A Vietnamese electronics store located within the provincial capital of My Tho recently unveiled a towering 15-foot Christmas tree made of 2,500 recycled cell phones. The electronic store began collecting used and unwanted cell phones in April to create the impressive electronic Christmas tree. The residents contributed more than 2,500 old and unwanted free cell phones over the past year to create this phenomenal recycled Christmas tree.
Standing 4.5 meters or 15 feet tall, the cell phone Christmas tree has a festive greenish glow when fully lit. According to representatives, ten employees constructed the impressive tree over a 15 day period. The tree has 32 circular layers and weighs 500 kilos or 1,100 pounds. After the holidays, the Christmas tree will be auctioned to raise money for a local charity.
The store manager Tran Hoang Quan said they created Christmas tree to send a message of environmental awareness to the community while creating a festive statement and cutting down on electronic waste. Quan pointed out that each cell phone contains hundreds of components made with heavy metals, toxic materials and items that don’t decompose or have the potential to contaminate the environment, the soil and underground water supplies.
Quan explained that lead, plastics, bronze, mercury, rare minerals and heavy metals are found in cell phones and other electronic items. When deposited in landfills or improperly disposed, these everyday items can poison the environment. With their recycled cell phone Christmas tree, the electronic store is promoting environmental awareness and encouraging consumers around the world to do the right thing when disposing cell phones and electronics.
Vietnam has more than 110 million active cell phones that have an average lifespan of two years. Every year, the country disposes of 50 million unwanted cell phones with a total weight of 400 tons. In Vietnam and countries around the world, e-cycling programs are becoming increasingly important as a way to safely dispose of obsolete electronics and recover components that can be used to make new items. However, recycling isn’t the only option. Many groups have found creative ways to make functional, beautiful items using unwanted materials.
If you have an unwanted cell phone, return it to a service center, retail outlet or office supply center. Consumers can also consider donating items to organization that sell unwanted cell phones to recycling companies and use the proceeds to fund community programs.
When it comes to the sustainable management of the world’s golf courses, irrigation has always been a hot-potato issue. To help clarify the issues surrounding this controversy, researchers from the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands recently published the results of a 25-year study that analyzed the way one of Spain’s oldest golf courses uses reclaimed water for irrigation. The researchers concluded that the course’s plants are overwatered by an astonishing 83 percent.
"Excessive amounts of water are used...this cannot be justified from any perspective," according to lead author Maria del Pino Palacios Diaz of the university’s Department of Animal Pathology, Animal Production and Food Science and Technology.
Although the cost of water in the area is considered exorbitant, local golf courses continue to use more water than necessary. Overwatering the plants by such a high percentage helps to keep substances from building up in the soil, but raises the chance that the water in the aquifer beneath the area will be contaminated.
The study, published in the Spanish Journal of Agricultural Research, also examined the effect on the environment of using reclaimed water that had previously been desalinated for human use. Although this study only examined the effects on one course, Palacios Diaz believes the results could apply to other courses “in semi-arid or arid areas… with similar soil characteristics."
The golf course that was studied is irrigated with desalinated water that has been reclaimed and desalinated again. Reclaimed water is used in an attempt to lower the environmental impact of maintaining a lush green space in a naturally dry area. However, according to the researchers, there is more to protecting the environment than using recycled water. "The combination of water with low salinity and a high proportion of exchangeable sodium… can have a negative impact on the structural stability of soil, which loses fertility...because of losing its capacity to drain away water," said Palacios Diaz.
In addition, the researchers say that the quality of the water isn’t the only thing golf courses who wish to practice sustainable management should be concerned about. They should also be concerned about how much water is used and how often it is used. "It is assumed that the consequences only depend on the quality of the water, when in fact the other factors normally have a greater influence," according to the study.
Does that mean it’s time to put your golf clothes in mothballs? There’s no need for such drastic action, according to researchers. They suggest courses try "adapting the species and varieties...choosing types that are more tolerant of salinity and...reducing the cleaning requirements.” Interestingly, the course that was studied had done precisely that, but had never followed through by reducing the amount of water the plants were given.
As a result, the researchers call for watering amount and frequency to be calculated based on the needs of the plants used. Currently, local laws require the use of reclaimed water but do not address the sustainability criteria for the use of reclaimed water on golf courses. The reason behind this may be the complexity of the issue. According to the authors of the study, "Such criteria are poorly understood and, as a result, are generally not fulfilled."
New research conducted in the UK suggests that people not only want more green spaces in their communities but are willing to pay for them, as well. Residents of two communities would be willing to pay up to the equivalent of $46.83 in American money per month, or nearly $564.00 per year, for community green spaces. This is good news for community developers looking for ways to fund green spaces for their communities. The results suggest that developers hoping to capitalize on prime waterfront development might want to postpone that call to the construction equipment rental company, however.
Researchers from the University of Sheffield conducted surveys of residents of Manchester and Sheffield to determine how much people would agree to pay in additional taxes or housing costs for green spaces in their communities. They discovered that not only were people willing to pay more for community green spaces, the amount they were willing to pay increased as the spaces became more heavily wooded.
Citizens of Sheffield and Manchester were shown graphic proposals of various development projects that could be implemented in their areas and were asked how much additional money they would willingly pay for each proposal.
Residents of Whitworth Street in Manchester were willing to pay the equivalent of $2.29 additional each month to keep their street’s current state. They would pay the equivalent of an extra $2.52 per month for the addition of small ornamental trees. For large forest trees and a grass space, they would pay up to the equivalent of $3.65 extra per month.
Similarly, in Sheffield near Blonk Street, residents agreed to pay the equivalent of $6.69 more per month to maintain recent improvements that included a new footbridge, a riverside walkway and new flood defense projects. They would be willing to pay the equivalent of $12.53 more per month for additional landscaping in the area, and they would pay the equivalent of a whopping $16.93 per month if the riverside was returned to its natural state and native vegetation was reestablished.
When residents were asked how much they would pay for various development scenarios in the Nursery Street area alongside the River Don in Sheffield, researchers discovered that the greener the planned development, the more people would willingly pay. A scenario that would allow new development very close to the water’s edge was worth the equivalent of $6.06 to residents, while a plan that would create a green buffer between buildings and the river was valued at the equivalent of $10.77. When developers proposed creating a large green space, residents were willing to pay the equivalent of an extra $45.74 per month.
Funding for the project was provided by Interreg IVB North West Europe which is dedicated to promoting strong and prosperous communities. During the study, the University worked in cooperation with local policy makers including the South Yorkshire Forest Partnership and the Red Rose Forest, Greater Manchester´s Community Forest.
The study is part of the Valuing Attractive Landscapes in the Urban Economy (VALUE) project by South Yorkshire Forest Partnership, which is dedicated to demonstrating the economic value of community green spaces, in partnership with the University of Sheffield’s Urban River Corridors and Sustainable Living Agendas (URSULA) project. Ursula receives funding from the British government through the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).
"The results of this research will be used to help to improve the design of green infrastructure investments so that they more closely meet the preferences of the local communities that use them,” said John Henneberry, a professor at the University of Sheffield's Department of Town and Regional Planning
According to Tom Wild, who is the director of the South Yorkshire Forest Partnership. "This is great news and a really important piece of evidence. This work proves that attractive, green landscapes really do help create the right setting for investment, to help deliver more sustainable jobs and growth. It couldn't come at a better time, when we are all having to think more carefully about future priorities for what little funding is available.
***The following is a guest post for Save The Environment by Jim Vanne***As Blaise Pascal once noted, once science is divorced from ethics, scientists will use their skills to pursue power, not truth. Much of what is being reported today about anthropogenic (man caused) global warming is exactly a case in point for this. And why will scientists (some, not all, of course) do this? Simply due to an underlying worldview, as best evidenced by the 1974 Club of Rome report titled, Mankind at the Turning Point,which stated, “The real enemy then, is humanity itself.” Their solution, as Canada’s Free Press reports, was simple – engineer a massive reduction in population and utterly change the socio-economic system through centralized planning via total government control. This explains there very obvious reason why global warming is invariably associated with the left, and why, for example, Nancy Pelosi famously claimed that "Every aspect of our lives must be subjected to an inventory ... of how we are taking responsibility." George Orwell could not have phrased this dystopian un-vision better!
The first cudgel in the warmers’ arsenal is that of claiming a “consensus.” How does the consensus argument stand up to examination? First, science has never, ever been decided by consensus. Rather, it has invariably been determined by experimentation and hypothesis testing, tempered by a healthy dose of free, unconstrained peer-review. One need look no further for evidence of this than by quoting as Galileo Galilei, another contrarian astronomer once stated about the so-called “consensus” of his age, "In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual." If one needs a more recent scientist saying the same thing, look no further than the famed Richard P. Feynman, known for his work on quantum mechanics and the theory of quantum electrodynamics, who simply noted that rather than consensus, “Experiment is the sole judge of scientific truth.” (Or as one writer at ClimateRealists.com summarizes Feynman, “It does not matter who you are, or how smart you are, or what title you have, or how many of you there are, and certainly not how many papers your side has published, if your prediction is wrong then your hypothesis is wrong. Period.” Unfortunately, Al Gore, who flunked out of grad school in a humanities area, missed that lesson. Ultimately, the real proof the global warmers use is spelled out by FrontPageMag.com, which notes that “alarmists are right about climate change because alarmists who believe they are right about climate change publish a lot of papers that demonstrate how right they are about climate change.”
Similar to the observations made in Thomas Kuhn’s seminal work, The Structure of Scientific Revolution, Paul Davies, in the introduction to his book on Feynman, Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics, notes similarly that “There is a popular misconception that science is an impersonal, dispassionate, and thoroughly objective enterprise. Whereas most other human activities are dominated by fashions, fads and personalities, science is supposed to be constrained by agreed rules of procedure and rigorous tests. It is the results that count, not the people who produce them. This is, of course, manifest nonsense. Science is a people driven activity like all human endeavour, and just as subject to fashion and whim. In this case, fashion is set not so much by choice of subject matter, but the way scientists think about the world.” And, unfortunately, there is one way to think about the world - the politically correct way. Otherwise you figuratively or literally starve, shunned and alone, under the modern day climactic Robespierres.
A couple history lessons are instructive: In the 1800s, before Pasteur’s discoveries, Ignaz Semmelweis insisted doctors wash their hands between obstetric patients. Deaths dropped dramatically in his Vienna hospital. Unfortunately, as Wikipedia blandly puts it, “Semmelweis's observations conflicted with the established scientific and medical opinions of the time and his ideas were rejected by the medical community. Some doctors were offended at the suggestion that they should wash their hands… and (his hand washing) practice earned widespread acceptance only years after his death.” Ironically, in 1865, Semmelweis was committed to an asylum, where he died of septicemia, at age 47. And if one thinks death, or death threats, are hyperbole, look no further than Dr. Tim Ball, Univ. of Winnipeg climatologist, who spoke out against the warmists in a documentary titled The Great Global Warming Swindle. For his heresy, Ball has received death threats, such as: "If you continue to speak out, you won't live to see further global warming…” Ann Coulter summarizes this sorry occurrence by noting “Global warming is supposed to be "science." It's hard to imagine Niels Bohr responding to Albert Einstein's letter questioning quantum mechanics with a statement like: ‘If you continue to speak out, you won't live to see further quantum mechanics...’" Of course, in Coulter’s inimitable style, she then added about the faux religion of Greenism, “Only a false religion needs hate mail, threats, courts of inquisition and Hollywood movies to sustain it.”
Similarly, the “consensus” argument was also wielded by none other than Adolf Hitler and his Nazis (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, or National Socialist Workers’ Party) against Albert Einstein. Just consider the book One Hundred Authors against Einstein, from http://www.ekkehard-friebe.de/Hundert-Autoren.pdf/ In response, Einstein simply noted, why 100? Only one would be needed, if his data were correct. Sadly, the left and its warmers – as was said about the feckless Bourbon kings by Talleyrand - have learned nothing, and they have forgotten nothing.
In sum, the consensus has no merit, either historically or scientifically. Rather, it is being wielded as a rhetorical device to hid the fact that the global warming emperor has no clothes.
Information on the health risks of consuming pesticides and chemicals from fruits and vegetables has grown as the public demands answers, alarmed over possible health risks.
Even so, many are under the misconception that thoroughly washing fruits and vegetables solves the problem of pesticides and the resultant health risks. Yet, studies have shown that produce can absorb pesticides and chemicals through the skin, contaminating our food.
Recent revelations from the EPA state, in part: ‘There are over 20,000 pesticide products containing 620 active ingredients on the market. Each year, 1 billion pounds of active ingredients in conventional pesticides are applied in the United States. There are over 80,000 existing chemicals on the TSCA inventory and each year an additional 2,000 chemicals are added. Release of these chemicals into the environment through agricultural and nonagricultural application and other means poses serious risks to both human health and ecosystems (e.g., plant and wildlife). Humans are exposed to thousands of these agents either singly or in various combinations every day through air, drinking water, food and dust particles.’
There has been an ongoing problem with analysis of the health risks of pesticides and chemicals, as using humans for blind-studies are unethical at best. This leaves studies of farmers and farm workers who are exposed to pesticides and chemicals, sometimes in high concentration, as well as those in the public who fall ill from the effects of pesticides.
The consensus?
Studies of individuals suffering from Hodgkin lymphoma and leukemia reflected a positive association with pesticide exposure. In fact the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants has gone on record by stating that 10 of the 12 most dangerous chemicals are pesticides.
Other studies have shown that pesticide exposure can cause brain, kidney, breast, prostrate, pancreas, liver, lung, and skin cancers, through both residential and occupational exposure. Additionally, exposure to chemicals and pesticides has been linked to childhood cancers and birth defects.
So, what can be done to reduce these risks?
Buying organic is one solution, but many caught in the current financial downswing may find the costs prohibitive. Even for those able to afford the higher cost of organic food, S.510, the “Food Safety Bill” may take that choice away by regulating organic growers out of business with egregious regulations and red tape.
The good news is there is a solution, and it lies in your back yard, porch, or patio. Heirloom or Hybrid seed produce healthy fruits and vegetables for a fraction of the costs of buying organic. There are other benefits tied to gardening with these seed, and for many of us, it begins with knowing what goes into our bodies. Growing your own garden food will provide nutritious meals in spite of what the economy does and it solves the problem of skyrocketing food prices and food shortages.
Gardening allows you to replace harmful pesticides with natural methods. Here are just a few natural remedies: horseradish keeps potato bugs away; mint controls cabbage butterflies, ants, and mice; garlic and red pepper spray will rid the garden of moth caterpillar; pepper spray repels rabbits; corn and grapes can be protected from cabbage worms and red spider mites by planting geraniums nearby; and slugs and snails are controlled with wormwood spray.
Perhaps it is time to join the ever-growing movement towards gardening for delicious, healthy produce on your terms at a cost that will not leave your pocket book empty.
If there was an unexpected emergency, do you have a 72-hour emergency kit in your car that will get you home safely? And when you arrive is there enough food, water and medical supplies to see you and your loved ones past a short-term or long-term crisis? If the answer is no, Survival Diva offers common sense, drama-free advice on bullets, bandages and food storage that won't break the bank!
Join the fun at Survival Diva blog for more heads-up on current events and budget-saving advice on food storage and all things preparedness related http://www.survivaldiva.com/
Investors looking for the next big thing after a hydrocarbon economy have a panoply of options, from solar to wind, as well as biofuels.
In terms of quickly ramping up production biofuels clearly win the race, but navigating the PR fluff and reality is not a simple thing.
The three main contenders for investor dollars are algae, jatropha and camelina. All have strengths and weaknesses, leaving investors to choose amongst them. Stripped of PR flummery, the only issue is where and when production can begin on a viable commercial scale. Investors who unravel the complexities of biofuel production and have cast-iron stomachs stand to profit, but biofuel production in the U.S, while having major players like Goldman Sachs and the Carlyle Group, are moving their chess pieces around a board already gamed by the major players.
While everyone agrees that biofuels are the future, investment is lagging.
But the interest is there. Fuel and oil comprise 25 percent of civilian airlines' operating costs. When the price of jet fuel rises one cent, it increases the global cost of aviation $195 million.
Camelina as an additive is a "drop in" fuel - engines need no modification, and a series of Pentagon tests over the last two years have proven its feasibility as something to add to a 50 percent JP-8 blend. The Pentagon
So why, no U.S. production?
The answers are both complex and simple.
First, new biofuels are up against the well established ethanol lobby.
Secondly, given renewables' battle against the ethanol Goliath, there are yet exist no subsidies, crop insurance or any other incentives to bring farmers onboard to provide camelina feedstock, and farmers are hardly the most progressive green community.
Accordingly, U.S. companies such as Sustainable Oils face an uphill battle to sign up farmers, one by one.
But the technology exists, the product has been approved, most notably to fuel USAF C-17 Globemasters, as further Pentagon weapons testing continues.
Unfortunately for biofuel producers, the Pentagon only purchases fuel, and does not invest.
So, at the end of the day, the Pentagon role is passive - as for the civilian market, they are awaiting commercial volumes to be produced.
U.S. production to ramp up camelina derivatives is constrained by a lack of subsidies, crop insurance and record-high commodity prices for such alterrnatives as ethanol's major feedstock, corn.
But camelina's future as a civilian aircraft biofuel has been validated by the March announcement that a European consortium announced a project to produce Jet A-1 for civilian aircraft. European aircraft manufacturer Airbus and Romanian state-owned airline Tarom and a consortium of partners announced plans to establish a bio-fuel production center in Romania to manufacture fuel for the airline industry.
An American company is also prosing to produce biofuel in Uzbekistan.
So, the question is - how ironclad are investors' stomachs? The question is no longer if biofuel will be produced - only where and when. Given that it is ultimately an agricultural product, sharp investors may see their profits expand before the end of a growing season.
What in the world is going on over in Japan? The Japan nuclear crisis seems to get worse with each passing day. Right now environmental activists all over the world are beginning to have grave concerns about the lasting damage to the environment that is going to be caused by all of this radiation. Sadly, this crisis has already become worse than Chernobyl. Chernobyl was a nightmare, but it only burned for 10 days. The authorities in Japan are telling us that the nuclear crisis at Fukushima could go on for "weeks" or "months". There is no telling just how many millions of people will have serious health problems as a result of all this. Meanwhile, many environmentalists are seriously proposing that we should build more nuclear plants as a way to "save the environment". It is as if people simply cannot learn.
Now the Japanese authorities are telling us that 11,500 tons of "moderately radioactive" water is going to be purposely released into the Pacific Ocean.
Are they nuts?
Have they completely lost their minds?
It has also come out that there are huge holes through which massive amounts of highly radioactive water have been constantly pouring into the ocean.
The pay is apparently going to be very good, so if you go over there you could end up with a lot of extra cash.
But you might not live long enough to spend much of it.
In the United States, we now also have to worry about radiation in milk.
There have already been reports of radioactive material showing up in milk in Washington, California and Arizona.
Ick!
So far, most of the attention in the mainstream media has been focused on the radioactive iodine-131 that is being released at Fukushima.
But iodine-131 only has a half-life of about 8 days.
The radioactive cesium-137 being released at Fukushima could end up being a much larger long-term threat.
As I wrote about recently, radioactive cesium-137 is being released at 60% of the level that it was being released at during the Chernobyl disaster.
Considering the fact that Cesium-137 has a half-life of approximately 30 years, that is a very sobering statistic.
So will cesium-137 be showing up in our water, milk and food for many years to come?
That is not a pleasant thing to think about.
Let us hope and pray that the folks over in Japan get their act together.
We certainly are doing our best to destroy the environment. We have already polluted the earth so badly that it is pretty much impossible for humanity to repair it.
Meanwhile, many in the "green movement" actually want more nuclear reactors. Apparently those "environmentalists" fear the myth of global warming far more than the threat of more nuclear holocausts.
Hopefully what is happening in Japan will cause at least some environmentalists to wake up. This is one of the greatest environmental disasters of all time and it should cause all of us to reevaluate what we believe about nuclear energy.
There is at least one nuclear expert that claims that it will be 50 to 100 years before any of the spent nuclear fuel rods at the Fukushima complex will cool down enough to be removed from the facility.
That is a long time to wait.
Are the Japanese going to wait much longer to implement the "Chernobyl solution"?
Will the "Chernobyl solution" even work in this case?
There are a lot of questions that we don't have answers to right now.
But what we do know is that this facility is constantly putting out massive amounts of radiation which will have an impact on the environment for many years to come.
Let us pray that this crisis does not last much longer because it is already a horror of unprecedented magnitude.
If you care about the environment, you should not want this to ever happen again. It is time to completely reexamine what we believe about nuclear power.
Lab tests have confirmed that water throughout the Gulf of Mexico is now very highly toxic. A couple of "independent journalists" were able to obtain water samples from the Gulf and send them out to a scientific laboratory for testing. The samples sent in were from along the shore in Louisiana and also from 20 miles out. The results were absolutely shocking. The tests found concentrations of propylene glycol at between 360 and 440 parts per million. Needless to say, that is extremely alarming. Propylene glycol at just 25 parts per million will kill most fish. So what in the world is going to happen to fish that encounter this kind of toxic soup? It is going to be a complete and total nightmare for them. So where is all of this propylene glycol coming from? Well, propylene glycol is one of the key ingredients found in the various Corexit brand dispersants that BP has been using in the Gulf of Mexico. Up to this point, BP has dumped over a million gallons of such dispersants into the Gulf. So instead of actually saving the environment of the Gulf of Mexico, BP is rapidly poisoning it. The destruction of sea life is going to be on a scale that is absolutely unimaginable.
A video detailing these lab tests was recently posted on YouTube....
The following is the description for the video that was posted on YouTube....
Oil and water samples were taken from both the Shores of Grand Isle and from 20 miles out. The preliminary analysis was done at an academic analytical chemistry laboratory. Looking for the likely pollutants from the deep water Horizon Oil spill. It was focused on the detection of benzene and propylene glycol. Benzene and other highly toxic contaminants were very low however the concentration of propylene glycol was between 360 and 440 parts per million. Just 25 parts per million is know to kill most fish and propylene glycol is just one of many ingredients found in Corexit. In short, the Gulf is being poisoned by BP's usage of the dispersants even after the EPA asked them to stop back in May. We are willing to provide ANY respected/known laboratory these samples or provide them with more. This is very serious to all people and marine life in and around the Gulf.
A Vietnamese electronics store located within the provincial capital of My Tho recently unveiled a towering 15-foot Christmas tree made of 2,500 recycled cell phones. The electronic store began collecting used and unwanted cell phones in April to create the impressive electronic Christmas tree. The residents contributed more than 2,500 old and unwanted free cell phones over the past year to create this phenomenal recycled Christmas tree.
