Alternative Fuel in Haiti

Wine by Boat

Eco-friendly French to ship their wine under sail60,000 bottles on a 19th-century barque from Bordeaux to Dublin is just the start

French vineyard owners are returning to a slower pace of life by starting to export their wine by sailing boat - a method last used in the 1800s - to reduce their carbon footprint.

Later this month 60,000 bottles from Languedoc will be shipped to Ireland in a 19th-century barque, saving 18,375lb of carbon. Further voyages to Bristol, Manchester and even Canada are planned soon afterwards.

The three-mast barque Belem, which was launched in 1896, the last French merchant sailing vessel to be built, will sail into Dublin following a voyage from Bordeaux that should last about four days. The wines will be delivered to Bordeaux by barge using the Canal du Midi and Canal du Garonne, which run across southern France from Sète in the east, via Béziers in Languedoc. Each bottle will be labelled: 'Carried by sailing ship, a better deal for the planet.' Although the whole process will end up taking up to a week longer than a flight, it is estimated it will save 4.9oz of carbon per bottle.

Frederic Albert, founder of the shipping company Compagnie de Transport Maritime à la Voile (CTMV), said: 'My idea was to do something for the planet and something for the wines of Languedoc. One of my grandfathers was a wine-maker and one was a sailor.'

With French wine exports booming following a number of difficult years, Albert said some 250 producers in Languedoc alone were keen to use his ships.

Seeking Green Solutions

Solar Power Cost

Salon magazine looks at the debate over the true cost of solar power. Not surprisingly, estimates are all over the place.

Meanwhile, Science Daily notes ways to improve solar efficiency.
Special Coating Greatly Improves Solar Cell Performance

ScienceDaily (Feb. 22, 2008) — The energy from sunlight falling on only 9 percent of California's Mojave Desert could power all of the United States' electricity needs if the energy could be efficiently harvested, according to some estimates. Unfortunately, current-generation solar cell technologies are too expensive and inefficient for wide-scale commercial applications.

A team of Northwestern University researchers has developed a new anode coating strategy that significantly enhances the efficiency of solar energy power conversion. A paper about the work, which focuses on "engineering" organic material-electrode interfaces in bulk-heterojunction organic solar cells, is published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Green Design Winners

This DIY device measures energy use.


The Good Human looks at four designs that won in the recent Greener Gadgets Design Competition in New York City.

Grow a Glacier

Grow your own glacier. Here's more.

Green Video Challenge

Challenge and a Prize

Submit a Video Response TODAY
-Help build a community of eco-friendly dwellers
-Enter to WIN $5,000 dollars worth of prizes from
Sierra Designs,
Timberland,
Jetboil,
Mission Playgrounds,
Burts Bee, and other eco-companies.

TO ENTER:
Create a Video Response about eco-friendly living, answer one of the questions below:
1. What are the biggest challenges you face in becoming more eco-friendly?
2. What questions do you have about eco-friendly living?
3. Are you taking any specific actions right now to be more eco-friendly, and if so, do you have a way to do it easily and conveniently?
4. What changes would you like to see happen from companies and the marketplace?
For all details, GO TO Juntoventure.
Challenge Ends - Feb. 28

Tree Arborcide

I wonder what the precise charge is?

Man gets 5 years in tree massacre
The 61-year-old, who felled 500 trees that blocked his view of Sin City, had made other threats, a prosecutor says.
By Ashley Powers
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
LAS VEGAS -- Residents of an upscale retirement community near here knew Douglas Hoffman was upset that trees were blocking his backyard view of the Strip.

But at a hearing Monday, where Hoffman was sentenced to up to five years in prison for killing more than 500 trees, a prosecutor said the retired construction worker had threatened to unleash "chemical, biological, nuclear mass destruction" because of it.

Dressed in jail garb and handcuffed to his wheelchair, Hoffman, 61, slumped and lowered his eyes when Judge Donald M. Mosley announced his sentence.

"I am not a bad person. I am a good person," said Hoffman, who has hip, back, heart and prostate problems.

The case has been closely watched in fast-growing Clark County, where tract homes and transplanted trees have obscured many homeowners' mountain and casino views.

A few years ago, Hoffman and his wife bought a second home in a Henderson retirement haven just south of Las Vegas. Mesquite trees and other recently planted vegetation soon grew 8 feet tall, obscuring the view from their deck. The couple asked a homeowners committee if they could swap out the trees for shrubs, but were told no.

Shortly after, in October 2004, a yearlong tree massacre began. Tops were lopped off. Entire trees were chopped down. ....

....In pushing for a harsh sentence, Clark County Deputy Dist. Atty. Joshua Tomsheck on Monday revealed that a rambling, typed letter had been sent to the governor's office while Hoffman was awaiting trial.

"If no changes come soon -- and soon means now, immediately -- the militia has many options," it read. Among those listed were razing and burning homes, drive-by shootings, setting off improvised explosive devices and unleashing a weapons cache.

Imperiled by Overfishing

Attention, Lou Dobbs: When you take away a nation's livelihood and basic food supply, the people follow. From The New York Times.
Europe Takes Africa’s Fish, and Boatloads of Migrants Follow
KAYAR, Senegal — Ale Nodye, the son and grandson of fishermen in this northern Senegalese village, said that for the past six years he netted barely enough fish to buy fuel for his boat. So he jumped at the chance for a new beginning. He volunteered to captain a wooden canoe full of 87 Africans to the Canary Islands in the hopes of making their way illegally to Europe.

The 2006 voyage ended badly. He and his passengers were arrested and deported. His cousin died on a similar mission not long afterward.

Nonetheless, Mr. Nodye, 27, said he intended to try again.

“I could be a fisherman there,” he said. “Life is better there. There are no fish in the sea here anymore.”

From Greenpeace:

Many marine ecologists think that the biggest single threat to marine ecosystems today is overfishing. Our appetite for fish is exceeding the oceans' ecological limits with devastating impacts on marine ecosystems. Scientists are warning that overfishing results in profound changes in our oceans, perhaps changing them forever. Not to mention our dinner plates, which in future may only feature fish and chips as a rare and expensive delicacy.
The fish don't stand a chance

More often than not, the fishing industry is given access to fish stocks before the impact of their fishing can be assessed, and regulation of the fishing industry is, in any case, woefully inadequate.

The reality of modern fishing is that the industry is dominated by fishing vessels that far out-match nature's ability to replenish fish. Giant ships using state-of-the-art fish-finding sonar can pinpoint schools of fish quickly and accurately. The ships are fitted out like giant floating factories - containing fish processing and packing plants, huge freezing systems, and powerful engines to drag enormous fishing gear through the ocean. Put simply: the fish don't stand a chance.

and from Overfishing.org
Over three quarters of our planet are covered by the oceans. Their biodiversity is unmatched and they contain over 80 percent of all life on earth, mostly unexplored. Millions of people worldwide are depending on the oceans for their daily livelihoods. More and more all this is endangered because of ignorance and a global lack of management.

Kingsolver's Book

The Barbara Kingsolver book, Animal,Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, has been out since May. In it, she details the story of her family's decision to try a locavore life, moving from dried-up Tucson for a farm in Appalachia, picking a smarter, more Earth-conscious lifestyle. Here's a review of her wonderful book; Here's her website featuring the book.

Vegan Sex

OK, I confess, I wasn't even aware that this issue existed. From New Zealand:

Meat and two veg story draws gut reaction

The Christchurch woman who coined the term "vegansexual" has been astounded by the backlash from indignant meat-eaters.

In July, The Press published a story about some people, mainly vegans, who refused sexual contact with those who ate meat and other animal products.

The term was coined by the co-director of the New Zealand Centre for Human-Animal Studies at Canterbury University, Annie Potts.

Potts researched over 150 vegans, vegetarians and meat-eaters and found a swell of female respondents describing themselves as being attracted to people who ate meat but not wanting to have sex with them because their bodies were made up of animal carcasses.

"I was astounded by how much publicity we got," Potts said. "Overnight, it seemed, there were hundreds of blogs and websites dedicated to questioning or challenging vegansexuality."

Potts said she was surprised at the "strong resistance by omnivores" and could not work out why they felt so threatened by it. "Why should there be such a backlash?

"There was a real culture of anxiety about vegansexuality I found quite amusing, but at the same time it was quite perplexing," Potts said.

And, for the new year, some new enviro-related words:

Navy shower n.

A very short shower in which you turn off the water while lathering up. This old term is also known as a G.I. bath, but it’s new to many in the drought-stricken Southeast. Its antonym is the Hollywood shower, a long, wasteful one.

vegansexual n.

A person who eats no meat, uses no animal-derived goods and prefers not to have sex with non-vegans.

walkshed n.

The area that can be conveniently reached on foot from a given geographic point. Compare with foodshed, the area sufficient to provide food for a given location, and viewshed, the landscape or topography visible from a given geographic point, especially one having aesthetic value. All are patterned after watershed.


global weirding n.

An increase in severe or unusual environmental activity often attributed to global warming. This includes freakish weather and new animal migration patterns.


chief sustainability officer n.

A business executive hired to meet environmental regulations and to find ways to profit through environmentally friendly products and services.

colony collapse disorder n.

A disease that has killed millions of pollinating bees nationwide and threatens to harm the nation’s agricultural output. Suspected culprits are a virus, mites and insecticides.

Solar Panels

From Gorilla Radio blog. I am very intrigued by the few things I've been able to find about this technique. Sounds fascinating and certainly an improvement of spending $30,000 to have your house roof redone.

Panel Breakthroughs Start Solar Power 'Revolution'
Solar energy 'revolution' brings green power closer
John Vidal, environment editor The Guardian,
Saturday December 29 2007
The holy grail of renewable energy came a step closer yesterday as thousands of mass-produced wafer-thin solar cells printed on aluminium film rolled off a production line in California, heralding what British scientists called "a revolution" in generating electricity.

The solar panels produced by a Silicon Valley start-up company, Nanosolar, are radically different from the kind that European consumers are increasingly buying to generate power from their own roofs. Printed like a newspaper directly on to aluminium foil, they are flexible, light and, if you believe the company, expected to make it as cheap to produce electricity from sunlight as from coal.