Inspirational and good news.
The Spacing Wire is a blog that is all about public space. It’s a Toronto-based magazine that has some great coverage on public space in Toronto and around the world. The only comparable public space organization that I’ve found is the Project for Public Spaces in New York.
Anyway, over at the Spacing Wire there is a post on some cute and fun pro-pedestrian and cycling shirts.
A product of American military research is something that can actually help people. The army wants it to save money, but aid organizations can use it to save people. A new system that can fit on a truck can provide drinking water, electricity, and even refrigeration. The device is clever because it reuses energy that would otherwise be waster, making it more useful and efficient.
“The engineering researchers’ solution: a small system that ties a novel gas turbine power plant to a heat-operated refrigeration system. The refrigeration makes the gas turbine more efficient, while also producing cool air and potable water. The turbine can run on conventional fossil fuels as well as biomass-produced fuels or hydrogen.”
This would be amazing to have in disaster relief situations.
The International Herald Tribune has a really nice article about a tribe in the Amazon that is fighting deforestation. The author recounts his previous experience of going into the Amazon and compares that to what it is like today. It actually starts off rather depressing since the environmental destruction is so prominent, but what makes the article so good is how hard the Kayapó is working to protect this invaluable natural resource.
“The Kayapó grand chief, Megaron, is leading the fight to preserve their lands that form the largest tropical rain forest reserve in the world.”
The tribe has had quite a few success in defending the forest from “development.” Let’s hope they never give up!
Last year India saw that biopiracy was damaging to the country and they reacted by documenting every plant and will release an encyclopedia of all the plants. They are specifically recording how these plants are used in traditional medicine in India, making it much harder for large foreign corporations to proclaim the use of plants as their idea.
Brazil is now doing something similar:
“Brazil has published a list of more than 5,000 generic terms from the Portuguese language related to Brazilian plant biological diversity to raise awareness and prevent further misuse of trademarks that hinder Brazilian exports.
The Brazilian government has been, and is, involved in a number of trademark disputes with companies that, for example, take a name of a fruit in Brazilian Portuguese and trademark it to get exclusive rights to commercialise it under that name in a certain country or region.”
The Green Car Congress is reporting that U.S. sales of hybrids top 25,000. This is good news, because it means less pollution. GCC points out that SUV sales have decreased, which is good news in itself considering the mayor of London thinks SUV drivers are idiots.
“Buoyed by strong results for the Prius and the Camry hybrid, sales of hybrids in the US hit a new high in July, with 25,626 units sold—a 32% increase from July 2006.”
It looks like more hybrid vehicles will be purchased next year too. General Motors will be debuting
