Author: Adam Clare

Sim “Climate Change” City

Sim shot
Video games often get a bad rap in our society so it is rather refreshing to see that the next Sim City game will have more of an environmental conscious. The next version of the game will include global warming as an effect of what the player chooses to do:

The game does not force players to power their cities any specific way, but allows them to make choices, each of which come with advantages and disadvantages. Similar to real-life, the least expensive and most readily-available buildings in SimCity Societies are also the biggest producers of carbon dioxide, an invisible gas that contributes to global warming. Should players choose to build cities dependent on these types of sources for power to conserve their in-game money, their carbon ratings will rise and, at reaching critical levels, the game will issue alerts about the threat of the various natural disasters like droughts, heat waves and others that may strike their cities.

Via BoingBoing

Lights Out for Climate Change

Sydney turned of their lights earlier this year to raise awareness about climate change and now it appears that the idea is spreading. San Francisco will be powering down for an hour in the near future.

For one hour, on October 20, San Francisco will experience a partial blackout in an effort to raise awareness of climate change and to promote long-lasting energy saving.

Remember that you can save the planet everyday by conserving energy!

Get Buried Green

I’ve deicded that I’ll never die, but for those of you that have chosen mortality you ought to bury your used body in an environmentally friendly way. Say no to toxic chemicals and rusted metal in your casket and say hello to what at least one article is calling an eco-burial.

Advocates argue that a green approach to burial is environmentally friendly, spiritually uplifting and often less costly than the conventional American way of laying people to rest.

Some conservation groups see green burials as a way to preserve public land that otherwise might be devoured by development.

“Before the ‘better dying through chemistry’ era was born, this was the way most of humanity cared for its dead,” said Joe Sehee, founder and executive director of the Green Burial Council, a nonprofit group leading the charge for biodegradable burials. “It’s a way to honor the dead and heal the living in an environmentally responsible manner.”

Talking on the Phone is Healthy

A recent study that set out to lower the risk of heart disease and strokes in people predisposed to have them by talking to them over the phone. The patients received health “report cards” letting them know how they’re doing. Based on the report cards a kinesiologist would talk to the patient about their health. The results appear to be positive!

Andrew Lister, one of the study’s authors and chair of the gerontology department at Simon Fraser University, said the study was also meant to act a model for a community-based health-care program that could be implemented at a fairly low cost to lower a population’s heart and stroke risks.

The intervention consisted of a health report card that was sent to the participants and their family doctors. This included a profile of risks such as high cholesterol, systolic blood pressure, diabetes and smoking status. Physical activity, body mass index, waist circumference, nutrition status, stress level and health confidence were also factored in.

The other component of the intervention was a telephone discussion between a lifestyle counsellor — trained as a kinesiologist and well-versed in cardiovascular disease prevention — and the participants. Two kinesiologists performed all 611 interventions.

“Two people did it all, one full-time and one part-time,” Lister told CBCNews.ca on Friday. “You could reach a lot of people if you were doing this on a continual basis.”

Powerful Thinking in 10 Steps

Thinking is something that we do everyday and is something that we should always strive to improve. A good way to encourage thinking in new and exciting ways to is to ensure that you are consistently in new settings or looking at something from a different perspective.

A self improvement blog has created a list of 10 things that can help you become a powerful thinker.

7. Go a Different way

Drive or walk a different way to wherever you go. This little change in routine helps the brain practice special memory and directions. Try different side streets go through stores in a different order anything to change your route.