Extreme Green Sports: Bungee Jumping with Vines

If you thought normal bungee jumping with harnesses and ropes that have been extensively safety-tested is scary, check this out: tribe members (including children as young as 7 years old) jumping from wooden structures using nothing but jungle vines. Oh yeah, and there’s no net of any kind. The jumpers often graze the ground below. The slightest error could cripple or kill them.

I think I’ll stay over here on the ground, thank you.

Link [I am Bored]

Fisherman Returning to Use of Sails as Fuel Costs Rise

Commercial fishermen are going back to the good old days of free fuel in response to the rising costs of diesel. By free fuel, of course, I mean wind power – they’re outfitting their boats with auxiliary sails to cut the amount of diesel they go through. Soon, however, they won’t have to rig their ships – a new generation of vessels is being developed that will rely almost completely on sails.

From The Telegraph:

Barrie Deas, chief executive of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations, said a number of skippers were now using sail power to help them travel the long distances between port and their fishing grounds.

“Skippers are putting on foresails while steaming to fishing grounds offshore,” he said. “The whole cost structure of the industry has shifted so dramatically as a result of fuel price rises, and in response, vessels are looking at what they can do to reduce costs.

“Fleets are going to have to find ways of reducing fuel dependency. Everyone is looking for the optimum steaming speed and people are looking at a whole range of measures, including sail.”

Auxiliary sails were common until the 1980s, when engines became more powerful and fuel was plentiful and cheap. One fisherman interviewed for this article said that with his auxiliary sails, engine revolutions were reduced from 1300 to 900 on a 3-hour trip, and they still made the same speed.

It’s pretty awesome that fisherman are going back to wind power – I wonder if pirates will soon do the same. Hey, a bottom line’s a bottom line.

Link [The Telegraph]
Photo credit: Flickr user mikebaird

Green Stimulus Idea – ‘Cash for Clunkers’

With the economy in need of some help, the people in need of some hope and a whole lot of pollutin’ vehicles on the road, one New York Times columnist has a ‘modest proposal’ that could go a long way toward all three: ‘Cash for Clunkers’. This idea would put into place a variety of programs in which the government buys up some of the oldest, most polluting vehicles and scraps them.

From The New York Times:

Here’s an example of how a Cash for Clunkers program might work. The government would post buying prices, perhaps set at a 20 percent premium over something like Kelley Blue Book prices, for cars and trucks above a certain age (say, 15 years) and below a certain maximum value (perhaps $5,000). A special premium might even be offered for the worst gas guzzlers and the worst polluters. An income ceiling for sellers might also be imposed — say, family income below $60,000 a year — to make sure the money goes to lower-income households.

People who sell their clunkers would receive government checks, perhaps paid to them at the motor vehicle bureau office where they turn in their old vehicles. They would be free to spend this money as they see fit, whether on a new car or truck or some other form of transportation — or anything else. To ensure that the program really pulls clunkers off the roads, only vehicles that had been registered and driven for, say, the past year would be eligible.

The government can either sell the cars it buys to licensed recyclers for scrap, or refit them with new emissions controls and resell them. But the government must not ship the cars to poor countries, where they would continue to belch pollutants.

Such a program would distribute some money to low-income people (since the rich rarely own clunkers), giving them a little extra cash to feed into the economy. The auto industry would benefit as well, since people would be trading up.

There are similar local plans already in place, but what really limits them is lack of money, which is where the need for stimulus comes in. The NYT article goes into details of how the program would work and how much it would cost. We love the idea of these sorts of government programs – achieving so many goals at once.

Link [The New York Times]
Photo credit: Flickr user Todd D Jones

China’s Attempts to Clear Air Pollution Not Working

7 days to go, and Beijing’s attempts to clean up its air quality before the Olympics aren’t looking successful at all. Despite very aggressive efforts, it’s just too little too late. Despite the fact that the skies are still filled with smog, officials deny that air pollution will lead to a need to postpone some events. In fact, they deny that the pollution is there at all.

From Breitbart.com:

“Sometimes it looks like it’s a foggy day, but the air quality is actually good,” Sun Weide, a spokesman for the Beijing Olympic Organising Committee, told AFP.

“Our confidence is based on our 10 years of effort (to clean up the air). We are now implementing a continued plan to ensure clear air during the Olympics.”

Chinese officials routinely refer to the city’s smog as “fog”.

Yeah, right. ‘Fog’. Keep telling people that, and over time they’ll really start to believe it, I’m sure. How crappy for Beijing’s residents. Once again, it’s clear that the government doesn’t care about their health – only about impressing foreigners during the games. Sad.

Link [Breitbart.com]
Photo credit: Flickr user WolfieWolf

Recycling Dumpsters for Use as Gardens, Skateboard Ramps & Swimming Pools

This gives ‘dumpster diving’ a whole new meaning: getting somebody’s unwanted used dumpster and turning it into a swimming pool.  Or, perhaps your urban apartment building doesn’t have any green space, and you’d love to stretch out on some grass for a picnic just a few steps from the front door.  Just fill up one of these giant waste receptacles with some dirt and plant some green things, and you’ll have an insta-lawn.

This is one of two proposals unveiled by design graduate Oliver Bishop-Young for the reuse of dumpsters (referred to as ‘skips’ across the pond).   Aside from the above-mentioned creative reuses, Bishop-Young proposes a website where people can detail the contents of their dumpsters so that other people can scavenge it.  The database would be searchable by a variety of filters including item or location (a temporary demo can be viewed here).

What an awesome idea! There are so many items thrown into landfills every day that could easily find a new home if people just had a chance to grab it.  Free stuff and less waste – who could complain?

Link [Environmental Graffiti]
Photo credit: dezeen.com

GOP Senator Ted Stevens Indicted for Gifts from Oil Company

The longest serving Republican senator, Ted Stevens, was indicted yesterday on seven felony counts of concealing over a quarter of a million dollars in house renovations and gifts from an oil contractor that lobbied him for government aid. Stevens, 84, has been a central figure in Alaskan politics since before statehood and is the first U.S. senator to be indicted since 1993.

From Yahoo! News:

He is accused of lying on his annual Senate financial disclosure reports between 1999 and 2006 — an indictment that caps a lengthy FBI investigation that has upended Alaska politics and brought unfavorable attention to both Stevens and his congressional colleague, GOP Rep. Don Young. Both are running for re-election this year.

Stevens’ indictment further damages Republican prospects in the November election as Senate Democrats, who now enjoy a 51-49 majority, try to capture a filibuster-proof 60-vote majority. Stevens faces both Democratic and Republican challengers who are trying to capitalize on his legal woes.
The Justice Department accused Stevens of accepting expensive work on his home in Girdwood, Alaska, a ski resort town outside Anchorage, from oil services contractor VECO Corp. and its executives. VECO normally builds oil processing equipment and pipelines, but its employees helped do the work on Stevens’ home.

VECO’s requests included funding and other aid for their projects and partnerships in Pakistan and Russia, federal grants from several agencies and help in building a pipeline in Alaska’s North Slope Region. If convicted, Stevens will face up to five years in prison for each count. He’s expected to turn himself in.

Ha ha – jerkass. I wonder how many other GOP senators are up to the same game with oil companies? Undoubtedly plenty of them…

Link [Yahoo! News]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Indoor ‘River Ecosystem’ Aquarium and Hydroponic Garden

French designer Mathieu Lehanneur has created an incredible item that serves as an art installation, aquarium, fish hatchery, hydroponic vegetable garden and home décor at in one. The refrigerated aquarium houses freshwater fish, with vegetables growing in glass pods on top. The vegetables get their water from the tank, and then filter and purify the water for the fish. It’s its own little mini river ecosystem indoors.

I don’t know about the snakes, but all in all this is a pretty sleek and sexy design, and an interesting approach to dealing with the global food crisis. Check out the video of the installation below:

Via [Inhabitat]

Japan Uses Recycled Leftovers as Animal Feed

Japan has gotten resourceful with their animal feed: they’re putting the country’s huge amounts of food waste to work. The country disposes of approximately 20,000 tons of food every year, which decomposed in landfills, filling the air with the greenhouse gas methane. In 2001, the Japanese government put laws into effect that led to a new kind of recycling industry – one where those food scraps are either turned into animal feed and fertilizer, or allowed to decompose in special facilities that harness the methane to power industrial plants.

From Reuters:

Food recyclers often use leftovers from convenience stores and restaurants where strict health laws mean unsold items must be thrown out at the end of the day.

“They don’t take disposed food from households as they are not in good conditions,” said Miwa.

Japan imports about 75 percent of its feedstocks from abroad. It is the world’s biggest corn importer to feed animals.

But recent price hikes due to high corn and soy meal prices, the main ingredients in animal feed, has made recycled feed more popular. Although it still accounts for only 1 percent of feedstocks in Japan, or about 150,000 tonnes in 2006, double the volume of 2003. In Japan, companies such as food manufacturers, retailers and restaurants produce some 11 million tonnes of food waste a year. They are responsible for disposing the waste, often paying hefty fees to have it carted away and dumped.

It sounds as if the animals are being carefully monitored to avoid any health issues that may result from this process, and the recyclers are careful to remove inedible items from the food waste before it’s recycled.

Getting smart about waste, trash, food and greenhouse gases: we need to see a lot more of this sort of thing going forward.

Link [Reuters]
Photo credit: REUTERS/Yuriko Nakao

Beets. Bears. Battlestar Galactica. Five Green Themes Found in BSG

We had so much fun getting our list of Green Themes found in the Star Wars Trilogy (Eps 4, 5, & 6), we decided to keep the green geek train rolling and am pulling into Battlestar Galactica Station. I just finished plowing through every single episode (the life of a blogger can be tough, anything to get the story!) and present the five green themes found in the best damn sci-fi show ever.

1. BSG=Drought Stricken Atlanta, Circa October 2007

As a resident of the capital city of the south during the drought, I know the personal pain of having to make plans to move because my city is about to run out of water. The Colonials watched with dry mouth horror as large stores of their water was vented into the vacuum of space, Atlantans watch with slack jawed apathy while they watered their water away on their over-manicured lawns.

2. Innovation Is The Only Way Out

When Chief Tyrol throws himself into building a new Viper in “Flight of The Pheonix”–a task panned as impossible and a waste of time by the rest of the cast–he’s replicating the work Honda and Toyota have done in hybrid technology in the face of razzing from nearly bankrupt Ford and GM. Suck on that Hummerboys!

And of course, his version has guns.

3. The False Comfort Of New Caprica

When, in the Season 2 finale, the colonials take up residence on New Caprica, they’re effectively playing the role of global warming deniers today: maybe if they ignore the threat, it will go away! New planet? Adapting to the warming world so it fits us better? OK! We see how well that turned out for them–surrender and imprisonment, oppression and terror. Hurray!!

4. Oh, Yeah, Earth…

Not to get all metaphorical on you, but yes, they’re seeking Earth, and so are our green hippy asses. They want to find a world that will allow them to have a healthy, sustainable existance. We want the same. The only difference, besides the whole killer robot clones thing, is that they have spaceships.

5. New Raw Materials? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ New Raw Materials.

Tyrol building a new Viper from scratch is just the beginning–everything has to be recycled (or composted) on BSG, because there’s no place to get more of, well, anything. Water goes through grey and blackwater recovery processes, food and other organic materials are composted, and they’ve gotta be using their humanure on the garden ships. It’s called a Cradle-to-Cradle existence, and it’s the same economy of raw materials that we have to transfer to as we run out of ways to rape the planet with our shameless consumption.

Now light it up in the comments, nuuugets!

Crazy People Base Jumping Off Wind Turbines

Base jumping off wind turbines – I guess it was bound to happen. While some people might think this is totally awesome – dare I say, rad – it makes me want to cling to the ground for dear life. The idea of standing on the top of a wind turbine is enough to squeeze my stomach into painful little knots, let alone the idea of actually jumping off one.

That, my friends, takes some serious balls!

Link [Groovy Green] + [YouTube]

Go Manual and Go Green!

In the last 50 years or so, most of us have gotten incredibly lazy – at least, in developed countries where automated and/or electricity-powered gadgets are readily available.  We don’t wash dishes or clothes by hand anymore.  We stand around while escalators and elevators lift us up to the next floor.  It makes one imagine a future where we’re all giant blobs floating around on moving platforms and can’t even walk for ourselves anymore.

Sure, all of these modern inventions save us time, but it’s cool to take some pride in manual work every now and then and actually make something happen with muscle power.  That’s why manual gadgets are so awesome.

You don’t have to hook up a crazy invention like the bike-powered washing machine above in order to take on some human-powered activities.  Manual lawnmowers, hand-operated paper shredders, coffee-bean grinders, hand-crank popcorn poppers and this stationary bike blender are all great examples. Save electricity and get some exercise all at once – go manual and go green, baby!

Link [PriceGrabber Blog]
Photo credit: Homeless Dave

How to Throw Away a Car

Wait, that’s not how you do it?

Link [Bits & Pieces]

Cell Phones Blamed for Fatal Lightning Strikes

Throughout the month of July alone, lightning has killed and injured more than a dozen people according to Russian officials. Three sunbathers and one woman talking on her cell phone while walking along a river were killed, and a representative from local weather observation FOBOS says he believes that the accidents might be connected to increased use of portable electronic devices.  Cell phones and mp3 players are said to be electromagnetic field carriers, therefore making them conductors that would attract lightning.

Shit.  Now in addition to going sterile and getting brain cancer, we have to worry about lightning hitting our cell phones.

Link [InventorSpot]
Photo credit: Flickr user DDFic

New Vivavi Eco-Friendly Furniture Store at Riverhouse in NYC

Good news for NYC-area fans of sustainable, beautiful furniture and home furnishings! Vivavi - the brainchild of last week’s Who’s Who in Green, Josh Dorfman - has just announced the opening of their latest project – an Eco Pop Up store inside the Riverhouse, an LEED Gold-rated condo building (yep, the one where Leo DiCaprio has digs). It’s open to the public 7 days a week and it’s a veritable treasure trove of luxe modern green design.

From The Lazy Environmentalist:

Set inside a model 2-bedroom unit overlooking the Hudson River, the store features contemporary RC Green sofas and accents, the latest in luxury green lounging from Animavi, a Team 7 sustainably furnished dining room, a bedroom set featuring Okooko’s unique aesthetic and naturally made mattress, an office nook courtesy of Knu Furniture, a nursery outfitted by Oeuf, and loads of others other fabulous pieces from designers such as Amenity, Brave Space, Christian Rathbone, Iannone Design, Knoend, Larson, Lulan, Maku Furnishings, Modern Bamboo, Ortolan, Until Kara and Vers. We also feature the artwork of Sandy Schimmel who transforms tiny scraps of junk mail into visually stunning designs.

The Riverhouse is in Battery Park City, and the store is located in unit 8D adjacent to the Sales & Design center. Hours are Monday – Friday 10am to 6pm, Saturday and Sunday noon to 4pm.

If you live elsewhere in the U.S. and are lamenting the fact that you can’t check it out in person, head on over to the website where you can indulge in some internet retail therapy. If you aren’t already familiar with Vivavi, prepare to be blown away – it’s the kind of sexy green design that inspires poetry of love and devotion.

Link [The Lazy Environmentalist] + [Vivavi]

Green College Spotlight: Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont

Tucked into a small, rural Vermont community is liberal arts gem Middlebury College, a highly selective private school that prides itself on its environmental activism. Middlebury established the first Environmental Studies major back in 1965, and has since helped pave the way for colleges across the country to be more environmentally conscious from its sustainable agriculture and recycling programs to the green building techniques used in recent construction.

Middlebury’s dedication to environmentally responsible practices is apparent in nearly every aspect of daily operations. In fact, they’ve incorporated environmental stewardship into the college’s new mission statement, which reads in part, “The College’s Vermont location offers an inspirational setting for learning and reflection, reinforcing our commitment to integrating environmental stewardship into both our curriculum and our practices on campus.”

Middlebury was one of six colleges to receive a grade of ‘A-‘ from the Sustainable Endowments Institute on its College Sustainability Report Card 2008, the highest grade rewarded. It has also been named as one of the greenest colleges in the U.S. by Forbes, Grist, Alternet and The Daily Green.

The honors are due in part to the students’ incredible drive to be environmentally responsible. Middlebury spawned the ‘Step it Up’ protests against global warming, and lobbied hard for the $11 million biomass plant now being built, which will help the college meet its goal of being carbon neutral by 2016. They’ve demanded green programs at the school and have gotten them, from the sustainably sourced wood used for heating to the wind turbine that powers the college’s recycling facility. Produce from local farmers plus the harvests reaped from the school’s on-campus organic gardens provide a quarter of the student meals at the dining hall. Check out the video below showing the students participating in ‘The Green Finger Project’, where they write what they’re voting to protect on the palms of their hands.

Majors at Middlebury include classical studies, geography, history of art & architecture, international studies, molecular biology & biochemistry and political science, among many others. Prospective students wishing to take a tour of the campus can get that info, along with more about the admissions process, at the school’s website.

Link [Middlebury College ] + [YouTube]

HP Over-Packages to Epic Proportions

Talk about incredibly wasteful packaging.  When it comes to products being ridiculously over-packaged, HP is among the usual suspects, which also include Dell, AT&T and Amazon.  We thought we’d seen it all when Brett from TUAW received an invoice for ““75011 MISC iPhone PPA BAG … $0.00”, packed up in a big box along with a plastic bag.

This one, however, takes the cake: The Register got wind of a gigantic box from HP delivered to one Stephen Strang, which contained 16 smaller boxes, each of which contained two sheets of A4 paper protected by foam.  17 total boxes to protect 32 pieces of paper.  Amazing.  Get a clue, retailers! This kind of waste is disgusting.

Link [The Register] + [TUAW]

MIT’s Low-Tech Approach to Fixing the World

When award-winning MIT engineer Amy Smith visited the Peruvian village of Compone in the Sacred Valley of the Incas, she had a humble goal: turning the corncobs that the farmers use to power their cooking stoves and heat their homes into charcoal. The smoke produced from corncobs and other raw biomass is thick and dirty, making respiratory infections from indoor fires the leading cause of death for children under 5. Charcoal, on the other hand, burns much more cleanly. So Smith and two others lugged bags of tools and low-tech gadgets, water-testing equipment and a pedal-powered grain mill out to Compone from the MIT campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

From Popular Mechanics:

The charcoal project is the responsibility of Mary Hong, a 19-year-old branching out beyond her aerospace major this semester. She and the other students, coincidentally all women, are enrolled in Smith’s D-Lab, a course that is becoming quietly famous beyond the MIT campus in Cambridge, Mass. The D is for development, design and dissemination; last fall, more than 100 students applied for about 30 slots. To prepare for their field work, D-Lab students live for a week in Cambridge on $2 per day. (Smith joins in.) Right now, eight more D-Lab teams are plying jungle rivers, hiking goat trails and hailing chicken buses in seven additional countries—Brazil, Honduras, Ghana, Tanzania, Zambia, India and China. In Smith’s view, even harsh aspects of Third World travel have their benefits. “If you get a good bout of diarrhea from a waterborne disease,” she says, “you really understand what it means to have access to clean drinking water.”

Smith succeeded in her charcoal goal, helping to further prove that improving standards of living in developing countries can be done with low-tech engineering on as little as $2 a day. Smith’s unique approach to hunger and other problems affecting people like the farmers of Compone has inspired a movement toward simple technology. Green, cheap and low tech – pure awesome.

Link [Popular Mechanics]

Vancouver Residents Save Century-Old Lobster from the Pot

Lobsters – those poor little ‘sea bugs’ that so many people just can’t get enough of.  I remember cringing in horror as a child when my seafood-loving New England family would throw the poor things into the pots, knowing they were still alive and leaving the room so I didn’t have to hear that dreaded ‘screaming’ sound they make when the steam starts to escape their shells. I always wanted to save them – but it’s tough to do when you’re a kid surrounded by adults salivating over the idea of eating the rubbery creatures. So, I’m happy to hear that some good Samaritans out in Vancouver were able to save a 22-lb, 100-year-old lobster from a similar fate.

From Green Daily:

Big Dee-Dee was caught off New Brunswick, Canada last week, and had been arousing interest from both conservationists and connisseurs of cooked crusteaceans. The owner of the the aptly named Big Fish shop where Dee-Dee was temporarily living had received more than 100 offers to buy the old boy, including one who would have paid a cool 5 grand to fly him to Ontario to be guest of honour at a company banquet.

However, all’s well that ends well and next week a marine biologist will pack Dee-Dee up in a truck and take him down to the ocean, where he will be returned to the wet and wild from whence he came. After which he will likely get wander into another trap and end up back at the Big Fish, because lobsters aren’t really all that smart. But it’s still a happy ending, for now.

The Green Daily provided an update on July 21st, saying that the owner of Big Fish decided to donate Dee-Dee to an aquarium, fearing that a return to the cold water would kill him.

Hurray for Dee-Dee! Anything that’s managed to live that long should be left to live its life in peace.

Link [Green Daily]
Photo credit: Flickr user Gill Rickson

Vertical Farms are Beautiful and Productive

Imagine walking along a city street, looking up at the tall buildings around you and seeing beautiful hues of green, red, purple and other vibrant colors through glass windowpanes instead of just concrete and steel. Vertical farms wouldn’t just be a super smart way to grow local food in urban environments – they’re pretty, too. And, they’re well on their way to becoming reality.

From ecofriend:

Dickson Despommier, a professor of public health at Columbia University, hopes to make these zucchini-in-the-sky visions a reality. Dr. Despommier’s pet project is the “vertical farm,” a concept he created in 1999 with graduate students in his class on medical ecology, the study of how the environment and human health interact. The idea, which has captured the imagination of several architects in the United States and Europe in the past several years, just caught the eye of another big city dreamer: Scott M. Stringer, the Manhattan borough president.

Stringer’s office is “sketching out what it would take to pilot a vertical farm,” and plans to pitch a feasibility study to the mayor’s office within the next couple of months, he said. While many believe that the potential concept is being given outlandish shape and form which is both unrealistic and not probable, I’m willing for now to go ahead with the concept of all this. After seeing what I have seen take shape in Dubai, improbable structures no longer exist in my vision and I’m willing to believe that very soon I will pick my apple from the 16th floor-West Block!

These artist renderings show some of the incredible ideas being developed. Design is getting greener and smarter!

Link [ecofriend]

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