Quick guide to global warming
January 25, 2008
Posted in Green News
Bored at work? Here’s something that’ll help you while away some time. Discovery News has an interactive map that tells you what you need to know about global warming. The map illustrates the signs and sources of warming, among other things, with small easy-to-digest chunks of text. In the sources section, for example, my favourite bit of information is about methane. Did you know that the large-scale farming of cattle and other ruminants produces 35 percent of all man-made methane – 115 megatons a year – yet apparently scientists are undecided about which end of a cow is the source of the most emissions? Fascinating stuff.
Drink up, dear. We’ve got a house to build
January 23, 2008
Posted in Lifestyle
Want to know how to build a house out of used tyres and beer cans? Visit www.earthships.com and you can see a pictorial history of the building of an “Earthship home” (pictured) deep in the Colorado countryside. The main building component is tyres filled with compacted earth and the interior walls are built with cans and mortar, which are then plastered over. The house is not on the electricity grid, so it runs off solar power. And, thanks to its design, its builder says it stays warm even when it’s freezing cold outside. Check it out, it’s an intriguing example of what’s possible.
Thanks to Len for the link.
Chicks galore at Africa’s newest flamingo breeding colony in Kimberley
January 22, 2008
Posted in Conservation
Lesser flamingos have started to breed on a specially constructed artificial island at Kamfers Dam near Kimberley in the Northern Cape. The first chicks are thought to have hatched at the end of December and Mark Anderson, an ornithologist monitoring the birds, thinks there may be up to 1,000 chicks “hidden among the masses of adults” on the S-shaped island .
This is the first time that lesser flamingos have successfully bred in South Africa and the first time that they have bred on an artificial island, Anderson says.
Kamfers Dam is now the fourth breeding colony for this species of bird in Africa (there are two others in India). They also breed at Sua Pan in Botswana, Etosha Pan in Namibia and Lake Natron in Tanzania. All of these breeding sites are threatened by various human-induced factors, says Anderson, so it is critically important that lesser flamingos have another breeding site.
At present there are said to be about 50,000 lesser flamingos on Kamfers Dam. The dam is a Natural Heritage Site and an Important Bird Area.
For pictures and regular news updates on the Kamfer Dam breeding colony visit Mark Anderson’s website.
Top 100 weirdest amphibians
January 22, 2008
Posted in Conservation
There’s that saying: you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find a prince. But, we shouldn’t be so disparaging about frogs and their amphibian relatives. After all, some of them apparently have been around for about 200-million years, which means they lived about 100-million before the Tyranosaurus Rex appeared. And although they survived whatever wiped out the dinosaurs, they are now in need of help to ensure they continue to survive, according to New Scientist.
The Zoological Society of London in the UK has launched the top 100 list of the world’s weirdest, most wonderful and rarest amphibians. The Table Mountain ghost frog is one of them. (If you’re into frogs or 1,8m-long pink salamanders, there is a link to a gallery of glossy pics in the New Scientist story)
According to Helen Meredith of the Zoological Society: “An alarming 85 percent of the top 100 are receiving little or no conservation attention and will become extinct if action is not taken now.”
Google harnesses the sun
January 21, 2008
Posted in Renewable energy
It’s pretty obvious that South Africa has great solar power potential, but we’ve been slow to take up this technology. It’s interesting to see what people are doing in other parts of the world, to get an idea of what’s possible. Google, for example, is making great strides down the solar road.
At the company’s campus (called the Googleplex) in Mountain View, California, about 197,000 square feet (more than 18,000 square metres) of rooftop and carport space have been fitted with solar photovoltaic panels – about 9,000 of them in all.
The solar installation is designed to generate 1.6MW – enough to power “about 1,000 average California homes”, Google says on its website.
That electricity offsets about 30 percent of the company’s peak electricity consumption at the Googleplex.
But that’s not all this IT powerhouse is up to. Read more
Make a change: Green tip #7
January 17, 2008
Posted in Green tips, Lifestyle
The energy saved by a year’s worth of paper recycling in South Africa is enough to provide electricity to 512 homes for a year, according to the Paper Recycling Association of South Africa (Prasa).
Not only is 40 percent less energy required to manufacture recycled paper, water consumption is halved and waste water is reduced by 35%.
Every metric ton of recycled paper saves 17 trees and 3 square metres of landfill space. Recycled fibre reduces air emissions in papermaking by 70 percent. Carbon dioxide emissions are cut by 2.8 tons and sulphur dioxide by 10kg.
Read more
Real men are eco-friendly
January 15, 2008
Posted in Lifestyle
Last year Men’s Health magazine ran a series of Eco Tactics which included practical advice on conserving water, using less electricity, managing your waste, avoiding fast food, managing your transport and making Earth-wise travel arrangements. The six-part series is now available to download as one pdf.
The Tactics are nicely illustrated and user friendly; in fact, they are ideal for sticking on your fridge to remind you not to throw recyclable things in the rubbish and to fix that dripping tap! Although, I shouldn’t be suggesting this because the magazine asks you to download them and send them to a friend, and NOT to kill any more trees printing them out. Oops.
Download the Men’s Health Eco Tactics
Spectacular solar building
January 15, 2008
Posted in Renewable energy
This stunning piece of architecture is Sanyo’s Solar Ark, one of the world’s biggest solar energy generation systems.
Designed with a vision of “an ark embarking onto a journey towards the 21st century” in mind, it’s 315 metres long, 37 metres high and covered with 5,046 solar battery panels, which produce an annual electrical output of 53,000kWh.
At the building’s centre is a state-of-the-art science museum, which opened to visitors in April 2002, that aims to create interest in environmental issues and photovoltaic science.
The Ark is fitted with more than 77,000 red, green and blue LEDs that turn it into a huge illuminated presentation panel on which a variety of visual images can be created. This must be quite a spectacle for people travelling on the JR Tokaido bullet train in Gifu, Japan, as the railway line passes close to the Solar Ark.
Via: Inhabitat
Branson to get Boeing going on biofuels
January 15, 2008
Posted in Transport
Virgin Atlantic Airways plans to fly a Boeing 747 from London to Amsterdam on a mixture of biofuels (20 percent) and conventional jet fuel (80 percent) next month, Dow Jones reports.
A Virgin spokesman wouldn’t say what the biofuel would be made from or who would be making it. But he did reportedly say that the fuel would be sustainable and that it was not an oil that would compete with food.
No passengers will be on the flight, the report says.
Via CNNMoney.com
Could these South Africans save the planet?
January 15, 2008
Posted in Green News
Britain’s Guardian newspaper recently compiled a list of the 50 people most able to prevent the continuing destruction of the planet. “It’s not a definitive list and there are no rankings,” the Guardian wrote, “but these 50 names give a sense of the vast well of people who represent the stirrings of a remarkable scientific and social revolution, and give us hope as we enter 2008″.
So Treevolution read them in search of South Africans and found three – an entrepreneur, an activist and a civil servant.
Read more
