Green Options

Groningen would be number one on this list if we were looking at percentage of residents who bicycle for transportation purposes. About 57% of travel in Groningen is by bicycle!

The city has been named the world’s best bicycle city a couple of times (1993 and 2006). It is a university city which is part of the reason why it has so many people bicycling, but it has done amazing things to make the city more bicycle friendly as well. The bicycle facilities you can see on the following pages will probably blow your mind away.

Holland has announced plans to install five electric car charging bays, the first of their kind ever seen in the country.

To move to set up five Electromotive Elektrobays follows a government drive to improve air quality. The stations will be located at strategic points across the country, including Schipol International Airport and central Rotterdam. Another will be based at Amsterdam’s Centraal Station railway hub, where it will power-up the city’s spanking new fleet of all-electric Tuc Tuc taxi vehicles.

A new proposal to improve a 75-year-old dike, the Afsluitdijk, in The Netherlands could make it the world’s leading site for generating saltwater power— a clean, renewable energy source which is 30-40% more efficient than burning coal.

The breakthrough process, which is called reverse electrodialysis, captures the energy created when freshwater becomes saltier by mixing with seawater. Although scientists in the 1950s discovered that electricity could be generated this way, no one knew just how efficient the process could be until a recent study proved that a remarkable 80% of the energy could be recovered.

The ‘Ecovillage’ movement is not new, but, along with many other green ideas, it is growing steadily these days.
Ecovillages come in different varieties, but they hold a few basic characteristics in common. They try to combine great ecological sensibility and responsibility with innovative social environments that are supportive and fair. Different communities use or establish different systems of governance, but they tend to stand apart from the larger societies in some clear ways, whether it be their own system of rules or laws or just a very clearly defined sense of community.

Many such societies also address spirituality or religion to some degree or another, but it is not the case in all places. Ecovillages vary from one to another and it is up to the people who live there (and especially founding members) to bring different issues and ideas to the forefront of their community.

The UK imports cheap roses grown in Kenya for Valentine’s Day that are “bleeding that country dry,” says Dr. David Harper, an ecology and conservation biologist at the University of Leicester.

Of particular concern is the region around Lake Naivasha, where cheap rose growers have no concern for the environment.

Roses that come cheap are grown by companies that have no concern for the

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A cafe in the Dutch town of Zeist has installed a revolving door which generates electricity as you pass through.

Holland has led the way in wind power for centuries. With a quarter of the country lying below sea level they have traditionally used windmills to pump out the water. They currently have the world’s largest offshore wind farm, generating enough power to supply more than 100,000 homes. They are also famous in harnessing human power for transport. Anyone who has been to Amsterdam has seen the millions of bicycles on the streets. So what are they up to now?

With rising sea levels and more extreme weather events on the horizon, the Dutch are building houses modeled after arks. These houses become buoyant during floods.

There is a string of 37 houses located along the Maas River in Holland that were designed and built by Dura Vermeer. Such houses can rise 16 feet without problems and contain flexible pipes, electrical, and sewer lines.

The foundation of the sits on the river bottom. If you were to drill a hole through the basement floor, water would come in (so this is not recommended).