Good Fact

Urban Farm Towers

- Adam Clare

farming

Urban farming is not a new idea, it’s such a great idea that it is often forgotten though. A solution to transporting food and improving urban air quality is literally under our feet, and can soon be over our heads. There is an ever growing need for using buildings in cities as farms and more companies are now behind the idea. Skyscrapers as farms just sounds cool!

Not to mention locally-grown produce for the residents of central London, Manhattan and Tokyo, eliminating the environmental costs of transport (with fresher lettuces to boot).
Skyscraper farms can operate year-round with artificial lighting, so, on average, one indoor acre is the equivalent to between four and six outdoors, and companies are vying to reap the financial rewards that come from this increased efficiency.

Via Tree Hugger

Planting Trees to Fight Climate Change

- Adam Clare

logoTree-Nation will plant 8 million trees in Africa in the shape of a huge heart to fight Climate Change and Poverty. We will create the park in Niger which is one of the poorest countries in the world, and one that suffers the most from climate change and desertification. Furthermore, we are affiliated with the United Nations Environment Program in support of each others projects.

We have built a great new kind of website that combines a community with our own mapping tool. Inspired by Google maps we built our own special version to be able to plant 8 million trees, all with blogs and profiles.

So via our website you can buy trees for yourself or offer and send one to someone you love, and people are doing this for Weddings, Valentines, new born babies, birthdays, to advertise a business, or simply to share some thoughts. You can plant a tree on a virtual map and a real tree will be planted in the same place in the real world. The virtual trees all have Tree-Blogs and Profiles so that you can keep in touch with the recipient and interact with others who have bought trees via our community. You can share ideas, photos, messages, make contacts and debate on environmental issues.

It really is exciting to see members buying trees, writing beautiful messages and then sending them to loved ones via our website.

Note: This was not written by me, but by Jeremiah from Tree Nation.

Charity Sector Jobs Grow in Popularity

- csreso

 Six out of 10 employees working in the commercial sector believe that the not-for-profit sector has shed its “cardigan brigade” label. Six out of 10 employees working in the commercial sector believe that the not-for-profit sector has shed its “cardigan brigade” label and offers strong career prospects, research shows.

A survey by forum3, organisers of a recruitment and volunteering event for the not-for-profit sector, showed 85% of people looking for a career change would consider working in the “third” sector. Most people cited being able to progress in a career while helping a greater cause (72%) as the top reason. In fact, 59% of people say that recent world events such as theLondon bombings, Asian tsunami and Live8 have caused them to consider working in the charity sector.

Pay remains the biggest barrier to attracting the best people, putting off 70% of commercial sector workers. However if pay levels were equal, the majority (90%) would consider progressing to a career in the charity sector. Deborah Hockham, project director for forum3 said: “It’s immensely encouraging to see that the not-for-profit sector is finally losing its cardigan brigade label and being viewed as a sector which can offer strong prospects. However, it is clear the sector has its work cut out in combating a number of misperceptions. As pay gaps have narrowed, and in many areas not-for-profit pay scales have become fully aligned with those in the commercial sector, the sector clearly needs to raise awareness of, and promote this message.” CharityEmployers.com has many Charity Jobs for Canadians, where Employers can post 5 jobs for free; with the vision of saving Canadian Charities thousands of dollars in recruitment advertising costs.

Editor’s note: There is also CharityVillage and CharityJobSearch, which are also online job sites in similar fields.

LifeStraw for Clean Water

- Adam Clare 2 Comments

lifestraw

Newsweek is running a story with an accompanying video about the the LifeStraw -a $3 gadget that cleans water. Regular readers here will remember that we covered the LifeStraw back in OCtober when LifeStraw was doing preliminary tests.

Most of the LifeStraw’s users will never drink anything fancier than plain water through the device. But its impact on their lives can’t be overstated. More than 1 billion people worldwide lack access to safe drinking water, and 6,000 people die each day of waterborne diseases like typhoid, cholera and dysentery. In regions like sub-Saharan Africa, half of most people’s water consumption takes place outside the home—either while they’re working, or walking to and from school. Vestergaard Frandsen S.A.—which also produces mosquito nets and plastic sheeting coated with insecticide to fend off malaria—hopes that the $3 LifeStraw will drastically lessen their chances of getting sick.

Satellites Find Ancient Egyptian Settlements

- Adam Clare

Satellite imagery can be used to raise awareness about people in trouble, and now satellite imagery is being used to find ancient settlements.

Images captured from space pinpoint telltale signs of previous habitation in the swatch of land 200 miles south of Cairo, which digging recently confirmed as an ancient settlement dating from about 400 A.D.

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