First Fair Trade Town in USA

Buying fair trade is increasing in popularity, as any ThingsAreGood reader already knows, but it has taken a little longer for the World Bank to catch on. On the WB’s private sector development blog they announced today that fair trade is popular. Even if they are a little slow, good for the WB for figuring things out.

In the United States of America, a town has proclaimed itself to be the first town to be a fair trade community. These communities have existed in Europe for years now, but now that it’s happening in America let’s hope the idea continues to grow. Congrats go out to Media, Pennsylvania becoming a fair trade community.

“The Media Borough Council unanimously passed a resolution on June 15th supporting the concept of Fair Trade and promising to serve Fair Trade products at its meetings and functions. The resolution was the last goal necessary to become a Fair Trade town. The other goals are that a certain percentage of retailers and institutions sell and use Fair Trade products, widespread support and media coverage exist for Fair Trade, and an ongoing steering committee keeps the Fair Trade issue vital. Since there is as yet no national Fair Trade town initiative in the United States, Media, Pennsylvania used the goals established by the Fairtrade Foundation of Britain.”

Organic Farming Degree Offered

Washington State University has started accepting students for their organic farming degree program. This is a first in the USA, sure two other universities offer courses in organic farming, Colorado State and Michigan State, but offering a degree is new.

“WSU has high hopes for its new organic-agriculture major, both to attract new students and meet a growing demand for experts in organic farming. In the new Organic Agriculture Systems major, students will study subjects like weed science and entomology, work on the organic farm and can specialize further in areas such as organic farm economics.

The major, announced last month, drew a handful of students immediately; a university study predicts the program eventually will have about 40 people enrolled at any one time.”

A New Way to Produce Coal From Biomass

Markus Antonietti from Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces has devised a chemical process that converts biomass like leaves, pine cones and other plant residue into wet coal (coal + water).

Good news from Germany!
Markus Antonietti from Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces has devised a chemical process that converts biomass like leaves, pine cones and other plant residue into wet coal (coal + water). Biomass goes into the autoclave, a kind of pressure cooker, water goes in, too, along with a citric acid catalyst. A chemical reaction takes place and coal is produced.

The single major by-product of the reaction is water, which can be filtered off. In contrast to other biomass techniques this reaction does not generate carbon dioxide. It also gives a higher energy product, which even smells acceptable.

We underestimated this when we started. We could calculate how much energy was stored in the sugar – in the leaf material. But the first time – as you see – we had a runaway reaction, which is obviously dangerous, so we need to carry it out under safe conditions.

-Markus Antonietti

See Solar Run

A Drawing of the Sun from the USA EPA siteA solar cell absorbs a small range of light wavelengths based upon the density and width of silicon crystals. Light strikes the crystals and causes electrons to propagate along the network. We call this flow of electrons electricity.

More crystals of different widths in the network mean that more different wavelengths can be absorbed and more power can be generated. Adding different layers of crystals to absorb a wider range of wavelength is one way to increase the power, but the process to spread these crystals over a surface is very expensive and energy intensive.

Prism Solar Technologies is going a different path by splitting the incoming sunlight and concentrating specific wavelengths onto a variety of cells designed to collect those specific wavelengths, yielding 25% greater electricity yields. These concentrators and splitters are orders of magnitude cheaper to produce than solar cells and increase the power of each solar cell. Oh, by the way, the Prism splitter is clear.

How to Train Your Husband Like a Dolphin

A brilliant animal trainer named Amy Sutherland has been using animal training techniques on her husband with great results!

A brilliant animal trainer named Amy Sutherland has been using animal training techniques on her husband with great results!

She’s learned how to train wild animals, and is applying the same techniques to her husband Scott. She says her marriage is happier and smoother than it was before, and best of all, she doesn’t have to nag!

I hope this one helps smooth over a few rough marriages!