Category Archives: Environment

Winds of Change in Power Generation

Infographic: Offshore Wind Farms Continue Growth | Statista

Wars fought over oil and wars funded by oil sales are both problems we’ve seen in the 21st century. Fighting over a depleting planet-destroying energy source may soon be a thing of the past as we increase the use of renewable energy the world over. Expect the use of wind power to continue to grow in the coming years, already the rate of installation of these efficient systems has increased. Some countries that didn’t embrace wind before due to a lack of land are now building offshore installations which allow for bigger, better turbines.

Help bring peace to the world by cutting back gas use while increasing renewable energy sources.

The potential to deploy both onshore and offshore wind capacity depends on a country’s geography.

Among the leading offshore wind locations, Britain has plentiful coastlines, Germany can take advantage of its location between the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, and China uses its expansive coastal regions to good effect.

But when offshore and onshore wind capacity are combined, a different picture emerges.

Global onshore and offshore wind generation totalled 732 gigawatts by the end of 2020, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.

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Instead of Pesticides, Use Plants

This is the year nobody should use pesticides, if you’re on the fence about using pesticides I’ll remind you that they do more harm than good. They negatively impact human health, kill unintended species, and even taint groundwater. Many smart gardeners already avoid using the killer chemicals and you too can be a smart gardener. Why use dangerous chemicals when you can use plants?

Over at PopSci they’ve complied a list of what plants in North America you should plant to protect your garden from pests.

You can find examples of pesticide plants stretching back thousands of years. Native Americans, for example, may have developed companion planting as early as 10,000 years ago, long before home gardening became a pastime. Although synthetic chemical-based pesticides have become common, you don’t need to follow that trend.

When you use plants to keep pests away, you’re employing a proven gardening technique backed by scientific research. Installing the right plants in your garden is fast, easy, and (the best part) extremely fun. If you’re not sure where to start, we have some suggestions for every planting zone in the US.

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Insulation is Better Than Oil

tree with climate knowledge

Insulation is a boring solution to the deadly consumption of oil inside your home. If you have a gas furnace or other fossil fuel heater then you can start reducing your consumption of the dead dino juice by better insulating your home. You can also go a step further and replace planet-killing heating solutions with a heat pump.

In the United Kingdom a simple policy change to encourage homeowners improve their insulation and/or install heat pumps can eliminate the need for Russian gas. The time to this is right now so it cuts off the market desire for oil from a state waging war on its neighbour.

If you’re a homeowner then improve your insulation and get off of gas.

An analysis by the think tank notes concludes that the deployment of insulation and electric heat pumps in 6.5 million homes by 2027 could reduce UK gas demand by four per cent, which is roughly equivalent to UK imports of Russian gas.

By enabling citizens to use less gas to heat their homes, a policy focused on heat pumps and insulation could also curb energy bills and protect millions of households from volatile international gas prices, it said.

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How Oysters Protect Cities

We need to anything and everything to mitigate the impacts of climate change, some solutions are global and others are local. In the United States there’s a growing movement to grow oysters along coastal areas that previous generations destroyed. New York City is one such place, as is New Orleans. Both cities encouraged shipping practices that hurt oyster production whereas today they’ve realized without the protection oysters bring the city is negatively affected.

Bring on the oysters!

When Orff looked into Staten Island’s predicament, she couldn’t help but notice how much it resembled the situation in other parts of New York City and, for that matter, in coastal cities throughout the world. At scape, she put together a plan, called Living Breakwaters, for protecting and reanimating Staten Island’s coastline. In 2014, the proposal earned the highest score in the billion-dollar Rebuild by Design competition, an Obama Administration initiative that invited designers, engineers, scientists, and planners to build systems for a wetter, warmer world. Orff designed a necklace of sloped rock formations and “reef streets” to be submerged in Raritan Bay, where they would attenuate the energy of waves crashing into the South Shore of Staten Island and serve as habitats for oysters, lobsters, and juvenile fish. The system, which would be largely invisible to the area’s residents, wouldn’t prevent storm water from reaching their sidewalks and streets. But it would lessen the impact, lowering the risk of major damage in future hurricanes while helping people connect with one another and with the ecosystems that sustain them.

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This City Captures Drinkable Water from the Air

fog

Aquifers feel there pressure of increasing populations and farms; as a result, cities around the world get drastically close to running out of water. The solution in some places may have been under our noses the entire time: fog. In Lima they already have a system in place to capture water from fog to supplement existing sources, and other coastal cities are paying attention. The coolest part of the fog catching technology is that it comes from ancient techniques using tees!

In 2009, German conservationists Kai Tiedemann and Anne Lummerich planted 800 she-oak trees in Peru to create a natural fog-catching system that aimed to replicate this ancient technique. During their research they found that trees with vertical, needle-like leaves work as an organic net to which drops of water adhere. They later went on to develop artificial nets that could also capture water.

Marzol has been studying “the hidden precipitation” in fog for nearly 25 years now, partly because modern meteorological instruments struggle to measure its relationship with precipitation. During the course of her research she has witnessed the social transformation that can occur in communities that collect fog water.

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