drought and being on fire thing, the Golden State is looking pret-ty good this week. We’re a little jealous over here in New York – and California already had the far superior unofficial state anthem, so this is just getting unfair.

New York’s JFK airport has an urban farm. Wait, what?

by

The potatoes in your bag of complimentary airline chips could someday come from a farm at – surprise! – New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Outside JetBlue Airways’ Terminal 5, a few thousand black plastic crates form raised beds for an urban garden. USA Today reports:

Designed to promote New York agriculture and add a bit more green space to the airport, the 24,000-square-foot T5 farm is growing produce, herbs, and the same blue potatoes used to make the Terra Blues potato chips JetBlue offers year-round as complimentary snacks to passengers during flights.

“In today’s world of genetically modified and franken-foods, it is very important to know where your food comes from,” said Brian Holtman, JetBlue’s manager of concession programs, at a farm “reveal” on Thursday. “By creating a farm at T5, we can show crew members and customers exactly where their food is coming from.”

This fledging farm-to-airplane-tray movement has a long way to go. It takes between one and three potatoes to produce each bag of JetBlue chips, according to CBS, and JetBlue hands out 5.8 million bags each year. The potatoes grown in the airport’s garden (smaller than half a football field) would meet less than 1 percent of that demand, CBS points out. That’s not the plan for right now anyway: The farm will provide produce for the terminal’s restaurants.

Starting an urban garden at an airport wasn’t easy. Since encounters between wildlife and airplanes are costly, the plants were specially selected to attract bees and butterflies – and not heftier fauna. In addition, the garden’s plastic crates were bolted to the ground to ensure the garden could withstand the force of an earthquake or Katrina-level-hurricane.

So the question remains: Why? The company hopes that this unlikely farming experiment will improve air quality around the terminal and educate the garden’s visitors in addition to providing airport food.

However, when compared to the huge carbon footprint of air travel (which accounts for 2.5 percent of global emissions), the garden is small potatoes.

+ More