Archive for the ‘green’ Category

Destroy the Planet: Buy Organic

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Have you chuckled at the apparent inconsistency of a neighbor who drives a 7,000 lb. pavement-melting SUV to Whole Foods and then buys organic produce? It turns out that there is no inconsistency. She is destroying the planet with her SUV and with her purchases of hard-to-grow organic food.

Ridley notes that with genetically engineered crops, synthetic fertilizers, and Roundup to control weeds, the trend of feeding ever more people with less land could be continued. The biggest obstacle to returning land to its wild state is organic farming. Currently we are using 38 percent of the Earth’s land for growing food or grazing animals; at 1961 levels of productivity we would need to be using 82 percent of the land.

Organic farmers won’t use genetically engineered crops, so they spend a lot more time and energy fighting pests. Organic farmers won’t use Roundup and other herbicides, so they plow the weeds under, which kills a lot of small animals and loosens the soil enough that it erodes (or sometimes they resort to flame-throwers). Organic farmers won’t use standard fertilizer, but only manure from cows, which means we’ll need a lot more cows running around.

Organic cotton is an especially hard-on-the-Earth product, according to Ridley. Standard industrial cotton has Bacillus thuringiensis ("bt") genes mixed in and these kill pests, cutting the need for sprayed pesticides in half.

Who knew that "sustainable" would mean a polyester shirt and a bag of Fritos?

.:blogs.law.harvard.edu->

B-Squares

Amazon Deforestation Increases

A sharp increase in forest destruction in March and April in the Amazon has led Brazil to announce the creation of an emergency task force to fight against deforestation.

The two-month total of 593 square kilometers (368 square miles) deforested represents a six-fold increase compared to the same period last year, according to official statistics.

The office will be comprised of government experts and representatives of states badly impacted by recent deforestation, according to Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira, who announced the office at a press conference. (Source)

Vestas Turbine

Puma and the Environment

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Puma has published a paper detailing its impact on the environment, becoming the first major corporation in the world to do so.

The combined cost of the company’s carbon emissions and water used in 2010 was €94.4 million / £82.9 million. The figure included both Puma itself and its suppliers.

The sports and leisure group said that they expected the report to help it build "a more resilient and sustainable business model" and to prepare for environmental taxes that could potentially occur in the future.

Puma’s chief executive Jochen Zitz said at the launch of the environmental profit and loss accounts: "Sustainability is essential to the health and future of our business. The business implication of failing to address nature in decision making is clear - since ecosystem services are vital to the performance of most companies, integrating the true cost for these services in the future could have significant impacts on corporate bottom lines." (Source)

Rice and the Solar Autoclave

Rice University senior engineering students are using the sun to power an autoclave that sterilizes medical instruments and help solve a long-standing health issue for developing countries.

The Capteur Soleil, a device designed decades ago by French inventor Jean Boubour, was modified at Rice two years ago for use as a solar-powered cookstove for places where electricity — or fuel of any kind — is hard to get.

This year, Team Sterilize modified it further. When a set of curved mirrors and an insulated box containing the autoclave are installed, the steel A-frame sitting outside Rice’s Oshman Engineering Design Kitchenbecomes something else entirely — a lifesaver.

The system produces steam by focusing sunlight along a steel tube at the frame’s apex. Rather than pump steam directly into the autoclave, the Rice team’s big idea was to use the steam to heat a custom-designed conductive hotplate.

"It basically becomes a stovetop, and you can heat anything you need to," said Sam Major, a member of the team with seniors Daniel Rist, David Luker and William Dunk, all mechanical engineering students. "As long as the autoclave reaches 121 Celsius for 30 minutes (the standard set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), everything should be sterile, and we’ve found we’re able to do that pretty easily." (Source)

Solar Roadways

Solar panel concrete was a thing of the past, now scientists are driving on glass…

Iceland : Magma Chamber

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Solar Gold

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Researchers at Warwick University have developed a technique to utilize gold in solar panels that is flexible enough to recycle "lost" electrons.

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