Are you going to commit suicide in protest, then? :dozey:

Are you going to commit suicide in protest, then? :dozey:

 

:stunned:

We humans are incredibly valuable to both ourselves and the natural world, if we do things in a more cohesive, constructive, and intelligent fashion. We are more valuable than gold, more precious than diamonds, and more essential than water for our survival, as without one-another, we would find it incredibly difficult to survive. We just need to keep working on those better ways, and growing and learning. We are learning to do things better, but it takes time to coordinate and educate, and to diminish the excesses of selfishness.

:Be the +positive+ force here, as without hope, we're hopeless.

 

So, here's some good news: Solar Cell prices are set to drop!! This, added with the right incentives in the marketplace, can solve a multitude of problems. Here's a good source on the matter:PV Costs Set to Plunge for 2009/10 - Renewable Energy World

''We must be the change we wish to see"

 

This is interesting Art:Images of an evolving world by artist Don Simon | Grist | Grist Feature | 29 Jan 2009

Alligators in the tires; cows on the garbage heaps. Says a lot without saying a word.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbAZiVRG6h0]YouTube - Coldplay - Green Eyes[/ame]

damn it! i thought this was called, "the green tea thread"

 

i love green tea!

We humans are incredibly valuable to both ourselves and the natural world, if we do things in a more cohesive, constructive, and intelligent fashion. We are more valuable than gold, more precious than diamonds, and more essential than water for our survival, as without one-another, we would find it incredibly difficult to survive. We just need to keep working on those better ways, and growing and learning. We are learning to do things better, but it takes time to coordinate and educate, and to diminish the excesses of selfishness.

:Be the +positive+ force here, as without hope, we're hopeless.

 

So, here's some good news: Solar Cell prices are set to drop!! This, added with the right incentives in the marketplace, can solve a multitude of problems. Here's a good source on the matter:PV Costs Set to Plunge for 2009/10 - Renewable Energy World

''We must be the change we wish to see"

 

 

So would be right in assuming you never "chuck" anything away??:rolleyes:

So would be right in assuming you never "chuck" anything away??:rolleyes:

 

thats just terrible

 

Serena Williams!!:dozey:

Oh i thought this thread was for green colour's lovers :(

I was about to post this pic:

 

Serena Williams!!:dozey:

 

:laugh3: :laugh3: :laugh3: :laugh3: :laugh3: :laugh3: :laugh3:

^Or maybe she should now be known as Segreena Williams!!:rolleyes:

oh god don't spam my serious green ecological thread :cry:

oh god don't spam my serious green ecological thread :cry:

 

Why not? "Serious" is dullsville!!:P

see it?

no one takes the environment for serious :bigcry:

Take heart, brother Ricardo! I do as well take the environment very seriously! So seriously some say, that I've become a bit of an eccentric..:beatnik:

So, given the state of things, I'm always interested in Green technologies, innovations, designs, better ways overall, and others. Actually, I'm convinced that the modern world is changing albeit slowly and with great hesitation towards greening of products, houses, lawns, gardens, autos, etc.

I'm fascinated by how much better we can be just by being more efficient. Gardening is one great example - it's almost a zero-emitter of greenhouse gases, and provides excellent fresh produce within a stone's throw from one's home. No need to go galavanting across the universe for that elusive melon or squash, potato or tomato - there it all is, in season! No power outage, fuel shortage, price hike, or traffic to wrestle with - just good old fashioned cultivation, mulching, watering, and fertilizing, and a little TLC - and it's productive!

Now in places where the weather is inclement for 6 months, we've got to rely on food storage, or else be forced to eat the slim pickings at the stores. So, to be green, the answer is (a) freezing is the next best thing to fresh food, and (b) find the greenest freezer around. For anyone on a budget, there's always the traditional ice house (ice is cut and hauled off lakes in winter, and stored in simple buildings, packed in sawdust and shavings as insulation. Keeps all year, if done right). More modern is the super-efficient freezers available, which if kept in a cool basement, can do the job and use only a trickle of electric juice. Supplied with solar panels, solar-electric turbines, wind turbines, etc., and you're going green!

So simple, yet often everyone's in a rush. So, there's the local markets, greenhouse growers, and wild foods to be gathered as well. Here we have an abundance of Watercress, which is a super-nutritious plant, and grows year-round in the seepage springs in a pond on the farm. One could sow wild rice and perpetually harvest it as well. Mexico sounds too ideal for me to even imagine - I'd be making juice from the cactus fruits, growing avocados, mangoes, and oodles of sapote trees! What grows well in your neighborhood?

I was going to recycle but i was too busy driving my SUV to the coal plant while using hairspray and throwing my morning mcdonalds bag out the window..

 

 

:D

I was going to recycle but i was too busy driving my SUV to the coal plant while using hairspray and throwing my morning mcdonalds bag out the window..

 

 

:D

 

............................................and while spending too many "greenbacks"??:rolleyes:

Aww Rico :hug:

All I can say is we have a huge disconnect between disciplines. The scientific community is saying there's a problem, and the manufacturing and construction community is starting to respond. But really, I don't see a conflict between standard of living and the environment. I think there's so much to be gained in improved efficiency, that it's almost unimaginable. Energy companies don't want us to fully realize this (hence, their TV ads always tout a combination of more exploration and extraction, along with wind, solar, & efficiency), but the truth is, we are, collectively, mind-bogglingly inefficient.:rolleyes5: Really! The bulk of the energy is going to heat and light buildings - homes, office, plants, etc. and I'm sure what's true here is true anywhere, since the world isn't radically different from place to place (unless you're ahead of the curve). Amory Lovins says this as well.

So, if a home in Suamico that I had the good fortune to visit uses 1/10th the energy needs of an average home, and it hasn't even had any solar panels installed on the roof, there's an example of what's possible! Through sound building practices, we can reduce energy demand by a factor of 10 or greater, and it's really all just common sense.

Think of a home as a hot air balloon, where you want to keep the air inside the balloon warm, and not let it leak out. But, you also want fresh air in the balloon, without loosing the heat. So, basically, it's a matter of reducing the leaks first and foremost; insulating effectively; & controlling moisture properly - you want the moisture in the balloon's air, not in the skin of the balloon. But, if some does get through the membrane & into the skin, you want that moisture to percolate to the outside of the balloon & escape. And finally, since fresh air is essential for our health, we want to blow a certain amount of stale air out of the balloon, while bringing in fresh air from the outside, but not loose the heat.

So, for the first part, a building is much like the fabric of the hot-air balloon. On the structural side (the balloon frame, or skin) you want a thick warm blanket of insulation, snugged up tight around the frame. The insulation should be able to breath out, but not let moist air in. The skin of the balloon or house must be made tight on the inside - even a small leak can lead to a lot of warm, moist air getting into the insulation, which can condense and fill the wall with water & soggy insulation. So, use a good vapor barrier. Seal the connections where air can sneak in with elastomeric caulk, & long-life tape. Seal the holes in the outlet boxes with flexible, non-shrinking caulk or foam once the electrical is in. Seal the holes cut in the frame where pipes and wires go with flexible foam. Finally, add a heat exchanger. You won't need one if you've got a way of letting in enough fresh air for one air change an hour in the house, but to save the maximum energy, adding a heat exchanger pays for itself quickly. Basically, an air-to-air heat exchanger is a metal box with a fan, an air intake from the outside, and an exhaust port to the outside. The core in the heat exchanger works like the core in a car's heater - only instead of hot water flowing through the core in pipes, air flows through, and fresh air is passed over the fins. It's even simpler than that, but that's the basic idea. If you're on a tight budget, the best quick fixes are tighter doors/door seals; window films, and go along searching for the leaks where outside air is streaming into the house. Remember to not seal up too tight without an air exchanger (or window slightly ajar), because the fresh air is necessary - just not huge leaks.

Truthfully, it's all so simple - efficiency can deliver up 90% improvements in our energy use, and the remaining 10% can more readily be supplied with green energy sources. It's blindingly simple, actually. What might have to change is - better attention to details with building envelopes, automotive shape, weight, and design, and better lighting use.

I can't figure out why everyone keeps saying the changes will be so hard, or why it might reduce our standard of living! The only real loss will be for those cats that hang out around the windows and doors of houses, huddled up where the warm air is leaking out!:laugh3: (cats are useful heat-loss detectors in winter; in summer, cool loss detectors). And this whole scheme works as well in summer as it does in winter. If you're broiling hot, these changes will allow you to cool your house with very little energy!

Still, many scientists & economists think it's some huge hurtle to be overcome - like it's some gut-wrenching change we have to make. Some people think it's beyond our scope to do this quickly. But it's all so easy. Maybe so easy that they just can't believe it?? I don't understand myself why the pessimism, or the idea that somehow we can't conquer the obvious.:thinking:

Anyhow, that's my rant for today! :P

Check This Out If You Haven't Seen It Already!:Design of new Mercedes-Benz bionic car inspired by fish body shape

One thing to consider: Bird, fish, and anything else that zooms through water or air has a tail. Automobiles often do not. This causes many autos to have turbulence in the aft end, and a vacuum pulling on the vehicle as it travels. If we could simply make the aft end taper off, instead of a blunt truncation, we could move that drag coefficient from the .19 to .09 or less. Aptera does this in their design:Aptera - Drive

And it's not a new idea. The Marmon Wasp which won the Indianapolis speedway race of 1909 had a tapered tail (a stinger, some might say). If the end were made of some soft, impact-absorbing material, I think this makes a great deal of sense as well.The Marmon Wasp

well I think it's quite easy to be enviroment friendly, it can be as simple as just switching off a light

True, switching off unused lights makes sense. But to get things to really change, we need to look at the process of making electricity, as well as other things such as plastic:Plastic is Drastic: World's Largest 'Landfill' is in the Middle of the Ocean CAPT. CHARLES MOORE / Algalita Marine Research Foundation (AMRF) 1nov02

Daylighting (daylight; sounds like a song!) is one step we can take to increase the light levels inside a home or workplace, and not need to turn on the lights. Better placement of windows, modern skylights, and the like can make a big difference.

Daylighting - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Light-transmitting concrete - optics.org

This ^^ is so cool! Maybe a bit impractical, but I think it's just neat..