Saudi Arabia Plans for 100% Renewable Energy

67 year old Prince Turki Al Faisal Al Saud wants Saudi Arabia to be fully powered by renewable energy in his lifetime. Saudi Arabia is one of the largest oil producers in the world and is probably the most symbolic oil-rich nation. The fact that the country’s leaders want to transition away from oil despite the fact that they are oil rich highlights the need to stop relying on finite fossil fuels.

If Saudi Arabia can transition to renewable energy than the rest of the world can surely do it too.

However, he insisted Saudi was moving ahead with investment in renewable energy, nuclear power and other alternatives to fossil fuels and that it could use its vast oil reserves for other goods, such as plastics and polymers.

“Oil is more precious for us underground than as a fuel source,” he said. “If we can get to the point where we can replace fossil fuels and use oil to produce other products that are useful, that would be very good for the world. I wish that may be in my lifetime, but I don’t think it will be.”

Joss Garman, political director of Greenpeace, said: “It speaks volumes that a Saudi prince can see the benefits of switching to clean energy sources when [UK chancellor] George Osborne seemingly cannot, but Saudi Arabia will only truly be a green economy when it leaves its fossil fuels in the ground.”

More at The Guardian.

Seniors Who Are Social Are Healthier

Seniors who lead active lives like playing cards and generally hanging out with friends feel healthier and are healthier than there less social peers. Friends make things fun and keep you fit!

Dr. Nicole Anderson is a clinical neuropsychologist at Baycrest Health Sciences in Toronto, where she’s leading a research project called BRAVO. It looks at the effects of volunteering among adults aged 55 and older from physical, cognitive and social functioning perspectives.

“Engaging in more social activities was related to better self-reported health and less loneliness and more life satisfaction,” Anderson said of the Statistics Canada research. “But that relationship really depended on whether they felt that those social relations were of high quality. That substantiates the claim that quality is more important than quantity.”

It’s thought that social connectedness helps the immune system to work better, lower stress hormone levels and offers psychological benefits, Anderson said.

Read the rest of the article.

Bike Lanes Help Local Economies

As a cyclist the fact that bicycle infrastructure helps business makes senses to me. Bike lanes encourage more cyclists which can bring more people to an area, drivers on the other hand seem to just keep driving though. I hope the backwards thinking politicians in Toronto see this study since they recently decided to waste money on cars at the expense of cycling.

Whether businesses reached out and made their locations more bicycle friendly, or streets were redesigned to include bike lanes, the overall outcome has been increased spending in local neighborhoods. Shoppers who arrive in urban neighborhoods via cars may spend more in one sitting–but overall those who arrived on foot or by bicycling spent more month to month. The results indicate that neighborhoods and business districts that seek a healthier bottom line should work with municipalities and support such features as protected bike lanes, bicycle racks and pedestrian safety improvements.

Read more here.

An Extra 32 Minutes a Day for People in Greater Toronto

Your32 is an effort by CivicAction to promote a financially sustainable and more efficient transit solution for people living in the greater Toronto area (GTA). This project is a great way to engage the people in the GTA as the region is regressive when it comes to transportation, even going so far to remove bike lanes – the opposite of every other city of comparable size.

Your32 is promoting a region-wide plan that will improve transportation for everyone and echoes what other major cities are doing around the world.

There’s a plan in place to dramatically improve transportation in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area – one that could actually save you an average of 32 minutes on your daily commute. But it will take all of our support to help make it happen. Together, we’ll make transportation in the region more efficient and connect people in ways never dreamed of before. With your help we can create a Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area that’s, well, greater than ever.

Find out more and contribute at Your32.com.

Bhutan to go 100% Organic

Bhutan is an amazing little country that has banned cigarettes and measures its success not through the backwards-looking GDP but by Gross National Happiness. In another step to be the one of the friendliest to the environment, the Asian nation has now pledged to produce and consume only organic food!

“We have developed a strategy that is step-by-step. We cannot go organic overnight,” Gyamtsho said, describing a policy and roadmap which were formally adopted by the government last year.

“We have identified crops for which we can go organic immediately and certain crops for which we will have to phase out the use of chemicals, for rice in certain valleys for example.”

Bhutan’s only competitor for the first “100 percent organic” title is the tiny self-governing island of Niue in the South Pacific, which has a population of only 1,300. It aims to reach its objective by 2015-2020.

Nadia Scialabba, a global specialist on organic farming at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, says the organic food market and its premium prices are attractive for small countries and territories.

“This is happening in very small countries who are not competitive on quantity, but they would like to be competitive in quality,” she told AFP.

The global organics market was estimated to be worth 44.5 billion euros (57 billion dollars) in 2010, according to figures from the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture and the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements.

Read more.