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POPSWill "Th!nk" Ignite an Electronic Car Revolution in the U.S.? Think City is one of two models that are out already, together with the Think Ox, with a choice of either lithium or a sodium battery, it's range is enough to take a suburban dweller to the downtown office and back, with zero carbon footprint. The car is thoughfully fully computerized and allows a key-less entry. It features real time navigation, web, e-mail and open source interfaces, intelligent and sustainable driving and route calculations. The DNA-key gives the user feedback on charging status and sends messages, for example, for pre-heat or pre-cool options via GPRS. Pricing has yet to be announced, but the company's current vehicles cost less than $25,000.
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POPSThe truth about recycling Far too much valuable info here to fit in a clip, so go to the source for interesting discussions of the history of recycling, current status, innovations and concerns about what happens to recyclables being shipped to China and other developing nations. China is now the largest importer of recyclable materials in the world! The explanation of how single stream collection of recyclables works is fascinating. I was not aware of all the new technology being employed to sort and separate recyclable materials. The section on the future of recycling discusses the need for product design to take into account recycling of the product materials to create "closed-loop" cycles where there is no waste. Sustainable packaging emphasizes the use of renewable, recycled and non-toxic source materials to benefit the environment and cut costs. Wal-Mart is jumping on this bandwagon. "Waste is really a design flaw."
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POPSIs a zero-carbon city on the horizon? As part of their Masdar Initiative (masdar meaning "the source" in Arabic), an effort to further the research and implementation of sustainable construction, the Abu Dhabi government will build this city on a nearby 2.3 square-mile site (six square kilometers), adjacent to its international airport at an estimated cost of $22 billion. It projected the city will eventually be able to sustain 50,000 residents and more than 1,000 businesses. It broke ground in construction of the city and hopes to complete the project by 2016.
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POPSDrinking Beer Can Change the World Aren't we a tad overdue for a beer clip? Anyway! Everyone should have a beer and help save the world, I reckon. If we all stand (and sway) together, the results could be nothing less than *staggering*!! (This clip just has CBGC written ALL over it. Cheers, fellow followers of the faith! .:)) (PS) Thanks to {{BartendingBear}} for the tip off about this site. Taaa buddy!
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POPSThe coming famine "In light of all these hurdles, as I see it, the challenge is to double world food output by 2050 using less land, far less water and fewer nutrients – all in the teeth of increasing rates of drought. And we need to do it sustainably." "I believe we are quite capable of solving these issues through good science and good policy. In the first instance, we need to massively increase global public investment in agricultural research and development. Then we need to make sure the fruits of that research reach farmers everywhere. I also think that commercial wild harvests, such as fishing and forestry, should be phased out in favour of sustainable farming that dovetails with the local environment."
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POPSSupermarkets Throwing Away 2 Million Tons Of Food A Year We visited a dozen stores over several nights last week to check what was being thrown away and discovered hundreds of pounds worth of food dumped. At a Sainsbury’s superstore next to the Dome in Greenwich, South East London – the chain’s flagship “environmentally-friendly” shop with its own wind turbines – staff said it was standard practice to throw away food before its sell-by date. And they’re not even allowed to take it home. One said: “Someone just stands there and throws it into the skip. We wish we could buy it – but we’re not allowed.” Pointing to meat on the “reduced” shelf, he added: “Come midnight, anything that hasn’t been sold will get taken off the shelf... if it’s out of date it will be logged on the computer, put against our losses, then in the skip.” Four-pint bottles of milk with nine days still to run had been thrown out, along with nine cans of cola with a date stamp of April 2009.
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POPSInternet Access Without Electricity, Connectivity or Phone Services. No Matter Where You Are. what open source collaboration can do.. The terminals includes access to web browsing, email, voip, office, multimedia, software development and web development tools as well as 15,000 other applications. Wifi coverage spans a 2-mile radius, with no fuel costs, no polluting emissions and a long lifespan of up to 20 years with proper maintenance. The entire system, in fact, operates on about the same amount of power as a 100-watt light bulb, GNUveau says.
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POPSBee Disease Still A Mystery, Despite New Advances Entomologists are studying the reasons behind an enormous bee die off happening across the country. They call it Colony Collapse Disorder, and if they cannot find a solution the 80% of fruits and vegetables that require pollination may not make it to market.
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POPSUS Intel: Iranian nuclear strike on U.S. ?
“The only explanation we can find is that Iranians are figuring out how to launch a missile from a ship and get it up to altitude and then detonate it,” “And that’s exactly what you would do if you had a nuclear weapon on a Scud or a Shahab-3, and you wanted to explode it over the US.” "If a crude nuclear weapon were detonated anywhere between 40 kilometers to 400 kilometers above the earth, in a split-second it would generate an electro-magnetic pulse that would cripple military and civilian communications, power, transportation, water, food, and other infrastructure" Asked how many Americans would die if Iran were to launch the EMP attack it appears to be preparing, Graham gave a chilling reply. “You have to go back into the 1800s to look at the size of population” that could survive in a nation deprived of mechanized agriculture, transportation, power, water, and communication. “70 to 90 percent of the population would not be sustainable after this kind of attack”.
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POPSSpace Experts Call for ‘Fewer Astronauts, More Robots’ The suggestion sure makes a lot of economical sense. Resources should be focused to develop better technologies to carry load into orbit and beyond, because this is the real bottle neck of space exploration as of now. On the other hand, we cannot overlook the fact that sending men and women to space, ignites the imagination and inspires the coming generations. Space is the next frontier of adventure and mystery. The myth and the story are not less important than the economical aspect.
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POPSFarming And Chemical Warfare: A Day In The Life Of An Ant The bacteria produce antifungal compounds that stop the microfungal pathogen from attacking the garden. This discovery was the first clearly demonstrated example of an animal, other than humans, that uses bacteria to produce antibiotics to deal with pathogens. "Interestingly, the tight association between ant, bacteria and pathogen will sometimes result in the pathogen winning. This interplay has been described as a chemical 'arms race' between the bacteria and fungus, with one side beating the other as new compounds are evolved," said Professor Currie. "At the moment, we are beginning to understand the chemical warfare at the genetic level, and it is likely that these types of interactions are more prevalent in nature than previously thought." So how exactly does an ant go about forming partnerships with a fungus and a bacterium? No one really knows.
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POPSThe Psychology of Denial in the Age of Consumerism A four-year analysis of the world's ecosystems sponsored by the Worldwatch Institute found that over-consumption has pushed 15 out of 24 ecosystems essential to human life "beyond their sustainable limits". Our insatiable desire for more is moving the planet toward a state of collapse that may be "abrupt and potentially irreversible".
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POPSFather of India's Green Revolution Prepares for Evergreen Revolution
“In every crisis is an opportunity” Swaminathan is once again agitating for revolution -- this time a perpetual one. In the early ‘60s, India grew 12 million tons of wheat every year. Starvation was rampant and the country imported much of its food. Swaminathan, an agricultural geneticist, developed new strains of high-yield wheat for his country and the programs that led to an India that exports food. Today, India grows some 70 million tons of wheat and has become the world's second-largest wheat producer. He says that today India has reached a plateau in production and productivity because a problem of under investment in rural infrastructure. His M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture & Rural Development follows a pro-nature, pro-poor and pro-women orientation to a job-led economic growth strategy in rural areas through harnessing science and technology for environmentally sustainable and socially equitable development.
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POPSSam Harris: Yahweh Belongs on the Scrapheap of Mythology I’d like to begin this exchange by making the observation that “atheist” is a term that should not even exist. We do not, after all, have a name for a person who does not believe in Zeus or Thor. In fact, we are all “atheists” with respect to Zeus and Thor and the thousands of other dead gods that now lie upon the scrapheap of mythology. ... Did someone around the time of Constantine discover that the pagan gods do not actually exist, while the biblical God does? Of course not. There are thousands of gods that were once worshipped with absolute conviction by men and women like ourselves, and yet we all now agree that they are rightly dead. An “atheist” is simply someone who thinks that the God of Abraham should be buried with the rest of these imaginary friends. I am quite sure that we need only use words like “reason,” “common sense,” “evidence,” and “intellectual honesty” to do the job.
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