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Forget Facebook, Abandon Instagram, Move To A Village

July 2, 2015 by Marty

In the parts of the world that we cover in our blog, many people live in villages.

Villages have their problems, to be sure. There may not be a doctor or clinic nearby. Girls may not be able to go to school. Clean water might be a long walk away.

But a new book points out that village life has its advantages.

We asked psychologist Susan Pinker, author of The Village Effect: How Face-to-Face Contact Can Make Us Healthier, Happier and Smarter, to explain the benefits of living in a community of about 150 people, the average population of traditional villages throughout history around the world.

What is the village effect?

The village effect is a metaphor for the social contacts we all need as humans in order to thrive. These are the strong social ties that develop naturally in a village, where by necessity you cross paths with each other repeatedly every day. When you think of most villages, there is a central square, a public area where everyone converges or passes by going to the grocer or the post office or city hall or to sit at a cafe. And that is something we have less and less of today in our era of online connections. Commerce is moving online, everything is moving online, and these traditional village spaces are disappearing.

Why is 150 the ideal number for a village population?

One-hundred-fifty is the number that comes up time and again in the types of social interactions that work smoothly. We see it throughout history – whether we’re talking about the number of people in traditional hunter-gatherer societies, Neolithic villages, an English country village or the number of Christmas cards we send out. These are people with whom you have strong enough ties that you could ask to borrow $10 until the next payday.

How do these 150 “village” ties compare to online ties?

Not all types of social ties are created equal. Oxford evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar posits 150 as the maximum number of meaningful relationships that the human brain can manage. We know from our own lives there are only so many people that you can invest in that way, that you can call and invite to dinner or check in on when sick.

These are the types of social ties that develop naturally in a village, where by necessity you cross paths with each other repeatedly every day. When you think of most villages, there is a central square, a public area where everyone converges or passes by going to the grocer or the post office or city hall or sit at a cafe. And so these ties develop naturally through frequent in-person contact.

These are different from the weak contacts that you might have in your online social networks. You could walk by some of these online contacts on the street without even recognizing them. These weak contacts are great if you need a recommendation for a restaurant in a strange city, for instance, or [are] looking for a cleaning lady or other types of information. But in terms of social ties, it’s the difference between your mother’s lasagna or homemade chicken soup compared with fast food.

Why is the village effect so important?

If you have a cohesive community, you will have extra helping hands for the young and the old and everybody in between. The village effect impacts not only those who are vulnerable but it helps people feel they belong somewhere.

And if we know anything from all of the demographic studies in neurosciences, if you are lonely or isolated, it is almost a death sentence.

When you are getting together face to face, there are a lot of biological phenomena: Oxytocin and neurotransmitters get released, they reduce stress and allow us to trust others. Physical contact unleashes a whole chain of events that make us and make the other person feel good, and affects our health and well-being.

By contrast, according to research, we’ve never been lonelier as a society than we are now, and this can take a toll on our health.

Those of us who don’t live in villages – are we out of luck?

You can create your own village effect. Get out of your car to talk to your neighbors. Talk in person to your colleagues instead of shooting them emails. Build in face-to-face contact with friends the way you would exercise. Look for schools where the emphasis is on teacher-student interaction, not on high-tech bells and whistles.

We need to recognize that digital connections should enhance but never replace the real-life connections. I don’t think we all should throw out digital devices and move back to the village. I’m not romanticizing village life but using it as a metaphor as what is disappearing: deep social ties and the in-person contact we all need to survive.

World’s First Solar Road Already Generating More Power than Expected – NationofChange

July 2, 2015 by Marty

A new solar bike path in Krommenie, a village northwest of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, which functions as a massive solar array, is already generating more power than expected. And guess what the SolaRoad is helping to generate-the electricity grid. Brilliant!

SolaRoad, the world’s first “solar road,” has only been in operation since November, but it’s already generating more power than expected. SolaRoad is a bike path in Krommenie, a village northwest of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, that also functions as a massive solar array. The project was developed by TNO, the Province of Noord-Holland, Ooms Civiel and Imtech.

“We did not expect a yield as high as this so quickly,” said Sten de Wit, spokesman for SolaRoad. “The bike road opened half a year ago and already generated over 3,000 kWh. This can provide a single-person household with electricity for a year, or power an electric scooter to drive 2.5 times around the world.”

The pilot period will run for another two and half years to see how well the panels hold up and how much electricity they generate. Since opening six months ago, more than 150,000 bicyclists have used the road. At the end of December and in early spring of this year, a small section of the panels needed repair, but otherwise the panels are holding up very well, according to the project developers. The solar cells are protected by a thin layer of transparent, skid-resistant tempered glass that is able to support bicycles and vehicles.

Where does this electricity go you ask? “The solar electricity from the road is fed into the electricity grid and can be used, for example, for street lighting, traffic systems, households and (eventually) electric cars that drive over it,” the project developers said.

The road is only 70 meters, or about 230 feet, so imagine the potential of this technology if adopted on a wider scale. We featured a similar Idaho-based project, Solar Roadways, whose Indiegogo campaign became extremely successful when their video went viral last year.

The project does have its detractors though. ZME Science points out the three-year project costs 3.5 million euros and the solar panels could need regular repair from winter weather and normal wear and tear. ZME Science said, “Maybe we should first cover every available inch on our rooftops first.”

Watch the video from SolaRoad to see how it could be the road of the future:

Here’s what your kitchen will look like in 2025, according to IKEA

July 3, 2015July 2, 2015 by Marty

IKEA didn’t just imagine the kitchen of the future, it actually built it.

The Concept Kitchen 2025, a pop-up exhibit featured at EXPO Milano 2015, isn’t about your kitchen and its appliances doing all the work for you; its about helping you make thoughtful decisions about food and waste. New designs for passive conservation of food are popping on the internet and IKEA is giving us a look of how it could fit together

The kitchen was developed with IDEO London, a global design firm, and college students focused on “the social, technological, and demographic forces that will impact how we behave around food in 2025.” Check out all the bells and whistles below.

Welcome to 2025. This is what your kitchen looks like.

Not sure what to do with that tomato that’s about to go bad? Place it on IKEA’s Table for Living to get a quick and easy recipe. The aim here is to reduce food waste.

All of the recipe information shows up on the table — leave your iPad on the couch.

For tiny apartment dwellers, the table eliminates the need for a stove. Hidden induction coils heat the inside of pots and pans rather than the surface to make the table amenable to working, cooking, or eating.

Meanwhile, The Modern Pantry takes the doors off of your refrigerator to keep your eyes on your food, so you know what you have on hand and won’t overbuy.

Refrigerated food is stored in transparent containers that are temperature controlled via an induction-cooling technology that’s embedded into the shelves.

This piece of fish is placed inside a container labeled “2 degrees Celsius.” The shelf will keep it at that temperature until you’re ready to use it.

The Mindful Water System encourages responsible water use. It has two sinks: one for toxic “black water” that goes out to the sewers and one for “grey water” that is reused in the dishwasher or to water the plants above the sink.

The Thoughtful Disposal System keeps us conscious of what we’re throwing away. Trash is manually sorted, crushed, vacuum-sealed, and labeled for pick-up.

If you’re interested in passive food conservation and what the kitchen will look like in the future. Check out La Denise, a kickstarter campaign that’s running today, made locally!

The Scariest Trade Deal Nobody’s Talking About (TiSA) Just Suffered a Big Leak

July 2, 2015 by Marc Angelo Coppola

The Obama administration’s desire for “fast track” trade authority is not limited to passing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). In fact, that may be the least important of three deals currently under negotiation by the U.S. Trade Representative. The Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) would bind the two biggest economies in the world, the United States and the European Union. And the largest agreement is also the least heralded: the 51-nation Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA).

On Wednesday, WikiLeaks brought this agreement into the spotlight by releasing 17 key TiSA-related documents, including 11 full chapters under negotiation. Though the outline for this agreement has been in place for nearly a year, these documents were supposed to remain classified for five years after being signed, an example of the secrecy surrounding the agreement, which outstrips even the TPP.

Would You Feel Differently About Julian Assange If You Knew What He Really Thought?

TiSA has been negotiated since 2013, between the United States, the European Union, and 22 other nations, including Canada, Mexico, Australia, Israel, South Korea, Japan, Norway, Switzerland, Turkey, and others scattered across South America and Asia. Overall, 12 of the G20 nations are represented, and negotiations have carefully incorporated practically every advanced economy except for the ” BRICS ” coalition of emerging markets (which stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa).

The deal would liberalize global trade of services, an expansive definition that encompasses air and maritime transport, package delivery, e-commerce, telecommunications, accountancy, engineering, consulting, health care, private education, financial services and more, covering close to 80 percent of the U.S. economy. Though member parties insist that the agreement would simply stop discrimination against foreign service providers, the text shows that TiSA would restrict how governments can manage their public laws through an effective regulatory cap. It could also dismantle and privatize state-owned enterprises, and turn those services over to the private sector. You begin to sound like the guy hanging out in front of the local food co-op passing around leaflets about One World Government when you talk about TiSA, but it really would clear the way for further corporate domination over sovereign countries and their citizens.

Reading the texts ( here’s an example, the annex on air transport services) makes you realize the challenge for members of Congress or interested parties to comprehend a trade agreement while in negotiation. The “bracketed” text includes each country’s offer, merged into one document, with notations on whether the country proposed, is considering, or opposes each specific provision. You need to either be a trade lawyer or a very alert reader to know what’s going on. But between the text and a series of analyses released by WikiLeaks, you get a sense for what the countries negotiating TiSA want.

First, they want to limit regulation on service sectors, whether at the national, provincial or local level. The agreement has “standstill” clauses to freeze regulations in place and prevent future rulemaking for professional licensing and qualifications or technical standards. And a companion “ratchet” clause would make any broken trade barrier irreversible.

It may make sense to some to open service sectors up to competition. But under the agreement, governments may not be able to regulate staff to patient ratios in hospitals, or ban fracking, or tighten safety controls on airlines, or refuse accreditation to schools and universities. Foreign corporations must receive the same “national treatment” as domestic ones, and could argue that such regulations violate their ability to provide the service. Allowable regulations could not be “more burdensome than necessary to ensure the quality of the service,” according to TiSA’s domestic regulation annex. No restrictions could be placed on foreign investment-corporations could control entire sectors.

This would force open dozens of services, including ones where state-owned enterprises, like the national telephone company in Uruguay or the national postal service of Italy, now operate. Previously, public services would be either broken up or forced into competition with foreign service providers. While the United States and European Union assured in a joint statement that such privatization need not be permanent, they also “noted the important complementary role of the private sector in these areas” to “improve the availability and diversity of services,” which doesn’t exactly connote a hands-off policy on the public commons.

Corporations would get to comment on any new regulatory attempts, and enforce this regulatory straitjacket through a dispute mechanism similar to the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) process in other trade agreements, where they could win money equal to “expected future profits” lost through violations of the regulatory cap.

For an example of how this would work, let’s look at financial services. It too has a “standstill” clause, which given the unpredictability of future crises could leave governments helpless to stop a new and dangerous financial innovation. In fact, Switzerland has proposed that all TiSA countries must allow “any new financial service” to enter their market. So-called “prudential regulations” to protect investors or depositors are theoretically allowed, but they must not act contrary to TiSA rules, rendering them somewhat irrelevant.

Most controversially, all financial services suppliers could transfer individual client data out of a TiSA country for processing, regardless of national privacy laws. This free flow of data across borders is true for the e-commerce annex as well; it breaks with thousands of years of precedent on locally kept business records, and has privacy advocates alarmed.

There’s no question that these provisions reinforce Senator Elizabeth Warren’s contention that a trade deal could undermine financial regulations like the Dodd-Frank Act. The Swiss proposal on allowances for financial services could invalidate derivatives rules, for example. And harmonizing regulations between the U.S. and EU would involve some alteration, as the EU rules are less stringent.

Member countries claim they want to simply open up trade in services between the 51 nations in the agreement. But there’s already an international deal governing these sectors through the World Trade Organization (WTO), called the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). The only reason to re-write the rules is to replace GATS, which the European Union readily admits (“if enough WTO members join in, TiSA could be turned into a broader WTO agreement”).

That’s perhaps TiSA’s real goal-to pry open markets, deregulate and privatize services worldwide, even among emerging nations with no input into the agreement. U.S. corporations may benefit from such a structure, as the Chamber of Commerce suggests, but the impact on workers and citizens in America and across the globe is far less clear. Social, cultural, and even public health goals would be sidelined in favor of a regime that puts corporate profits first. It effectively nullifies the role of democratic governments to operate in the best interest of their constituents.

Unsurprisingly, this has raised far more concern globally than in the United States. But a completed TiSA would go through the same fast-track process as TPP, getting a guaranteed up-or-down vote in Congress without the possibility of amendment. Fast-track lasts six years, and negotiators for the next president may be even more willing to make the world safe for corporate hegemony. “This is as big a blow to our rights and freedom as the Trans-Pacific Partnership,” said Larry Cohen, president of the Communication Workers of America in a statement, “and in both cases our government’s secrecy is the key enabler.”

The director of Avatar just designed a beautiful alternative to ugly traditional solar panels

July 1, 2015 by Marc Angelo Coppola

Written By CHRIS WELLER

Everything James Cameron does is big.

Eighty-five years after the world’s largest ship sank, the famed Hollywood director turned the RMS Titanic’s fatal voyage into a movie that set records for longevity at the box office.

“Avatar,” meanwhile, needs its own Wikipedia page to list all the records it has set.

Now Cameron is bringing his love of magnitude to solar energy with the Sun Flower, a large solar structure that’s actually nice to look at.

Composed of one central panel surrounded by 14 smaller “petals,” each Sun Flower is designed to provide an alternative to traditional solar panels that, while functional, strike many people as eyesores.

“The idea was to unify form and function with this life-affirming image that anyone looking at it would instantly get,” explained Cameron, who first launched the Sun Flower grid near Malibu’s MUSE School, to Gizmodo’s Alissa Walker.

Sun Flowers, like their yellow-petaled counterparts, track the sun over the course of the day to catch the maximum amount of rays.

This is both an artistic choice and a functional one.

Traditional solar panels sit idly on a hillside, roof, or angled platform. This causes them to miss out on valuable hours of solar energy as the sun moves across the sky, reducing their efficiency.

Total Sun Flower output can reach 260 kilowatt hours per day, or enough to satisfy 75 to 90% of the school’s total energy needs, Gizmodo reports.

Cameron says the project will be patented, but released on an open-source platform.

The designs follow Cameron’s earlier work developing a set of retractable solar panels with FEMA. The panels are designed for emergency situations when the power goes out.

His other environmentally-conscious missions have included making the “Avatar” series the first film production entirely powered by the sun, and eliminating the need for helicopters in aerial shots, since drones can accomplish many of the same tasks without the heavy footprint.

Cameron has even launched a contest in New Zealand to find the optimal drone-based camera rigging.

But act fast: The deadline to enter is July 5.

Bill Gates To Invest Billions In Renewable Energy

June 30, 2015June 30, 2015 by simonthehuman

The Supreme Court may have dealt a crushing blow this week to President Barack Obama’s efforts to curb climate change, but all is not lost.

Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates announced plans to spend up to $2 billion on innovative renewable technologies over the next five years. In an interview with the Financial Times ( paywall), Gates said he hopes to “bend the curve” through the cultivation of “breakthrough” technologies, doubling an already impressive billion-dollar investment. He has so far written checks to 15 green companies, he said, and has contributed venture capital funds to another 30.

In the interview, Gates calls for far greater funding for renewable research, saying investment “should be like the Manhattan Project and the Apollo Project in the sense that the government should put in a serious amount of R&D.” He pointed to the drawbacks of now-commonplace technologies like solar, which can only provide power during the day.

“There’s no battery technology that’s even close to allowing us to take all of our energy from renewables and be able to use battery storage in order to deal not only with the 24-hour cycle but also with long periods of time where it’s cloudy and you don’t have sun or you don’t have wind,” he said.

Despite the recent Supreme Court ruling that undercut the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulation of mercury and other toxic emissions from power plants, the U.S. has been making strides in the fight against climate change.

The Huffington Post’s Kate Sheppard notes the EPA is finishing up rules that would limit greenhouse gas emissions from new and existing power plants, which should be finalized in the coming weeks. And the president has come out swinging against the warming phenomenon, citing the hazards against American’s health and a risk to national security.

Renewable energy is expected to draw trillions in investment over the next quarter century, but the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has come under fire before for some aspects of its climate activism.

The Guardian notes the Gates Foundation has yet to announced any plans to divest its portfolio from fossil fuels, despite similar moves from the likes of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the government of Norway. The Gates Foundation has $1.4 billion invested in fossil fuel companies including BP, according to 2013 tax filings.

You can read Gates’ entire interview at the Financial Times.

Peru to Provide Free Solar Power to its 2 Million Poorest Citizens

June 29, 2015 by Marc Angelo Coppola

The country of Peru is looking to provide free electricity to over 2 million of its poorest citizens by harvesting energy from the sun. Energy and Mining Minister Jorge Merino said that the National Photovoltaic Household Electrification Program will provide electricity to poor households through the installation of photovoltaic panels.

The first part of the program aims to provide solar systems to 500,000 extremely poor households in areas that lack even basic access to the power grid. Unsurprisingly, it is a massive opportunity for domestic solar installers, and Merino has said that bidding for the contract will open later this year to fix the rest of the panels.

The project was first started in Contumaza, a province in the northeastern region of Cajamarca, where 1,601 solar panels were installed. The energy minister has said that when the project is finished, the scheme will allow 95% of Peru to have access to electricity by the end of 2016.

Speaking to the Latin America Herald Tribune, Merino said: “This program is aimed at the poorest people, those who lack access to electric lighting and still use oil lamps, spending their own resources to pay for fuels that harm their health.”

If Peru can do this for its people, it makes you wonder why more prosperous countries can’t do the same.

via CleanTechnica/Planet Save

Dutch court orders 25 per cent cut in emissions by 2020 to protect citizens

June 28, 2015 by Marty

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — A Dutch court ordered the government Wednesday to slash greenhouse gas emissions to help fight global warming, a landmark ruling in a case brought by hundreds of concerned citizens that could pave the way for similar legal battles around the world.

Climate activists in a packed courtroom in The Hague erupted into cheers as Presiding Judge Hans Hofhuis told Dutch authorities to cut the country’s greenhouse gas emissions by at least 25 per cent by 2020 from benchmark 1990 levels.

The country currently is on track for a 17-per cent reduction and it is not clear how it can achieve the further cut.

Environmentalists hailed the ruling as a victory in efforts to push governments to take more action to tackle global warming against a backdrop of slow-moving international negotiations aimed at forging a global agreement.

“The verdict is a milestone in the history of climate legislation, because it is the first time that a government was ordered to raise its climate ambition by a court,” said Wendel Trio, Director of Climate Action Network Europe. “We hope this kind of legal action will be replicated in Europe and around the world.”

Greenpeace called the Dutch ruling “a game-changer in the fight against climate change.”

The Dutch case may have already helped spur environmentalists in other countries into legal action.

Activists say a similar case is coming in Belgium and in Norway, a coalition of non-government groups is working on a case challenging their government’s licensing of new oil blocks in the Arctic, saying it violates the constitutional obligation to protect the climate.

“This is a great victory. The judge said exactly what we wanted and had the courage and wisdom to say to the government ‘you have a duty of care toward your citizens,”‘ said Marjan Minnesma, the director of Urgenda, the non-government group that brought the civil case on behalf of some 900 Dutch citizens.

Minnesma said Urgenda is ready to share details of its case with activists in other countries, saving them time and money in preparing the legal arguments.

The ruling came in the same month that Pope Francis released a massive encyclical on the environment urging nations to quickly overhaul their economies to cut emissions and save the Earth. France will also host a key U.N. conference later this year in Paris where it’s hoped that a worldwide accord to fight global warming will be signed.

The Dutch plaintiffs argued — and the court agreed — that the government has a legal obligation to protect its people against looming dangers, including the effects of climate change on this low-lying country. Large swaths of the Netherlands are below sea level and vulnerable to rising sea levels blamed on global warming.

The Dutch government, which can appeal, said it was studying the ruling.

Environment Minister Wilma Mansveld said the government and Urgenda “share the same goal. We just hold different opinions regarding the manner in which to attain this goal.”

Mansveld said the Dutch are working toward European Union greenhouse targets — cutting emissions by at least 20 per cent by 2020, from 1990 levels.

“Preventing climate change is the most successful when as many countries as possible join forces,” Mansveld said.

But judges said they want more action from the minister.

“The state must do more to avert the imminent danger caused by climate change, also in view of its duty of care to protect and improve the living environment,” read a statement from the court.

To avoid the most dangerous impacts of climate change, which is caused by heat-trapping carbon dioxide being released by burning fossil fuels, countries around the world have agreed that global temperatures should stay below a 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) rise compared to pre-industrial times.

A U.N. climate science panel has stated that to have a two-thirds chance of staying below that mark the world must cut emissions by some 40 to 70 per cent by 2050.

While the Netherlands is known as a land of windmills, it is also a country with vast natural gas reserves that are used to power millions of households. It lags behind many of its European neighbours in the amount of energy it consumes from clean, renewable sources like wind or solar power.

According to the EU statistics agency Eurostat, only 4.5 per cent of Dutch energy consumption came from renewables in 2013, compared to an EU average of 15 per cent. Sweden led the way with just over 52 per cent.

Renewable energy accounted for about 10 per cent of total U.S. energy consumption in 2014, according to the country’s Energy Information Agency.

The Dutch court said it was difficult to judge the economic impact of its ruling on Dutch companies but said “climate policy can have a negative effect for one sector, but a positive effect for another.”

Dutch business organization VNO-NCW did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the ruling’s possible effects on its members.

Bill Hare, senior scientist at Climate Analytics, a non-profit organization based in Berlin, said the Dutch ruling’s impact could be massive.

“(This) has the potential to become a precedent whose effect will ultimately flow through to undermining the markets for coal, oil and gas,” he said.

Fruit And Vegetable Storage Reinvented. No More Rotting & Wasting.

June 30, 2015June 28, 2015 by X

Are you sick of throwing away rotten fruits and veggies that were left forgotten in the back of your fridge?

Good news: It doesn’t have to be this way! And the best part is, you don’t even need your fridge.

The Denise is a set of three sections which allows fruits and vegetables to be stored longer without the need of technology or electricity. It is made entirely out of renewable and locally sourced materials.

If we take into account the complete life cycle of food, from the producer to our homes, food waste amounts to about a third of food produced worldwide. (FAO, 2011)

Here’s How It Works

The first section uses sand to naturally preserve the moisture of root vegetables. The tray allows them to be stored vertically, in their original position. This conservation principle is inspired from cellars which our ancestors used to keep vegetables throughout winter.

This section is designed for: Root vegetables such as shallots, celery, beetroots, carrots, leeks etc.

Some fruits and vegetables need to be hydrated daily while others do not tolerate low fridge temperatures. The Denise II is a ceramic bowl fitted with wooden slats that allows for the watering of fruits and vegetables. The collected water brings them the freshness and hydration they need. The bowl can be fixed on a wall, put on the dining room table, or simply left on the kitchen counter.

This section is designed for: Tomatoes, cucumbers, gherkins, squashes, melons, zucchinis, peppers, apricots, lemons, oranges, kiwis, exotic fruits, peaches, pears, aubergines.

The first compartment of this section is used for potatoes. Right above it is for apples. There is an air exchange between the two, as they have mutual conservation properties. The second compartment is to store garlic, onions, and French shallots.

This section is designed for: Apples, potatoes, sweet potatoes, garlic, onions, french shallots.

La Denise brings a simple and stylish solution to food waste in homes. By always having your fruits and veggies in sight, you are much less likely to forget about them and let them spoil in your fridge!

Like This Idea?

To reach their goal and put The Denise on the market, they need us!

Check out their Kickstarter page, donate what you can and/or share this article to help them reach their goal and share The Denise with the world!

If everyone lived in an ‘ecovillage’, the Earth would still be in trouble

June 28, 2015 by Marc Angelo Coppola

We are used to hearing that if everyone lived in the same way as North Americans or Australians, we would need four or five planet Earths to sustain us.

This sort of analysis is known as the “ecological footprint” and shows that even the so-called “green” western European nations, with their more progressive approaches to renewable energy, energy efficiency and public transport, would require more than three planets.

How can we live within the means of our planet? When we delve seriously into this question it becomes clear that almost all environmental literature grossly underestimates what is needed for our civilisation to become sustainable.

Only the brave should read on.

The ‘ecological footprint’ analysis

In order to explore the question of what “one planet living” would look like, let us turn to what is arguably the world’s most prominent metric for environmental accounting – the ecological footprint analysis. This was developed by Mathis Wackernagel and William Rees, then at the University of British Columbia, and is now institutionalised by the scientific body, The Global Footprint Network, of which Wackernagel is president.

This method of environmental accounting attempts to measure the amount of productive land and water a given population has available to it, and then evaluates the demands that population makes upon those ecosystems. A sustainable society is one that operates within the carrying capacity of its dependent ecosystems.

While this form of accounting is not without its critics – it is certainly not an exact science – the worrying thing is that many of its critics actually claim that it underestimates humanity’s environmental impact. Even Wackernagel, the concept’s co-originator, is convinced the numbers are underestimates.

According to the most recent data from the Global Footprint Network, humanity as a whole is currently in ecological overshoot, demanding one and a half planet’s worth of Earth’s biocapacity. As the global population continues its trend toward 11 billion people, and while the growth fetish continues to shape the global economy, the extent of overshoot is only going to increase.

Every year this worsening state of ecological overshoot persists, the biophysical foundations of our existence, and that of other species, are undermined.

The footprint of an ecovillage

As I have noted, the basic contours of environmental degradation are relatively well known. What is far less widely known, however, is that even the world’s most successful and long-lasting ecovillages have yet to attain a ” fair share ” ecological footprint.

Take the Findhorn Ecovillage in Scotland, for example, probably the most famous ecovillage in the world. An ecovillage can be broadly understood as an “intentional community” that forms with the explicit aim of living more lightly on the planet. Among other things, the Findhorn community has adopted an almost exclusively vegetarian diet, produces renewable energy and makes many of their houses out of mud or reclaimed materials.

An ecological footprint analysis was undertaken of this community. It was discovered that even the committed efforts of this ecovillage still left the Findhorn community consuming resources and emitting waste far in excess of what could be sustained if everyone lived in this way. (Part of the problem is that the community tends to fly as often as the ordinary Westerner, increasing their otherwise small footprint.)

Put otherwise, based on my calculations, if the whole world came to look like one of our most successful ecovillages, we would still need one and a half planet’s worth of Earth’s biocapacity. Dwell on that for a moment.

I do not share this conclusion to provoke despair, although I admit that it conveys the magnitude of our ecological predicament with disarming clarity. Nor do I share this to criticise the noble and necessary efforts of the ecovillage movement, which clearly is doing far more than most to push the frontiers of environmental practice.

Rather, I share this in the hope of shaking the environmental movement, and the broader public, awake. With our eyes open, let us begin by acknowledging that tinkering around the edges of consumer capitalism is utterly inadequate.

In a full world of seven billion people and counting, a “fair share” ecological footprint means reducing our impacts to a small fraction of what they are today. Such fundamental change to our ways of living is incompatible with a growth-oriented civilisation.

Some people may find this this position too “radical” to digest, but I would argue that this position is merely shaped by an honest review of the evidence.

What would ‘one planet’ living look like?

Even after five or six decades of the modern environmental movement, it seems we still do not have an example of how to thrive within the sustainable carrying capacity of the planet.

Nevertheless, just as the basic problems can be sufficiently well understood, the nature of an appropriate response is also sufficiently clear, even if the truth is sometimes confronting.

We must swiftly transition to systems of renewable energy, recognising that the feasibility and affordability of this transition will demand that we consume significantly less energy than we have become accustomed to in the developed nations. Less energy means less producing and consuming.

We must grow our food organically and locally, and eat considerably less (or no) meat. We must ride our bikes more and fly less, mend our clothes, share resources, radically reduce our waste streams and creatively ” retrofit the suburbs ” to turn our homes and communities into places of sustainable production, not unsustainable consumption. In doing so, we must challenge ourselves to journey beyond the ecovillage movement and explore an even deeper green shade of sustainability.

Among other things, this means living lives of frugality, moderation and material sufficiency. Unpopular though it is to say, we must also have fewer children, or else our species will grow itself into a catastrophe.

But personal action is not enough. We must restructure our societies to support and promote these “simpler” ways of living. Appropriate technology must also assist us on the transition to one planet living. Some argue that technology will allow us to continue living in the same way while also greatly reducing our footprint.

However, the extent of “dematerialisation” required to make our ways of living sustainable is simply too great. As well as improving efficiency, we also need to live more simply in a material sense, and re-imagine the good life beyond consumer culture.

First and foremost, what is needed for one planet living is for the richest nations, including Australia, to initiate a ” degrowth ” process of planned economic contraction.

I do not claim that this is likely or that I have a detailed blueprint for how it should transpire. I only claim that, based on the ecological footprint analysis, degrowth is the most logical framework for understanding the radical implications of sustainability.

Can the descent from consumerism and growth be prosperous? Can we turn our overlapping crises into opportunities?

These are the defining questions of our time.

Mushroom used in Chinese medicine ‘slows weight gain’

June 24, 2015 by Marty

A mushroom used for centuries in Chinese medicine reduces weight gain in animals, say researchers in Taiwan.

The study, published in Nature Communications, suggested Ganoderma lucidum slowed weight gain by altering bacteria in the gut.

The researchers suggested the mushroom could eventually be used in the treatment of obesity.

Experts said the science was good, but putting mushroom extract in cans of cola would not help people lose weight.

G. lucidum has traditionally been sold for “health and longevity” say researchers at Chang Gung University.

They analysed the impact of the fungus on mice being fed a high-fat diet.

Those on just a high-fat diet reached 42g after their first two months whereas mice that were also fed a high dose of mushroom extract reached only 35g.

Mice were still much slimmer if they were fed a normal diet.

In their report, the team said mushroom extract “may be used as pre-biotics to reduce body weight gain, chronic inflammation and insulin resistance [type 2 diabetes] in obese individuals.”

Although this would, they said, need further testing in people.

Gut bugs

The team in Taiwan showed that adding the mushroom to the mice’s meals altered the types of bacteria living in the gut.

Gut bugs are heavily involved in digestion and the release of energy, and some species are associated with slim people and others with fat people.

The scientists showed that transplanting faeces from the mushroom-fed mice to other mice – known as horizontal faeces transfer – helped the recipient keep off the pounds.

Prof Colin Hill, a microbiologist at University College Cork in Ireland, told the BBC News website: “I like the idea of some of these Chinese medicine stories coming back into science, I love the idea of revisiting traditional medicines.

“The microbiome is certainly a key player in weight gain and weight loss, it’s certainly involved in extracting energy from our food.

“But no intervention will overcome someone drinking lots of fizzy drinks, there won’t be a magic pill, no mushroom extract in a can of coke will help people lose weight.”

Mushroom used in Chinese medicine ‘slows weight gain’ – BBC News

June 24, 2015 by Marty