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General Electric has unveiled a light bulb they say will last 17 years.
"This is a bulb that can virtually light your kid's bedroom desk lamp from birth through high school graduation," says John Strainic of GE Lighting.
The 40-watt light bulb named the "GE Energy Smart LED" is scheduled to become available to consumers in 2011. GE states that the bulb will consume 9 watts, provide a 77% energy savings and be approximately as bright as 40-watt incandescent bulb.
Sounds too good to be true, doesn't it? Well, there is one slight hitch. Since these bulbs are supposed to last for nearly two decades, sales will plummet; but, prices will soar. What goes up, must come down or vice versa. Be prepared to spend between $40-$50 US a bulb. Yup, $40-$50 a bulb a pop.
What is even worse is that we might be legislated into buying these bulbs. Call me paranoid; but, I see the thin edge of the wedge happening here.
In April, the Canadian government announced it would ban inefficient light bulbs by 2012. The U.S. also plans to wean its citizens off inefficient light bulbs between 2012 and 2014.
Via torontosun.com
A polar bear named Debby, who recently passed away in a zoo in Canada, is thought to be the longest living of her species. Debbie was 42 when she died in November 2008 at the Winnipeg, Manitoba zoo. Wild polar bears usually only live half that long.
Alfred Nobel was the Swedish technologist credited with inventing dynamite in 1866-67. He became very rich as a result and bequeathed his wealth to a foundation that would offer prizes for contributions to science, literature and the promotion of peace.
There's a lot of power in a bolt of lightning. One stroke discharges from 10 - 100,000,000 volts of electricity. An average lightning strike has 30,000 amperes.
The South African Sandbox tree could be dangerous. When its fruit is ripe, it explodes so forcefully that its seeds are sent flying 15' from the main trunk, and the noise is so loud, it can scare passers-by.
"There is no drop of water in the ocean, not even in the deepest parts of the abyss, that does not know and respond to the mysterious forces that create the tide."
- Rachel Carson
"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
This is the typical exterior of a Wal-Mart
HOW BIG IS WAL-MART? Wal-Mart is one of my favourite institutions to hate. They make an obscene amount of money on the backs of their under-paid, over-worked employees. They have descrecated an ancient Indian burial mound for part of their developments, been found guilty of misleading labelling, and many of their products are sourced from places that use child labour and inhumane working conditions. Read on...and weep!
1. At Wal-Mart, Americans spend $36,000,000 every hour of every day or $864,000 a day.
2. This works out to $20,928 profit every minute!
3.. Wal-Mart will sell more from January 1 to St. Patrick's Day (March 17th) than Target sells all year.
4. Wal-Mart is bigger than Home Depot + Kroger + Target + Sears + Costco + K-Mart combined.
5. Wal-Mart employs 1.6 million people and is the largest private employer. And most can't speak English. Remember the sourcing of products from countries that allow child labour and inhumane working conditions.
6. Wal-Mart is the largest company in the history of the World.
7. Wal-Mart now sells more food than Kroger & Safeway combined, keeping in mind they did this in only 15 years.
8. During this same period, 31 Supermarket chains sought bankruptcy (including Winn-Dixie).
9. Wal-Mart now sells more food than any other store in the world.
10. Wal-Mart has approx 3,900 stores in the USA of which 1,906 are Super Centers; this is 1,000 more than it had 5 years ago.
11. This year, 7.2 billion different purchasing experiences will occur at a Wal-Mart store. (Earth's population is approximately 6.5 billion.)
12. 90% of all Americans live within 15 miles of a Wal-Mart.
13. The value of product for Wal-Mart passing through the port of San Diego each year is more than 93% of ALL countries Gross National Product (GNP)...and that is only ONE port ...and only one way that Wal-Mart gets it's stuff.
14. Of the 1.6 million employees, only 1.2% make a living above the poverty level. Another example of Wal-Mart's concern for it employees.
15. Wal-Mart's head office is located and centralized in Bentonville. Due to this fact, there are more millionaires per square mile there than any place on Earth.
16. The official U.S. Government position is that Wal-Mart's prices are no lower than anyone else's when compared to a typical family's weekly purchases. That's the view of the statisticians at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) responsible for calculating the consumer price index (CPI).
17. 92% of everything Wal-Mart sells, comes from China. Another 4% comes from Chinese-owned companies in the U.S. or in third world countries. There have been many scandals involving Chinese-sourced products: unsafe lead levels in toys, melamine-tainted milk scandal; and, many others.
18. Wal-Mart and MOST large companies, take out life insurance on it's employees, without their knowledge. If an employee dies, ALL the insurance monies go to the companies (NOT the family). i.e. An employee making $18,000 per year, dies, and the company might make as much as $1 million. Most often these monies is put into a fund they have nicknamed the "Dead Peasant Life Insurance Policies", and is used to pay out executives as bonuses. (A common practice, unknown by the common man.) Pretty damn disgusting, if you ask me. (Another example of how Wal-Mart care for its employees.)
19. Wal-Mart now averages a "profit" (not sales) of $36 billion per year. How about giving the 98.8% of your employees you are allowing to live below the poverty line a raise? Statistics show you can well afford it.
20. Let Wal-Mart bail out Wall Street. If not, consider shopping someplace else.
The two sayings "saved by the bell" and "graveyard shift" share a common heritage?
"Saved by the Bell" came about centuries ago when medicine was not as accurate as it is today. Unfortunately, it was found that the occasional person was buried alive due to medical error. In an effort to rectify this, people were buried with a bell line tied to their finger at one end and a bell at the other. The theory was that if the deceased were not really deceased, when they woke up and realized where they were, they would move around, the bell would ring and they could be rescued. It did prove successful in a couple of cases.
For the first several nights after a burial, someone was paid to stay in the graveyard throughout the night listening for the sound of the bell. If the bell rang on their shift, they summoned help and the "deceased" was rescued. The person doing this job was referred to having "the graveyard shift".
Photos courtesy: Yanko Design
We've all done it. Most of us will do it again. We forget, or are too lazy, to pack a lunch so we grab something on the go. By now, we feel guilty (***gasp***)about the cost of buying lunch out (again!); so, we try to go for nutrition to assuage our guilt. Salad and a yogurt - yep, sounds healthy (and relatively guilt-free).
While most places are savvy enough to pack a fork with that take-out salad, not so for the yogurt. Trying to eat your yogurt with your fork is similar to trying to carry water in a bucket with a hole in it. By no means satisfactory; but, then neither is trying to drink your yogurt from the container (which seems to be the only other option).
This where Yanko Design comes in. One of their designers, Cho Hye-seung, has come up with what he calls the Yogurt Spoon Package Design. When you take the lid off the container, you are able to fold it into a spoon. The instructions are on the side of the container. Clever design, inventive way to make packaging more useful and/or minimize the amount of plastic used during fast-grab lunches and/or reduce the necessity for a plastic spoon when enjoying yogurt on the go.
There is; however, one flaw in the design. I like a clean lid on anything I am going to eat or drink due to possible (if improbable) contamination during the lid-removal process. If I was going to use the lid as a spoon, I would want that lid spotless and sanitary - hence, the flaw.
The solution Yanko Design came up with was wrapping the entire container in yet another layer of plastic. Overkill in my opinion. All that is required is that the lid itself be protected. However, the designer is to be applauded for thinking "green" and trying to develop a product that adds less waste to the environment.
Let's hope this type of thinking goes viral!
Photo courtesy: reinerschubert via flickr/Creative Commons
Contamination is rampant in our oceans, our rivers, our groundwater and every other source of water on the face of the planet. We all need water to survive; and, most of us can only go 3 days without it before dehydration finally claims us. Lack of clean drinking water threatens huge numbers of people already; and, will threaten every living being on the planet within the next decade.
There is a new discovery that just may help to solve the clean water water and might also make the College of Wooster a household name. Dr. Paul L. Edmiston, from the College, has developed a silica-based "glass" that absorbs toxins in water. Both scientists and environmental advocates are excited and hopeful about the possibilities this discovery promises.
Dr. Edmiston, patented the glass under the name of Obsorb and formed a new company, Absorbent Materials, in order to market the new glass. The glass is being tested at various sites across the United States. Possibly, the major attraction is that it will not be only the industrialized, wealthy countries that can take advantage of this discovery; but, its unique properties make it accessible for low-tech, low-budget cleanups in developing countries is well.
CleanTechnica has this to say:
Patented under the name “Obsorb,” this space-age glass binds with gasoline and other pollutants containing volatile organic compounds but it does not bind with water, so it acts like a “smart” sponge, capable of picking and choosing from contaminated groundwater.
When Obsorb comes in contact with VOCs (volatile organic compounds) in water, the glass absorbs them within its compound without reacting with the water. The glass has a nano-matrix structure which means it can unfold to absorb the contaminants up to eight times its own weight. Added to this is the fact that the glass can be cleaned and reused hundreds of times making it very environmentally friendly. At the present time, there are three variations of the material available to reclamation firms and government agencies involved in the clean-up and/or remedial toxic groundwater contamination sites.
This swelling glass could have huge practical and financial implications for the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) as well as the Department of Energy, which currently lists 4,000 priority contamination sites representing around $250 to $350 billion in potential remediation costs.
At a recent pilot demonstration in Ohio, Obsorb was used in the form of a white powder to suck up a plume of TCE (a volatile organic compound). TCE is incredibly difficult and expensive to clean up using the methods we have developed to date. For this reason some contaminated sites are simply shut down allowing the vapors to dissipate naturally. Not very environmentally friendly; and, totally unsatisfactory, if you ask me. The process takes decades, so Obsorb's potential to provide a low-cost means of recovering sites becomes apparent.
When utilized at a contamination site, once the Obsorb has reached its maximum capacity, it floats to the surface. A filter or skimmer can then be used to scoop up the glass which is cleaned and returned to the site.
Via greenUpgrader and CleanTechnica.com
"The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do."
- Galileo Galilei, astronomer.
The 700-plus-foot vessel leaked oil into the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park near Great Keppel Island off the east coast of Queensland state. (Australian Maritime Safety Authority / April 4, 2010) Photo courtesy: Los Angeles Times
Easter Sunday, one of most sacred of all religious holidays found a Chinese-owned bulk coal carrier rammed into one of the most environmentally-sensitive coral reefs in the world. The Shen Neng 1 had run full speed into the Great Barrier Reef near Australia on Saturday, April 3, 2010. Australian officials are now racing to try to prevent as much of the cargo from escaping into surrounding waters as possible.
The Great Barrier Reef is one of the wonders of the natural world and was selected as World Heritage Site in 1981. Peter Garrett, Environmental Protection Minister, says the Australian government is extremely concerned about the effect an oil spill would have on the reef.
Environmentalists are horrified at the possible damage the accident might cause to the ecosystem. This is no small ecosystem, it is more than 1,200 miles long and comprises more than 3,000 individual reefs, cays and islands, providing a habitat for countless sea species. Coral reefs are an incredibly rich source of marine species. While coral reefs cover slightly less than 1% of the oceans, they are home to approximately 25% of all identified marine species; and, the Great Barrier Reef is the largest coral reef in the world.
The Great Barrier Reef is like any other coral reef in that it is built of small, colonial animals that grow one on top of the other building on the dead shells of each other. These skeletons of calcium carbonate fuse together into a rock-like formation that can cut through the hull of any ship like a hot knife through butter.
The real damage is not only what has been done to the reef; but, the potential damage the roughly 300,000 gallons of heavy fuel oil it carries will do to the environment and marine species it coats. The damage to the reef will take decades, if not centuries, to repair; as, coral is notoriously slow growing.
Shipping companies still bear the lions' share of the guilt when it comes to environmental disasters like this even if they have never run aground or spilled one drop of their fuel into the ocean. Why?
Shipping companies (and the powers that run them) have turned a blind eye to the type of fuel used in their ships. These companies favour (and use) a low-grade fuel that is cheap. However, it is also incredibly viscous (thick and sludgy) and needs to be heated before being injected into the engines. This alone should be a red flag AND a warning bell.
The gooey texture of the sludge they use for fuel makes this class of fuel an ecological and environmental nightmare if it escapes into the ocean. It coats birds, fish, and other wildlife causing almost certain death. It is difficult to clean up; and, therefore washes onto corals and beaches to be held for decades before the area finally returns to pre-spill status.
Great Keppel Island, about 340 miles north of Brisbane,is a major tourist destination on the Great Barrier Reef and has provided Australia with a source of both national pride and tourist dollars. The Shen Neng 1 has floundered about nine miles outside of a shipping lane. There appears to be an oil leak that has travelled into the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park near Keppel Island.
Despite all the measures the government has taken in recent decades to protect this national natural treasure, the reef has suffered significant decline from overfishing, fertilizer runoff from agriculture, and coral bleaching from hotter water than usual associated with global warming.
Marine ecologists often talk about oil spills as the tipping point that can push coral reefs or other undersea areas past the point from which they can recover; particularly, if their resilience has been weakened by other chronic stresses.
"Climate change is a problem for virtually all coral reefs, and fishing has had some problem there," said Ben Halpern, a marine ecologist at UC Santa Barbara. "If you add into that a major oil spill, it tends to push the system past the tipping point."
What happens beyond that point, Halpern said, is the subject of much study. What's known is that corals tend to die and the reefs become overgrown with invasive algae. Then the fish and other marine life that rely on a living reef can no longer survive.
"This is a serious situation and we've mobilized air, sea and land resources in response," Queensland Premier Anna Bligh said.
"The situation remains serious as the extent of the damage means that there is a very real risk that the vessel may break apart. Every effort is now being made to limit the impact of this incident."
What hasn't been mentioned so far in this blog is that the Shen Neng 1 was in a restricted zone of the park. The impact sliced open the fuel tanks prompting Australian officials to activate a national oil spill response plant.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau will be conducting a full investigation of how the incident occurred and why the Shen Neng 1 was in a restricted zone. The carrier ran aground on a shoal and is not expected to be moved without salvage assistance.
Capricorn Conservation Council, a national environmental group, said in a release that it was "horrified that a Chinese coal carrier has run aground near Great Keppel Island."
The group called for a marine pilot to be required for all vessels operating in the area.
"We can be certain that this is a sign of things to come," spokesman Ian Herbert said.
"Who knows what damage will be done to our local coral reefs and marine animals from the oil spill from the ship. We are outraged that no marine pilot is required on ships between Gladstone and Cairns. This will increase the likelihood of similar events."
Via Care2 and Los Angeles Times
All photos courtesy: Care2
This is reprinted from Care2. I have made my own comments in the brackets at the end of each point.
1. Double or triple your normal recipes and freeze the leftovers. You’ll dramatically cut down the cost of buying prepared and packaged foods. And, you’ll eat healthier when you’re tired or in a pinch for time. (Items like spaghetti, chili and stew freeze well and reheat easily.)
2. Use seasonal fruits and vegetables as much as possible. When food is in season it is cheaper. Plus, you’ll be doing your part for the environment by eating more locally grown food. (Root vegetables such as turnips, parsnips, beets, etc. are usually very modestly priced all year round plus they are absolute powerhouses of nutrition. Baked "rooties" make a delicious side dish or main dish if you are vegetarian. Just take your root vegetables, place in an oiled casserole dish, season well and bake.)
3. Watch for sales. Plan your meals around some of the cheaper sale items you find. (Many supermarkets will have a "reduced for quick sale" section. Check it out!)
4. Add more beans to your diet. Beans are not only the “magical fruit” they can work magic on your budget since they are super nutritious and cheap. Dried beans can be cooked effortlessly overnight in a slow cooker. Place 1 cup dried beans and 6 cups water in a slow cooker before going to bed and cook on low overnight. Drain and rinse in the morning and they are ready for use in your soup, stew, chili, salad, or other recipes.
5. Eat more vegetarian meals. Meat tends to be more expensive (not to mention takes a higher toll on the environment and your body). (Her brackets not mine.)
6. Take a page from the chef’s notebook: use mirepoix as a base for many soups, stews, and rice dishes. Mirepoix is a fancy-sounding French word simply means chopped onions, celery, and carrots. These are among the cheapest vegetables and they add lots of flavor to your meals. (When making a stew, chili or soup, grate additional veggies into the broth. I would grate a zucchini, potato, and/or turnip into the stew at the start of the broth making. Once the stew was complete, the grated veggies had dissolved into the broth making it richer, more flavourful, slightly thicker, and more nutritious. Of course, all the rest of the vegetables you would expect to see in a stew were there; and, you could see those too.)
7. Shop at your local farmers markets instead of grocery stores as much as possible. Most farmers’ market food doesn’t have the built-in costs of lengthy transportation, distributors, warehousing, and other costs. Plus, the food is fresher and frequently more nutritious, and eating locally is better for the environment. (Amen!)
8. Grow your own sprouts and herbs. Growing your own sprouts is much easier than you think. Not sure how? Click here for my article on how to Grow Your Own Sprouts.
9. Buy seasonal produce in bulk and freeze it. From berries to sliced peaches, to chopped green and red peppers, many fruits and vegetables can be frozen. (Or dehydrated.)
10. Hit the bulk bins at your local health food or grocery store. Here’s where you’ll find the lower cost whole grains, beans, seeds, nuts, and flour. They’re usually substantially cheaper than their packaged counterparts. And, less packaging is good for your wallet and the planet.
11. Shop the perimeter of your grocery store. You’ll find the fresh, healthier options there. The center aisles are primarily reserved for the packaged, convenience foods that tend to cost more and be full of dangerous additives, trans fats, and sugar. (This may be the only place where being on the outside looking in is a good thing.)
12. Make your own snacks. Prepared snack foods are not only full of junk ingredients that you should avoid, they tend to be expensive. Make a batch of cookies, muffins, or other snack food with wholesome natural ingredients. (Don't forget to make extra and freeze.)
13. Plan ahead. A few minutes of planning the meals you’ll make and your grocery list can save you plenty of cash on impulse purchases you’ll be less likely to make.
Eating healthy doesn’t have to be costly.
Via Care2
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