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.

All server farms must be kept cool. In fact, the average data center is 40 times more energy intensive than an office building. For Affordable Internet Services Online (AISO) , which is in the desert, cooling is a particular challenge. But AISO is able to meet 100 percent of its power needs - for both its office and server farm - from 120 solar panels.

How is this possible? The answer lies in a combination of efficient design and innovative technology. For example, the AISO facility features:

• A unique air cooling system blows in cool air from outside when the temperature drops below 50°F (as often happens at night).
• Twelve-inch walls with high-grade insulation.
• Servers running at 75 percent capacity - compared to the usual 10 percent - thanks to virtualization software that lets one server host multiple applications.

The data center cost 60 percent more to build than a standard site. But AISO saves $3,000 a month in utility bills, and its environmentally responsible business practices have attracted a fast-growing client base.

In short, the company’s investment is rapidly paying off.

Check out the full report for examples of other innovative business practices in real estate, manufacturing, fleet management, finance, and more.

Confession time. I have to admit that I may have been a bit of a grumpy environmental blogger, failing to give due credit where credit is due..

In particular, I have frequently complained about bio-fuels driving up world food prices in absence of a few wider considerations, I’ve been dismissive at the EU’s lack of ability to actually implement anything that makes a real difference to the environment, and most recently I described an environmental tax levied on cows as the most stupid idea ever. So it is maybe time to examine these issues in a more positive light – negativity is, after all, the enemy of progress.

Bio-fuels Are Not Solely Responsible For World Food Prices

In fact, there are several reasons behind the recent price increases. Firstly, there are simply more people to feed these days as the earth’s population begins to swell, and feeding these masses hasn’t been made any easier by recent spates of bad weather which have reduced crop production in some parts of the world.

Secondly, not only are there more of us, but we are eating more as the world grows wealthier. In particular, rising standards of living in developing nations is leading to an increase in meat consumption, meaning that instead of using grain directly to feed people it is being used to feed animals to feed people - which is a very inefficient process.

Finally, we shouldn’t forget the impact of farm subsidies in the Western world, which have effectively forced many farmers in developing nations out of business by distorting food markets and has ultimately lowered world food production capacity.

Whilst bio-fuels may not be entirely innocent, they are certainly not the only villain.

Taxing Cows Is Not a Bad Idea

Considering the impact of increased meat production on food prices, a tax on cattle herds starts to sound more sensible. When one considers the additional environmental impacts of overgrazing, soil erosion, desertification and deforestation – not to mention the millions of tons of greenhouse gasses from manure and cow-smells – then it starts to sound quite necessary.

I previously criticized the tax which is now being levied on cattle farmers in Estonia, claiming that there are few alternatives to cows and that there are few ways to make cows more efficient. However, I have to admit that I overlooked the option of simply eating more vegetables instead.

And the EU is Making Sensible Subsidies

To round off, recognizing some of the problems being caused by the massive $62 billion spent by the EU each year on farm subsidies, EU leaders will this week consider plans to pay farmers not for producing food, but to take better care of the countryside instead. The sustainability of farming is becoming increasingly important as high prices encourage some farmers to over stress their land for short term profit.

Under the new proposals, whilst farmers will be more exposed to market forces, they will receive government funds to encourage more sustainable agricultural practices. It is hoped that such reforms will level the world-wide playing field for food production whilst also encouraging and preserving the traditional European rural way of life.

Full Circle

Coming full circle, whilst using food to power vehicles may still not be the smartest long term green energy solution, it is certainly not the only problem, and in our rush to blame bio-fuels we run the risk of ignoring other important problems which also need to be addressed.

At the same time, it’s easy to forget that although our world is under increasing environmental pressure, global environmental awareness and initiatives are at an all time high. We will continue to make many mistakes, but we are also making steady progress. No more grumpy posts from this blogger - for now.

More about agriculture and bio-fuels at Green Options:

How Green Are Biofuels- Comparison Chart [PIC]

3 Reasons Manure is Becoming a Cash Crop

What About the Food in the Farm Bill-

Image credit: kables at Flickr under a Creative Commons license

1) “My friends, I am most proud of the change that I brought about in Iraq that saved Americans’ lives.”1

2) “Change is just a word without the strength and experience to make it happen. And I know some people think you have to choose between change and experience. Well with me, you don’t have to choose.”2

3) “…the ways of Washington must change. The genius of our founders is that they designed a system of government that can be changed. And we should take heart, because we’ve changed this country before. … This campaign has to be about reclaiming the meaning of citizenship, restoring our sense of common purpose, and realizing that few obstacles can withstand the power of millions of voices calling for change.”3

No matter how difficult this little quiz was for you, I hope my general point is fairly clear. It seems that nowadays, if someone has any aspiration for any political position, from commander-in-chief to bridge-club president, then that person must be seen as the “candidate for change.” (If somehow President Bush were allowed to run for a third term, would he too try to sell himself as the “candidate for change”?)

And it is not just politics. Even environmentalism and other areas of social activism are simply electrified with the energy of “change.”

Again and again, we see or hear Mahatma Gandhi’s monumental statement, “You must be the change you want to see in the world.” If he were alive today and we gave him a nickel for every time someone used this phrase, the poor man would have a terrible time maintaining his vow of poverty!

So we are told we must be the change by making changes in our lives; we are asked to take part in activities that are making change; we support organizations that are working for change; we get inspired and fired up by promises of real change soon to come; we hear about all the changes that have been and will be made by this, that, or another….

At this point, you will have to forgive me if I say that I am simply sick of change.

Hearing about “change,” that is.

On the one hand, I think it is just great (and long overdue) that people in every demographic are being bombarded by calls to change change change. After all, people must realize that their bank accounts are out of balance before they will bother trying to make corrections. Since we owe a de facto debt to our planet and yet keep charging away like mad, we can no longer sit on the couch and hope everything will balance itself. Yes, we need change.

But on the other hand, I am not only tired of but worried about this all-out “change” assault. Why? My quiz at the start may show why: “Change” has become a sort of rhetorical blank check for every would-be policy maker. As a result, it becomes quite difficult to distinguish one from the other, the hype from the truth, the chump change and fool’s gold from the legal tender….

All of this buzz about “change,” then, concerns me as much as it encourages me. I think that it very soon becomes a cacophony, at which point more people will be more likely to tune the noise out, to change the station, to put in earplugs, than to start or keep paying attention. Nor will be they be as likely to start or keep making real, active, effective changes in their lives if they feel overwhelmed by commands to change. Honestly, so many of our personal problems start in a sense of being wrong somehow–too fat, too skinny, too weak, too ugly, too poor, too stupid…. Too much focus on making people change may only exacerbate this feeling of personal wrongness or worthlessness; too much focus on change may come at the cost of losing sight of what is right with us, what is good in us.

Remember the old maxim, “The more things change, the more they stay the same”?

Even if people do not tune out messages of “change,” I think it is also difficult to pick out from all the buzz exactly which methods and measures can be used to make, to be genuine change. I fear there is almost too much “change” out there for us to pick up, sort of like being in a secret treasure vault filled with gold coins: with so many shiny things to choose from, you may stand there frozen, eyes and mouth agape, not quite sure where to start…and left in the end with empty pockets. That is, people may not know what to do since they hear about so many things for them to do but never get any sort of reasonable, realistic, and feasible plan for implementing change.

Ultimately, talk is cheap.

It is too easy to say “change change change,” to promise “change change change,” to prod others to “change change change.” Saying “change” is cheap, costs nothing, and incurs no debt.

But real change is priceless.

Nothing changes when you
* write a big check to a non-profit organization and then drive your car to the mailbox at the end of the block to mail it,
* get all of your family’s meals from a fast-food restaurant,
* avoid using compact fluorescent bulbs because the lighting “looks bad,”
* experience nature from the comfort of your couch via Animal Planet on the HDTV,
* believe that there is too much to change for anything to change for the better….

Real change happens when you
* carpool with a neighbor to the grocery store,
* get out and vote for the candidates (national, state, and local) who seem have sensible plans for preserving the welfare of all life,
* replace your old-school light bulbs,
* plant a garden,
* become a vegetarian or (even better) a vegan,
* pick up litter with a group of friends,
* celebrate the many good things you and those around you are doing….

Yes, you store up many pennies in heaven by actually making change in your own life where necessary and showing others how to make change in their lives, by actually clarifying what investments in change have the best returns, by actually putting your money where your mouth is.For better and for worse, we now live in a climate of change where candidates spend millions on 30-second ads selling themselves as candidates for “change,” where the drone and buzz of “change” may cost people their hearing, and where talk of “change” is startlingly cheap. In this climate of change, we already have pockets full of chump change and fool’s gold.

But, despite all of that costly buzz, it is so easy to make change–so easy, in fact, that every single little shiny piece of gen-u-ine, solid, hold-it-in-your-hand change becomes priceless.

I hope you will not sell your energy and desire for change for the price of cheap talk, chump change, or fool’s gold.

I hope you will not shut your eyes and close your ears.

I hope you will go beyond the rhetoric and determine for yourself which change is genuine.

I hope you will listen to your heart to determine what things mean the most to you and then educate yourself about the best ways to protect and preserve them.

I hope you will be a force for change and a role model to others.

I hope you will make “change” more than just the latest buzzword, fad, gimmick, hype, humbug, and trend.

So…can you spare some change?

Notes
Image credit: Felix Burton at Flickr.
1. John McCain. “Candidates Talk Change.” CNN.com 7 Jan. 2008. Cable News Network. 13 May 2008 <http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/07/nh.primary/index.html>.
2. Hillary Clinton. Horowitz, Jason. “Hillary Clinton, Candidate of Change.” The New York Observer 5 Sept. 2007. 13 May 2008 <http://www.observer.com/2007/hillary-rolls-out-new-ad>.
3. Barack Obama. Sweet, Lynn. “Obama’s Presidential Announcement Speech.” Lynn Sweet: The Scoop on Washington 10 Feb. 2007. Sun-Times News Group. 13 May 2008 <http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2007/02/obamas_presidential_announceme.html>.

Is so much talk of “change” good or bad, no matter what area of public life it comes from? Where are some of the oddest places you have heard about somebody or something making “change”? How can we distinguish real, effective change from cheap talk?

“We are hoping that everything we are doing for greening (the convention) has some legacy value,” said Parry Burnap, “greening” director for the host committee. The committee has launched plans for local river clean-ups, tree-planting and tree care events, and is sourcing its food from local and organic sources. Other programs aimed at leaving a legacy include (after the jump)…

Transportation:

Humana Inc. and Boulder-based Bikes Belong will provide 1,000 bikes for use by residents, visitors and delegates during the convention. Denver Host Committee President Elbra Wedgeworth, along with Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper and Colorado Governor Bill Ritter, Jr., recently unveiled plans for the new city-wide bike-sharing program called Freewheelin. 70 of the bikes used for the convention will be donated to Denver as a start toward continuing the program. Mayor John Hickenlooper hailed the plan as a significant step towards creating an integrated transit system within the city.

Energy:

The mother venue at the Democratic convention will be the Pepsi Center, and it is has been undertaking substantial projects that will leave a noticeable legacy. First, owners of the arena are is installing 52 solar panels on the arena’s Blue Sky Grill restaurant, providing electricity to the venue and saving 13,641 KWh annually, or 9.42 metric tons of CO2. The array will be operational before the Convention and for many years afterwards.

Giant downdraft fans have also been installed at Pepsi center — viewable from the arena’s seating areas — that re-circulate air trapped near the roof, reducing the amount of energy needed to heat the arena bowl.

Waste:

The Host Committee has set a goal of diverting a minimum of 85 percent of convention- generated waste from the landfill. Organic materials will be collected and composted.

Also, installation of a cardboard recycling at Pepsi Center baler expected to package more than 100 tons of cardboard annually that had been going to landfill, saving 311.95 metric tons of CO2 each year (1).

Related Posts:

• “My Party’s Convention is Greeer than Yours”
• “The John McCain 100% Organic Cotton ‘Onesie?’”
• “Dems Name State Blogger Corps for Convention (and no, you’re not on the list)”

Sources:

• Denver Post
• DemConvention.com
  

In the last few years, global warming has received all of the press. But shortages of fresh water are arguably the greater near-term environmental threat in many corners of the globe. In the Western United States, major die-offs of salmon have been attributed to too little clean water flowing downstream after cities and farms pulled out their allotments. In Australia, as much as 25%¹ of farmland may soon be degraded due to water-related problems. And, many predict that future wars in the Mideast are as likely to be about water as they are to be about religion or energy.

Environmental Impacts of Excessive Water Use

Fresh water is at present a somewhat local commodity. Unlike some of the other environmental impacts we discuss on this website, such as petroleum use or global warming, water use in the United States primarily affects US residents (except for some limited overlaps with Mexico and Canada). This could easily change – the only thing that prevents the shipment of water over much larger distances is its weight and relatively low cost today compared to other commodities. And, in almost all other regions in the world, water supply issues are increasingly of international concern.

The United States uses, on average, about 345 billion gallons of fresh water per day. To put this in perspective, that is enough water to cover the state of Rhode Island to a depth of a foot – used every day. This use is broken down as shown in the chart at left.

This chart shows that water use for irrigation and for cooling electric power plants are tops among US water uses, at about 136 billion gallons a day. So, not only does using less electricity save you money and reduce global warming impacts, but it also protects our precious fresh water supplies.

Next on the list is public and domestic water supply of about 47 billion gallons a day, or about 165 gallons per person per day. This is the water we use while at work or at home.

What are the environmental impacts of using all of this water? They range from minimal to significant, depending on the location. In some areas, annual natural rainfall is sufficient for most years, whereas other areas must import most of their water via aqueducts even during the wettest of years.

The systems needed to procure, store and transmit water can have major environmental impacts. Many of these systems are already built, so a natural question is, how does cutting water use help? For one, many of the impacts below ARE directly correlated with use – reduce irrigation needs, and the amount of water consumed during the summer when habitat needs are also greatest decreases. And, reduced demand means that fewer new structures will be built and, some day, existing ones might be removed.

Dams: Dams often have multiple uses – while primarily for water storage, they are often used to provide flood protection and generate electricity as well. The environmental impacts are well-known: they present formidable obstacles to anything trying to move up or downstream, and have as a result decimated populations of fish such as salmon worldwide. Dams also change the ecosystem of a waterway by warming / cooling water and reducing sediment flows. This can eliminate populations of native fish and other aquatic animals.

Diversions: Diversions are structures built to convey water from places of plenty to places of scarcity. In the largest cases, they move water from one part of a state to another or across state lines, acting as man-made rivers. These structures are used throughout the West, carrying water from the mountains of Northern California to the dry cities of the South, and from the Colorado River to the states of the desert Southwest. The key impact of such structures is the quantity of water they remove from natural systems. As an example, water diversions from the Klamath River in Oregon and California during the summer have led to the deaths of thousands of salmon stuck in the shallow river while trying to migrate upstream.

Groundwater mining: Groundwater withdrawals represent almost 25% of the fresh water supply in the United States². Groundwater is created by the infiltration of rain and other sources of water into the layers of sediment and rock below ground. There, groundwater either slowly flows downhill until it enters a river, lake or stream, or remains permanently underground in large natural basins.

When water is withdrawn from groundwater supplies at the same rate it is replaced by rain and other mechanisms, then groundwater basins are a sustainable water source. However, in many areas of the US groundwater is being withdrawn at rates far greater than what can be replaced by natural processes. These unsustainable withdrawals, often referred to as groundwater “mining,” have major environmental consequences. They can dry up the rivers and streams previously fed by the groundwater basins, destroying the ecosystems that depended on them.

Because groundwater in part supports the land above it, withdrawals can also cause land above to settle, called “subsidence.” In some areas of California, Texas and Arizona, the ground elevation has fallen by over 10 feet since the late 1940s³, damaging manmade structures and natural resources alike. The picture at right shows an area where the land surface has fallen by over 30 feet in less than 100 years.

Notes:

1. Diamond, Jared, Collapse, pg 403, Penguin Books, 2005
2. http://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/2004/circ1268/pdf/circular1268.pdf
3. http://geochange.er.usgs.gov/sw/changes/anthropogenic/subside

Photo credit: nukeit1 at Flickr under a Creative Commons license

The local people can recharge batteries for energy-saving lamps, luminaire and other electrical appliances, such as mobile phones, at low cost and without damaging the environment at the station otherwise known as the OSRAM Energy Hub.

For the fishermen in Mbita, a small fishing center on the Kenyan side of Lake Victoria, switching over to solar-powered “O-LAMP BASIC” or “O-LAMP 2 in 1″ energy-saving lamps will pay for itself in just four weeks as the cost of kerosene takes up more than half of their income.

At the same time, jobs are being created at the Energy Hubs. Local training courses for operating and sales staff have already begun. A micro-financing system organized by the local NGO, OSIENALA, is in place to finance the lamps and the deposit.

Off Grid solutions are the way forward for developing and emerging countries that cannot afford to set up a permanent power supply network. The market is huge, as 1.6 billion people throughout the world live without electricity.

The pilot project in Mbita provides an excellent basis for successful implementation of the Off Grid concept. This small town on the banks of Lake Victoria does not have a permanent power supply, but does have a thriving economy based on fishing. Around 175,000 fishermen use kerosene lamps every night to entice the fish.

“OSRAM is a pioneer in the field of Off Grid solutions. We are proud to be the first lighting manufacturer in the world to offer a sustainable lighting solution for regions without power supply networks,” said Dr. Kurt Gerl, CSO of OSRAM GmbH.

Around Lake Victoria there are approximately 30 million people who do not have access to a permanent power supply. They produce light by burning kerosene, which is not only harmful to their health, it also places a huge burden on the environment. Burning kerosene to produce light emits 67 million tonnes of CO2 each year in Africa - that is approximately equivalent to the annual CO2 emissions of Finland. Globally 190 million tonnes of CO2 are emitted each year.

“OSRAM’s solar station, the OSRAM Energy Hub, is a concept that can be replicated anywhere in the world. We’re supporting the local economy in the region, the local population, and reducing CO2 emissions,” says Wolfgang Gregor, Off Grid project leader and Chief Sustainability Officer at OSRAM.

Built in just four months following a year of planning, the OSRAM Energy Hub has Solarworld AG and the cell phone manufacturer Nokia as the other collaborators in the pilot project. It has water treatment systems with integrated UV lamps but the ultimate goal is to cooperate with Siemens to provide water treatment systems after the pilot trial.

The “O-LAMP BASIC” and “O-LAMP 2 in 1″ products for the Off Grid project are particularly robust, watertight and much more cost-effective than the kerosene lamps currently being used. The “OSRAM O-LAMP BASIC” operates in combination with an external battery box which can be taken back to the nearest Energy Hub as soon as it is discharged and exchanged for a fully charged battery. Users pay a deposit for the box.

Other low-power devices such as radios and mobile phones can also be connected to this battery box (O-BOX) and run or recharged. There are also complete luminaires such as the “OSRAM O-LAMP 2 in 1″ which comprises an energy-saving lamp and LED. It has an integrated battery and is recharged or exchanged at the Energy Hub as a separate unit.

Image courtesy: OSRAM

First, the Department of Energy released a report that confirmed what the wind industry has already claimed: wind could power 20% of the United State’s energy needs by 2030. Even with growing energy demands, our ample wind resources could meet one-fifth of our needs with continued growth and innovation. Other nations, especially Denmark, are already deriving significant fractions of their energy from wind, sometimes with impressive results. The truth is, wind energy is booming even as the specter of the expiring Production Tax Credit moves to the House of Representatives for a vote.

Another large announcement this week came from ex-oilman T. Boone Pickens, who proved (once again) that every thing’s bigger in Texas.

He just ordered $2 billion worth of wind turbines from GE to build the world’s largest wind farm.

Texas has already shown that wind isn’t just good for the environment, it’s also good for rural jobs. There’s even a town in Missouri that derives almost all of its energy from wind power, and sells excess energy to other towns. These examples and more disprove many of the wind myths that are still floating around. Wind energy is not a perfect technology, but it holds powerful potential to diversify power generation around the world. One of the statistics that struck me is that wind power could:

“reduce water consumption associated with electricity generation by 4 trillion gallons by 2030.”

(Source) With drought affecting many places around the world, including Australia and several American regions, any technology that conserves water carries important implications. Even areas with abundant water resources (and recent flooding) are concerned about over-exploitation of their water. One part of the water issue is that nuclear and coal-fired power plants require a lot of water, billions of gallons per day across the nation. Some of that water is ultimately returned to its source, but some is also lost or polluted.

In areas with scarce or dwindling water resources, a host of hydra-headed problems appear simultaneously: agriculture and food, energy, population, health and sanitation, development,industry, environment. Our lives, economy, and society are intimately linked to water, and scarcity is often a source of instability.

Judging from various efforts around the globe, it’s safe to say that conserving water is cheaper than alternatives. Australia and Barcelona are potent examples of the cost of water shortages; both are spending a lot of money to secure their water supplies. In Los Angeles, recycling sewage is cheaper than piping it in. If things get worse, Boone Pickens’ investment will look like a steal. By investing in water-friendly energy production, you strike two birds with one stone. You add a buffer for communities in case of future water shortages by removing resource conflicts before they occur. Wind power could also help us prepare for the effects of climate change and shifting weather patterns, which are already evident around the globe.

There is also the possibility of harvesting potable water from the ocean, but desalination plants are expensive and use large amounts of energy. Another proven method may be to encourage natural water storage via wetlands. A town in the state of Georgia, outside of drought-stricken Atlanta, has not felt the effects of the southeast’s severe drought due to smart water planning. But even these methods fundamentally react to a water shortage instead of preventing it.

Wind is certainly no placebo for water supply problems, but it could be part of the solution. For me, this is another example of how renewable energy is a sound investment in the long-term, and how we can reap unexpected benefits from clean technology.

Related Links:

Water Conservation Around the House

Did you know…? Water Facts

Images:
“Spin” via recursion_see_recu rsion on the Flickr Creative Commons

“Aral Sea” via TreeHugger

In many realms, like gasoline and clothing, simply reducing how much we consume can have a big impact on our environmental footprint. Food, on the other hand, is not a consumable that can be comfortably reduced to half or less! We all need calories to stay alive, plus nutrition to keep our bodies healthy. So how can we meet our food needs in the most sustainable ways?

Today at 5:00 PM, I walked into a local coffeeshop with several locations around Downtown Pittsburgh. I was nervous. This was the first time I had ever tried this before.

I walked up to the young man behind the counter. “What time do you close?” Six, he informed me. “Will you be throwing away any food, like pastries or whatever, at the end of the night?” He eyed me skeptically. …Yes, he conceded. “Would you mind if I came back at 6:00 and took that food off your hands for you?” OK, it was out there. What would he say next?

Sure, come on by.

Later that night, I biked over to Landslide Community Farm to share with my friends the bounty–two vegetarian wraps and four side salads.

An alternative option to dumpster diving is to intercept the food before it even gets to the dumpster. This is often the preferred method for food-from-garbage redemption if one is still squeamish about fooling around inside dumpsters at all.

How to do it:

Simply walk into your favorite coffeeshop and ask if they will be throwing away any food at the end of the night (usually pre-made stuff in coolers, like wraps, have short shelf lives). If they say yes, ask if you can take it away for them at closing time. If you are personable, tidy and prompt, you should have no problems.

It is also a good idea to build up a rapport with the employees at a single store. Managers and other customers are known to affect how comfortable an employee is with handing over food, so be sure that your path is clear of them before approaching.

I personally prefer this option to dumpster diving because it has been difficult for me to find the exceptional, constantly brimming dumpsters that I have heard tales about. Since May, I have fruitlessly spent at least three hours scouring for dumpstered goods in several Pittsburgh business districts. It has been frustrating, I will admit. But I do know where some are, and my knowledge will no doubt continue to expand with time.

Let me reiterate: redeeming edible food is not a cop-out, it is not lazy (it is actually more work than buying it), and it is not the complete answer to acquiring food in a sustainable way. However, it is something we can do right now to significantly reduce our food consumption footprint.

First time director Giovanni Vaz Del Bello neatly divides the film down into four areas of innovation: Transportation, Recycling, Affordable Housing and Urban Parks. Convenient Truth shows how convenient the transportation remains in this million plus city. Their progressive mayors like Jamie Lerner, city planners and designers determined that the city should revolve around people, not cars. From the cost-effective yet expansive bus system (with the notable bus station tubes) to the pedestrian-only walkways, then documentary highlights how effective, people friendly and sustainable changes can be made with minimal or no cost.

Cinematographer Maria Terezinha (who also produced) captures energizing city images that encompass the film’s other topics. When cities like New York City often can’t afford to keep their recycling program going, A Convenient Truth shows how Curitiba offers programs that not only clean most of the cityscape but have created a subset of employment based around recycling all while keeping within the city budget. The film addresses social justice with a section about low-cost urban housing and finally how city parks have not only beatified the city but have increased property values (and thus property taxes) as well as prevented floods that used to ravage the city.

The film makes interesting parallels toward New Orleans (and hurricane Katrina) as well as some Bay Area eyesores that could get a clue from the solutions found in Curitiba. Although the film suffers slightly from low production value and the sound quality wavers the docu-feature offers an interesting topic of a city that most people know little if anything about.

Someone needs to come up with a name for “perfectly-good-quality, yet discarded food.” When I say “food from a dumpster,” the immediate reaction tends to be a wrinkled nose. Folks picture rancid meat, moldy bread, and melting veggies in a smelly, unfriendly metal dumpster. While this can be the case, it most often is not.

For as long as our unsustainable society insists on wasting edible food, there will be people, mindful of this tragedy, to remediate it. They are known as “dumpster divers.”

Dumpster diving is a sustainable act — again, as long as our society insists on being too wasteful for sustainability. The food is there, and it is headed for a landfill. What is the logical thing to do?

Dumpster diving takes good food out of the dumpsters and uses it to feed people. We reduce the company’s garbage bill, because they pay to tow their waste to a landfill. Plus, we get fed. And we don’t have to spend a cent. You can reduce society’s food waste while ending some of your own!

Here are some handy tips for making a successful dumpster run:

• Wear dirty clothes when climbing into dumpsters. Also, use a headlamp. They are far easier than managing a flashlight with your hands full.
• Leave the dumpster in better shape than you found it. If your presence becomes a nuisance to the business owners, you can count on locked-up dumpsters.
• Don’t trust expiration dates–trust your nose and then, your tongue. Since May began, I’ve eaten countless officially-expired foods, but never anything that made me wonder whether it was still good. I haven’t gotten sick yet using this method.
• Don’t be shy. I know it will at first feel weird, even shameful, to search for food and other quality goods in dumpsters. Sometimes dumpster diving is illegal, but usually it is just the social rules that one fears breaking. You will warm up to it and learn your own tricks of the trade.
• Trust me when I say there really is a lot of food, and other stuff, to be redeemed from dumpsters.
• The best tip I’ve heard for countering someone’s rude inquiries (like “Hey! What are you doing in there?”) when dumpster diving is to answer “Looking for food.”

While I hope for a society in which good, local food will be available to all sustainably, I live in Pittsburgh, 2008. Dumpster diving is a solid interim measure between the present and utopia.

A Canadian of Dutch descent, he has since passed on the skill to local farmers in Mali, where he first presented his model, and elsewhere on the continent where he trains them for free and still refuses to patent the cheap gadget which has impressed even infamous peanut farmers like Jimmy Carter. A Gift to the World, he calls it.

Mama, I promise to look this Brandis guy up for you and bring him to our village. My mama, in her 55 years, still finds time from her teaching job in the village school to employ farm hands to shell peanuts for her. And she reaps an impressive twenty 50 kg sacks a year. Not bad for her agrarian moonlighting, hmm…

Feted as a CNN Hero for his innovation, Brandis has worked with communities in 17 countries across four continents through his Full Belly Project to make hundreds of machines locally at minimal cost resulting in health benefits and increased family incomes.

In Africa alone, women spend four billion hours annually hand shelling peanuts, figures quoted on the project website estimate. The Full Belly project works to relieve hunger and create economic opportunities in developing countries through the design and distribution of labor saving, locally replicable agricultural devices.

From Haiti to the Philippines, from Malawi to Southern Sudan, from Mali to Guatemala, entire communities have been transformed by the UNS. In Haiti, the Full Belly project turned a pedal powered agricultural center into an electric powered one capable of running all day long, creating an inexpensive way to process peanuts for a kids charity there.

Now the project aims to focus on their research efforts on developing easily replicable, inexpensive devices that will allow for organizations to process their foods cheaply.

And what’s more, the UNS can easily be modified to shell coffee beans, shea (a lucrative crop for shea butter and oil) or jatropha, a biodiesel seed now being grown in many arid and semi arid parts of Africa and Asia.

The inventor says the gadget makes shelling work less tedious and increases productivity up to 50 times. He looks at a single machine working for an entire village, so 100 machines may as well do shelling work for 100 villages.

A Gift to the World captures the vision of the Full Belly Project - that rural communities in developing countries live lives of abundance, that they awake each morning to days of economic possibility and go to sleep each night with bellies that are full. Indeed!

Image credit: Tamburix via Flickr.

On April 30, I cleared the area where I would be camping in my Mili-Tent (a fun nickname for an only sometimes-fun dwelling).

I used special gloves, and wore long sleeves, long pants, and boots. I worked on the site all day.

On the night of May 1st, I tossed and turned in my sleep a little from an irritating itch on my belly. That was the beginning of the misery.

For a week I tried everything available to treat the poison ivy with the littlest environmental impact. First, with nothing but patience. By May 5th, it was still spreading, and more irritating by the day. Next, I used calamine lotion, hydrocortisone cream and gauze to contain it and help with the itch.

Finally, around May 8, I realized my quality of life was significantly diminished by this poison ivy rash. Avoiding any itch at all meant laying flat on my back and not moving. Thus came depression about being unproductive. I decided that despite my goal of sustainability, I should treat the poison ivy by any means possible. It was infringing heavily on my ability to do anything else!

So I went to a doctor (I have health insurance, which is a major blessing.) I got a tube of chemical cream that did wonders, and a six-day pack of steroids which helped quell the itching and inflammation. The irritation was over within a day, and within a week, my rash was recovering beautifully.

Many of my friends who are also “into” sustainability scorn Western medicine–they would rather treat poison ivy rashes with home remedies made from jewelweed. Yet I had to face facts: I was immediately happier and more active after seeing a doctor. I was healing. (Three weeks after the affliction began, I am still healing due to the intensity of the rash, and with probable scarring). If there’s one thing I wouldn’t give up in favor of absolute 100% sustainability, I now know for certain: it’s modern medicine.

“Green” is good, unless it’s the three-leafed variety!

Imagine an organism, native to the American prairie, whose value to people prompted wholesale hunting to fill the demands of a niche market. In the period of roughly a decade and a half, consumers managed to rediscover and exploit natural reserves of this species which had originally been utilized by Native Americans in the eastern United States. The organism, echinacea (not the American bison), consists of 9 species of plants, some of which are recognized as endangered by federal and state authorities.

What Is Echinacea and How Does it Work?

The blanket term echinacea usually refers to three species of this plant: Echinacea angustifolia, Echinacea purpurea, and Echinacea pallida. All three varieties are native to North America and are often packed into individual or homogenized mixtures that are marketed as immunity boosters and touted to either prevent colds or lessen their impact/duration. Echinacea can be used preventatively or post-exposure to shorten the duration of colds when the rhinovirus (the cause of the all-too-common cold) has invaded and incubated, causing symptoms (the sniffles). Doses are delivered orally and come in the form of tinctures, pills, or drinks with intake instructions specific to the product listed within the packaging.

The active components have yet to be identified but echinacea is believed to improve immune defenses by stimulating lymphocyte activity. Lymphocytes are the white blood cells that fight disease-causing pathogens by identifying, marking, and “eating” them. Additionally, echinacea appears to increase interferon levels which interfere with the reproduction of viruses like the rhinovirus.

The Market for Echinacea

The demand for echinacea was extremely high around the close of the last century. Echinacea sales totaled some $300 million a year in the late 90s; however, these numbers have since dropped to around $150 million a year. According to the Nutrition Business Journal, 2006 saw a drop in echinacea sales with $129 million-worth sold in the United States. Theories abound as to the potential reason for a dip in sales of late including a reported lack of effectiveness and the presence of other remedies (goldenseal, vitamin C and zinc combinations, etc).

I believe that high demand for echinacea will resume. The most recent study published in July 2007’s The Lancet Infectious Diseases concluded that taking echinacea reduced the risk of catching a cold by 58%. Additionally, it lessened the duration of colds by an indefinite amount (couldn’t agree on that one, I guess).

Save the Echinaceae?

Humanity has done a good job of learning from the past. Due to the diligent efforts of the American Bison Society, the buffaloes are once again roaming parts of the central U.S.. Likewise, wild endangered echinacea plants are protected in states like Florida, Michigan, and Tennessee. A rigorous monitoring system set up to protect wild echinacea plants would be well-advised before the next surge in demand (October through April, roughly). In the meantime, seek out and patronize dealers that practice sustainable agriculture.

For further reading on endangered/protected animal and plant species, go to:

The US Deparment of Agriculture
The US Fish and Wildlife Service

Read More about Alternative Health Products and Practices:

Natural Remedies for Morning Sickness

Homeopathic Pink Eye Relief

Rescue Remedy

Image credit: bcballard at Flickr under a Creative Commons license

But there is ample evidence that consumers are now driving a change in the market. The USGBC website has printed a report by CoStar Group which has found “that sustainable “green” buildings outperform their peer non-green assets in key areas such as occupancy, sale price and rental rates, sometimes by wide margins…. The results indicate a broader demand by property investors and tenants for buildings that have earned either LEED® certification or the Energy Star® label and strengthen the “business case” for green buildings, which proponents have increasingly cast as financially sound investments.” The report goes on to cite “constricted supply” as one reason for the premium prices associated with sustainable buildings, and many other experts have been making the case lately that consumers either cannot find the kind of sustainable housing that they are looking for, or cannot identify what makes a property sustainable.

Fortunately, The Cascadia Region Green Building Council and the Commercial Brokers Association (CBA) are about to provide a bridge between designers and consumers in the form of a new professional certification, Certified Green Broker®. Jason McLennan, CEO of Cascadia, says, “It is often the brokers and finance professionals, not the architects and builders, who directly interface with the end user: the owner, landlord, and/or tenant. Therefore they have great influence on how owners and users may perceive the affordability and overall value of green buildings.”

The goal of the Certified Green Broker® program is to educate brokers and lenders on how to market — and finance — green buildings. The program will offer continuing education opportunities (through both web-based and live seminars) to professionals in the Seattle, Portland and Vancouver areas.

“Sustainability has become a fundamental issue for the bottom line of commercial real estate, which will impact property values, leasing rates and practices and employee/tenant satisfaction,” says Tricia Deering, president and CEO of CBA. “A commercial broker who is familiar with green issues will provide the best service to their clients.”

The unveiling of this initiative will take place on May 22 in Portland, Oregon at the Green Broker 2008 Conference. The conference will cover green issues as they impact the commercial brokerage industry. (To learn more about the conference, or to register, visit: www.cascadiagbc.org/green-broker.)

Photo Credit: Cascadia Region Green Building Council and the Commercial Brokers Association 

Other posts on green building Programs and Standards:

http://greenbuildingelements.com/2008/04/10/usgbc-and-asid-launch-regreen-green-remodeling-guidelines/

http://greenbuildingelements.com/2008/02/15/green-home-requirement-in-san-mateo-county/

http://greenbuildingelements.com/2007/07/30/real-renewable-energy-vs-renewable-energy-credits/

Off the Grid Homes combines beautiful images with technical information for sustainable homes.

The book by architect Lori Ryker is less of a manual for systems to be used in off the grid homes (though it does include good information about the systems and strategies that are used in sustainable off the grid living) and more of a showcase of state of the art homes at the intersection of appealing architecture and high sustainability.

For many, the phrase “off the grid home” brings associations of a rudimentary, hand-built, rustic cabin. It usually suggests a rough hewn character and images of anything other than refinement and elegance. But that image is far from the case in examples presented in this book.

The case studies presented in this book offer examples of architectural works by firms such as Arkin/Tilt Architects, BLIP design, and the author’s own firm: Ryker/Nave Design. The book includes six case studies of reasonable-sized single family homes (from 1440 square feet to 4200 square feet). Each of these private residences is a comfortable example of an architecturaly appealing home that would catch the observer’s eye in any case. The fact that they are off the grid homes as well simply adds to the appeal.

The examples are well spread out, to showcase a variety of approaches and conditions where off the grid homes can be located, though from my midwestern perspective, they are all western homes, located in Montana California, Washington, and one in Tasmania. Two of the examples are situated in urban environments, while the other four are located in rural locations, more along the lines of what first comes to mind when the phrase off the grid is mentioned. In addition to numerous photographs of each house, there is also a section at the end of each case outlining both the passive- and the active-systems used in each project, as well as a listing of many of the materials used in order to make each project sustainable.

There are some surprises in the case study selections. For instance, the Capitol Hill House in Seattle might not immediately match with most expectations of an “off the grid” house. It is located in an urban neighborhood, and, although it is connected to the electrical grid with a net metering set-up, it’s photovoltaic panels provide nearly 100 percent of the energy the house needs on an annual basis. And not only is the Capitol Hill House an off the grid house, but it is also an example of a remodeled homerather than one that was built new; sustainable and off the grid in a home renovation.

Lori Ryker explained her criteria for what qualified as off-the-grid, saying, “it became clear to me that there are many aspects of energy and resource independence that are applicable to this term. For instance, rainwater collection, used to reduce a homeowner’s reliance on municipal water, provides a component of off-the-grid living, yet the house may not be 100 percent off the grid. In the same way, someone may elect to integrate a photovoltaic [PV] system that is large enough to support all of their electrical-energy needs but live within the city limits, which requires them to remain tied to the municipal infrastructure. They may not be living 100 percent off the grid, but they have found a way to produce their own energy while continuing to live within the density of the city.”

There are also clear, well explained sections discussing various technologies, with descriptions of Water Collection and Gray Water Reuse, Photovoltaic Systems, Wind Turbine Systems, Solar Hot-Water Systems, and Geothermal Systems. While a specific system is used in each case, the technical discussion addresses the system in a wider context, explaining various options and different methods that can be used to accomplish these systems.

The off the grid homes presented in this book are not the isolationist enclaves you might first expect, but are showcases of well designed buildings. The ideal of being off the grid is reflected in an approach to how the building works, and how it reduces impacts on the environment.

Lori Ryker has assembled a wonderful book that nicely bridges between an architectural book with fabulous pictures and a technical book on sustainable design. It shows how wonderful a sustainable home can be, both in its design and its operation, bringing together the best of both worlds and making for some truly remarkable homes.  It is an appealing combination, well recommended to anyone who is looking for examples of how other homes have incorporated sustainability.

Off the Grid Homes - Case Studies for Sustainable Living
Lori Ryker with photographs by Audrey Hall
128 pages, color photographs
Gibbs Smith, Publisher

Off the Grid Homes [Amazon]

Building with Awareness

Renewable Energy Handbook

Reviews on Green Building Elements

First 100% Off-Grid Green Building in San Francisco

I’ve just discovered a toy company I adore: HaPe Toys. This company features eco-friendly safe toys that “support children throughout every stage of development, starting at a very young age to help nurture and develop their natural abilities.” HaPe carries brands such as Quadrilla, Anamalz, and Woody Click, as well as Bamboo Collection. My family recently acquired Bamboo Collection’s Contina.

Bamboo Blocks

Contina blocks are similar to Kapla blocks, in that they are more like planks than standard unit blocks; however, Contina blocks are made from sustainable bamboo. These planks come in eight different natural colored finishes and can be combined to build many structures, given that you get 100 blocks in a set. You can stack them or line them up, and I am not sure if Eco Dad or my children had more fun when we first opened our Contina blocks.

Bamboo Collection uses Latin names for their toys, as they are designed for the world’s children. When I did a search on Intertran for the meaning of contina, I got the following results: “to touch, border on, to keep together, reach, befall, grasp, affect, infect, to keep in, surround, contain, confine, include, to hold back, restrain”. This definition opens up even more possibilities for these great blocks.

Bamboo Collection is the world’s first collection of bamboo toys. Although I advocate for wooden toys over plastic ones, I sometimes question whether the wood is sustainably harvested or if the toys were made from scraps of wood from construction projects. With bamboo, I don’t have to worry about sustainability, since a bamboo tree (it is really a grass) can grow back completely in three years after being cut down.

Related posts on block play:

• Every Child Deserves a Set of Blocks

• European Toys: Old Fashioned Block Play Develops Intellect

• “Green” Toys From the Discovery Channel Store

Last week’s topic was why corn ethanol is an environmental loser.

But are all biofuels losers? No. Some can be winners. One of those is called cellulosic ethanol.

What Is Cellulosic Ethanol?

All ethanol — whether it is corn or cellulosic — is the same chemical compound: C2H5OH. You might recall from elementary chemistry courses that the “OH” group at the end of the formula indicates that the compound is an “alcohol.” Alcohols can have varying numbers of carbon atoms. Alcohol with two carbon atoms is called “ethanol.” The other alcohols are generally too toxic to be ingested, and thus ethanol has been the libation of choice down through the ages. (Ethanol used as fuel is rendered nonpotable.)

So corn ethanol and cellulosic ethanol don’t signify different types of ethanol, but rather the different material (or feedstocks) used to produce them.

Why Cellulosic Ethanol Can Be an Environmental Winner

Corn ethanol is produced from kernels — actually only a small part of the corn kernels — the sugars and starches. Herein lies one of the limitations of corn ethanol. You see, sugars and starches comprise a tiny fraction of the corn plant’s mass — about 2-15%. Because only a small fraction of a plant is used to make corn ethanol, the amount you can produce is limited.

Cellulosic ethanol is a different story. Most of the dry biomass — as much as 80% — is typically made up of cellulosic material — the stuff that makes the plant sturdy. So you can make a lot of ethanol using a plant’s cellulose instead of its sugars and starches. (By the way, even if the cellulosic material comes from corn, we still call it “cellulosic ethanol.” Corn ethanol is made solely from the sugars and starches of the corn kernel.)

The Major Advantage of Cellulosic Ethanol

Our guts are unable to digest cellulose, so we typically throw away that part of crops. A lot of it is left on the field or disposed of as agricultural waste. For corn, the cellulosic material includes the corn stover — the leaves and stalk — and the cob.

Remember what made corn ethanol such an environmental negative? A main reason is that it requires that land being used to grow food (or left as forests or grassland) be converted to growing an energy crop. And that leads to lots of global warming pollution.

This is not a problem for cellulosic ethanol — we can simply use the agricultural waste from food crops to make the ethanol and thereby avoid all those emissions.

Why We Can’t Fill Our Tanks With the Cellulosic Stuff … Yet

Unfortunately, right now, producing cellulosic ethanol on an industrial scale is too expensive. Unlike converting a plant’s sugars and starches to corn ethanol, making cellulosic ethanol requires that we first break down the cellulosic material. But because this material is what makes a plant sturdy, the atoms in these compounds are strongly bonded together and that makes them hard to break apart. The processes we have available today to do this are too expensive to make cellulosic ethanol commercially competitive.

But that will likely change. Scientists and engineers are working to make a commercially viable form of cellulosic ethanol. Some are developing new chemical processes; others are trying to genetically engineer new microbes that can “ferment” cellulose into ethanol like normal microbes that ferment sugars into ethanol. (The U.S.Department of Energy is helping fund six biorefineries.)

Cellulosic Ethanol Could Help Cut U.S. Global Warming Pollution

By my own estimates, agricultural and forest wastes could supply as much as 35 billion gallons of ethanol per year, saving up to 76 megatons of global warming emissions per year. (These results are somewhat larger than but consistent with other recent estimates (e.g., see Smith et al. 2004).) Such savings would cut a little less than 5% of all our heat-trapping pollution and about 15% of the emissions from the transportation sector.

By mid-century, cellulosic ethanol could supply as much as 86 billion gallons of ethanol, saving a little more than 180 megatons of global warming pollution per year — or almost 12% of America’s total global warming pollution and about 35% of the emissions from the transportation sector.

These are significant numbers. But to reach such levels we would need to grow bioenergy crops such as switch grass. Such cultivation, in turn, would require converting lands for this purpose, and that could raise some of the problems discussed in last week’s post.

The Bottom Line of Biofuels: There Are Winners and Losers

The saying “waste not, want not” applies to biofuels. The best biofuels are made from agricultural or forests wastes or from plants cultivated on degraded or marginal lands. The product from such feedstocks — cellulosic ethanol — is where we should be directing our entrepreneurial energies.

Read more about Dr. Bill Chameides, Dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University.

See also:

CleanTechnica: Gene from Cow’s Stomach Engineered to Create More Affordable Biofuel

Gas 2.0: Mascoma Update — Cellulosic Ethanol Company Adds $10 Million From Marathon Oil

CleanTechnica: First Sustainable Ethanol to Mass Market?

If you’re a college student looking for an internship this Summer, we’re looking for web publishing and marketing interns.

A 2007 study of health practice trends cited in an issue of Alternative Therapies estimated that nearly 1 of 5 Americans reported using herbals for treatment of health conditions or for health promotion (Gardiner et al., “Factors Associated with Herbal Therapy Use by Adults in the United States,” 22-29). This translates to a multi-billion dollar industry that will probably only grow as public education and the cost of medicines continue to rise. This trend, which spells good news for herbal therapy retailers and users, does not come without its share of potentially negative environmental consequences.

At-Risk American Herbs

The rise of herbal medicine intake in the United States has led to threats to the native floral populations that make up those medicines. In 2004 the World Health Organization listed five American plant species including American ginseng, black cohosh, echinacea, goldenseal, and slippery elm as “at risk” for endangerment. A brief description of these herbs and their characteristics shows why they’re in such demand:

• American Ginseng. Also called Panax quinquefolius, American ginseng shares many indications with its Asian cousin ranging from use as an aphrodisiac to enhancing stamina; however, common usage of ginseng is as an adaptogen to return one to a healthy state after exposure to a stressor. This plant grows wild in the eastern and southern United States.
• Echinacea. The darling of the herbal healing trade, three species of echinacea (angustifolia, purpurea, and pallida) represent the bulk of herbal remedy sales in the U.S. accounting for over a hundred million dollars-worth sold in 2006, alone. Multiple studies have shown echinacea to have an impact on the severity and duration of cold symptoms. This plant is native to the eastern and central United States.
• Goldenseal. Hydrastis canadensis grows wild in the eastern U.S. and parts of Canada. Used by Native Americans for centuries to paint skin and treat disease, goldenseal is touted to assist with coughs as an expectorant (induces coughing) and to treat minor wounds. (Note: despite rumors to the contrary, there is no proof that goldenseal clears urine of drug evidence.)
• Black Cohosh. Cimicifuga racemosa, or black cohosh, has been in use for years to lessen menopause symptoms and fluid retention. The verdict is still out on this one and women who are or may be pregnant should avoid this one altogether. Use caution when mimicking hormonal activity with any substance. This plant is a native of the eastern United States.
• Slippery Elm. Ulmus fulva (sometimes ulmus rubra or red elm), the slippery elm, is used to coat the lining of the stomach to soothe digestive irritation or topically to soothe irritated skin. There is still not much scientific documentation to support these claims, so be careful. This tree grows in the central and southern United States.

Many of the above medicinal herbs are not just in demand locally but across the world, as well. This demand will increase as public knowledge about their benefits increases. Efforts should be made to enlighten harvesters and consumers of the plight of these plant species in order to foster responsible consumption.

Also in the Green Options Media blog network:

Eco Child’s Play: Herbs for Kids

Eco Child’s Play: Homeopathic Pink Eye Relief

Image credit: Eggybird at Flickr under a Creative Commons license