Environment – Page 2 – Things Are Good

African Solarpunk is Real

Solar Panels during Dusk Photo by Magic K

The future will be powered by renewable energy and the continent of Africa is an example of what’s to come to other continents: solarpunk. Solarpunk is the vision of a world entirely powered by renewable, carbon negative (or just neutral), and ultimately living in concert with a a global ecosystem. That seeds of a solarpunk future are being planted throughout Africa. Ironically, the lack of an established and robust power grid makes for increased opportunity for renewables. Sales from handheld solar lamps to full solar installations are on the rise. When there aren’t vested interests holding back renewable adoption then people go straight to cheaper, more reliable, renewable.

And here’s what nobody outside Africa understands: Sun King has 50%+ market share in their category. They’re not scrappy startup. They’re a dominant infrastructure provider.

This would be like if one startup owned 50% of U.S. home solar. Except the impact and the TAM is bigger because there’s no incumbent grid to compete with.

Canada Climate Week Xchange

wind turbine
One way to fight climate change is to get corporations to only invest in renewable options and celebrate success in the green economy, and that’s one of the goals of the Canada Climate Week Xchange. Happening this week are tons of events from coast to coast all about finance and the growing green economy. More than ever, Canada needs o push an economy that is forward looking and embraces renewable energy and sustainable investments. In order to deal with the threats coming from the USA Canada ought to focus on shifting it’s economy into a future mindset opposed to one clinging to the 20th century economy.

Mission
Support Canada’s commitment of a significant GHG reduction by 2030 through the creation and promotion of a time and space where cross-collaboration on Canada’s climate-related challenges can drive solutions and opportunities.

Goal
Attract, curate, and promote a variety of accessible, action-oriented events that focus on Canada’s unique perspective and situation on climate-related issues.
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Check it out and find an event to attend.

Fig Trees Figured Out Carbon Storage

The humble fig tree can help us in extracting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by converting it in into stone. All trees remove CO2 from the air and store it in their wood, however as the wood biodegrades the CO2 is released again. Fig trees, on the other hand, combine the CO2 within itself to form stone!

“What was really a surprise, and I’m still kind of reeling from, is that the [calcium carbonate] had really gone far deeper into the wood structures than I expected,” says Rowley, who will present the work at the Goldschmidt Conference in Prague, the Czech Republic, this week. “I expected it to be a superficial process in the cracks and weaknesses within the wood structure.”

Cities Address Climate Crisis Faster than Nations

Your local city council is doing more to protect the future than your national leaders. Cities are on the front lines of the climate crisis and are working hard to ensue that their people are protected from the effects of a warming planet. Cities can react swiftly to climate related issues due to a variety of factors and by addressing issues head on cities can solve more than one problem at a time.

And by literally greening their cities, mayors solve a bunch of their citizens’ problems at once. In Quezon City in the Philippines, the government turned unused land into 337 gardens and 10 model farms, while training more than 4,000 urban farmers. The report also notes that Freetown, Sierra Leone, planted more than 550,000 trees, creating more than 600 jobs. In addition to significantly reducing urban temperatures, these green spaces also mitigate flooding by soaking up rainwater. “It is becoming clear, I think, to a lot of municipalities that this type of action will be absolutely essential,” said Dan Jasper, senior policy advisor at the climate solutions group Project Drawdown, which wasn’t involved in the report. “It’s not just about being uncomfortable. This is about protecting people’s lives.”

House Eating Mushrooms are Good for the Planet

the suburbs

For the last one hundred years in North America we’ve been building low density energy inefficient housing and now we need to deal with the economic and environmental harm from this approach. In Cleveland they are using mushrooms to deal with housing that is no longer habitable while also cleaning the local environment. Cleveland has a lot of homes left to the elements which are leaking dangerous chemicals into the soil, to address this there’s a company that takes the shreds of a building and converts into a great spot for mycelium to grow. It’s a very novel use of fungi and I’m sure we’ll see more fungi being used to address climate change at a local and even global level.

While digesting entire houses may seem like a mighty task for the humble mushroom, some species’ ability to devour waste and eradicate pollutants – among other characteristics – means they present an oversized opportunity to extract harmful toxins from both our built and natural environments. Along the way they may help to address a spectrum of additional ecological concerns. This is the emerging field of mycoremediation, which researchers assert could also create a “circular bioeconomy” in which less waste and contaminants are produced in the first place.

Its applications are abundant. In Delhi, India, the hope is that fungi will help to clean the infamously polluted air. In New Zealand, mushrooms have been used to filter oil from a canal. Operating across Europe, the LIFE MySOIL project has leveraged mycoremediation to reduce Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons in soil by 90% spanning three pilot sites. The list goes on.

Thanks to Mike!