Inspirational and good news.
The Royal Bank of Canada has launched a series of grants for charities to promote all good things about water. There project is called Blue Water and they want you to promote good water stewardship. It looks like a great project that they have created, it would be really great to see RBC promote good water usage in their wretched tar sands investments.
You can also take a short quiz about your water knowledge.
Here’s a video about the work they did with National Geographic:
The G20 are coming to Toronto and it’s costing Canadian’s more than $1 billion in security costs, plus even more in lost productivity and wages. As a contrast to that, there are a series of events happening during the G20 conference that cost a heck of a lot less that brings together leaders of the world.
These leaders are getting together to ensure that at least on some level, people’s concerns are put ahead of corporate concerns.
Take, for example, the Council of Canadians (COC) public Shout-out for Global Justice on June 25.
Relocated to Massey Hall from the University of Toronto because the latter will be shut down for security reasons, it gathers prominent international speakers such as COC chair Maude Barlow, author-activist Naomi Klein and Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman who will call for climate, water, economic and social justice.
“These really are world leaders coming together — and we’re doing it for less than a billion dollars,†says Mark Calzavara, COC’s regional organizer for Ontario and Quebec.
As a bonus, these alternative summits don’t need fences!
In the future, oil spills could be partly cleaned up by bacteria that loves to eat all the dangerous goo in oil.
esearchers have discovered a new strain of bacteria that can produce non-toxic, comparatively inexpensive “rhamnolipids,†and effectively help degrade polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs – environmental pollutants that are one of the most harmful aspects of oil spills.
Because of its unique characteristics, this new bacterial strain could be of considerable value in the long-term cleanup of the massive Gulf Coast oil spill, scientists say.
More research to further reduce costs and scale up production would be needed before its commercial use, they added.
The findings on this new bacterial strain that degrades the PAHs in oil and other hydrocarbons were just published in a professional journal, Biotechnology Advances, by researchers from Oregon State University and two collaborating universities in China. OSU is filing for a patent on the discovery.
“PAHs are a widespread group of toxic, carcinogenic and mutagenic compounds, but also one of the biggest concerns about oil spills,†said Xihou Yin, a research assistant professor in the OSU College of Pharmacy.
The arrival of the G8 and G20 later this month to Ontario has a lot of Canadians upset – and those who aren’t are welcome to read some books. Canada’s largest bookstore chain has a display of books to read to learn about the complexities of what the G20 is all about.
It’s a good list of books that you should take a look at. Are there books you’d like to see on the list?
The book chain has created a reading list and series of G20 tables in its stores across Canada to “promote dialogue,†said Bahram Olfati, Chapters’ vice president for adult trade.
“You see people such as Bono talking about giving aid to Africa. We have included the book Dead Aid by Dambisa Moyo, which says this aid isn’t really helping,†said Olfati. “It is one of my favourite books on the tables.â€
With subheads such as “Outlaw Literature,†the tables are the product of a series of roundtable discussions among Chapters executives and staff to cover G20 issues from the left, right and centre, said Olfati.
But each store has the leeway to add to the table. And the one Chapters store inside the yellow security perimeter in downtown Toronto for the summit of 20 world leaders this month has decided to include titles by Chomsky, a long-time outspoken critic of U.S. foreign policy, and a few on Guevara, including Che: A Memoir by Fidel Castro.
You most likely know about the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that is seemingly never-ending and assumed you’d never see it mentioned on a website about good news. Well, it turns out enterprising people from the University of Pittsburgh have used the spill to test out their new polymer-based filter that successfully cleans water.
Don’t forget that one way to prevent oil spills is to use less oil in your own life.
Here’s a video (might want to turn down you speakers):
And here’s a press release from the university:
Gao’s filter hinges on a polymer that is both hydrophilic-it bonds with the hydrogen molecules in water-and oleophobic, meaning that it repels oil. When the polymer is applied to an ordinary cotton filter, it allows water to pass through but not oil. The filter is produced by submerging the cotton in a liquid solution containing the polymer then drying it in an oven or in open air, Gao explained.
For the massive slick off the U.S. Gulf Coast, Gao envisions large, trough-shaped filters that could be dragged through the water to capture surface oil. The oil could be recovered and stored and the filter reused. Current cleanup methods range from giant containment booms and absorbent skimmers to controlled fires and chemical dispersants with questionable effects on human health and the environment.