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This post is by Sheryl Canter, an online writer and editorial manager at Environmental Defense Fund.
Ideas for businesses, and hope for everyone concerned about global warming - that’s what you get with our just-published, first annual Innovations Review. This new report highlights innovative processes, products, and technologies in a range of different industries.
Green business practices can drive cost savings and create new markets, giving companies a competitive advantage. But what’s next after the basics, like switching to energy-saving light bulbs and printing double-sided?
Here’s one example that caught my eye - a southern California Web hosting company powered entirely by the Sun.
By Joe Mohr •
February 16, 2008
326 million trillion! It sounds like a number I would come up with as a kid, say, in reference to the number of things I find disgusting about my sister, or the number of reasons I need a new bike, or the number of mosquito bites I got on a weekend camping trip. But, it turns out, 326 million trillion is a real number. It happens to be (approximately—because who could count them all?) the number of gallons of water on our wonderful planet (Earth). That’s an overwhelming, impressive and — when you learn that 98% of that water is ocean water, and therefore too salty to consume, or use for irrigation — frustrating figure!
In these times where climate chaos has caused more frequent severe droughts, and our population continues to grow (read: consume water) at an awesome rate, people are becoming more and more concerned with water conservation. Humanity finds itself increasingly at a loss for freshwater while roughly 315 million trillion gallons of unusable seawater taunts us from our shores.
Sure, desalination plants are becoming more common. They are very expensive, however, and so energy intensive that they only further contribute to the climate change they are attempting remedy (thereby, joining corn-based ethanol as the two largest non-solutions to our climate problems).
Fear not my fellow water-loving earthlings! There is an even better way to remove the salt from salt water: a Seawater Greenhouse! This UK-based company explains the process as one that:
uses seawater to cool and humidify the air that ventilates the greenhouse and sunlight to distill fresh water from seawater. This enables the year round cultivation of high value crops that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to grow in hot, arid (conditions).
By Gavin Hudson •
January 16, 2008
Take 8,000 ice barges; mount two industrial ice cannons on each; add a windmill for power; let sit in the arctic with cannons blasting.
This might be the secret tech-heavy recipe for pepping up the faltering Atlantic ocean currents that heat Europe. So says industrial engineer, Peter Flynn of the University of Alberta. The cost: $50 billion USD. Ouch. Perhaps an ounce of prevention really is worth a pound of cure.
By Sara Holt •
May 15, 2007
If not us, WHO? If not here, WHERE? If not now, WHEN?
These are the questions that gave birth to the Bay Area Urban Alliance of Sustainability three years ago. With a mission to "Inspire and integrate the sustainability movement,” and a vision to "Support the transformation of the world into a harmonious social, economic and natural environment for the benefit of all," UAS is working to connect local green organizations and individuals
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