Month: September 2012

Great Lakes get More Protection

- Adam Clare

In a demonstration of the usefulness of having an embassy in another country, Canada and the USA have renewed a pact to protect the Great Lakes. This is a good thing as the Great Lakes need more protection and better environmental care from both sides of the border. The pact also implies a reversal of the destructive anti-science policies that the Canadian government has had this past year.

The updated Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement binds both nations to continue a cleanup and restoration initiative begun when the freshwater seas were a symbol of ecological decay. Many of their beaches were littered with foul algae blooms and dead fish. The Cuyahoga River, which flows into Lake Erie in Cleveland, was so choked with oil and chemicals that flames erupted on its surface in 1969.

The pact calls for further action on problems that inspired the original agreement three years after the embarrassing river fire and a second version in 1987. It pledges to “restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity” of the five lakes and the portion of the St. Lawrence River on the U.S.-Canadian border.

Read more here.

In the Future Cities will be Sharing Centres

- Adam Clare

Urban centres are already more efficient than their surrounding suburbs and this looks like it will continue for the foreseeable future. Due to the close proximity of people in cities it allows for local sharing projects that can greatly reduce waste awhile increasing access to things we think we need.

How can cities help save the future? Alex Steffen shows some cool neighborhood-based green projects that expand our access to things we want and need — while reducing the time we spend in cars.

A New Stove Project Looks to Crowdsource Healthier Heating

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

Regular readers of this site may know that we are fans of efficient stoves. The Kenya Stove is a new project to get efficient stoves in the hands of Kenyans. Erin, from Kenya Stove writes:

First some bad news: More than 3 billion people rely on traditional cookstoves for cooking in the developing world. Exposure to smoke from inefficient cookstoves and open-fire cooking practices contributes to the burden of pneumonia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cardiovascular disease, and other diseases and results in an estimated two million deaths worldwide per year.

Now the good news: We plan to pilot a novel gasifying wood stove and fuel project in Kenya in the coming months. The stove emits little smoke, is durable and can be made at low cost with materials locally available in Kenya by Kenyan artisans thus creating jobs. Additionally we have selected mesquite, an invasive species in Kenya, to be used as the fuel source and therefore not impact indigenous forests through deforestation for wood fuel or charcoal-making. We anticipate our project will improve the health of families by reducing exposure to smoke, provide a lower cost fuel for cooking, and reduce the environmental impact caused by charcoal-making and the emissions from inefficient stoves.

Help fund their initiative here.

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