SOIL: Sasha Kramer (right)

Haiti is the poorest contry in the western hemisphere, it is estimated 80% of it’s population is living in poverty. An already bad situation has been made worse by the desertification of this small carribean country. In 1925, Haiti was lush, with 60% of its original forest covering the lands and mountainous regions. Since then, the population has cut down all but an estimated 2% of its original forest cover, and in the process has destroyed fertile farmland soils.

In a country where many struggle to feed themselves having fertile soil to grow food and crops is essential. A friend has written in about Sasha Kramer and Sarah Brownell two women who run a non-profit grop called SOIL in haiti. Their goal is to raise funds and teach haitiens how to build composting toilets. Composting toilest turn human waste into valuable fertilizer without the use of water or chemicals. And when built properly they omit few odors and can be quite safe.

By providing a natural source of fertilizer this allows SOIL to empower communities and help rebuild their ability to feed themselves and flourish. SOIL is a small non profit and they’re looking for help to continue their work.

Here is a quote from Sasha about their need for funding:

We know that times have been tough everywhere and certainly our organization has felt the pinch with donations dropping in response to the economic crisis.  We currently have enough money to continue to function through the month of April but with our rent coming due in early May and no vehicle we are still struggling to stay afloat. Our network has been so generous in the past and we are so grateful to all of you who have supported us over the past few years…you have made this work a reality and it is such an honor to be part of such a compassionate group of people.

More on composting toilets; in the west we aren’t as familiar with this concept but it has been proven safe and effective, there are experiments with composting toilets in some countries including Europe, Canada and the US. One example is the three-story C.K. Choi Building at the University of British Columbia (Canada), which contains 5 compost chambers with 12 toilets for 300 full-time employees.

Read more about SOIL in Haiti
Visit the SOIL homepage, they are in need of any donations you can spare
More about composting toilets

Free Flow Turbine

When someone says hydro power, most of us think large concrete structures holding back million of gallons of water to generate electricity. But what if there was another way to use a river’s natural currents to produce electricity? Possible without placing large concrete structures within a biosphere and disrupting the natural currents or water mass? Among solar panels, and wind turbines is another technology that has potential to generate power for cities adjacent to moving bodies of water: Free Flow Underwater Turbines.

Very simply, it works like a wind turbine along the bed of a river, but the blades are moved by a water current instead of by the wind. The turbine blades rotate slowly allowing fish to pass through safely with minimal environmental impact. One of the disadvantages of wind turbines are days when there is no wind or it’s not sufficient to generate power, not so with free flow turbines, since the current runs all day every day there is no period where the turbine is inactive.

Last year Ontario invested 2.2 million into the Cornwall Ontario River Energy project, it’s goal to develop 15MW of power as a demonstration of the feasibility and commercial viability of free flow underwater turbines.

More info on these unique turbines
Information about the C.O.R.E project in Ontario

SF Landfill Entrance

The city of San Francisco is one of the greenest cities in the US. (More on this coming in future posts.) So it’s not surprising to find that its landfill doesn’t fit the standard stereotype.  They are very careful to sort all incoming waste so that everything which can be recycled is, in addition, they also have strict policies on handling items such as electronics and chemicals.

If it stopped there you might think it wasn’t that impressive, however they have incorporated interpretive centers for visitors, green spaces and even artists in residence into their landfill. Have a look at Treehuggers’ photo gallery for details. It will make you think twice about what a landfill should be, and what role a landfill can play in helping to slow the environmental impact caused by our throw away society.

Visit the gallery on Treehugger.com

Credit: Edkholer via flickr

Have any appliances that use “stand by mode”? You can often find these on televisions, stereos, computers and other electronice devices. When not in use these devices are designed to go into “stand by” mode, this way when you want to use them they can be instantly turned back on. Problem is they are still drawing power even when not in use.

According to the Green Party of Canada:

Standby power accounts for 10 per cent of US residential electricity consumption, or more than US$6 billion annually.  In 2004, “vampire power” consumed almost 130 million MWh – equal to the output of 36 power plants

The simplest method of dealing with these nasty devices is to keep them plugged into a power bar with a switch, when you want to use them just turn the switch on. For more information on vampire and what you can do about it follow the links below:

Article on vampire power at worldchanging.com
The Green Party of Canada on vampire power

Lester Brown

Lester Brown knows a thing or two about the challenges we face globally. To paraphrase the introduction to the presentation by Doug Fine, about Lester Brown Doug states “His (Lester Brown’s)  report and now book “Who will feed China?” Did what no threatened Olympic boycott could, it scared the countries leaders into changing policy.” The Washington Post called him “one of the world’s most influential thinkers”.

In this presentation Lester goes over some the of the most pressing challenges we face globally over the coming decades, what he outlines is alarming and enlightening. It would be easy to simply want to give up if you stopped listening after the first third of his presentation, but that would be a mistake. In his measured and carefully prepared manner Lester outlines what we can do to avoid some of these problems. It leaves you with a feeling that something can be done. But his most important point is saved for the end, Lester urges us all to get involved:

“Saving civilization is not a spectator sport we all need to get involved”

Listen to Lester’s presentation
The earth Policy Institute

Credit: Aaron Escobar via Flickr

Global warming, what should have been an honest scientific discussion based on facts, has over time become a contentious debate. By now most people have accepted that global warming is real, but there are still those who believe the opposite is the case.

What happened to create this debate? Was it based on simple diverging scientific opinions? Or is there more going on here? This CBC documentary tries to get to the heard of the matter. What they discover is repeat pattern of another similar debate that happened years ago, when big tobacco was trying to convince the public smoking was safe. Many of the same scientists and companies who were involved in that debate have resurfaced and are applying the same approach to cast doubt on global warming.

Watch the Denial Machine documentary on CBC

Farewell My Subaru

Farewell my Subaru: An Epic Adventure in Local Living, is a book that gives the reader the sense that change is possible, no matter the obstacle. And the reader could not have picked a better guide for this journey. Doug Fine is the kind of person that naturally finds the positive in the most difficult circumstances. You can feel his enthusiasm for his low impact lifestyle jump off the page. This energy empowers the reader, after a while you start thinking that installing a solar panel is something you could do too.

It’s a green living tale for those of us that aren’t Al Gore. Doug Fine strikes the reader as down to earth as they come, in his own words:

I started in Long Island, New York, growing up on concrete and Domino’s pizza. I didn’t see a real tomato probably until I was 18. I thought supermarket orange baseballs were what tomatoes were. I didn’t understand why anyone would eat solid pieces of wax. But I always wanted to camp out in the backyard, and knew that there was such a thing as an ecosystem.

Here’s the publisher’s summary:

In Farewell, My Subaru, Doug Fine vows to grow as much of his own food as he can, use only the sun to power his ‘Net surfing and sub-woofer, and consume little to no fossil fuel for an entire year — never mind that he’d never raised so much as a chicken or a bean. Or that he had no mechanical or electrician skills. Or that coyotes and mountain lions would like to treat his Funky Butte Ranch like a buffet line.

Beginning with a near-Biblical flood that makes Doug’s ranch in New Mexico resemble Noah’s Arc, and ending with a hilarious farewell to his beloved Subaru, Fine struggles at every turn with the contradictions and challenges of going green as his shopping list changes overnight from things like, “wasabi” and “pineapple juice” to “shotgun shells” and “goat syringes” (for the mischievous Pans he found on Craigslist).

Including practical resources for regular Americans who want to live greener and funny sidebars with facts you never imagined about the clean, local life, Farewell, My Surbaru is both a hilarious romp and an inspiring call to action; it’s a book for the reluctant environmentalist, the armchair traveler, and anyone who has ever wondered: do I really need that four dollar frappuccino from Kenya?

Farewell My Subaru is available Amazon, or if you prefer to lower your cabon footprint order from Eco-Libris, a portion of the book sale goes towards planting new trees.

Official webpage page for the book
Video promoting the book (Doug is great in this)
Eco-Libris link for purchase
Treehugger.com interviews Doug Fine

Credit: Valcent Inc.

While most of the headlines relating to Biofuel have been saved for Corn Based ethanol, other technologies have slowly been developing in the background. Corn based ethanol had it’s moment in the sun, but some serious questions are beginning to emerge whether it’s a truly sustainable crop to process into fuel.

First and foremost is the amount of land needed to produce enough fuel so that Corn could replace conventional oil. Simply put there’s not enough crop land in the united states to meet even half of today’s fuel needs for the US alone. So if corn isn’t a viable alternative, what is?

While a few other alternatives have potential such as switch grass and Rapeseed each of these have their drawbacks as well. However algae holds much potential, firs it only requires 1-2% of the current crop land in the US to produce half of the current US fuel needs. Second algae requires little fertilizer (another oil based product) and pesticides. Third algae is among the fastest growing plants in the world, and about 50 percent of it’s weight is oil. That lipid oil can be used to make biodiesel for cars, trucks, and airplanes.

To ilustrate the potential output from algae to oil here is a quote from the CNN article mentioned below.

Kertz said he can produce about 100,000 gallons of algae oil a year per acre, compared to about 30 gallons per acre from corn; 50 gallons from soybeans.

The biggest drawback is that algae is one of the least mature technologies, however with time and progress it could become a replacement fuel.

Article from the Seattle PI on Algea compared to other biofuels
CNN article on a company making break throughs in algea fuel production
Video from Valcent the company spotlighted in the CNN article
Chart comparing Biofuels

Credit: ^Berd via Flickr

Many of you reading this will be aware of Peak Oil, however if you’ve never heard of the term I decided to post this primer on what Peak Oil is and why it matters to you. Like global warming it has it’s believers and non-believers, but either way what is in deniable is the very existence of “modern” society due to a non-renewable resource.

Just about everything we buy and consume is made of oil, other than the obvious fuel, the very keyboard I type on is a plastic derivative of oil, fertilizers that grow our food are oil based and so on and so on…

To be honest oil has given humans the ability to progress beyond our wildest dreams. With oil we’ve increased global food production and have been able to house, feed and clothe a population explosion the likes history has never seen. But what if this precious substance was beginning a slow downward crawl? It’s not when we run completely out of oil that’s a concern, it’s when we run out of enough oil to function that’s the problem. Say goodbye to blueberries in January.

Whether you believe in peak oil or not, one fact everyone agrees on, oil is non-renewable. Eventually we will run out, it’s a matter of when, not if. If we know about this problem why are we not developing alternatives today? (some are but more on that later) Why leave this problem for our children, or our children’s children?

Many people may look at today’s dropping oil prices and think this is a non issue. However in my opinion this is a temporary situation due to a lessening of demand as people try to economize. Once the recession passes you’ll again see $80+ a barrel oil.

For now read on and make up your own mind.

Article that gives a general overview of Peak Oil.
Article about Hubbert’s Peak and Peak Oil in depth