This is from George Monbiot’s article in the Guardian: Let’s stop hiding behind recycling and be honest about consumption. At a reception in London recently I met an extremely rich woman, who lives, as most people with similar levels of wealth do, in an almost comically unsustainable fashion: jetting between various homes and resorts in [...]
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Howard Houle wrote to say: Just to let people known the RDN is hosting a FREE wood heating workshop on February 2nd at 2pm at the Gabriola Commons. Learn how to maximize efficiency and minimize pollution and to let you known about our 2013 wood stove exchange program. Staff gets nervous about if people will [...]
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From the Atlantic: When Trees Die, People Die. (The curious connection between an invasive beetle that has destroyed over 100 million trees, and subsequent heart disease and pneumonia in the human populations nearby.)
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What happened to that rotting log in Descanso Bay when it finally sank? phys.org gives us an idea: Wood on the seafloor: An oasis for deep-sea life. Trees do not grow in the deep sea, nevertheless sunken pieces of wood can develop into oases for deep-sea life – at least temporarily until the wood is [...]
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I’ve spent some time worrying about mould in walls, as you might recall. (See Don’t rent this Gabriola house.) I never would have imagined that somebody would create a mouldy wall on purpose – but somebody has! Treehugger explains: Green walls are a paradox; traditionally, architects design buildings to shed water, and building owners want [...]
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There’s an article about Phillip Vannini’s latest project on a Halifax website today: Off the grid: Nova Scotians power down. Two years ago, Phillip Vannini moved from the hustle-bustle city to out-of-the-way Gabriola Island on the left coast. It was his first exposure to the vagaries of well water, and it fostered in him an [...]
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From Science Daily: Electricity from the marshes. An unexpected source of new, clean energy has been found: the Plant-Microbial Fuel Cell that can generate electricity from the natural interaction between living plant roots and soil bacteria. The technique already works on a small scale and will soon be applied in larger marshland areas throughout the [...]
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Years ago I read somewhere that one characteristic of rainforests is this: some of the leaves and branches that fall don’t make it to the ground. Instead, they land on branches of some other tree, remain there, and decay until mosses and other plants grow on them. Like this, see? The article I read had [...]
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From Focus Forward at Vimeo: Focus Forward is an unprecedented new series of 30 three-minute stories about innovative people who are reshaping the world through act or invention, directed by the world’s most celebrated documentary filmmakers. I haven’t had time to watch very many yet, but they are beautifully filmed and the subject matter is [...]
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From George Monbiot’s article in the Guardian: If children lose contact with nature they won’t fight for it. While the surveys show that the great majority would like to see the living planet protected, few are prepared to take action. This, I think, reflects a second environmental crisis: the removal of children from the natural [...]
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OK, so maybe I’m a bit too interested in things we could be using on Gabriola Roads. After years of Texada sludge, can you blame me? This is from the CBC: Vancouver first city to use recycled plastic in asphalt. Vancouver will be the first-ever city to use blue box recycled plastics as asphalt mix [...]
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At time like this – a dark November evening with the wind coming up – everybody on the island is probably thinking about power outages and generators. What if you could make your own generator and run it on urine? Four girls in Africa did. From MakerFaire Africa: A Urine Powered Generator. Possibly one of [...]
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From the University of Michigan: Biofuel breakthrough: Quick cook method turns algae into oil. It looks like Mother Nature was wasting her time with a multimillion-year process to produce crude oil. Michigan Engineering researchers can pressure-cook algae for as little as a minute and transform an unprecedented 65 percent of the green slime into biocrude. [...]
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The Gabriola Island Local Trust Committee (Islands Trust) has been busy. They’ve now got a website focusing on Development Permit Areas for Riparian Areas & Steep Slopes on Gabriola Island. Quite a mouthful, hmm? The about the project page explains: The Gabriola Island Local Trust Committee is undertaking this project to review and update current [...]
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Here’s one for you Gabriola Transportation people. From isciencetimes.com: Cardboard Bike Could Make Commuting Cheaper and Easier – Even In The Rain. A cardboard bike may change your commute forever, according to Israeli inventor Izhar Gafni. The bicycle, made almost completely out of cardboard, is able to be mass-produced, and could allow people in even [...]
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Here’s a NYT article about an island a bit south of ours: Scientists Adopt Tiny Island as a Warming Bellwether. On their frequent visits to the island, usually lasting several days each, the researchers haul duffel bags of clothing and equipment up a steep path cut into the rock until the landscape plateaus into a [...]
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Concerned about the Enbridge Pipeline, and what that could mean for waters around Gabriola, and for the rest of the BC coast? Free this Wednesday night, September 12th? If so, head over to the Rollo Centre on North Road, where Save Our Shores Gabriola is showing The Pipedreams Project. Here’s the film trailer:
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From physorg.com: Study shows how sea otters can reduce CO2 in the atmosphere. Can an abundance of sea otters help reverse a principal cause of global warming? A new study by two UC Santa Cruz researchers suggest that a thriving sea otter population that keeps sea urchins in check will in turn allow kelp forests [...]
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