Verdant lawns and shady groves of trees lining the quad-that kind of landscaping is common on America’s college campuses. But once construction on FTP University’s new campus in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, is completed, the city’s 8 million residents might have a tough time figuring out where the buildings start and the greenery ends.
The private, technology-focused institution has commissioned Vo Trong Nghia Architects, a Vietnamese firm that specializes in green architecture, to build a 14-square-mile campus. Plans for the campus include terraced buildings tricked out with tree-covered rooftops and balconies, as well as courtyards filled with plants. The images resemble pyramids rising out of the jungle.
“To engage the city in a different way, FPT University appears as an undulating forested mountain growing out of the city of concrete and brick. This form creates more greenery than is destroyed, counteracting environmental stress and providing the city with a new icon for sustainability,” the architects said in a statement. “Environmental stress is observable through frequent energy shortages, increased pollution, rising temperatures, and reduced greenery,” they continued.
Thanks to development and industrial construction, 60 percent of forested areas in the Southeast Asian country have been destroyed, according to a 2011 report from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. “Ho Chi Minh City illustrates these issues, having only 0.25 percent of the entire city covered in greenery,” according to the architect’s statement.
“Cities, especially in thriving countries like Vietnam, are growing at such a speed that infrastructure is unable to keep pace,” added the architects. The deforestation-fighting concept certainly resembles a tropical paradise. It’s unclear when the firm expects to complete the project.
There’s a massive vacuum cleaner in the middle of a Rotterdam park and it’s sucking all the smog out of the air. A decent portion of it, anyway. And it isn’t a vacuum, exactly. It looks nothing like a Dyson or a Hoover. It’s probably more accurate to describe it as the world’s largest air purifier.
The Smog Free Tower, as it’s called, is a collaboration between Dutch designer Daan Roosegaarde, Delft Technology University researcher Bob Ursem, and European Nano Solutions, a green tech company in the Netherlands. The metal tower, nearly 23 feet tall, can purify up to 1 million cubic feet of air every hour. To put that in perspective, the Smog Free Tower would need just 10 hours to purify enough air to fill Madison Square Garden. “When this baby is up and running for the day you can clean a small neighborhood,” says Roosegaarde.
It does this by ionizing airborne smog particles. Particles smaller than 10 micrometers in diameter (about the width of a cotton fiber) are tiny enough to inhale and can be harmful to the heart and lungs. Ursem, who has been researching ionization since the early 2000s, says a radial ventilation system at the top of the tower (powered by wind energy) draws in dirty air, which enters a chamber where particles smaller than 15 micrometers are given a positive charge. Like iron shavings drawn to a magnet, the the positively charged particles attach themselves to a grounded counter electrode in the chamber. The clean air is then expelled through vents in the lower part of the tower, surrounding the structure in a bubble of clean air. Ursem notes that this process doesn’t produce ozone, like many other ionic air purifiers, because the particles are charged with positive voltage rather than a negative.
“The proposed technology, while not new, would need to be well demonstrated on a large scale in a highly polluted urban area,” says Eileen McCauley, a manager in the California Air Resources Board’s research division. She adds that there are concerns around efficacy and logistics like how often something like this would need to be cleaned. But Ursem himself has used the same technique in hospital purification systems, parking garages, and along roadsides. Still the tower is by far the biggest and prettiest application of his technology.
Indeed, it’s meant to be a design object as much as a technological innovation. Roosegaarde is known for wacky, socially conscious design projects-he’s the same guy who did the glowing Smart Highway in the Netherlands. He says making the tower beautiful brings widespread attention to a problem typically hidden behind bureaucracy. “I’m tired of design being about chairs, tables, lamps, new cars, and new watches,” he says. “It’s boring, we have enough of this stuff. Let’s focus on the real issues in life.”
Roosegaarde has been working with Ursem and ENS, the company that fabricated the tower, for two years to bring it into existence, and now that it’s up and running, he says people are intrigued. He just returned from Mumbai where he spoke to city officials about installing a similar tower in a park, and officials in Mexico City, Paris, and Beijing (the smoggy city that inspired the project) also are interested. “We’ve gotten a lot of requests from property developers who want to place it in a few filthy rich neighborhoods of course, and I tend to say no to these right now,” he says. “I think that it should be in a public space.”
Roosegaarde has plans to take the tower on a “smog-free tour” in the coming year so he can demonstrate the tower’s abilities in cities around the world. It’s a little bit of showmanship that he hopes will garner even more attention for the machine, which he calls a “shrine-like temple of clean air.” Roosegaarde admits that his tower isn’t a final solution for cleaning a city’s air. “The real solution everybody knows,” he says, adding that it’s more systematic than clearing a hole of clean air in the sky. He views the Smog Free tower as an initial step in a bottom-up approach to cleaner air, with citizens acting as the driving force. “How can we create a city where in 10 years these towers aren’t necessary anymore?” he says. “This is the bridge towards the solution.”
The recipe varies and dates back to the Middle Ages where Thieves Oil kept a group of merchants safe from the Black Plague. The mixtures of antiseptic, antibacterial, and antimicrobial properties were able to stave off the Plague and keep these merchants safe.
The Thieves Story
In the early 1990s Gary Young studied essential oils and recreated a blend he had been researching. According to Gary there are 17 different version of the “Story of Thieves” and each contains a different amounts of different oils. This intrigued Gary to research essential oils and make the perfect Thieves Oil blend for everyday use.
He researched the properties of the different oils in the multiple ingredients lists he found. His research lead to a proprietary oil blend called Young Living Thieves Essential Oil. His research also lead him to the historical story of the “Thieves” this blend is named after.
Actually spice traders and merchants, the “Thieves” lived in the 15th century and traded the likes of cinnamon and cloves from India across Europe. When the bubonic plague struck, international shipping and trade stopped. The spice traders needed a way to support themselves.
A Dark Time
Dead bodies everywhere, the Thieves decided to loot the plague-ridden bodies to sell the found clothes, boots, jewelry, pots, pans – anything they could get their hands on to trade for food and money. They knew about spices and their medicinal properties and believed they wouldn’t get sick from the dead bodies if they applied their knowledge of spices, vinegars, and oils.
Because their repossession process was lucrative the King found out. He wanted to know their secret – why were they not getting sick? Four of the Thieves were caught and brought before the King. He gave them a choice: Share the secret or be burned at the stake.
A Kingly Proposition
They shared the oil blend secret and the rest is history. The King spread word around town and spread the “medicine” as well. A few recipes have stuck around, so you can make your own Thieves Oil blend, or buy a premixed blend wherever you buy your essential oils.
*Note: One 15 ml bottle of essential oil contains approximately 255 drops. One 5 ml bottle contains approximately 85 drops.
Store these blends in a dark bottle, in a cool place out of the sun. You should use Thieves Oil every day as it can be used for so many different reasons – not to mention it has a nice cinnamon scent. You can diffuse the oil, use it topically, clean household items with it, or ingest it to aid digestion and support your immune system.
Diffusing Thieves Oil
This purifies the air in your home, eliminates odors, acts aromatically to support your lungs and sinuses. Diffuse 15-20 drops of Thieves Oil for 15 minutes three or four time a day in an essential oil diffuser. As you breathe the oil you will strengthen your lungs, sinuses, and entire respiratory system.
Thieves Oil All-Purpose Spray
Make an easy all-purpose spray out of Thieves Oil and water in a spray bottle to clean and disinfect just about everything. Take odor out of pet beds*, clean microbial bacteria off surfaces, and keep baby’s room spic and span with Thieves Oil.
*Note: Cat’s cannot process essential oils – if you’re using this blend to clean a litter box that’s fine, but do not spray on a cat’s bed or use as an aromatic without a diffuser if you’re a cat person.
Add 1 drop of Thieves Oil for every ½ ounce of water used. This is a strong solution that can be lessened to 1 drop per 1 oz if you find it overpowering. You’ll need to shake the bottle vigorously
Topical Thieves Oil
1 drop of Thieves Oil to 4 drops carrier oil. (Grapeseed, Jojoba, Coconut, Avocado – any healthy oil will act as a carrier)
This lets you use Thieves Oil topically. Some folks can use Thieves Oil without a carrier, but some peoples’ skin will get irritated. You can massage this blend on your feet, lower back, neck, and behind your ears. Rubbing this oil blend on your feet daily promotes a healthy immune system.
Household Uses
Because of its antibacterial properties, Thieves Oil is a great all-around cleaner. Add to laundry loads, dishwasher loads, and floor and countertops to remove any stubborn, sticky buildup or even just to give a great, deep clean.
You can freshen up your kids’ stuffed animals or your dog’s bed, clean your cell phone and other devices, even keep plants bug-free and happy. Adding Thieves Oil to a cotton ball placed in the home, car, or office air vents eliminates nasty odors. Thieves Oil even helps to dispel bed bugs!
Massage Therapy
Dilute 15 drops of Thieves Oil with 15 drops of carrier oil and massage over lungs, chest, and back to improve your respiratory system. Massaged into the back, thighs, and neck helps relieve minor aches and pains that come with your daily routine. You can also use Thieves Oil to relieve insect bites.
Ingesting Thieves Oil
Add 1 drop of Thieves oil to a bottle of water and drink all day long. This will help clean your digestive tract and support a healthy immune system. Add Thieves Oil to a cup of warm water and drink as a tea. Wait 15 minutes before eating, and benefit from the system-cleansing oil.
Add 2-3 drops to 2 Tbsp of water and gargle to relieve a sore or dry throat. You can even add 1 drop of Thieve Oil to 1 oz of water and, using a spray bottle, spray onto the back of your throat.
Thieves Oil Miscellaneous
Dilute 1 drop of Thieves Oil into 4 drops of carrier oil and apply to the affected area. You can apply the oil directly, or using a gauze or bandage.
To relieve a headache, put a drop of Thieves Oil on your thumb and place against the roof of your mouth. Be sure not to lick your lips as this may burn.
A few drops of Thieves Oil in a bowl of steaming water and lean over the bowl covering your head with a towel. Inhale the vapors for sinus and lung support.
Using Thieves Oil topically promotes healthy skin, and can help fight acne and other skin issues. Thieves Oil can also be used in the bathroom as toothpaste or mouthwash. Use 1 drop per ounce for mouthwash, and 2 drops to 4 Tbsp of baking soda and shake well.
Most of you probably know what Thieves Oil is, but if not have I got a story for you! The name and recipe for Thieves Oil have an interesting backstory and explains why this blend of oils is so good for you.
A new report on the health of the ocean finds that the marine vertebrate population has declined by 49 percent between 1970 and 2012.
WWF’s Living Blue Planet Report tracks 5,829 populations of 1,234 mammal, bird, reptile, and fish species through a marine living planet index. The evidence, analyzed by researchers at the Zoological Society of London, paints a troubling picture. In addition to the plummeting number of marine vertebrate species, populations of locally and commercially fished fish species have fallen by half, with some of the most important species experiencing even greater declines.
These findings coincide with the growing decline of marine habitats, where the deforestation rate of mangroves exceeds even the loss of forests by 3-5 times; coral reefs could be lost across the globe by 2050; and almost one-third of all seagrasses have been lost.
Global climate is one of the major drivers causing the ocean to change more rapidly than at any other point in millions of years. The oceans store huge quantities of energy and heat, but as the climate responds to increasing carbon emissions, the exchange intensifies. This may result in extreme weather events, changing ocean currents, rising sea temperatures, and increasing acidity levels-all of which aggravate the negative impacts of overfishing and other major threats such as habitat degradation and pollution.
Finding solutions for saving oceans Though the challenge seems immense, it’s possible for governments, businesses, communities and consumers to secure a living ocean. To reverse the downward trend we need to preserve the oceans natural capital; produce better; consume more wisely; and ensure sustainable financing and governance.
Our ocean needs a strong global climate deal and work is already underway as President Obama and leaders of the Arctic nations recently pledged to work together to boost strong action on climate change. But more needs to be done to prioritize ocean and coastal habitat health.
Speak up for oceans! Together we can make a difference by halting the depletion of the ocean and restoring damaged ecosystems for species and people.Read the Living Planet Report 2014.
An outright ban on the common use of plastic ” microbeads” from products that enter wastewater is the best way to protect water quality, wildlife and resources used by people, a group of conservation scientists suggest in a new analysis.
These microbeads are one part of the microplastic problem in oceans, freshwater lakes and rivers, but are a special concern because in many products they are literally designed to be flushed down the drain. And even at conservative estimates, the collective total of microbeads being produced today is enormous.
In an article just published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, scientists from seven institutions say that nontoxic and biodegradable alternatives exist for microbeads, which are used in hundreds of products as abrasive scrubbers, ranging from face washes to toothpaste. Around the size of a grain of sand, they can provide a gritty texture to products where that is needed.
“We’re facing a plastic crisis and don’t even know it,” said Stephanie Green, the David H. Smith Conservation Research fellow in the College of Science at Oregon State University and co-author of this report.
“Part of this problem can now start with brushing your teeth in the morning,” she said. “Contaminants like these microbeads are not something our wastewater treatment plants were built to handle and the overall amount of contamination is huge. The microbeads are very durable.”
In this analysis and using extremely conservative methodology, the researchers estimated that 8 trillion microbeads per day are being emitted into aquatic habitats in the U.S.-enough to cover more than 300 tennis courts a day. But the other 99 percent of the microbeads-another 800 trillion-end up in sludge from sewage plants, which is often spread over areas of land. Many of those microbeads can then make their way into streams and oceans through runoff.
“Microbeads are just one of many types of microplastic found in aquatic habitats and in the gut content of wildlife,” said Chelsea Rochman, the David H. Smith Conservation Research postdoctoral fellow at the University of California/Davis and lead author on the analysis.
“We’ve demonstrated in previous studies that microplastic of the same type, size and shape as many microbeads can transfer contaminants to animals and cause toxic effects,” Rochman said. “We argue that the scientific evidence regarding microplastic supports legislation calling for a removal of plastic microbeads from personal care products.”
Even though microbeads are just one part of the larger concern about plastic debris that end up in oceans and other aquatic habitat, they are also one of the most controllable. With growing awareness of this problem, a number of companies have committed to stop using microbeads in their “rinse off” personal care products and several states have already regulated or banned the products.
The researchers point out in their analysis, however, that some bans have included loopholes using strategic wording. Many microbeads are used in personal care products that are not “rinse off,” such as deodorants and cleaners. And some regulations use the term “biodegradable” to specify what products are allowed-but some microbeads can biodegrade just slightly, which may allow their continued use.
If legislation is sought, “new wording should ensure that a material that is persistent, bioaccumulative or toxic is not added to products designed to go down the drain,” the researchers wrote in their report.
“The probability of risk from microbead pollution is high, while the solution to this problem is simple,” they concluded.
The day after the Victory Parade, cars were allowed to return to the roads – and the Air Pollution Index in parts of the city immediately returned to an unhealthy 160 out of 500.
Want to see the difference? Here’s how Beijing looked in June:
Here’s Beijing during the Victory Day parade in September:
And here’s Beijing less than one week later. Just in case you thought they were having a hazy day or something.
The sky is back to looking bleak, but the future doesn’t have to be. What happened before the Victory Day parade shows that a sunny change is still possible.
Air pollution is bad. Carbon emissions are bad. Cars are bad. We’ve all heard it before. But what we may not have realized is how much power we have to change things.
What happened in Beijing shows us – yes, how grim the situation is, but also just how easily we can change it.
By cutting back on cars and other emissions for a mere two weeks, Beijing underwent a beautiful and healthy transformation. And yet, all it took was one day of business-as-usual to bring Beijing crashing back into the danger zone.
Despite its efforts for nearly two decades to raise doubts about the science of climate change, newly discovered company documents show that as early as 1977, Exxon research scientists warned company executives that carbon dioxide was increasing in the atmosphere and that the burning of fossil fuels was to blame.
The internal records are detailed in a new investigation published Wednesday by InsideClimate News, a Pulitzer Prize-winning news organization covering energy and the environment.
The investigation found that long before global warming emerged as an issue on the national agenda, Exxon formed an internal brain trust that spent more than a decade trying to understand the impact of rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere – even launching a supertanker with custom-made instruments to sample and understand whether the oceans could absorb the rising atmospheric CO2 levels. Today, Exxon says the study had nothing to do with CO2 emissions, but an Exxon researcher involved in the project remembered it differently in the below video, which was produced by FRONTLINE in association with the InsideClimate News report.
In 1978, the Exxon researchers warned that a doubling of CO2 levels in the atmosphere would increase average global temperatures by 2 to 3 degrees Celsius and would have a major impact on the company’s core business. “Present thinking holds that man has a time window of five to ten years before the need for hard decisions regarding changes in energy strategies might become critical,” one scientist wrote in an internal document.
The warnings would later grow more urgent. In a 1982 document marked “not to be distributed externally,” the company’s environmental affairs office wrote that preventing global warming would require sharp cuts in fossil fuel use. Failure to do so, the document said, could result in “some potentially catastrophic events” that “might not be reversible.”
Some on the Exxon internal research team saw the potential for a greater impact in their work. “This may be the kind of opportunity that we are looking for to have Exxon technology, management and leadership resources put into the context of a project aimed at benefitting mankind,” Harold N. Weinberg, an Exxon manager, wrote in a March 1978 internal memo.
But in the mid-1980s, collapsing oil prices, among other pressures, pushed Exxon to change course, according to the Inside Climate News investigation, widening a gulf between its research arm and the company’s executive suite. The report notes that by the 1990s:
Exxon helped to found and lead the Global Climate Coalition, an alliance of some of the world’s largest companies seeking to halt government efforts to curb fossil fuel emissions. Exxon used the American Petroleum Institute, right-wing think tanks, campaign contributions and its own lobbying to push a narrative that climate science was too uncertain to necessitate cuts in fossil fuel emissions.
“Let’s agree there’s a lot we really don’t know about how climate change will change in the 21st century and beyond,” Lee Raymond, the company’s former chairman and chief executive officer told an audience in a 1997 speech to the World Petroleum Conference.
In a written response to the InsideClimate News investigation, an Exxon spokesman said that, “At all times, the opinions and conclusions of our scientists and researchers on this topic have been solidly within the mainstream of the consensus scientific opinion of the day and our work has been guided by an overarching principle to follow where the science leads. The risk of climate change is real and warrants action.”
While it’s impossible to know where the climate change debate would be today without Exxon’s early decision to shift course on the science, the about-face was a lost opportunity in the overall effort to slow the rise of CO2 emissions, according to one climate researcher interviewed by InsideClimate News.
“All it would have taken is for one prominent fossil fuel CEO to know this was about more than just shareholder profits, and a question about our legacy,” said Michael Mann, the director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University. “But now because of the cost of inaction – what I call the ‘procrastination penalty’ – we face a far more uphill battle.”
Yeast has been engineered to produce the main psychoactive compound in marijuana – tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). Responsible for the majority of marijuana’s psychological effects – including the high – THC can also be use to treat symptoms of HIV infection and chemotherapy and researchers are hoping their yeast will be able to pump it out more efficiently than producing synthetic versions.
“This is something that could literally change the lives of millions of people,” Kevin Chen from Hyasynth Bio, a US-based company that’s been engineering yeasts to produce both THC and cannabidiol – another active compound that has shown promise as a medical treatment – told The New York Times.
Back in August, researchers from the University of California, Berkeley in the US announced that they’d figured out how to make ‘home-made’ heroin using a modified form of sugar-fed yeast and an enzyme extracted from poppies. They discovered that a certain type of enzyme can turn glucose sugars into morphine, and were able to successfully express it in a simple form of genetically engineered yeast.
Now, researchers from the Technical University of Dortmund in Germany have outlined in the journal Biotechnology Letters how they looked into which genes the marijuana plant uses to produce THC, and then engineered those genes into their yeast. They then fed a cocktail of specially chosen molecules to the yeast, and it essentially ‘poops’ out the THC.
They’ve also reportedly managed to produce cannabidiol in the same way, but are yet to publish the details. The big challenge now will be figuring out how to replace these molecules with a raw material such as sugar to make the process cheap, easy, and commercially competitive.
The purpose isn’t to replace the marijuana plant, because let’s face it, it’s doing a pretty good job on its own. As Jonathan Page, an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia in Canada who helped sequence the THC and cannabidiol genes, told Roxanne Khamsi at The New York Times: “Right now, we have a plant that is essentially the Ferrari of the plant world when it comes to producing the chemical of interest. Cannabis is hard to beat.”
The idea instead is to offer up an alternative for places such as Europe, where medicinal compounds from marijuana would be welcomed if they didn’t come in the form of a plant that could be illegally farmed. And synthetic versions of THC are currently available in pill form to treat several side effects of having HIV or chemotherapy, but the chemical synthesis involved is complicated and expensive.
What yeast could also offer is the potential to more efficiently test the medicinal properties of specific active compounds in marijuana, which have shown promise in treating everything from seizures and inflammation to cancer and parkinson’s disease. Yasmin Hurd, a professor of neuroscience and psychiatry at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, told Tech Insider that using all the compounds in marijuana simultaneously is like “throwing 400 tablets in a cocktail and saying ‘take this,'” rather than figuring out which component of that cocktail is really beneficial for the specific disease.
Because right now, rigorous scientific evidence showing that marijuana and its constituents effectively treat the symptoms of many of the illnesses for which they’ve been prescribed is lacking.
“Marijuana is increasingly embraced as medicine, yet there is limited evidence that it is effective against many of the conditions for which it is prescribed,” The New York Times reports. “Researchers hoping to separate fact from wishful thinking will need much better access to marijuana’s unique constituents. Modified yeast may provide them.”
While some may associate CO2 pollution mainly with industrial plants and giant chimneys releasing the gas into the atmosphere, the reality is that emissions from the transport sector, represent about 24% of global CO2 emissions and have the highest emissions growth of all. They are also harder to limit and capture – while there are existing technologies for trapping CO2 out of a smoke stack, for example, there haven’t been solutions for capturing the already released into the atmosphere (by cars, trucks and panes) CO2 that is 300 times less concentrated than the one coming out of a smoke stack. That is until now.
In the beginning of this year, in Squamish, British Columbia, the privately owned (and backed by Bill Gates) company Carbon Engineering began the construction of the first air capture CO2 demo plant. For years, the company has been developing the technology that is now ready to be implemented on a larger scale.
Like trees, air capture technology traps CO2 from the ambient air. However, as the team of Carbon Engineering points out, “planting enough trees in the numbers needed would require diverting vast amounts of agriculturally productive land. In fact, to absorb enough CO2 as an air capture facility, trees would require roughly a thousand times more land.” Unlike trees, however, air capture plants can be built on land that cannot be cultivated, such as deserts.
David Keith, a professor at Harvard University School of Engineering and the president of Carbon Engineering, together with a team of scientists have been doing CO2 capturing at a Prototype Contactor at the University of Calgary for several years already. The prototype system can absorb emissions from about 14-15 vehicles or about 100 kilos of carbon dioxide per day.
Simplistically put, the way the system works is this – after the air enters into the facility, it passes through a CO2 absorbent liquid that traps about 80% of the carbon dioxide into a solution for further processing.
In the full-scale facility that is being built now, the CO2 will be recovered from the carbonate solution and integrated it into the production of liquid hydrocarbons that are fully compatible with today’s transport infrastructure, but have a low (or even zero) carbon intensity.
The construction of the pilot plant by the end of this year will be the last step for CE before building a first-of-a-kind commercial air capture plant by 2017 aiming to close the CO2 cycle.
In the rural Shona African community in Zimbabwe, five villages of 7,000 people have joined together to form the Chikukwa Project, named after their local chief. Twenty years ago their land was deforested, barren, and nothing would grow there in the summer months. When the rains came, they washed down the slopes taking the soil with them. The springs had dried up and the people were poor, hungry, and suffering from malnutrition.
The Shona decided to do something about it and sought advice from permaculture pioneer, John Wilson. Slowly, a field at a time, they built water retaining landscapes: terracing the slopes and digging swales to hold the water in the soil. They added composted manure to these terrace beds to build soil and grow food. They stopped grazing animals and foraging for firewood in the gullies where the springs rose and planted native trees there to hold the moisture in the soil. They also stopped untethered grazing of goats on the hillsides, allowing trees to regenerate, and they started driving their cattle to agreed grazing areas. They learnt new skills: specifically permaculture training, conflict resolution, women’s empowerment, primary education and HIV management.
Within three years, the springs began to reactivate. They saw that the yields from the plots with swales were bigger than the plots without them. Twenty years later, where there was once eroded soil and over-grazed slopes, there are now reforested gullies with flowing water, terraces full of vegetables, grains and fruit, and high ridges lined with trees for firewood. In the villages, there are home gardens, pens for hens and goats, water tanks to catch rainfall runoff, and a culture of cooperation that values people skills as much as horticultural techniques. The landscape is verdant and biodiverse, and the gardens and farms produce crops for the families and for market, bringing an economic yield back into the region. All this in one generation.
Gillian and Terrence Leahy, film makers, were invited to make a film about this transformation at Chikukwa. They saw how these Shona Africans had pulled themselves out of hunger and malnutrition, using permaculture farming techniques and bottom-up social organisation. They understood that this could be replicated anywhere in the world.
The Loess Plateau in China, an area the size of France, was similarly regenerated using water retention landscapes. This was documented by John Liu in his incredible film, Green Gold. There are many more stories from all over the world where permaculture and other regenerative techniques have been applied to barren lands. Earth restoration is not only possible, it is already happening. We need to build capacity and find ways to take this work wherever it is needed, helping people to lift themselves out of poverty and rebuild broken communities. John calls this ‘the great work of our time’, work that not only restores whole ecosystems but also brings dignity and wellbeing to our fellow human beings. Nelson Mandela said, “Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity, it is an act of Justice. Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man made and can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. Sometimes it falls on a generation to be great. You can be that generation. Let greatness blossom.”
It is perhaps easier to regenerate rural landscapes where the vestiges of a traditional culture retains gardening and farming skills, but it can happen in post-industrial wastelands too. I have been following permaculture teacher, Sarah Pugh, as she travels through the urban American landscape, researching urban permaculture projects. Sarah lives in Bristol, UK and works with permaculture and transition there. She set up Shift Bristol, a training project that takes people through a year of learning practical permaculture. Sarah wanted, however, to reach beyond her own city and see for herself what urban regeneration looks like in places like Detroit, Chicago and San Francisco where the extremes of wealth and poverty are keenly experienced. She visited Detroit and she observed, “So much space, so much energy, so many problems … so much potential. The population of Brightmoor [a local neighborhood] has dropped from 20,000 to less than 10,000. 70,000 empty, burned out and rotting houses in Detroit. Community gardening in full swing here…”
Sarah leaves a trail of hope on social media as she travels. It is such a different story from the usual diet of pet videos, celebrity gossip and the haunting escalation of our global problems. We hear too much of the dark side in all medias, and too little of the solutions. I am convinced that it makes people turn away and disengage, feeling that our futures are hopelessly predetermined. This magazine is different. It is full of stories of hope, and we hope you not only enjoy it, but are inspired.
To learn more about this project and see the film, visit:
As well as providing green energy, the solar plans will enhance biodiversity – unlike those of Cuadrilla, which are set to destroy natural habitats, threaten public health, destroy our agriculture and tourism, and contribute to global warming.
Anti-Fracking campaigners in Lancashire have welcomed a local council’s decision to approve the development of a solar farm – just across the way from the Preston New Road site where Cuadrilla has spent years trying to get permission to carry out hydraulic fracturing.
The solar farm is expected to produce enough electricity to power around 1,300 homes and save approximately 2,310 tonnes of carbon emissions every year, the equivalent of taking 513 large family cars off the road.
Fylde Council unanimously approved the application for the Staining Wood solar farm subject to the completion of a habitat regulation assessment, which it looks likely to pass. The site is expected to be operational by March 2016.
Members of Residents Action on Fylde Fracking (RAFF) who visited the site prior to the planning meeting were impressed with the plans for the site.
LightSource, the company that intends to develop the solar farm, intends to give the land area dual use – allowing sheep to graze on the solar farm, as well as creating “enhanced habitat corridors” and planting new trees in order to increase biodiversity.
Local support for renewable energy
Commenting on the council’s decision, a spokesperson for RAFF said: “RAFF has consistently promoted green energy as an alternative to developing shale gas in Lancashire.
“As well as providing green energy, the plans for this site will enhance the biodiversity of our area, unlike those of Cuadrilla, which are set to destroy natural habitats, pose a threat to public health, destroy our agricultural and tourism industries, and contribute to global warming.”
The council said that it has seen an increase in these types of applications over the last year and they are proving to be popular with local residents. “We are finding that across the borough people are more supportive of this type of renewable energy generation”, observed Matthew Taylor, Fylde Council’s Senior Development Officer.
He added that the area is well suited for solar farms given the area’s good connectivity to the national grid, flat land and higher than average levels of sunlight.
This news comes as the government has announced it intends to drastically cut financial support for solar energy generation in the UK, despite Energy and Climate Change Secretary Amber Rudd’s promise to “unleash a new solar revolution“ in Britain following her re-election as an MP last May.
Most recently Panasonic, one of the world’s largest electronics companies and a major supplier of solar panels in Britain, urged the government to rethink its proposals that could cause “substantial” and “irreversible” damage to the industry.
‘Missed opportunity’ as offshore wind farm is refused
But the news on offshore wind is less rosy. Energy Minister Lord Bourne has just refused planning approval for the 194 turbine, 970MW Navitus Bay offshore wind farm planned for the English Channel 13.4 miles off the coast from Bournemouth and 10.9 miles from the western tip of the Isle of Wight.
The main reasons given in the decision letter concerned the views out to sea from land, including the Dorset Heritage Coast, and possible harm to tourism. Lord Bourne concluded it would lead to “significant adverse impact on the perception of viewers standing on the coastlines”.
The only recourse for the developer, Navitus Bay, is to apply for a judicial review of the decision, however this would require them to show that the decision was either irrational or unlawful. Project Director Stuart Grant said: “We will now discuss the options available with our shareholders and update stakeholders in due course.”
RenewableUK’s Chief Executive, Maria McCaffery, described the decision as ” deeply disappointing” and a “missed opportunity … it means we’re failing to capitalise on the UK’s superb offshore wind resource and the economic benefits it brings.
“Years of hard work and significant investment went into developing this project which could have added £1.6 billion to the economy of the region and created up to 1,700 jobs – it’s most unfortunate that that has now been lost.”
In June Amber Rudd told RenewableUK’s offshore wind conference: “You represent one of the 21st century industrial success stories. You – we – are world leaders. Pioneers. Innovators. The best business minds working with the best engineers, within one of the world’s strongest policy and financial frameworks.
“And working together we now have the most operational offshore wind here in UK waters than anywhere else in the world. And that is where 21st century industrial Britain should be – leading the world. As our friends over at the Department for Business would say – Britain is Great!”Views versus climate change?
Friends of the Earth south west Campaigner Mike Birkin said: “It’s astonishing that a major clean energy scheme has been rejected on the grounds that it may harm the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site.
“The Jurassic Coast is not designated for its scenic value, and it is hard to see how the sight of wind turbines on the horizon on a clear day could be considered damaging to it.“The real threats to Dorset’s fragile coast come from climate change – and potentially oil and gas exploitation. Navitus Bay, which could have been the largest clean energy project in the south of England, would have played a key role in helping to counter this.“Yet again the UK is turning its back on a major clean energy project that would have created hundreds of jobs, boosted the local economy and helped the nation to tackle climate change.”Ben Lucas is a writer for DeSmog.uk while also pursuing an Investigative Journalism Master’s degree at the City University of London. He has a particular interest in UK and international politics, economics and environmental issues.
This article was originally published by DeSmog.uk and has been extended by The Ecologist with additional material about offshore wind.
From frustrated snowboarders to migrating birds arriving at shriveled wetlands to wildfires raging through national parks, the Sierra Nevada’s lack of snow has transformed just about every aspect of life in California. Farmers, fish, forests, gardeners, hikers, boaters, and more depend on Sierra snow for water.
But now it’s clear that the “snow fail” in the 400-mile long mountain range has reached epic proportions: This year’s snowpack is the driest it’s been in at least 500 years, according to new research published Monday.
This stark finding comes from an analysis of more than 1,500 California blue oak tree rings dating back to the early 1500s, when Spanish explorers were just beginning their conquest of the state.
Researchers who examined cores from the long-lived oaks to calculate the water content of each year’s snowpack were stunned to find that no other year was even close to as dry as 2015. Temperature data show why: The state was slammed with a drought-and-heat double whammy.
“What happened in 2015 is that very low precipitation co-occurred with record high temperatures. And that’s what made this snowpack low so extremely low,” says Valerie Trouet, a tree-ring research specialist at the University of Arizona in Tucson and co-author of the study published in Nature Climate Change.
The researchers had expected the 2015 results to be bad, ‘but we didn’t expect it to be this bad,’ Trouet says.
The 2015 Sierra snow water equivalent, a measure of water content, was just 5 percent of average over the past half-millennium, the researchers found. The next-closest lows were 2014 and 1977; both years the water content was 25 percent of average.
The team, which also included scientists from the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration in Colorado and the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, calculated snow water content from the width of the tree rings. California blue oaks are “really really reliable recorders of the amount of rainfall that falls in the winter season,” Trouet says, because they produce wide rings after wet winters.
Sierra Nevada Snowpack Fail
The researchers had expected the 2015 results to be bad, “but we didn’t expect it to be this bad,” Trouet says.
In fact, the water content of the Sierra Nevada snowpack could actually be at its lowest in 3,100 years, she said, based on a different analysis also reported in the study. That statistical method has a higher margin of error, but confirms that the 2015 snowpack is off-the-charts.
The result has been a summer of steep water cuts and exploding wildfires, billions in economic damage, and stressed wildlife-and perhaps a preview of what’s to come under climate change.
“Snow Melting Into Music”
Stretching from the grapevine snaking into Los Angeles to forests about 300 miles shy of the California-Oregon border, the Sierra Nevada’s reach encompasses Yosemite’s waterfalls, Lake Tahoe (the largest alpine lake in North America), Mount Whitney (the highest peak in the lower 48 states, and other renowned landscapes. Naturalist John Muir called them the Range of Lights and wrote “the snow is melting into music” to describe the voluminous fresh water running off its peaks.
Their snowpack is crucial to water supplies throughout California, including semi-arid Los Angeles and other southern cities, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Central Valley farms.
The storied Sierra snow is normally so saturated that skiers and snowboarders call the heavy powder “Sierra Cement.” This dense icing slowly melts into rivers and streams throughout the spring and summer; feeding reservoirs, flooding wetlands, and refilling the water table. (Read more here in National Geographic Magazine’s When the Snows Fail.)
For those who grappled daily with last winter’s scant snows, the centuries-long record may come as a surprise, but its severe effects do not.
“The past season’s suspension of operations was certainly the earliest on record, which doesn’t come as a surprise, given the [new findings of a] 500-year low of snowpack in the Sierra,” Thea Hardy, spokeswoman for the Sierra-at-Tahoe ski resort near South Lake Tahoe, said in an email.
Week after week it just kept not snowing and it was getting hotter and hotter.
The 2,000-acre resort, which has often stayed open into May during its nearly 70 years in business, shut down in mid-March. It was one of many California winter recreation spots that closed far earlier than usual this year.
Much of the precipitation that did fall last winter came down as rain, at lower elevations.
Ski instructor Sophie Castleton experienced that problem first-hand.
“Week after week it just kept not snowing and it was getting hotter and hotter,” says Castleton, who worked last winter at Alpine Meadows, near the California-Nevada border town of Truckee. “A lot of times it looked like it would snow, but then it would turn to rain and there would be puddles around the lifts.” That resort also closed early, and Castleton felt bad for her several colleagues who had come from South America and Australia to work.
Water managers are also keenly aware of the epic snow fail. The California Water Project, which oversees 154 reservoirs in the state, is able to deliver only 20 percent of the water its customers request, says Doug Carlson, information officer for the Department of Water Resources.
Californians have cut their water use by a whopping 31 percent and are for the most part getting by this summer with short showers, yellow lawns, and infrequently flushed toilets. (Read here what drought veterans say about this four-year dry spell].
Stressed Wildlife and Raging Wildfires
Wildlife is far less flexible, complicating management, Carlson says. Native salmon fry, for instance, need cool water to survive. Water in dwindling reservoirs heats up more quickly, which can be deadly to the young fish.
The lack of snowpack could turn California’s summer and fall wildfire season into a year-round event. Unseasonal winter blazes, such as last February’s fire near Bishop, are now torching Sierra elevations that used to be blanketed with snow. The 2015 statewide wildfire count is up more than 1,500 over last year, with a huge one now threatening Kings Canyon, home to the giant sequoias that are among the oldest living things on the planet.
No sure reinforcements for the snowpack are in sight. Predictions of a major El Niño event this winter likely mean heavy rains in Southern California, but the outlook for the Sierra and its indispensable snowpack are uncertain.
The drought probably will keep coming back as global temperatures climb, Trouet and other scientists say.
A new report by the Public Policy Institute of California’s Water Policy Center gives a glimpse of the toll: At least 18 species of native California fish, including salmon and steelhead trout, face imminent extinction if current conditions continue another two or three years. The 5 million birds migrating along the Pacific Flyway annually risk starvation and disease. Cities will fare better, but strict conservation will have to become a permanent way of life. Farm losses could top $2.8 billion a year.
A grim prospect. But Hardy, like many Californians, say they’ll adapt.
“We’ve learned that adapting to the effects of light snow years is just as important as riding out long, fruitful seasons,” the ski resort spokeswoman says. Whatever happens, she says, “we plan on taking advantage of every inch of snow that we receive.”
A new advanced robotic hand that is wired directly into the brain has been successfully tested, allowing paralysed man to “feel”.
The hand, developed by the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins university, is part of a research project into advanced replacement limbs funded by the US military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa).
The 28-year-old man, who has been paralysed for more than a decade after a spinal-cord injury, had electrodes from the prosthetic hand inserted into his sensory and motor cortexes. This allowed him to both control the hand with thought and sense when the fingers of the hand were touched individually.
Sensors in the hand detect pressure applied to any of the fingers and create electrical signals to mimic touch sensations. When blindfolded, the volunteer could determine which finger on the hand was touched with nearly 100% accuracy, according to Darpa.
“At one point, instead of pressing one finger, the team decided to press two without telling him,” Darpa program manager Justin Sanchez said. “He responded in jest asking whether somebody was trying to play a trick on him. That is when we knew that the feelings he was perceiving through the robotic hand were near-natural.”
Sanchez added: “Prosthetic limbs that can be controlled by thoughts are showing great promise, but without feedback from signals traveling back to the brain it can be difficult to achieve the level of control needed to perform precise movements.”
By wiring a sense of touch from a mechanical hand directly into the brain, this work shows the potential for seamless biotechnological restoration of near-natural function. We’ve completed the circuit.”
The hand and the neurotechnologies on which it relies are hoped to allow those who have lost limbs to not only gain fully functioning replacements but also the level of control that can only be offered with sensation.
For the past ten years I have been pretty much into personal development. Well, as a teenager I was already a bit interested in not-so-mainstream topics such as the power of the human mind, psychic phenomena and plenty of other metaphysical topics. It comes to no surprise that my peers thought I was a bit weird, you know how it is. So when I got hooked on to personal development topics later on in life, I was already primed for certain ideas and insights. It came easier for me to hop on from one book or one topic to another without needing a stretch of time to digest certain ideas. I got pretty sucked into it. I read heaps of books, started off my blog Soul Hiker and wrote a few hundred articles to share my insights and experiences with others following the same path.
In those ten years of learning and practice, I did come a long way with a wealth of inner growth but also many pitfalls. What is more relevant is that I have also arrived at a solid practical realisation – a kind of a key that unlocks some doors without having to knock them down really. That key is Simple Living or the idea of simplifying life in order to shed away what is unnecessary, inauthentic and a hindrance to your life purpose. The concept might seem obvious but somehow hidden none the less. Personal growth, or rather actualising your highest potential and becoming the best version of yourself, requires shedding off and letting go of things which are not authentically in line with your Soul agenda rather than putting in a lot of effort to learn or acquire something else. It’s energy-wasting spending hours, days and weeks trying to relearn habits, boosting your confidence, visualising your goals, improving your creativity, doing soul searching, etc without first simplifying your life. Yes all these things and others are important personal development tools but I have realised that by doing one thing – engaging in a path of Simple Living – will make everything else effortless. This is particularly true to your goal of self-actualisation or becoming the best You.
So in a way, if we only tried to make life simpler and nothing else, it’s already a hundredfold better than trying hard to do other self-improvement stuff – some of which perhaps fail, we give up on or take us a lot of persistence and struggle to achieve. I strongly believe that the message of Simple Living is a very important one and here are some of the reasons why:
Less Noise & Clutter:
In an online course I created about Simple Living, one of the most important lectures is one which has to do with clearing and decluttering spaces. Not just physical spaces around us (although this is also important) but our inner spaces too. In a way living a simpler life means managing your time and space better. Very often our spaces become cluttered and disordered, making life more difficult than it has to be.
On a physical level, this can be seen in cluttered living or working spaces, rooms in our homes or perhaps disorganised drawers, closets and desks. On an emotional and psychological level, this manifests as mental noise, unclear paths of action, conflicting ideas and lack of a clear purpose. So decluttering our inner and outer spaces will literally clear the obstructions for us (or others: hint) to move freely through them and this will resonate on all other levels of our life. Clearly there is much more to decluttering than routine – it is a way of opening up to life.
Understanding what is Relevant:
Another important concept of simple living is understanding what is necessary vs. what isn’t. It is about distinguishing between our real needs and socially suggested wants. Of course everyone is able to distinguish between the two but we don’t most of the time because we live in a collective trance of consumerism and mass media.
When we start becoming more aware of how much our actions and decisions are influenced by society and culture, we start standing back from it all. It becomes more and more clear that a lot of the things we were made to believe were needs are nothing more than wants and we can do without because they are not authentic to our purpose. This clarity brings with it a sense of power and freedom. In itself it is the spirit of simple living.
So in a nutshell living simply involves being clear about what is relevant, necessary and needed rather than living in a haze or worse living out a social program just like automatons.
Finding Authenticity:
The last point naturally brings forth a more interesting topic – that of living an authentic life. But what does living an authentic life really mean? In my view, living authentically means not being limited or confined to live out someone else’s life or a social template laid down to us through our socialisation. It means being free of the fear of being judged or disapproved of by your peers and authorities. It means being free to follow your passions and purpose without being infected by those fear-based thoughts transmitted by others.
Creating Space for Inner Creativity:
Of course authenticity walks hand in hand with creativity. It is natural that creativity requires a degree of freedom from constraints and limited thinking. Free-thinker, artists and bohemians are considered to be creative because they live outside the norms and behavioural rules of society. They are often nonconformists because of this reason. But more importantly, creativity arises when there is enough space for it to flow through and also here I mean inner and outer space.
So having a simplified and clear environmental and inner spaces is conducive to more creativity. The reverse is also true. Try to work in a messy store room with machinery noise going on and see whether creativity comes knocking on your door!
Life Purpose in Focus:
People often ask me how is it that they can find their life purpose. Many times I jokingly reply that they are asking the wrong person since it took me a long while to discover mine but I know that a good part of the answer lies in simplicity. In other words, the less physical, mental and emotional obstructions one has in life, the more clear his or her life purpose comes into focus. There is no real mystery here. The perfect analogy to vision is obvious. If you try to look for something – say your TV remote control in a disorganised and overcrowded room – it is going to be more difficult then if there was nothing else in the room besides the remote control. In this scenario, the more you start shedding away the junk and stuff in the room, the better are the chances that what you are looking for comes into view. Same thing with your life purpose. If you are trying to be approved by others by living other people’s goals and standards, the less chance you have of coming close to understand what is authentically your life purpose.
On the other hand, with less obstructions along the way, what genuinely drives you becomes clearer, which brings me to the next point.
Understanding Yourself and Motivations:
Finding your life purpose might not always be a direct result of simplifying your life although a lot of times it is. Sometimes simplifying life brings us first closer to understanding ourselves and our inner motivations which then sheds more light on our true purpose.
Sometimes our motivations and drives are not clear because very often the mind and heart are in conflict or out of sync. With simplicity comes less noise and conflict which in turn makes it easier to have a better understanding of ourself and our motivations.
More Time or Better Management of It:
The natural companion to decluttering spaces is managing our time better. Admittedly, I was always at a loss when it comes to managing my time. But then I found that time is much easier to manage when you take away all those things, chores, pressures and activities which server no purpose. In reality when you are living a simpler life, time management is not so much of an issue anymore. Time management is more relevant when you are bombarded with a thousand chores and activities, the hallmark of a complicated and stress-laden modern lifestyle.
Simple living is moving in the opposite direction to this. So when you are doing only those things and activities which springs out from an authentic sense of passion and belonging, time management is simpler. Of course some time management skills still apply even in simple living – in fact in my course I have also reserved space for this – but it is not the rat-race time management sort of thing; it’s more of a further optimisation to an already focused and simple life.
Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Todd Goldfarb at the We The Change blog.
Meditation is the art of focusing 100% of your attention in one area. The practice comes with a myriad of well-publicized health benefits including increased concentration, decreased anxiety, and a general feeling of happiness.
Although a great number of people try meditation at some point in their lives, a small percentage actually stick with it for the long-term. This is unfortunate, and a possible reason is that many beginners do not begin with a mindset needed to make the practice sustainable.
The purpose of this article is to provide 20 practical recommendations to help beginners get past the initial hurdles and integrate meditation over the long term:
1) Make it a formal practice. You will only get to the next level in meditation by setting aside specific time (preferably two times a day) to be still.
2) Start with the breath. Breathing deep slows the heart rate, relaxes the muscles, focuses the mind and is an ideal way to begin practice.
3) Stretch first. Stretching loosens the muscles and tendons allowing you to sit (or lie) more comfortably. Additionally, stretching starts the process of “going inward” and brings added attention to the body.
4) Meditate with Purpose. Beginners must understand that meditation is an ACTIVE process. The art of focusing your attention to a single point is hard work, and you have to be purposefully engaged!
5) Notice frustration creep up on you. This is very common for beginners as we think “hey, what am I doing here” or “why can’t I just quiet my damn mind already”. When this happens, really focus in on your breath and let the frustrated feelings go.
6) Experiment. Although many of us think of effective meditation as a Yogi sitting cross-legged beneath a Bonzi tree, beginners should be more experimental and try different types of meditation. Try sitting, lying, eyes open, eyes closed, etc.
7) Feel your body parts. A great practice for beginning meditators is to take notice of the body when a meditative state starts to take hold. Once the mind quiets, put all your attention to the feet and then slowly move your way up the body (include your internal organs). This is very healthy and an indicator that you are on the right path.
8) Pick a specific room in your home to meditate. Make sure it is not the same room where you do work, exercise, or sleep. Place candles and other spiritual paraphernalia in the room to help you feel at ease.
9) Read a book (or two) on meditation. Preferably an instructional guide AND one that describes the benefits of deep meditative states. This will get you motivated. John Kabat-Zinn’s Wherever You Go, There You Are is terrific for beginners.
10) Commit for the long haul. Meditation is a life-long practice, and you will benefit most by NOT examining the results of your daily practice. Just do the best you can every day, and then let it go!
11) Listen to instructional tapes and CDs.
12) Generate moments of awareness during the day. Finding your breath and “being present” while not in formal practice is a wonderful way to evolve your meditation habits.
13) Make sure you will not be disturbed. One of the biggest mistakes beginners make is not insuring peaceful practice conditions. If you have it in the back of your mind that the phone might ring, your kids might wake, or your coffee pot might whistle than you will not be able to attain a state of deep relaxation.
14) Notice small adjustments. For beginning meditators, the slightest physical movements can transform a meditative practice from one of frustration to one of renewal. These adjustments may be barely noticeable to an observer, but they can mean everything for your practice.
15) Use a candle. Meditating with eyes closed can be challenging for a beginner. Lighting a candle and using it as your point of focus allows you to strengthen your attention with a visual cue. This can be very powerful.
16) Do NOT Stress. This may be the most important tip for beginners, and the hardest to implement. No matter what happens during your meditation practice, do not stress about it. This includes being nervous before meditating and angry afterwards. Meditation is what it is, and just do the best you can at the time.
17) Do it together. Meditating with a partner or loved one can have many wonderful benefits, and can improve your practice. However, it is necessary to make sure that you set agreed-upon ground rules before you begin!
18) Meditate early in the morning. Without a doubt, early morning is an ideal
time to practice: it is quieter, your mind is not filled with the usual clutter, and there is less chance you will be disturbed. Make it a habit to get up half an hour earlier to meditate.
19) Be Grateful at the end. Once your practice is through, spend 2-3 minutes feeling appreciative of the opportunity to practice and your mind’s ability to focus.
20) Notice when your interest in meditation begins to wane. Meditation is
hard work, and you will inevitably come to a point where it seemingly does not fit into the picture anymore. THIS is when you need your practice the most and I recommend you go back to the book(s) or the CD’s you listened to and become re-invigorated with the practice. Chances are that losing the ability to focus on meditation is parallel with your inability to focus in other areas of your life!
Meditation is an absolutely wonderful practice, but can be very difficult in the beginning. Use the tips described in this article to get your practice to the next level!
Read more about personal development from Todd Goldfarb on his blog, We The Change.
This is a multi-faceted process that includes sustainable consumption and food security. Our method helps people achieve this by giving them an easy 4-level solution to have a productive garden that can feed an entire family. The process is then augmented with the help of the community, as everything we do is open source and therefore constantly evolving.
The summer of 2014 has been a tentative triumph for GTA air quality. With the season’s end in sight, no smog advisories have been issued for the city so far – or anywhere else in Ontario, for that matter.
A new University of Toronto-led study helps explain why. The authors demonstrate remarkable improvements in regional air pollution since 2000. But that success is also a tentative one.
The good news: concentrations of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and nitrogen oxides, two precursor pollutants for smog, are trending downwards. The bad news: ozone, another smog component, persists at levels that violate Canada-wide standards. And while improved air quality has already translated into meaningful public health gains, this summer our lungs were probably saved by cool temperatures, an increasingly less likely scenario thanks to global climate change.
“We think that we are just reaching the point where we are going to start seeing improvements as a result of decreasing emissions, but the wild card is always the weather,” says Jennifer Murphy, an atmospheric chemist at U of T and the study’s lead author.
Smog is the result of a complicated reaction between VOCs and nitrogen oxides, emitted primarily by cars and trucks, and sunlight. They combine to form ground-level ozone, a secondary pollutant.
According to the U of T study, levels of both have declined precipitously since 2000. So if the precursor chemical components for ozone have decreased, why hasn’t ozone itself?
“That’s the frustrating and complicated thing,” says Murphy. Because of the nature of the reactions involved, “it’s not as though if you cut the ingredients in half, you get a cake that is half as big.” We are emitting fewer primary pollutants than before, but they are reacting in the atmosphere more quickly, so ozone levels have not yet turned the corner.
Murphy believes they soon will. But weather can trump everything. The years from 2008 to 2011 had consistently lower ozone levels than in previous years, but 2012, a hot and dry year, had some of the highest summertime ozone concentrations recorded and eight smog advisories.
“Even though we’ve improved the chemistry so much, if we had another hot summer, then we would still expect to have these problems. You can’t just have one summer with bad weather and say there’s no smog in Toronto anymore,” says Murphy.
Experts credit the closure of coal-fired power plants and initiatives like Drive Clean with reductions of primary pollutants.
“It does go to show a lot of the policy changes that have taken place to help with that (are working),” says Gabriella Kalapos, executive director of the Clean Air Partnership.
But Kalapos warns against complacency because of the steep health costs of bad air. In 2004, there were 1,700 premature deaths and 6,000 hospitalizations in Toronto as a result of poor air quality. This year, those numbers dropped to 1,300 and 3,550, respectively.
“It’s very good, but the numbers are still high,” says Monica Campbell, director of healthy public policy with Toronto Public Health.
Smog advisories have been issued as late as October, so it’s not time to start celebrating quite yet.
The summer of 2014 has been a tentative triumph for GTA air quality. With the season’s end in sight, no smog advisories have been issued for the city so far – or anywhere else in Ontario, for that matter.
A new University of Toronto-led study helps explain why. The authors demonstrate remarkable improvements in regional air pollution since 2000. But that success is also a tentative one.
The good news: concentrations of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and nitrogen oxides, two precursor pollutants for smog, are trending downwards. The bad news: ozone, another smog component, persists at levels that violate Canada-wide standards. And while improved air quality has already translated into meaningful public health gains, this summer our lungs were probably saved by cool temperatures, an increasingly less likely scenario thanks to global climate change.
“We think that we are just reaching the point where we are going to start seeing improvements as a result of decreasing emissions, but the wild card is always the weather,” says Jennifer Murphy, an atmospheric chemist at U of T and the study’s lead author.
Smog is the result of a complicated reaction between VOCs and nitrogen oxides, emitted primarily by cars and trucks, and sunlight. They combine to form ground-level ozone, a secondary pollutant.
According to the U of T study, levels of both have declined precipitously since 2000. So if the precursor chemical components for ozone have decreased, why hasn’t ozone itself?
“That’s the frustrating and complicated thing,” says Murphy. Because of the nature of the reactions involved, “it’s not as though if you cut the ingredients in half, you get a cake that is half as big.” We are emitting fewer primary pollutants than before, but they are reacting in the atmosphere more quickly, so ozone levels have not yet turned the corner.
Murphy believes they soon will. But weather can trump everything. The years from 2008 to 2011 had consistently lower ozone levels than in previous years, but 2012, a hot and dry year, had some of the highest summertime ozone concentrations recorded and eight smog advisories.
“Even though we’ve improved the chemistry so much, if we had another hot summer, then we would still expect to have these problems. You can’t just have one summer with bad weather and say there’s no smog in Toronto anymore,” says Murphy.
Experts credit the closure of coal-fired power plants and initiatives like Drive Clean with reductions of primary pollutants.
“It does go to show a lot of the policy changes that have taken place to help with that (are working),” says Gabriella Kalapos, executive director of the Clean Air Partnership.
But Kalapos warns against complacency because of the steep health costs of bad air. In 2004, there were 1,700 premature deaths and 6,000 hospitalizations in Toronto as a result of poor air quality. This year, those numbers dropped to 1,300 and 3,550, respectively.
“It’s very good, but the numbers are still high,” says Monica Campbell, director of healthy public policy with Toronto Public Health.
Smog advisories have been issued as late as October, so it’s not time to start celebrating quite yet.
The peer-to-peer sharing economy is simply a function of the marriage between GPS and smartphone technology. Got a car and are willing to give someone else a ride? Uber will direct you to people nearby who need a ride and are willing to pay for it. Airbnb does something similar. Got a room or house you want to rent? Tell the company about it and it will share that information with anyone who wants to visit your location.
Now solar startup Yeloha thinks it has found a way to apply this new, social media way of doing business to clean energy. Yeloha cofounder and CEO Amit Rosner says the problem is simple: access. “We found that 92% of the households in the country cannot go solar,” Rosner told Energy Business. “No matter their motivations, they just can’t do it. Either they don’t have the right roof or they don’t have the right credit.
“What the solar industry has done is focus on the small, addressable market of the very lucky people – people with homes, sunny roofs that face south, live in the right state, and are wealthy or have excellent credit. That’s a lot of requirements.” In other words, the industry is picking the low hanging fruit.
“From a business perspective, there’s a huge opportunity in making it so everyone can connect to solar,” Rosner says. Understanding what the hurdles were, Rosner set out to develop Yeloha. The company acts as a liaison between people who have solar-friendly roofs and people who want to buy the energy those roofs generate. A homeowner can join Yeloha as a Sun Host. The company will then install solar panels on his or her roof free of charge. The homeowner receives part of the energy the system generates at no cost to help lower the home’s monthly utility bill.
The rest of the electricity generated is then distributed to what Yeloha calls Sun Partners. These people might be living in an apartment building or renting their home. Either way, they have no access to solar power. But through Yeloha, they are able to purchase the remaining energy generated by a Sun Host’s roof and see a monthly reduction in their electricity bill.
The simple idea has already generated intense media buzz and piqued investors’ interests. Earlier this year, Yeloha raised $3.5 million in its Series A fundraising round. Because fundraising remains in progress, Rosner could not divulge specifics on exactly how many homes are currently using Yeloha – although he was willing to say that he’d been overwhelmed by the “tremendous” outpouring of public interest.
For now, the service remains in Beta testing mode and is available exclusively in the company’s home state of Massachusetts. Rosner says New York will likely be next with several more states to follow in the coming months.
“Ultimately we bring people together to do something beautiful that they couldn’t do alone,” Rosner explains. “It’s not a platform that requires you to be a treehugger, because there’s an immediate benefit. We’re trying to be really practical here. We want to see a big change in the world. But if we want to reach millions of people, we need to provide what they need. Ideology is great, but we need to make the technology practical, online, affordable and sticky.”
So what does Rosner have to say about the inevitable comparisons to companies like Uber? He says he has learned a lot from it. Uber allows people to monetize their personal cars, which generally bring in no direct revenue, and has provided job opportunities to those that might be otherwise out of work.
According to Rosner, Yeloha is doing the same thing: “Here, you have your roof. Now, you put it to work for you. You had this asset that was wasted and now it can help you. It also helps the environment and saves you money.”
Another key comparison to Uber that Rosner is quick to point out is that the ridesharing service was able to transform transportation without altering the roads themselves. Rosner says Yeloha is working to change the way people get their electricity without taking on the considerable task of trying to change the grid or the infrastructure itself.
“We’re using the infrastructure, so we need to find a way to work together with the utility companies,” Rosner said, explaining that his company’s plan has naturally raised hackles with some utility companies. “We see ourselves as a digital network on top of the existing infrastructure. We understand why the utilities are concerned about how their business models could be adversely affected. But we’ve also found that utilities are embracing change.”
That may be so, but Rosner is going to find himself with an uphill battle with some states that prohibit third party purchase (TPP) agreements. Those states have laws designed to protect utility monopolies by making it illegal for anyone who is not a utility to generate electricity and sell it to someone other than the utility company.
The convenience factor of the Yeloha model is hard to ignore. For Sun Hosts, there’s no lease agreement, no commitment, and no credit check to sign up and get solar panels installed. For Sun Partners, it’s even simpler. “People should be able to go online and say ‘I want to go solar today.’ Three minutes later, they’re connected to one or two, or three, or 20 solar panels that can start generating cleaner, smarter and cheaper electricity for you. So you’re doing the right thing and you don’t need to go through a whole ordeal,” Rosner says.
Steve Hanley writes about the interface between technology and sustainability from his home in Rhode Island. You can follow him on Google + and on Twitter.
A United States appeals court ruled on Thursday that federal regulators erred in allowing an insecticide developed by Dow AgroSciences onto the market, canceling its approval and giving environmentalists a major victory.
The ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, is significant for commercial beekeepers and others who say a decline in bee colonies needed to pollinate key food crops is tied to the widespread use of a class of insecticides known as neonicotinoids.
The lawsuit was filed in 2013 against the Environmental Protection Agency by a number of organizations representing the honey and beekeeping industries. The groups specifically challenged the E.P.A. approval of insecticides containing sulfoxaflor, saying studies have shown they are highly toxic to honeybees. Sulfoxaflor is a neonicotinoid subclass, according to the ruling.
Dow AgroSciences, a unit of Dow Chemical, first sought approval for sulfoxaflor in 2010 for use in three different products. Brand names include Transform and Closer.
“It’s a complete victory for the beekeepers we represent,” said Greg Loarie, a lawyer for the American Honey Producers Association, the American Beekeeping Federation and other plaintiffs in the case. “The E.P.A. has not been very vigilant.”
Dow said in a statement that it “respectfully disagrees” with the ruling and will “work with E.P.A. to implement the order and to promptly complete additional regulatory work to support the registration of the products.” The agency said it was reviewing the decision and would have no further comment.
Honeybees pollinate plants that produce roughly a quarter of the food consumed by Americans. The demise of the bees has become a hotly debated topic between agrochemical companies, which say the insecticides they sell are not to blame, and those who say research shows a direct connection between neonicotinoids and large bee die-offs.
The White House has formed a task force to study the issue, and the E.P.A. has said it is trying to address concerns.
In its ruling, the court found that the E.P.A. relied on “flawed and limited data” to approve the unconditional registration of sulfoxaflor, and that approval was not supported by “substantial evidence.”
In vacating the agency’s approval, the court said that “given the precariousness of bee populations, leaving the E.P.A.’s registration of sulfoxaflor in place risks more potential environmental harm than vacating it.”
The E.P.A. must obtain further data on the effects of sulfoxaflor on bees before it grants approval, the court said.
The Agriculture Department said this year that losses of managed honeybee colonies hit 42.1 percent from April 2014 through April 2015, up from 34.2 percent for 2013-14 and the second-highest annual loss to date.
Agrochemical companies that sell neonicotinoid products say mite infestations and other factors are the cause of the bees’ demise.
Despite its efforts for nearly two decades to raise doubts about the science of climate change, newly discovered company documents show that as early as 1977, Exxon research scientists warned company executives that carbon dioxide was increasing in the atmosphere and that the burning of fossil fuels was to blame.
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