Green Th!nking

Old Surfboards Become An Unlikely Artistic Canvas

wamzle — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 23:55:09 +0000

Surfers have always been known to have a connection with nature, they’re one on one with the planet every time they take to the waves. And it comes as no surprise that many surfers also consider themselves environmentalists. One such conscious surfer in Cocoa Beach, FL has found a new way to keep old surfboards from their former destiny at the landfill.

The Recycled Surfboard Art Program is turning used surfboards once headed for the landfill, into creative art that depicts Mother Earth at her best.

Source: Treehugger

Alkaline-Forming Foods pH Balance the Body

wamzle — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 00:05:32 +0000

Interestingly, it is impossible for cancer to develop in an alkaline environment; this shows the importance of alkalinity in disease prevention.

G Living’s Brendan Brazier is one the world’s few professional athletes whose diet is 100 percent plant based. He’s a professional Ironman triathlete, bestselling author on performance nutrition, and the creator of an award-winning line of whole food nutritional products called Vega.

The following is our fifth excerpt from Brendan’s book “The Thrive Diet”, on sale now.

The balance of acid and alkaline within the body is referred to as pH (meaning “potential of hydrogen”), and measured on a scale ranging from pH 1 (the most acidic) to pH 14 (the most alkaline). A neutral or good pH balance is 7.35; maintaining this balance is vital. If the body’s pH drops, meaning our body has become too acidic, the likelihood of ailments rises sharply. An acidic environment within the body negatively affects health at the cellular level. It is not possible to be truly healthy when the body is in a constant state of acidosis (characterized by excessively high acid levels).

Source: G Living

New Silicon Nanorod Solar Cells Use 99% Less Material

wamzle — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 00:46:51 +0000

Instead of investing in solar cell architectures that require entirely new manufacturing processes, wouldn’t it be easiest to build on what we have? That’s part of the thinking behind a new type of silicon nanorod solar cell developed by researchers at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. The nanorods are assembled into a “carpet” and embedded into a transparent polymer to make flexible solar cells that use only 1% of the material needed to make conventional silicon cells.

Source: Inhabitat

Feds Take First Steps to Regulate Drugs in Drinking Water

wamzle — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 02:32:21 +0000

The Associated Press is reporting this week that federal regulators under President Obama are taking the first steps toward regulating drugs in the nation’s drinking water supply — a problem first reported by science writer Elizabeth Royte in “Drugging Our Waters” in OnEarth’s Fall 2006 issue.

Royte tells the story of how this nation’s aging population and increasing reliance on pharmaceuticals — some elderly Americans take as many as 30 drugs a day, she writes, and prescription drug sales rose by an annual average of 11 percent between 2000 and 2005 — leads to more drugs making their way into our lakes, rivers and groundwater.

The “Holy Grail for Renewable Energy”

wamzle — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 21:12:18 +0000

Solar Power Makes Electricity Day and Night

One of the arguments often used to denegrate solar power is that they don’t work when it is cloudy or at night. But a new demonstration project in Hawaii proves this isn’t so. Keahole Solar Power has installed an array of Sopogy “Micro-scale Concentrating Solar Power Concentrators” at the Holaniku Solar Farm on Hawaii’s Big Island- a thousand solar collectors covering 3.8 acres, with a thermal energy of 2 megawatts.

Source: Lloyd Alter (Toronto), TreeHugger

Hawaii in early stages of energy revolution

wamzle — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 20:51:33 +0000

LARGE VERSION OF IMAGE | Credit: Sun Energy HI

It was an energy audit at work that first nudged Susan Chandler to think green.

“The first thing I did was change all my light bulbs” to energy-efficient models, Chandler said during a recent visit to her Honolulu home. “Then I started tracking my energy bill.”

She began walking into rooms her husband and son had just left to turn off the lights. A significant cutback in the use of the clothes dryer was another step. Still, Chandler said she wanted to do more.

“So I put up the panels.”

Source: John King, CNN

Koalas in Australia dying from AIDS, habitat loss

wamzle — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 22:14:08 +0000

Australian Wildlife Hospital, Australia (CNN) — On the operating table lies a sick koala. He’s just been brought in by a driver who found the animal sitting in the middle of a busy road. Veterinarian Claude Lacasse determines the koala has not been hit by a car but she immediately detects one serious problem facing many of the marsupials: Chlamydia, a disease which can lead to a very slow and painful death for koalas living in the wild.

Koalas generate almost US$1 billion for the Australian economy, thanks to tourists who come to see this national icon. But these cuddly creatures are under serious threat from infectious disease and habitat loss and some scientists believe they are facing extinction.

“Extinction is inevitable in some areas,” according to Dr Jon Hanger, a veterinary scientist at Australia Zoo’s Wildlife Hospital. “I certainly hope we don’t see it across Australia. But if we don’t take the decline seriously and pick up on the warning signs now it’s certainly a risk.”

Source: Anna Coren, CNN

Climate conference emits its share of carbon

wamzle — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 20:16:41 +0000

If they fail to reach a climate deal in Copenhagen, world leaders flying in their private jets and huddling in five-star hotels will have little to show for their efforts beyond a big, fat carbon footprint.

The U.N. estimates 40,500 tons of carbon dioxide will be pumped into the atmosphere during the 12-day conference — 90 percent of it from flights. The rest comes from waste and electricity related to transport to and from the conference center and lodging in and around the Danish city.

Most of the leaders were flying either on commercial airlines or government-owned jets and Sweden was one of the few to announce plans to offset those aviation emissions — something it does routinely. Most are doing nothing to boost their green credentials and some saw no reason to treat their trip to the U.N. climate talks any differently.

Source: Michael Casey, Mail Times

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