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Better Living Through Green Chemistry
Big Gav, Peak Energy (Australia)
Martin at Deep Green Crystals has a post on the environmentally friendly chemistry behind the new wave of green surfboards. The Eden Project in England is also getting into the green surfing idea, helping some Cornish boardmakers produce a biofoam board called the Eco Board.
…Chemicals and plastics are a fairly integral part of traditional peak oil mythology, as they are mostly produced using oil as the primary raw material, leading to the conclusion that as we pass the peak the shrinking availability and rising price of oil will cause a reduction in supply of these products (and hence the collapse of industrial civilisation shortly thereafter).
There seem to be 3 obvious approaches to dealing with this scenario:
1. Substitute – other materials (use more cardboard and paper packaging for example, and stop using disposable eating utensils and go back to using metal ones – many other items currently made with plastic can also be made with wood or metal).
2. Recycle – Plastics can be recycled (and converted back to oil and gas for that matter, though the net energy benefit of this is debatable)
3. Bioplastics – Use carbohydrates instead of hydrocarbons.
By and large, substitution would often seem to be a good thing in terms of reducing the amount of waste that ends up in our landfills (and in the oceans), though there are drawbacks like the extra effort and cost required to make objects out of materials that can’t simply be injection moulded the way plastics can. …
(17 August 2007)
Much more at original – links, excerpts and commentary. I hope the indefatigable Big Gav does more single topic posts, so that we can link to him more often.
-BA
Leonardo DiCaprio’s Hour (interview about new movie)
Kelpie Wilson, Truthout
As a celebrated actor, Leonardo DiCaprio has had many hours in the media sun, but mere celebrity does not seem to be enough for him. He also wants to change the world, and he has created a new documentary called “The 11th Hour” with that revolutionary purpose in mind. Concerned with global warming and environmental catastrophe, the film has its own action web site at ww.11thhouraction.com.
The film is not about DiCaprio, but about all of us, for we are all actors in the drama of planetary survival. That is made clear by the banner streaming across the film’s web site: “We are the generation that gets to change the world forever. Let’s begin.”
“The 11th Hour” is opening on August 17 in New York and Los Angeles. DiCaprio made the film with the help of two sisters – Leila Conners Petersen and Nadia Conners. Nadia agreed to answer a few questions for Truthout readers.
…KW: The film seems like it will emphasize technical solutions to our problems. Does that mean there is nothing we can really do until science comes up with these solutions?
NC: We do talk about existing technologies as both transitional solutions and long-term solutions, but technology is nothing without an evolution in culture. We need to regain our citizenship – we have been turned into full-time consumers, and as a result, the infrastructure of our physical and mental society is in collapse. How are we going to demand that the administration – this one or the next – build green or develop better transportation systems or retool the wasteful processes of the industrial production system if we don’t engage as humans on a political level? The technologies exist right now that can dramatically reduce our impact on the planet – but they are not being implemented at the scale needed to make the difference we desperately need right now. We need a societal movement on the level of the civil rights movement to take back the power we have lost, so that we can begin to push for changes that serve the greater good of people and the planet, and not just the corporate few.
KW: Two very important but often neglected aspects of the environmental crisis are peak oil and human overpopulation. Does “The 11th Hour” address either of these?
NC: We did many interviews about peak oil with Richard Heinberg and Matthew Simmons, but were unable to successfully weave it into the flow of our film. Even so, oil is still the subplot of our movie. We look at it on multiple levels – how it has enabled us to consume resources at an accelerated rate, its contributions to global warming, its impact on the tremendous population explosion in this last century, as well as the oil corporations’ collusion with government.
(15 August 2007)
Enthusiastic review from Micki Krimmel at WorldChanging: The 11th Hour Generation “Gets to Completely Change This World”.
Simple and cheap: Nepal’s application of science
Editorial, SciDev
Almost unnoticed, Nepal is developing simple and cheap technologies that make the best of local resources and don’t damage the environment.
Down a narrow alley in Kathmandu’s historic heart, through a low door, you enter Akal Man Nakarmi’s workshop. Nakarmi’s surname means ‘metalsmith’ and the soft-spoken craftsman’s ancestors crafted copper utensils and forged statues of deities in bronze.
Today, Nakarmi makes small turbines called Peltric Sets for micro-hydro electric generation plants across the Himalaya. He can’t keep up with demand.
Nepal’s successes in scientific application in recent decades aren’t about grandiose hydropower dams or major infrastructure projects.
The new technologies that have worked have been indigenously designed, based on traditional skills and knowledge, and are cheap and easy to use and maintain. In fact, to visit Nepal these days is to see the ‘small is beautiful’ concept of development economist E. F. Schumacher in action.
(17 August 2007)
Recommended by Emily Gertz in a post at WorldChanging: Nepal’s Home-Grown, Micro-scale, Appropriate Technology Brings Energy to Millions. Pass It On..
52 Weeks Down – Week 16 – Cut Your Laundry Energy
Sharon Astyk, Casaubon’s Book
Let us start with the clotheline. If you don’t have one, get one. If you live in a subdivision that doesn’t permit them, hang one in your attic, porch or use a drying rack inside, or do a little agitating and get the rules changed, but lose the dryer.
I had a friend from Indonesia who said that of all the funny things she’d learned about Americans, the idea that we used machines to dry our clothes, which the air and the sun did for free was absolutely the weirdest. She couldn’t get over the idea that we were that crazy. And she has a point. The average dryer costs most families $80 per year. That’s a lot of money for something free. And the greenhouse gas emissions are signficant.
Now I don’t find hanging laundry to be a hardship at all. I can get a load up on the line in 4 minutes, the laundry smells better, and while I’m doing it, the kids can help, I can watch the birds in the trees – frankly, I find it to be one of the most pleasant chores I do.
Now it is true that things are softer when they come out of the dryer – and some things, like towels, can end up on the crunchy side if you have hard water. A little vinegar in the rinse, and hanging on windy days helps. But the thing that helps the most is simply getting used to it – it won’t take very long before you’ll stop expecting everything to be soft. And everything smells better on the line, and many things come off the line nicely crisp – oxford shirts, sheets and tablecloths are much nicer off the line.
(14 August 2007)
Consider Sharon’s last three articles to get an idea of her range:
Cut Your Laundry Energy
Here’s What Peak Oil Actually Looks Like (poverty and energy shortages)
Getting Over the Final Frontier (the viability of space travel). -BA
$100 Laptop, Meet The $100 Desktop
Jeremy Faludi, WorldChanging
You’ve heard of the $100 laptop. What about a $100 desktop? Meet Zonbu: a new computer company making desktop computers that are both extremely green and extremely cheap. Impossible, you say? Not so. They’ve done it by using the Product-Service-System concept. I recently had the pleasure of testing out a unit they sent me, and I have to give it a thumbs-up.
Years ago, when the internet’s first wave was crashing on the shores of society, there was an enormous amount of buzz about “the Network Computer”, a device that would really be all about connectivity and services rather than being an isolated, standalone machine. It never really materialized, until now. The actual Zonbu box (smaller than a Mac Mini, or thereabouts) has very little inside of it — no hard drive, no CD or DVD drive; just a motherboard and a compact flash card. (And, enough ports for any peripherals you’d want.)
(14 August 2007)
Young people say family, friends make them most happy
Jocelyn Noveck and Trevor Tompson, Associated Press
So you’re between the ages of 13 and 24. What makes you happy? A worried, weary parent might imagine the answer to sound something like this: Sex, drugs, a little rock ‘n’ roll. Maybe some cash, or at least the car keys.
Turns out the real answer is quite different. Spending time with family was the top answer to that open-ended question, according to an extensive survey – more than 100 questions asked of 1,280 people ages 13-24 – conducted by The Associated Press and MTV on the nature of happiness among America’s young people.
Next was spending time with friends, followed by time with a significant other. And even better for parents: Nearly three-quarters of young people say their relationship with their parents makes them happy.
(20 August 2007)
Note that the key satisfactions have nothing to do with fossil fuel usage. -BA
