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Cars Made Out Of & Powered By Hemp Are The Future

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The transportation sector is one of the largest greenhouse gas contributors today, accounting for nearly 30% of all emissions in the United States alone. For decades, oil and automobile companies dominated the global market, with little remorse for the ecological consequences of petroleum-based industries, as well as little to no thought into the limitations of non-renewable energy sources.

Thankfully today, we have seen a global shift towards sustainability and innovation in the automobile manufacturing and transportation sectors. Companies such as Tesla Motors are laying the groundwork for a sustainable future in the automobile industry.

Another company making their way into the mainstream spotlight is Renew, an automobile design and manufacturing company aiming to erase the carbon footprint of vehicles all together. Renew’s mission is simple yet monumental: to ” create cars which are 100% carbon neutral and non-polluting.”

But how are they tackling this massive obstacle? Well, it involves the use of a widely known and versatile green plant, hemp.

Hemp has been used for centuries in a number of varying industries, including paper, fabric, food, construction, and more. The fibers of the hemp plant are some of the strongest and most durable plant-based fibers known today, making it a fantastic adversary in the manufacturing of various materials.

But one of the most incredible things about hemp, beyond its light weight, durability and biodegradability, is the fact that it is carbon negative. Hemp removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere at a rate more efficient than most plants. Trees for instance, take 20 years to grow, while hemp by contrast, matures in 3 to 4 months, and can be replanted several times a year.

The reason why hemp is so strong is due to the amount of carbon it absorbs from the atmosphere into its fibers. When hemp is used to manufacture something like a car, it removes a substantial amount of CO2 from the atmosphere in a process called carbon sequestering. By utilizing this process, we have the ability to significantly counteract the automobile-induced carbon emission crisis.

Ethanol Engines

Renew vehicles run on ethanol. When compared to gasoline, the use of high-level ethanol blends, such as E85, generally result in lower emissions levels.

Even more fantastic is Renew’s new flex ethanol option, in which the car can sense any type or mixture of ethanol/gas, from 0-100%, and adapt automatically.

The CANNA 100 & 130 models have a Lifetime Carbon Footprint that’s 10% lower than the average new electric vehicle, while the CANNA EV model drives 22% greener than the average electric vehicle, ranging from 80 to 400+ horsepower.

But more importantly, the Renew car models are equipped to run on hemp ethanol, should it ever come to market.

Is The 2015 Hemp Sports Car The Future Of Automobiles?

Inspired by numerous European race cars from the 50’s and 60’s, the Renew Sports Car is both a blast from the past (aesthetically speaking) and a breath of fresh air in technological terms, reports Cannabis Now Magazine.

The body of the Renew Sports Car is made from carbon negative hemp fibers, rather than highly carbon positive materials, such as carbon fiber, steel, aluminum, fiberglass, or the petroleum-based plastics with which automobiles are typically produced today.

In keeping with Renew’s green mindset, their hemp body is mounted on a carbon debt free, re-certified 1990-97 Miata chassis, typically retaining its re-certified 27 MPG drive train.

Renew begins a nationwide tour this month, bringing the Hemp Sports Car to car shows, 420 festivals, hemp festivals, and green festivals across the country. At these shows, company President Bruce Dietzen encourages attendees to sit behind the wheel and take a selfie, so they can share the news with their friends on the internet and help spread the word. Renew’s ultimate mission is to make carbon neutral cars by 2025.

” The key to saving our environment lies in making everything we need from what grows above the soil, not what’s buried beneath. The Hemp Sports Car is, perhaps, the most iconic example of this maxim that exists today,” he says.

Dietzen is confident that in the next decade, 75 percent of car components – even the batteries – could be manufactured using carbon negative hemp, reducing footprints even more than electric vehicles have done so far.

Renew Sports Cars is currently seeking funds for their nationwide tour through their IndieGoGo page, where the first online video of the car under power can be viewed. Be sure to visit their Facebook page and website to learn more about this revolutionary new vehicle.

What are your thoughts on Renew’s vision of hemp made/powered vehicles? Share with us in the comment section below!

Watch “The Truth About Cancer” Docu-Series Free

While we all throw around the term “Cancer” loosely, do we really know what it is and what it means?

Have you ever wondered why, despite the billions of dollars spent on cancer research over many decades and the promise of a cure which is forever “just around the corner,” cancer continues to increase?

The Truth About Cancer is a powerful docu-series that goes through powerful research behind cancer, treatment and new information that we all should know.

Watch the free series here.

The BioTop Natural Pools

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An alternative to chlorine pools, the BioTop Natural Pools use plants to keep water clean and clear. A natural swimming pool is a system consisting of a constructed body of water, where the water is contained by an isolating membrane or membranes, in which no chemicals or devices that disinfect or sterilize water are used, and all clarifying and purifying of the water is achieved through biological filters and plants rooted hydroponically in the system. Natural Pools provide crystal clear water without any use of chemicals. The natural pool creates the incomparable feeling of swimming in natural water.

The swimming zone should be physically separated from the regeneration and should reach a depth of 2 m (6 ft 6 in) in swimming ponds. The regeneration zone and swimming zone must be equal in area for sufficient purification. The swimming portion of the pool can look like a conventional swimming pool or a natural pond. The regeneration zone can be placed adjacent to the swimming area or in a remote location depending on the space available. In modern natural swimming pools there is no minimum depth for the swimming zone and the regeneration zone can now be reduced greatly and in some cases is non existent. Clear Water Revival was the first company to build indoor natural swimming pools in the UK. In these pools a regeneration zone can be used outside the building or a natural filtration chamber can be built without a planted area indoors.

Learn more about natural pools from: Water Gardens & Natural Pools: Design & Construction

How To Make a DIY Natural Swimming Pool

Western Senators Face Off In Fight Over Plan To Give Away America’s Public Lands

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CREDIT: Shutterstock

The new chair of the powerful Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is expected to secure a vote Thursday by the U.S. Senate on a controversial proposal to sell off America’s national forests and other public lands.

U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski’s (R-AK) amendment to Congress’s budget resolution would support and fund state efforts – which many argue are unconstitutional – to seize and sell America’s public lands. These include all national forests, wildlife refuges, wilderness areas, historic sites, and national monuments.

Murkowski’s amendment follows a similar proposal from House Natural Resources Committee Chair Rob Bishop (R-UT) to spend $50 million of taxpayer dollars to fund the sale or transfer of U.S. public lands to states.

The land grab proposals in Congress this year appear to echo the calls of outlaw rancher Cliven Bundy, best known for his armed standoff with federal officials last year, who has infamously refused to recognize the authority of the federal government, including over public lands.

Murkowski’s proposal to sell off public lands, however, is meeting stiff opposition from other western senators. On a conference call yesterday, Senators Martin Heinrich (D-NM) and Michael Bennet (D-CO) said that they are determined to turn back legislative attacks on the outdoors. Bennet called efforts to sell off lands to reduce the federal deficit “an assault on our public lands.”

Senator Heinrich also introduced an amendment Wednesday which would block any effort to sell off public lands to reduce the federal deficit. Heinrich said that “selling off America’s treasured lands to the highest bidder would result in a proliferation of locked gates and no-trespassing signs in places that have been open to the public and used for generations.”

Public opinion research has found that a majority of Westerners oppose land grab efforts and believe that transferring public lands to state control will result in reduced access for recreation; higher taxes; increased drilling, mining and logging; and a high risk that treasured public lands will be auctioned off to the highest bidder.

Over the past few months, sportsmen’s groups have also been battling state efforts to seize and sell off public lands by rallying in state capitols across the West. Land Tawney, Executive Director of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, thanked Senator Heinrich for introducing his amendment and fighting for public lands.

“American hunters and anglers have consistently stood up in support of U.S. public lands since Theodore Roosevelt set them aside for all Americans more than a century ago,” Tawney said. “Today, Congress has responded.”

The dueling Senate amendments are expected to be voted on during the Senate’s “vote-o-rama” budget amendment series later on Thursday.

10 Flowers To Grow With Vegetables

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Posted By Andrew McIndoe @ 9:15 on March 23rd 2015

Companion Planting: How To Deter Pests and Encourage Beneficial Insects

Flowers among the vegetables are more than just a colourful addition. They attract pollinating insects to fertilise the flowers of beans, peas, tomatoes and all those crops that depend on pollination to produce a crop.

In some cases they may act as a decoy or a repellent to harmful insects such as aphids. Some are beneficial to and attract predatory insects such as ladybirds (ladybugs), wasps and hoverflies. These are particularly useful in controlling pests naturally without your intervention.

Some also act as soil improvers: either by fixing nutrients in the soil or acting as green manures if dug into the ground at an early age. Some just look pretty, attract the bees and provide some lovely blooms for cutting for the house.

1. The hardy pot marigold, calendula looks at home in the vegetable garden or alongside vegetables in raised beds or containers. The petals can be used as a lively addition to salads.

Bees and other pollinators will visit for the nectar and pollen. Grow single flowered varieties and allow it to seed itself. It is a hardy annual so will pop up year after year on most soils.

2. Nasturtium always looks at home amongst vegetables, especially later in the year. Both flowers and leaves are edible, as are the seeds which are sometimes used pickled as an alternative to capers. Visited by bees it is also a magnet for caterpillars, so a good indicator plant.

3. Poached egg flower, Limnanthes douglasii is the ultimate flower to grow anywhere around crops that need pollinating.

It forms a low cushion of feathery foliage smothered in shining flowers. Bees swarm to it, as do hoverflies which will prey on those pests.

4. Practically all simple daisies are highly attractive to bees, butterflies, hoverflies and predatory wasps.

Camomile fits in anywhere in the open ground, raised beds or containers. You can use the flowers to make a fragrant, sleep-inducing infusion.

5. I’ve mentioned the prairie flower giant hyssop, agastache many times for its spikes of blue flowers in late summer. It is not often recommended as a flower for the vegetable garden, but it is a magnet for bees and looks lovely with orange and yellow marigolds.

6. French and African marigolds are used to deter aphids, they contain some natural pyrethrins. They are also pungently aromatic and are supposed to repel nematodes in the soil.

They attract hoverflies which prey on the aphids and the single and semi-double varieties seem to be popular with bees.

7. Phacelia, sometimes called scorpionweed, can be grown as a green manure; in other words you dig the green plant into the soil as a fertiliser.

If left to flower it is highly attractive to pollinators and its soft lilac flowers are highly attractive too.

8. Clover is a legume, in other words it is in the same family as peas and beans. This means it has nodules on its roots which contain nitrogen-fixing bacteria.

These fix atmospheric nitrogen providing food for the plant. Used as a green manure, or if the roots are left in the ground it feeds the soil. Clover is widely used in organic farming.

Red clover looks lovely and its prevalence as the nectar source for honey is testament to its attraction to pollinators.

9. Cosmos is an easy hardy annual to grow with feathery foliage and beautiful single or semi-double blooms that are superb for cutting.

Bees, other pollinators and butterflies love it and it is particularly useful later in the season to attract pollinators to your runner beans and tomatoes.

10. In the shadiest corner of the vegetable plot grow comfrey. You may need to contain it but it does make great ground cover.

If you have fruit trees, grow it under them. The flowers are a good nectar source and the leaves a great addition to the compost heap. Organic gardeners will brew comfrey tea: as a fertiliser for the plants.

Check Out This Highway Billboard That Grows Organic Lettuce and Generates Drinking Water

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We’ve seen vertical farms before, but this brings urban agriculture quite literally to the next level. In the Bujama region of Lima, Peru, thousands of lettuce heads are sprouting next to a major highway thanks to a very unusual source: a billboard.

FCB Mayo Peru and University of Engineering & Technology (UTEC)-the minds behind an innovative billboard that’s sucking up Lima’s notorious pollution and another billboard that’s turning the city’s humid air into drinking water -have come up with the “Air Orchard” billboard that can generate pollution-free produce.

We all know that this isn’t just any old advertisement by the side of the road. So how does it work? The concept is actually very simple to anyone familiar with the soil-free farming method of hydroponics. Sitting behind the billboard’s panel are 10 large dehumidifiers that draw in water from the air and turn it into potable water. This water then drips down a series of PVC tubes that are coated in nutrients. The tubes are also white to reflect the sun’s rays and boost photosynthesis. Air Orchard’s system is simply an adaptation of the “nutrient film technique” of hydroponics, in which plants’ roots can constantly access a recirculating stream of fertilizer-rich water.

The billboard is located on Peru’s largest and most important highway, the Panamericana Sur, and is already in operation. According to a press release, more than 2,800 heads of lettuce are given away weekly to passersby and the local community from the Air Orchard-all for free.

billboard grows food for town for free

“Currently, organic products are gaining significance, compared to chemically treated products. UTEC wanted to work out the most efficient way to grow a crop of 2,000 heads of lettuce using the clean water generated by the panel,” said Jessica Ruas, UTEC marketing director in a statement. “In addition to growing lettuce, the billboard still produces 96 liters of drinking water a day to provide for the surrounding community.”

This technique solves a pressing problem in the area. As the video below pointed out, water that’s used for irrigating Bujama’s fields are highly contaminated with arsenic, lead or cadmium that can seep into nearby farmland and crops. Consequently, this means the majority of the vegetables consumed in Lima are contaminated.

“UTEC is a university that was founded with the mission of developing applied research that provides practical solutions to the challenges of society and industry,” said Ignacio Montero, director of business innovation at UTEC in a statement. “These principles are proven through innovative initiatives like the ‘Air Orchard.’ We improved on our first panel that generated water from moisture in the air for human consumption and increased the production of water to grow healthy food. We have found a practical solution to a real problem, and through creativity and innovation we developed solutions to the challenges of our country and the world.”

Now imagine eating fresh vegetables from a billboard on a highway near you.

Outrage boils over as B.C. government plans to sell groundwater for $2.25 per million litres

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More than 82,000 people have signed a petition against the government’s plans to sell B.C.’s water for $2.25 per million litres.

“It is outrageous,” says the online petition from SumOfUs.org, that corporations can buy water “for next to nothing.”

B.C.’s Water Sustainability Act (WSA), which comes into effect next January and replaces the province’s century-old water legislation, has been heralded as a major step forward. But politicians and experts are raising doubts over whether the newly announced water fees may be too low to cover the cost of the program, asking if the act simply won’t be implemented properly, or if taxpayers could end up picking up the bill.

Last month, the government unveiled the new water pricing structure, which will include, for the first time in B.C.’s history, groundwater being regulated and subject to fees and rentals.

Critics said that, while it’s a step in the right direction, the prices are still not close to capturing the resource’s value.

Under the new regime, most residential water users won’t see a big difference. Households with wells are exempt from fees, and homes supplied by municipal water systems may pay $1 or $2 more per year, according to the ministry.

But water rates for industrial users, which are a fraction of what some provinces charge, are “like a giveaway” to corporations, critics say.

NDP environment critic Spencer Chandra Herbert said the new legislation is “promising,” but questioned whether it would actually live up to its promise, or just remain “nice words on paper.”

“I don’t think the water’s being properly valued in order to properly protect it,” he said, adding effective water management involves “boots on the ground” to enforce the act, and “policy people” to make decisions.

“A lot of business groups, community groups, farmers – they want to see better protection for their water. I’m just worried we’re not going to get it.”

When Chandra Herbert raised the issue last month in the legislature, Environment Minister Mary Polak replied that British Columbians are “quite proud” that B.C. “has never engaged in the selling of water as a commodity.”

Polak said: “We don’t sell water. We charge administration fees for the management of that resource.”

A Ministry of Environment spokesman said the new fees and rentals have been set to cover the cost of administering the new WSA, estimated at $8 million per year.

In the legislature, Polak pointed to the example of Nestlé, Canada’s largest bottled-water producer, which operates a plant in Hope and, she said, will be “charged at the highest industrial rate.”

Under the old Water Act, Nestlé, like other groundwater users, didn’t need to pay the government anything for water withdrawals. But under the WSA, Nestlé will start paying for the hundreds of millions of litres of groundwater they withdraw, bottle and sell. That rate of $2.25 per million litres – the highest industrial rate in the new price structure – means Nestlé will pay the government $596.25 a year for 265 million litres.

Under the WSA, Nestlé and other groundwater users also will begin paying permit fees. A Nestlé executive said he expects the annual fee for water-bottling companies to be between $1,000 and $10,000.

The government’s review of water pricing is a “once-in-a-generation opportunity,” said Oliver Brandes from the University of Victoria’s POLIS Project. But there’s still “significant uncertainty,” he said, about whether the new system will provide sufficient resources to implement the act.

The WSA, he said, “has the potential to be revolutionary, but only if it’s fully – key word, fully – implemented, which requires dollars.”

Someone needs to pay that bill, Brandes said, whether it’s B.C. taxpayers or water users. And linking that cost recovery to the large-scale industrial users, he said, may be not only more ecologically and financially sustainable, but more fair as well.

If the new fees fail to cover the cost of the program, that could effectively mean industries enjoy cheap water subsidized by taxpayers, said David Zetland, a professor of economics and a water pricing expert.

“And if the taxpayer’s subsidizing it, that’s a scandal,” said Zetland, who previously taught at SFU.

The government expects that won’t happen, but Zetland suspects, with the current rates, “taxpayers are going to be on the hook.”

John Challinor, Nestlé Waters Canada‘s director of corporate affairs, said: “All monies collected should be used solely to support the management and enforcement of the regulation. This program should not be subsidized by taxpayers who don’t draw groundwater.”

The program should be “self-funded,” Challinor said, with pricing “based on a full cost recovery model” to cover mapping of watersheds, audits, management and enforcement.

“We have always agreed to pay our fair share for groundwater. But, we also believe that all commercial, municipal and domestic groundwater users should pay their fair share.”

[email protected] twitter.com/fumano

Learn How This Family Grows 6,000 Lbs Of Food on Just 1/10th Acre

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Ever thought of growing your own food but didn’t think it was possible? It’s more that possible! It might even be the way of the future. If the Dervaes family can do it while living in Los Angeles, I think you can to.

The Dervaes family live on 1/10th of an acre 15 minutes from downtown L.A.. In itself that’s not strange. What’s crazy is that they manage to maintain a sustainable and independent urban farm. Complete with animals!

In a year they produce around 4,300 pounds of veggies, 900 chicken , 1000 duck eggs, 25 lbs honey, and pounds of seasonal fruit. There are over 400 species of plants. What?! They have everything they need to ‘live off the land.’ From beets to bees. Chickens to chickpeas.

What the family doesn’t eat they sell from their porch, making around $20,000 a year. Local organic food is so popular that they don’t have any problems finding customs. Even chefs from restaurants seek them out.

I tried to figure out how big 1/10th (0.1) of an acre is in perspective to other things . I used this website, findlotsize.com, and put markers around my ‘house.’ I got a rough estimate that mine is 0.062, but my math seems wrong since my place looks way smaller. It’s interesting to know all the same. Check it out … if you’re curious to learn what size yours is.

Here’s the video… Enjoy!

Global Warming Is Slowing Ocean Currents Causing Dire Consequences, Warns Climate Expert Michael Mann ” EcoWatch

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Climate scientists Michael Mann and Stefan Rahmstorf announced the findings of their new study yesterday, which shows that the rapid melting of the polar ice has slowed down currents in the Atlantic Ocean, particularly since 1970. The scientists say “the slowdown in ocean currents will result in sea level rise in cities like New York and Boston, and temperature changes on both sides of the Atlantic,” reports NPR’s Jeremy Hobson. Mann, who is a professor and the director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University, joined Hobson yesterday on Here and Now to discuss the study and the implications of its findings.

Mann explains the consequences of the Gulf Stream shutting down and how it would drastically alter the climate in Europe and North America. The last time this happened, about 12,000 years ago, at the end of the last ice age, North America and Europe went back into a mini-ice age, Mann says. Not only would North America and Europe experience colder temperatures, but “If those current systems shut down, then suddenly the North Atlantic [fisheries] would no longer be productive,” says Mann.

Mann says a shutdown of the Gulf Stream might happen a lot sooner than the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report predicts. “Our studies suggest we are much closer to that than the current model suggests. A full shutdown … could be decades from now.”

Listen to the full interview here:

‘Solar Shirt’ Powers Your iPhone in Style, Unveiled at SXSW

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Solar has gone chic with high end fashion designer, Pauline van Dongen’s Solar Shirt from her Wearable Solar collection. The shirt, which was designed in collaboration with TNO and Holst Centre, was unveiled at a SXSW Interactive. The shirt allows you to power up your portable devices using solar cells integrated into the fabric, all while looking good doing it.

“Wearing solar cells lets us harness the sun’s potential energy and become a power source ourselves,” said van Dongen in a press release. “As a designer, I’m excited by how solar cells can add to the esthetic of a garment … We’ve taken solar fashion from the catwalk to [main] street, with an attractive yet practical garment that people could wear every day,” she says.

To charge your phone or other portable device, you need to plug your charger into a small “module” in the front of the shirt, which doubles as a pocket when you’re not using it to charge a device. The shirt can charge smartphones, MP3 players, GPS systems and other USB-compatible handheld or portable devices. It contains 120 thin-film solar cells, so “in bright sunlight, it produces one watt of electricity, enough to charge a phone in a few hours,” said Holst Centre’s Margreet de Kok in the press release. Indoors, it generates enough power to keep a battery alive.

Many clothing designers have struggled to create wearable technology with the moving body in mind and most of the clothing is not machine washable. The Solar Shirt has all of that covered. “Our technology enables extremely thin electronics that are stretchable, flexible and washable,” de Kok said. “It can be integrated into fabrics using standard high-volume techniques that are well known in the textile industry. The maturity of the technology means textile manufactures could bring functional fabrics to market in a matter of months using existing production facilities.”

Futuristic Water Bottle Is an Edible Blob of Awesomeness Called Ooho!

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Looks like someone has started to create an awesome, cool way to drink water. The future of sustainable water portability is almost here: The Ooho! Water Blob won the Lexus 2014 Design Award

Ooho! Water blog sustainable water portability bottle lexus award Ooho! Water blog sustainable water portability bottle lexus award

When we drink bottled water we throw away plastic, [and] 80% of the bottles are not recycled….. Ooho! uses the culinary technique of sphereification, the water is encapsulated in a double gelatinous membrane. The technique consist into apply sodium alginate (E-401) from the brown algae and calcium chloride (E-509) in a concrete proportions in order to generate a gelification on the exterior of the liquid. The final package is simple, cheap (2ct/unit), resistant, hygienic, biodegradable and even eatable. Ooho! is licensed as creative commons so everyone could make them at their kitchen, modifying and innovating the “recipe.”

 

Photos from DesignBoom <<

Turn A $2000 Shipping Container Into An Epic Off-Grid Home

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All you need is around $2000 to begin building one of these epic homes – made from recycled shipping containers! Check out some of these amazing creations!

A luxury home doesn’t always necessarily mean thousands of square footage, towering great rooms and gilded toilets. Take these homes for example: to begin building one of these epic houses, all you need is $2,000. That $2,000 will buy you a shipping container. What you do with that shipping container… well, that’s completely up to you. Some creative people have found a way to transform this rudimentary “room” with metal siding into luxury housing that blows us away. These homes are epic.

1.) A shipping container doesn’t have to be a closed space.

2.) Blue container? Run with it!

3.) Open up the metal boxes and let your imagination run wild.

4.) *jaw drops*

5.) The shapes are basically the same, but wow.

6.) Utilitarian… and awesome.

7.) The best part about this one is that you know they made it out of shipping containers.

8.) This open concept was taken a step further with a sliding garage door.

9.) You don’t rob this house. Ever.

10.) Modern, yet … not.

11.) This is the kind of home that keeps a person happy.

12.) Already-made pool? Yes please.

13.) Recycled materials AND it’s good for the planet.

14.) This collection of containers is just epic.

15.) These are so inspiring.

If you enjoyed these what these people did with their containers then you will love this couple’s new tiny home.

The best part of the gallery that this Reddit user shared? The shipping containers are recycled materials, so you’re actually helping the environment if you invest in making a luxury shipping container home. You can’t beat a base price of $2,000. What a marvellous idea; share it with others by clicking on the Share button above/below this article.

Fossil Fuel Industry Is Quietly Building Pipeline Network That ‘Dwarfs Keystone’ XL

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Despite public opposition that has so far blocked the building of the Keystone XL pipeline, the fossil fuels industry has successfully-and quietly-expanded the nation’s domestic oil network by installing thousands of miles of pipeline across the country, according to new reporting by the Associated Press.

“Overall, the network has increased by almost a quarter in the last decade,” the AP reports. “And the work dwarfs Keystone. About 3.3 million barrels per day of capacity have been added since 2012 alone-five times more oil than the Canada-to-Texas Keystone line could carry if it’s ever built.”

While the Keystone project is still in limbo, the petroleum industry has “pushed relentlessly everywhere else to get oil to market more efficiently, and its adversaries have been unable to stop other major pipelines,” writes AP journalist Henry Jackson.

That’s not to say they haven’t tried.

In Minnesota, for example, local opponents succeeded last year in getting state regulators to consider rerouting a 616-mile pipeline proposed by Toronto-based Enbridge around lakes and forests, delaying it for at least a year.

“More typical, though, was an Enbridge project to double the capacity of a 285-mile stretch of pipeline in Michigan,” Jackson writes. “Groups like the Michigan Coalition Against Tar Sands fought the proposal, citing a spill in 2010 that caused serious environmental damage. But the Michigan Public Service Commission ruled the project acceptable, and the expansion went ahead.”

Opposition to local pipeline projects is ongoing. In Iowa, the Meskwaki Indian tribe is objecting to a Texas company’s plans to construct a 343-mile crude oil pipeline across 18 Iowa counties, the Des Moines Register reported Monday.

“As a people that have lived in North America for thousands of years, we have environmental concerns about the land and drinking water,” tribal chairwoman Judith Bender wrote in a letter filed last month with state officials. “As long as our environment was good we could live, regardless of who our neighbors were.”

She continued: “Our main concern is Iowa’s aquifers might be significantly damaged. And it will only take one mistake and life in Iowa will change for the next thousands of years. We think that should be protected, because it is the water that gives Iowa the best way of life.”

An analysis released in November by the Center for Biological Diversity found that there have been more than 8,700 significant incidents with U.S. pipelines involving death, injury, and economic and environmental damage since 1986-more than 300 per year.

In fact, a new proposal from the Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration “is an implicit acknowledgment that some of the oil industry’s testing technology isn’t sophisticated enough to detect cracks or corrosion in time to prevent a pipeline’s failure,” according to Energy & Environment Publishing’s EnergyWire, which reported exclusively on the plan on Monday.

According to EnergyWire:

Almost two years after an Exxon Mobil Corp. pipeline split open and sent Canadian crude flowing through a neighborhood in Mayflower, Ark., federal regulators have quietly proposed a sweeping rewrite of oil pipeline safety rules.

If the proposal is finalized in its current form, as much as 95 percent of the U.S. pipelines that carry crude, gasoline and other liquids-182,000 miles-would be subject to the new rules and about half the system may have to undergo extensive tests to prove it can operate safely, according to information from the Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.

The plan, known as the Hazardous Liquids Integrity Verification Process, is an implicit acknowledgment that some of the oil industry’s testing technology isn’t sophisticated enough to detect cracks or corrosion in time to prevent a pipeline’s failure. And for the first time since PHMSA was created, it may wind up telling companies they have to replace certain aging pipelines.

The oil and pipeline industries are already lobbying against the idea, EnergyWire reports, though few details about the plan are publicly available.

According to EnergyWire journalist Mike Lee: “PHMSA declined to make any of its officials available for interviews over a five-day period and wouldn’t answer written questions on the record-even though the agency has already briefed two oil industry trade associations about the proposal.”

This Dad Gives His Sick Son Marijuana Extract. The Results… Mind-blowing!

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Jayden’s dad was desperate to help him overcome his epileptic seizures.

This video is from a new documentary The Culture High which looks at both sides of the marijuana prohibition argument.

After taking more than 22 pills a day, Jason decided that enough is enough and gave his son Marijuana extract. The results will surprise you.

The University of Texas also recently published their research into the long-term effects of marijuana.

Support the film and watch the full documentary today.

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The Senate Had A Hearing On Oil Exports And Didn’t Mention The Environment Once

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On Thursday, the Senate Energy Committee convened a hearing to discuss the U.S. ban on crude oil exports, which has been in place since 1973. With the United States in the midst of an oil boom – and with Americans using less gas than ever before – lifting the ban would have profound implications both at home and abroad, issues that dominated the panelists’ testimony and committee’s questions.

“The national security side will be an extremely important part of this going forward,” Chairwoman Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), said during the hearing. “We all recognize that the world is a very, very volatile place right now.”

Lifting the export ban, several panelists argued, would allow the United States to leverage more power over potential oil sanctions by assuring that the international market would remain stable. It would also, panelists said, move the center of the international oil market away from unstable countries – both Russia and Iran merited a mention – stabilizing the overall supply.

Domestically, Carlos Pascual, fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, argued that lifting the export ban would lower gas prices and boost the U.S. economy. “The critical focus on the part of Americans is price,” Pascual said. “Every single study that has been done by a major institution has come to the same conclusion: lifting the export ban will reduce the price of gasoline in the United States,” while adding $38.1 billion to the U.S. GDP by 2020.

In all these calculations, however, there was one glaring omission: no panelist – or senator – talked about how lifting the export ban would impact the environment.

“It feels ridiculous to have a discussion about lifting the ban on oil exports and not talk about climate change,” Karthik Ganapathy, U.S. communications director at 350.org, told ThinkProgress. “What it boils down to is lifting the ban encourages and incentivizes oil production in the U.S. and that’s the wrong direction.”

Lifting the crude oil export ban would increase demand for oil in the international market, which would incentivize U.S. oil companies to expand their businesses and explore new options for drilling. Most likely, that would mean the extraction of tight oil reserves – the kind of petroleum extracted from shale or sandstone through hydraulic fracking.

“Our concern is that we need to be moving away from oil,” said David Turnbull, campaigns director at Oil Change International. “We need to be not relaxing U.S. oil regulations in the context of the climate crisis.”

Here are three issues surrounding crude oil exports that weren’t mentioned in Thursday’s Senate hearing.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions

“The industry wants to lift the ban so they can increase production and have a bigger market to send their oil around,” Turnbull said. “The logical conclusion to that is that they would be ramping up production, and that has a clear climate impact.”

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), one-third of the world’s fossil fuel reserves – including coal, oil, and natural gas – need to remain in the ground to have a 50-50 shot at staying beneath the 2° Celsius warming limit internationally agreed upon by 141 countries in the Copenhagen Accord (a limit that, by some estimates, doesn’t go far enough in protecting us from the negative effects of climate change). To raise that chance to 80 percent, only one-tenth of current fossil fuel reserves can be extracted and burned by 2050. Working under those incredibly tight parameters, a huge amount of America’s natural gas needs to remain in the Earth for the 2°C goal to be feasible.

Lifting the crude oil export ban would encourage producers to flood the market with even more crude oil, stimulating the burning of a fuel that needs to stay in the ground if the 2°C goal has any chance of being a reality. As Oil Change International warned in a 2013 report, “Without an effective international regime to keep global greenhouse gas emissions below recognized thresholds, deregulating U.S. crude oil exports can only exacerbate the impending climate crisis.”

CREDIT: Josh Burstein / NextGen Climate Action

In addition to encouraging the extraction of tight oil, lifting the export ban could increase the amount of heavy crudes – like tar sands – brought into the U.S. for refining.

“Before we had this new boom of the lighter, desirable crude, [the U.S. oil industries] built a number of refineries that are specialized in getting usable product out of heavier crude,” Janet Larsen, director of research at Earth Policy Institute, told ThinkProgress. “If we can export the lighter stuff, we may end up … sending it to places that can refine it better, and using the refineries we have to process the heavier stuff.”

That, Larsen explains, would be tantamount to an double-whammy, increasing the production of both light crude and heavier, more greenhouse gas-intensive heavy crude.

Water Concerns

If deregulating crude oil exports encourages U.S. producers to ramp up extraction of tight oil, leading to an increase in fracking, the country’s already dwindling water supply could also be on the line.

Fracking is a water-intensive process, requiring millions of gallons of water to drill a single well. In places like California, which is in the midst of a historic drought, fracking would require the diversion of precious water resources to drill for a fuel that will simply exacerbate climate change, which some say caused the drought in the first place.

CREDIT: AuntSpray

But it doesn’t take a drought to raise concerns about the impact an increase in fracking would have on water supplies. Last week, the Environmental Working Group released a report on the chemicals found in California’s fracking wastewater, listing things like “petroleum chemicals, heavy metals, and radioactive elements.”

Even in places not currently experiencing drought, fracking – which, according to the EWG, produces more wastewater than it does oil or gas – gives environmentalists pause. “Pennsylvania is not necessarily in a drought,” Turnbull said, “but that doesn’t mean that people’s drinking water should be impacted.”

Dangerous Transportation

Since mid-February, four trains carrying crude oil have derailed in the U.S. and Canada, sparking massive fires and spilling their contents into waterways and communities.

It’s becoming increasingly clear that trains are not a particularly safe method of transporting crude oil. And yet, if the export ban is lifted, oil companies looking to ship their crude overseas will have to get their oil to market somehow – either by train or pipeline.

“Transporting oil, no matter which way you do it, is not safe,” Turnbull said. “It’s a combustible fuel. It causes problems when it gets mixed with water. When a pipeline leaks in a neighborhood, it can decimate it.”

To Turnbull, the debate over relaxing crude oil export regulations highlights a dangerous chasm between energy policy and climate policy. “It’s really incoherent,” he said, “to talk about the crude export ban and relaxing oil regulations without talking about climate change.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Anan Kaewkhammul
Written By: Natasha Geiling

Scientists successfully add woolly mammoth DNA into elephant

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The woolly mammoth has been extinct for some 4,000 years ago, but now, researchers are attempting to bring it back to life.

A team at Harvard University has successfully inserted woolly mammoth DNA into the genetic code of an elephant.

The project was led by Harvard genetics professor George Church. He told The Sunday Times, “We prioritized genes associated with cold resistance including hairiness, ear size, subcutaneous fat and, especially, hemoglobin.”

Church has spoken about this type of genetic splicing in elephants before.

“We would propose to make a hybrid elephant that has the best features of modern elephants and the best features of mammoths.”

The Asian elephant is the closest relative to mammoths, although the size of mammoths was similar to that of the larger African elephant.

Church’s project isn’t without its critics, though.

Some scientists are against using elephants to potentially bring back the woolly mammoths. Professor Alex Greenwood told The Telegraph: “Why bring back another elephantid from extinction when we cannot even keep the ones that are not extinct around? What is the message? We can be as irresponsible with the environment as we want. Then we’ll just clone things back?”

The Harvard-led project has not yet been submitted to a journal because the research is ongoing.

Japanese Scientists Have Successfully Transmitted Electricity Wirelessly Through The Air

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Scientists in Japan have successfully transmitted electricity wirelessly through the air, validating much of the work Nikola Tesla did while he was alive. Debate has raged for decades about whether it could be done, and scientists with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency have done it. They used microwaves to deliver electricity to a target 55 meters away.

“This was the first time anyone has managed to send a high output of nearly two kilowatts of electric power via microwaves to a small target, using a delicate directivity control device,” a spokesman for the agency told AFP on Thursday.

“SSPS consists of a space-based power generation/transmission facility that gathers sunlight, converts it into microwaves or laser beams, and transmits those to the ground; and a power receiving facility on the ground,” explained researcher Yasuyuki Fukumuro.

“There are many technological challenges to solve before SSPS can be implemented. When transmitting power by microwaves, a significant technological challenge is how to control the direction, and transmit it with pinpoint accuracy from a geostationary orbit to a receiving site on the ground,” he added.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLdXyASvw9U

This Former Marine Walked Away From Civilization And Into The Woods. His Life Will Amaze You!

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Meet Mick Dodge. Mick has spent 25 years living away from civilization entirely, living off of the land in a rainforest. Mick is a former marine who left his 9-5 job as a heavy equipment mechanic at Fort Lewis to take up an alternative lifestyle.

“That’s my real passion,” says Dodge.

Dodge is a native of the Hoh Rainforest, which is located on the Olympic Peninsula of western Washington State. His great-grandparents originally settled the area. Dodge grew up to travel around the world and become a huge fitness freak.

At 62 years old, Dodge doesn’t have time for any fancy gym, or even society. His gym is the great outdoors. He calls it the Earth Gym, kind of a YMCA in the forest. Dodge spends his days and nights in the forest. He wears no shoes, and simply walks barefoot through streams and between trees. The reason he walks with no shoes is because his feet hurt.

“My feet hurt. They hurt so bad that I could barely walk and I had always used my walk and run to handle the stress of modern living. The Hoh is home for me. So I went home to heal my feet.”

“The results came quickly. Not only were my feet healing, but my back pain, neck pain and most of all my heart pain disappeared, and in no time at all I was back into a dead run, stepping out of the sedentary, stressed, sedated and secured living of the modern world. I was dancing as the fire, running as the wind, strengthening as the stone and flowing as the water within, by the simple act of touching with my bare soles and allowing the Earth to teach.”

Of course, not wearing shoes hasn’t always worked out for him. On three separate occasions, he’s injured his feet. Once while running in the early forest, he almost lost his toes to frostbite. That taught him a lesson. “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.” Sometimes he wears some knee-high buffalo skin boots with elk horn buttons. What a fella!

Dodge is a practical kind of naturalist and it helps him survive. In the wet climate, he wears plastic garments to protect from the rain. “The art of living out here is the art of staying dry,” he said. He also eats pretty much whatever he comes across.

“I am an omnivore, able to eat a wide variety of food, which also means that I learned how to become a scavenger and allowed the hunger in my belly to guide me into discovering all kinds of food. When a cougar kills an elk, the entire forest moves in to eat. So I do the same,” he said. “But there is one highly spiritual food that I try to maintain in my stashes and storage places and that is chocolate-chip cookies. My grandmothers got me hooked on them.”

His lifestyle may make him seem like some kind of crazy forest hermit, but he’s hardly in isolation. He spends his time with a community of mountain dwellers. He even gets the occasional girlfriend. “On my journey, I have formed so many wonderful connections with women, formed strong brother-and-sister relationships with them,” he said. “I may not be able to figure out what they are always talking about. But if their soles are touching the earth, I am more able to figure it out.”

Dodge doesn’t miss civilization, but he doesn’t shun it either. “There is no way to get away from it. So I developed a physical fitness practice in how to step in and out of it, stepping out of the walls, machines, electronics, social babble for a while, ground back into the natural flow of the land, and then go back in.”

Dodge’s life is being covered in a new National Geographic Channel series called The Legend of Mick Dodge. The show focuses on all his adventures in the mountains.

Dodge is an interesting cat. He’s connected with nature, has a sense of humor, and lacks the self-righteousness you get with the off-grid naturalist types. It’s pretty refreshing.

“My family has perfected the art of dodging civilizations for hundreds of years. All I have to do is follow my feet,” Dodge puts it plainly.

Guess which: One Of these Egg Yolks Is Actually From A HEALTHY Chicken!?

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One of the more interesting aspects of living in Brazil is the different approaches to food. We are connected to local farms from friends and family, spoiling us with organic homegrown everything. Regarding chicken eggs, the sizes vary, the colors of the shells vary but if the egg comes from the family farm, the yolk almost always a darker color. It is also thicker than the typical yellow yolk you find at the store.

In the United States all the eggs that can be bought at our local supermarket are yellow. Organic, vegetarian or cheap; they are all yellow and the yolk is not as thick. What is the reason for this? Could it be that myself and almost everyone I know has been eating eggs from unhealthy chickens? Have you ever even seen an orange egg? It took me 30 years to discover an egg from a healthy chicken. That’s crazy.

Having returned to the states, Craigslist is the go-to route to accommodate my urban life with homestead flare in search of the dankest foods.

From Garden Betty… Last year, I compared my pasture-foraging, insect-pecking, soil-scratching, whole grain-feeding chickens’ yolks to the yolks of both their “free-ranging” and factory-farmed counterparts. The are clearly visible: Yolks from my homegrown eggs were not only darker orange, but also fuller and thicker. Even the eggshells were denser and harder to crack. But what’s the big deal about orange yolks? Besides being a coveted color, orange yolks are an indication of a well balanced and highly nutritious diet. A few things factor into the making of an orange yolk: xanthophylls, omega-3 fatty acids, and meats. Xanthophylls are a class of carotenoids. Carotenoids are natural plant pigments found in many fruits and vegetables. It’s often thought that beta-carotene, one of the more well-known carotenoids, is responsible for giving yolks the orange pigment that people associate with carrots. But in actuality, beta-carotene benefits yolks nutritionally, rather than colorfully. The carotenoids that cause deeper yolk coloring are xanthophylls, which are more readily absorbed in the yolks. (Lutein is one such xanthophyll, and a lot of lutein means a lot more orange.) Xanthophylls are found in dark leafy greens like spinach, kale and collards, as well as in zucchini, broccoli, and brussels sprouts. Omega-3 fatty acids are highly concentrated in flax seeds and sea kelp, which are both important components of my homemade whole grain chicken feed.

And did you know that chickens are not meant to be vegetarian, no matter what your premium carton of organic/grain-fed/cage-free eggs tells you? Chickens are omnivores by nature and their healthiest diets include meats, such as mealworms, beetles, grasshoppers, grubs, and whatever creepy-crawly they can pull out of the ground. I’ve even heard of chickens (those ballsy ones out in the boonies) attacking small rodents and snakes!

When you have all of these sources incorporated into a hen’s healthful diet, the nutrients they consume are passed on to their eggs and concentrated in their yolks. According to Mother Earth News, which conducted its own egg analysis, and a more recent Pennsylvania State University study, pastured eggs contain higher levels of vitamins A, D and E; more beta-carotene; and more omega-3s.

All this means is that a pastured egg is better for you. And that’s one of the reasons we raise chickens, right?

So, how do we get those delightful dark orange yolks from our backyard chickens?

Let your ladies roam a pasture (or a garden – especially if you’re digging over new beds – or even just a new patch of dirt in their chicken tractor) for an orange-boosting bug buffet.

Give them plenty of fresh greens to increase the lutein in their yolks. The darker the green the better, so I often fix them a feast of edible amaranth (one of my favorite summer greens), kale, collards, broccoli leaves, or whatever I happen to have growing in my garden. If it’s the middle of winter and your garden greens are lacking, you can feed them alfalfa.

They’re very handy helpers at the end of the season when most of my greens have bolted and become bug-ridden. Let the chickens clean up those plants before you pull them out for your compost pile. It’s a win for everybody! (Except the bugs, that is…)

(As an aside, don’t be fooled by the cheater method that egg factories take, and simply feed your chickens more corn. While corn can give your yolks that nice golden color, it has little nutritional value.)

After a few weeks, you’ll be so used to seeing orange yolks (the way most of us have been conditioned to see yellow yolks) that you might even think they haven’t changed in color. Buy some eggs from the store and crack them into a bowl with your homegrown eggs – you’ll be stunned at the difference!

Those are some interesting observations by Garden Betty. Here is a bit more of an explanation by food and nutrition.

When it comes to yolks, the color is determined by a hen’s diet, not its breed (artificial color additives are not permitted in eggs) or the freshness of the egg. Hen diets heavy in green plants, yellow corn, alfalfa and other plant material with xanthophylls pigment (a yellow-orange hue) will produce a darker yellow-orange yolk. Diets of wheat or barley produce pale yellow yolks; hens fed white cornmeal produce almost colorless yolks.

Free-range hens may have access to more heavily pigmented food so they may produce eggs with darker yolks. According to the American Egg Board, consumer preference in the U.S. is typically for light gold- or lemon-colored yolks.

At the end of the day, know your farmer and the diet of the chickens producing the eggs to be eaten.

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World Faces Severe Water Shortage If Changes Are Not Made, UN Warns | VICE News

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With the world’s population expected to grow to 9.1 billion by mid-century, already depleted groundwater supplies will continue to be gobbled up by agriculture, industry, power generation and personal use, according to the UN’s annual World Water Development Report.

The report, released Friday, says that around 20 percent of groundwater sources are already “overexploited” – a problem that will only grow more dire by 2050, when demand for water is expected to have risen by more than half.

Most alarmingly, the report warns that as early as 2030, the planet could have only 60 percent of the water required to sustain itself if substantial changes are not made to improve management of the resource.

“Unless the balance between demand and finite supplies is restored, the world will face an increasingly severe global water deficit,” says the report.

“Unless the balance between demand and finite supplies is restored, the world will face an increasingly severe global water deficit.”

Richard Connor, lead author of the UN report and an independent water expert, told VICE News that the crisis could possibly be averted if countries mandate efficient water use and attach a greater price to water itself. He said climate change, which is already beginning to exacerbate variations in weather patterns – some parched climates may become even drier in the future, wetter ones rainier – makes that task even more pressing.

“With respect to climate change, the two major problems have to do with salt water intrusion in aquifers due to sea level rise, as well as the impact in the variability of distribution of rain,” Connor said.

Coastal cities like Kolkata, Shanghai, Dhaka and Jakarta already face a rise in salinization of their fresh water supplies in part due to uncontrolled groundwater extraction. As salt water mixes with longstanding aquifers, both licit and illegal wells are dug deeper, furthering the problem.

In Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh and one of the most vulnerable cities to sea rise, the World Bank predicts salt content in soil could decrease the yields of some rice crops by more than 15 percent. By 2050 researchers say climate change will cause the salinity of rivers in Bangladesh to vary significantly during dry seasons and lead to the disruption of important aquatic habitats for animals like freshwater fish and prawns. Even road construction will cost more, as higher salt levels in soil cause cracking in paved surfaces.

Related: Despite the Deep Freeze on the US East Coast, This Winter Was the Hottest on Record

Connor said that inefficient water consumption is irreplaceably draining water supplies in places like the Western US, Middle East and in parts of North Africa, China, and small island states in the Pacific.

“In all of these places people rely on ground water for irrigation and other uses.” he said. “And in a lot of cases the ground water isn’t used sustainably, they are basically just taking money out of the bank,” added Connor.

The report highlighted several localized cases where governments were able to better manage supplies. In Cyprus, subsidies and low-interest loans for farmers helped many switch to more efficient irrigation systems. That efficiency, however, may only “lead to the expansion of irrigated areas instead of increased flows in rivers,” it warned.

“In a lot of cases the ground water isn’t used sustainably, they are basically just taking money out of the bank.”

The report arrives as UN officials are coming to grips with the devastation Cyclone Pam last week inflicted on the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu. Scientists say climate change will only worsen the intensity of storms like Pam and Typhoon Haiyan, which made landfall in the Philippines in 2013 with record strength, leaving more than 6,000 people dead. Such storms already are disrupting delicate water supplies in vulnerable areas.

At the opposite extreme, record droughts are hitting places like the Western United States and Brazil, and imperiling agriculture in those areas.

Although industry, power generation and personal use of water loom large in many parts of the world, agricultural activities account for around 70 percent of water use globally, and as much as 90 percent in poorer countries. The UN predicts the sector will need to produce 60 percent more food to feed the world’s population by 2050, and it is not clear where the requisite water for such a surge in food production will come from.

“California is in particular in trouble, which means the US is in trouble, because California is where a lot of the US’s food is produced,” said Connor, who predicted American food prices will rise in the coming years.

Related: Watch A Weeks’ Worth of Senator Ted Cruz Denying Climate Change

The report, which was unveiled in Delhi, called on countries to raise their water tariffs, claiming they were currently “far too low to actually limit excessive water use by wealthy households or industries.”

Governments in developing countries face the daunting goal of decreasing or altering use while at the same time extending proper sanitation systems and clean supplies of fresh water to impoverished communities. In India, where more than half a million people still defecate in the open, some 748 million people also remain without permanent access to an improved drinking water source.

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Connor points to UN estimates that put the return on every dollar spent on sanitation at more than five times the initial investment – a payoff seen in decreased healthcare costs due to lessened disease transmission and a subsequent rise in worker productivity. But upfront costs for sanitation systems can be expensive, and in many cases more wells are simply dug.

“If we continue business as usual we are on an unsustainable path,” said Connor.

‘Water man of India’ bags top prize

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An award known as “the Nobel Prize for water” has been given to an Indian campaigner who has brought water to 1,000 villages.

The judges of the Stockholm Water Prize say his methods have also prevented floods, restored soil and rivers, and brought back wildlife.

The prize-winner, Rajendra Singh, is dubbed “the Water Man of India”.

The judges say his technique is cheap, simple, and that his ideas should be followed worldwide.

Mr Singh uses a modern version of the ancient Indian technique of rainwater harvesting.

It involves building low-level banks of earth to hold back the flow of water in the wet season and allow water to seep into the ground for future use.

He first trained as a medic, but when he took up a post in a rural village in arid Rajasthan he was told the greatest need was not health care but drinking water.

Groundwater had been sucked dry by farmers, and as water disappeared, crops failed, rivers, forests and wildlife disappeared and people left for the towns.

“When we started our work, we were only looking at the drinking water crisis and how to solve that,” Mr Singh said.

“Today our aim is higher. This is the century of exploitation, pollution and encroachment. To stop all this, to convert the war on water into peace, that is my life’s goal.”

The Stockholm International Water Institute, which presented the prize, said his lessons were essential as climate change alters weather patterns round the world.

Its director, Torgny Holmgren, said: “In a world where demand for freshwater is booming, we will face a severe water crisis within decades if we do not learn how to better take care of our water. Mr Singh is a beacon of hope.”

In its citation, the judges say: “Today’s water problems cannot be solved by science or technology alone. They are human problems of governance, policy, leadership, and social resilience.

“Rajendra Singh’s life work has been in building social capacity to solve local water problems through participatory action, empowerment of women, linking indigenous know-how with modern scientific and technical approaches and upending traditional patterns of development and resource use.”

The award was applauded by Katherine Pygott, a leading UK water engineer who has drawn on Mr Singh’s work to help prevent flooding in the UK.

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