EcoWorldly

In recent years, I hear more and more about developments in solar cars. I also hear frequently about solar car races [South Africa'08, North America'08, Australia '07]. Encouraging as these developments are, we desperately need a way to get these cars widely adopted and out onto the streets.

My vision is probably influenced by my life in a small Californian city and the ways of people here. In the recent times of energy crisis and skyrocketing gas prices, people are readily exploring alternatives such as scooters, mopeds, electric cars and small efficient cars. They are giving-up the comforts of large luxurious, air conditioned cars. A couple of recent articles on cheaper solar cars (in fact, hybrid ones running on solar energy mainly) really sparked hope in me - these solar cars would be ideal to try out in smaller cities.

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Odd-ball green news it may be but Coke has been discovered to be an effective spermicide, which may be good for the environment; and for that very elaborate effort of discovery, a woman’s sexuality expert has just been awarded an alternative Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

Weird or wacky, you might say, but rumor actually has it that Snopes.com might soon bring down this link that debunked the long suspected (was it an urban legend until the Ig Nobel Prize?) but now confirmed sperm killing effects of the famous Coca Cola soft drink.

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For two weeks in the end of September, there was no gas to be found in the county surrounding Asheville, North Carolina and most of the gas stations remained closed.

The recent hurricanes are being blamed for shutting down the nation’s gas supply by up to 22%. But the problem remained far worse in this region of North Carolina.

Even over a week after the main pipeline to the East Coast, the Colonial pipeline, had reopened, gas remained scarce and there were few answers as to why.

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Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin, is one man you can bet is clutching the prayer beads seeking some solace and hope that a potential nuclear power deal with one of the world’s emerging economies would land his country’s way.

That is, if the US Congress helps him by trashing George Bush’s deal with India before he can sign it into law. And the urgency means it is a critical time for both Washington and New Delhi. This might be easy if there’s no deal before the November presidential elections.

Here are the stakes: India seeks out partners to co-develop its nuclear energy potential, worth about US$ 80 billion. By 2032 the government plans to quadruple total generating capacity, to 700 gigawatts, with nuclear accounting for 63,000 megawatts.

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The United States has good reason to take pride in its recent green technology achievements. A look at world-wide wind energy production alone should give Americans cause to brake into the famous “We’re number one!” chant. However, there are a number of truly remarkable, environmentally-friendly technologies that have so far, at least for the most part, passed the US by.

#1: High-speed trains

America, this is what a train should look like. These streamlined vehicles rocket between destinations at around 190 MPH (300 km/h) in at least eighteen countries outside the US. And they’re getting even faster. This week, Kawasaki made headlines with plans for a new 217 MPH (350 km/h) train in Japan. High-speed trains make long-distance travel fast, comfortable, and more hassle-free than flying. You sit back with a book, a beer, or a sandwich and relax, watching the scenery whiz past. Seriously, what’s a red-blooded nation like the US doing without a form of transportation that actually encourages beer drinking?

Although there is not currently a nation-wide high-speed train system in the US, things are looking up. In 2000, Amtrak opened the Acela Express, a 150 MPH (240 km/h) train serving Boston and Washington DC. More exciting yet, Californians will get to vote this November on whether to build a 220 MPH high-speed train connecting Sacramento and San Francisco in the north with Los Angeles and San Diego in the South.

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Renowned primatologist, environmentalist, and humanitarian, Dr. Jane Goodall, has called for the entire world to join in a celebration of peace.

Nearly half a century after her landmark work with chimpanzees in Tanzania, “Dr. Jane” as she’s more often known, is traveling the world with a message that “peace is possible.”

This message is inspiring many to join Roots & Shoots, the Jane Goodall Organization’s international youth activism program. Roots & Shoots supports grassroots activities and projects that benefit the environment, animals, and communities.

On September 21st, Roots & Shoots groups and other individuals around the world will symbolically join Dr. Jane in a call for peace from communities the world over. Groups from Tanzania to Tennessee will make and fly Giant Peace Doves, like the one pictured here.

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This week, Ecoworldly celebrates the Water Week, and between September 8 - 14, readers of the blog will be reflecting on a lot of water issues here. But isn’t it exciting that this is also the week that word finally leaked out that Google was patenting a retrofitted floating water and wind energy data center.

What does that mean? According to documents filed at the US Patent and Trademark Office August 28, the Google water-powered data center will be - a system that includes a floating platform-mounted computer data center comprising a plurality of computing units, a sea-based electrical generator in electrical connection with the plurality of computing units, and one or more sea-water cooling units for providing cooling to the plurality of computing units.

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Christopher and Kerri are a couple and social justice teachers out on a mission. Since the beginning of September 2008, they have been on a unique 30-day experiment on food choices, consumerism, waste, poverty and social psychology - trying to live on a one dollar a day diet.

But this insightful challenge - in their own words - to help us better understand and teach about a variety of concerns, could have been more interesting if it was broader in perspective.

Instead of trying to spend just a dollar on food daily from their comfort in Encinitas, California, where a tub of toothpaste costs $4.99, they should have enlisted a family in, say, Chittagong, Bangladesh or Turkana, Kenya, and asked them to survive on a dollar a day.

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Biofuels war has broken out in Africa. Newspaper headlines have not proclaimed it but the gist of it is already out. Big money profiteers from Europe and United States are rushing to Africa in a new scramble for the continent, transforming large swathes of arable land into massive biofuels plantations.

Local but poor populations in many parts of Africa are increasingly being driven deeper into economic obscurity yet 60% of them still depend on agriculture for survival. Another 60% of that eke out a living by subsistence farming and animal husbandry.

The World Bank has been sitting on a secret report since April that says biofuels are responsible for the global food crisis; food prices have risen 75% because of the impact of the search for alternative fuels through the use of food products.

African civil society is calling for a moratorium on new biofuels investments in Africa amid concern that that the biofuels revolution will bring more food insecurity, higher food prices and hunger to the continent.

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Americans are Reportedly Inhaling 10 billion Pounds of Chinese Toxic Fumes Annually

It was reported a few days ago that some 10 billion pounds of airborne pollutants from Asia — ranging from soot to mercury to carbon dioxide to ozone — reach within the borders of the US annually, quoting numerous scientific estimates.

But the pollution figures that scientists studying the impact of Asian, and mostly Chinese, environmental waste in the atmosphere have suggested are more than alarming.

The real impact of the Asian Tigers, helped by their giant brother, China, which is now thought to have overtaken the US in emissions of greenhouse gases, may amount to a kind of colonization of the United States, and by extension, North America, potentially destabilizing weather patterns across the North Pacific and masking the effects of global warming.

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