Category: Direct Action

Open Source Ecology

I just found out about this really neat wiki called Open Source Ecology! The wiki is setup to create sustainable technologies, farming methods, and shelters for creating a “New Village” economy. The wiki is flush with neat information.

This wiki is dedicated to the open, collaborative development of a basic and robust infrastructure for a Global Village economy, as embodied in the list of the 28 of the above products and services. Such a village is by design
one which promotes the highest autonomy and freedom
grounded in self-sufficiency
dedicated to voluntary pursuits, right livelihood, and quality of life
The basic assumption for a New Village economy is that humans are capable of transcending struggle for survival and resource conflicts, where this preoccupation is replaced by higher pursuits of personal and societal evolution.

Power Walking

Thanks to a newish invention your walking can now power all sorts of portable devices. There’s been similar devices that have been created but I haven’t mentioned them here in a while. It’s always good to see people turning what we do in something even more productive.

For the past 10 years Dr Max Donelan, from the Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, has been working on ways to harness people power —- how to capture the energy generated when you’re out for a stroll.

He succeeded and his Biomechanical Energy Harvester is featured in today’s edition of the academic journal Science.

True bionic power.

Feed the Birds to Help them Mate

Birds make nice music, and the birds that there are the more music that is created. To indirectly produce more music one should then feed birds. A recent released study came to the conclusion that feeding birds over the winter helps them procreate.

Those that were given extra food laid eggs earlier and, although the same number of chicks hatched, on average one more successfully fledged per clutch. Although it was well known that feeding birds during winter increases their survival, this is the first time that the benefits to subsequent breeding have been shown.

Leading the research, Gillian Robb, from Queen’s University School of Biological Sciences said “Our study shows that birds that receive extra food over winter lay their eggs earlier and produce more fledglings.”

Dr Stuart Bearhop from the University of Exeter, who supervised the research, said “We show that extra food provided in winter helps the birds that take it, however, we are still unclear whether it has a knock on effect on other species. Nevertheless, I will certainly be continuing to feed the birds in my garden for the rest of the winter.”

CNN Likes Recycling

Recycling is great! CNN has written an article all about the goodness of recycling. Their reporting differs from how The Economist tackled recycling. I’d love to see CNN cover the reduce ‘R’, until then CNN has fun facts like:

Looking at it another way, according to the National Recycling Coalition, the amount of energy saved in one year by Americans recycling their soda cans, plastic containers, newspapers and packaging represented the energy equivalent of:

Enough gasoline to power 11 million passenger cars for a year
A year’s worth of electricity supply for 17.8 million Americans
11 percent of the energy produced by coal-fired power plants in a year
29 percent of nuclear electricity generation in a year