Things Are Good: good news

This landed in my email today from Parisa:

I’d like to share with you a video from Current.com that I thought you and your blog would appreciate; in the piece, Fritz Haeg–green architect/artist, discusses his current art project called Animal Estates where he makes homes for animals where people live in cities, suburbs, private properties, institution, etc. Based on the Manhattan Project, Fritz’s intention is to make homes for animals that used to live four-hundred years ago on locations where he’s placed his art. In the video, Fritz discusses his inspiration, roots, concepts and the ideas behind this project

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We’ve looked at Spiral Island before and now people can actually visit the island made out of old plastic bottles.

Ecoble has more info on the island and looks into some controversy around the island (if it gets destroyed all the plastic bottles become litter again).

Find more photos like this on Richie Sowa's Spiral Island

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Synthetic cleaners scare me. A lot. I really don’t like the idea of using bizarre chemicals to ‘clean’ things. In some cases cleaning products use poisons which leaves me wondering how poisons can make a place sanitary.

Clean your house the environmentally friendly way! This video can get you started:

How To Clean Your House The ECO Friendly Way

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There are a few options on how to make that thing you walk on everyday a little more environmentally friendly. Bamboo flooring is my personal favourite. Some enterprising people have taken left over flooring from other projects and put them together in a neat way.

In keeping with our eco design model, and just for the sheer fun of it, we’ve decided that the kitchen floor will be made up from all the leftover pieces of Marmoleum we’ve saved so far.

The first part was the installation of a high quality sub-floor (similar to the bathrooms), consisting of maple plywood and a lot of staples.

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Well this is neat, some researchers are arguing that fairness is a hard-wired emotion.

The belief that things should be divided fairly among members of a group isn’t just a matter of culture or reason — it’s an emotion that’s built into the human brain.

That’s the suggestion of a new study that posed the question: Is it better to give food to some hungry children while others go hungry? Or is it better that every child get a share, albeit a smaller one?

“People prefer equity, when all things are equal, to efficiency,” said study lead researcher Ming Hsu, a fellow at the University of Illinois Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology.

And different regions of the brain are involved when making decisions involving fairness or efficiency, he said.

“In terms of the brain, we find areas of the insular cortex are activated when people were choosing the equitable allocation of food,” Hsu said. “Given the involvement of the insular cortex in emotions and fairness judgments, we conclude that emotions are underlying equity judgments.”

Other areas of the brain are activated when people are making judgments about efficiency, he said.

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The increasing price of oil is having a positive impact on the environment, and it looks like this trend will continue. Energy analysts are saying that the sheer economic cost of oil is forcing people to look into alternative energy sources. Yeah!

Record U.S. crude oil futures near $124 a barrel have reached a “break point” that will spur a shift away from an oil-centric transportation sector toward alternatives, energy analyst Daniel Yergin said on Wednesday.

Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, told Reuters that U.S. crude oil prices — which hit a record $123.93 a barrel on Wednesday — will hasten the adoption of cellulosic biofuels made from switchgrass and woodchips, as well as battery-powered cars and fuels derived from coal.
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Yergin countered the notion that global demand for gasoline, jet fuel and other transportation fuels is chiseled in stone because drivers have few current alternatives.

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