ECONEWS #203 A monthly newsletter funded by your donations that
dreams of a world blessed by the harmony of nature, the pleasures
of community, and the joys of personal fulfillment, guided and
protected by our active citizenship. Many thanks to Helga Naguib,
Gwyneth Sproule, Gail Muzio, Marlene Rice, Marian Kemp, Elinor
Powell, Laura Anderson, Janice Turner, Ronald Hawkins, Nina Corley
Smith, Donald Trapnell, Barbara Hourston, Lynn Thorwaldson,
Christina Tomaschuk, Thor Henrich, Ruth Mossop, Daphne Taylor,
Haggis Farm Saturna, Robert & Hilda Matsuo, Bob Willard, Paula
Hesje, Peter Carilho, Linda Chan, Joyce Buxcey, Louis Irwin &
R. Bilash.
The Money April May June Copies printed 1800 1650 1700 Sent by
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$615 $468 EcoNews by mail: call Guy 250-881-1304. By email:
www.earthfuture.com/econews
THE ECO-PERSONALS $1 a word. Max 5 lines, non-profits,
low-income free. 1 box ad $50 * Lovely room to rent, close to
ocean, downtown, $30/night, 250-382-3810. * Want to farm? No Land?
Lets collaborate! Cedar/Yellow Point area. [email protected] *
Organic food plants - Metchosin Farm has many organic heirloom
vegetable starts. 50 varieties of tomato, 35 varieties of veggies.
542 Wootton Rd, Metchosin. For location, hours, catalogue see
www.metchosinfarm.ca. * Organic Islands Festival at beautiful
Glendale Gardens, July 10/11, seeks volunteers for a variety of
positions. See www.organicislands.ca
PARC DE TRIOMPHE In Paris, 2 km of the Champs lyses have been
covered by 8,000 small fields planted with wheat, beans, vines,
mustard, bananas, pineapples and a hundred other species of
cereals, fruit and vegetables. The two-day Nature Capitale
exhibition reminded two million Parisians that food does not grow
on supermarket shelves or market stalls. More than 600 young
farmers and 150 foresters worked through the night to "plant" the
avenue with blocks of soil and containers, separated by footpaths
of wood-chippings. (Independent, UK)
ORGANIC ISLANDS FESTIVAL Mark July 10-11th in your diary for The
Organic Islands Festival and
Sustainability Expo at the Glendale Gardens in Saanich, with 150
exhibits, 20 speakers, green technology demos, entertainment, and
ten acres of Garden Trails. Carolyn Herriot will be giving a
keynote presentation to launch her new book The Zero Mile Diet: a
Year-Round Guide to Growing Organic Food. www.organicislands.ca
VARESE LIGURE, ITALY How does the world go green? Slowly, but
with certainty. In northern Italy, the small farming community of
Varese Ligure, composed of 27 rural hamlets east of Genoa, was
gradually decaying, its population fallen from 6,000 to 2,200. But
then the Mayor, Maurizio Caranza, appealed to the locals to turn
the town into an environmental hamlet, with an economy based on
ecology and organic food. 20 years later, 108 farms, representing
almost all the farmland, have gone organic, using European Union
grants to subsidize the transition. People are renovating and
rebuilding their home, the historical town centre has been
restored, and the population has risen by 200. Four wind turbines
on a ridge generate 8 GWh a year (three times more than they use),
and 141 solar panels add 15 MWh, earning $514,000 a year for the
council. The community became eco-certified under ISO 14001 - the
first in Italy to do so - and was registered under the EUs
Eco-Management and Audit Scheme, opening the door to financial
incentives; in 2004, they were honored as the most eco-compatible
rural community in Europe. Progress remains fragile, with a lack of
younger farmers, and single farmers who cant find wives.
Politically, the centre-left party Varese 2000 has polled 65% of
the vote for 15 years, showing that green politics, accompanied by
green progress, is a solid vote-winner.
FUN CAMPS FOR CHILDREN If you have children aged 6-12, and youd
like them to catch afire with the vision of a sustainable world,
check out the FUN Camps that will run in Victoria
from July 5th to August 27th at Windsor Park Pavilion in Oak
Bay, organized by the irrepressibly determined Maia Green. During
their eco-summer, they will learn how to build and race a solar
racing car, bake brownies in a solar oven, maintain their bike,
plant seeds, reduce their ecological footprint, and develop
leadership skills, mixed with outdoor games, sports, art, swimming,
drama and hiking. Registration is through Oak Bay 250-595-7946, see
www.funcamps.ca. Could you help a disadvantaged youth to attend for
a week by donating a $200 scholarship? You can send a cheque to FUN
Camps, 5010 Lockehaven Drive, Victoria V8N 4J5, or do so online at
funcamps.ca/Sponsor_A_Student.html.
VANCOUVER, FAIR TRADE CITY In the future sustainable world, all
trade will be fair trade. 800 cities and towns have become Fair
Trade Cities, in 19 countries, and Vancouver has just joined them,
having met all the criteria, which includes having fair trade
products widely available in local restaurants and supermarkets,
and having an active Fair Trade steering group. For the five
requirements for your town do the same, see
www.fairtrade.org.uk.
GROASIS FOR TREES In many dry parts of the world, trees struggle
to survive, and there often is not enough water to irrigate them.
Even when there is, much is lost to evaporation - so whats to be
done? For Pieter Hoff, a Dutch flower-grower, his solution is the
Groasis Waterboxx, which will grow food and trees even in the
driest places. The round box is the size of a car tire, deigned to
capture both rainwater and condensation which collects in the
chamber underneath the cover, preventing it from evaporating. A
wick taps into the ground and drops a small amount onto the trees
root system every day. Once the tree has taken root, reaching a
water source several meters below the ground, the box can be
removed and used again elsewhere. In a 3-year test in the Sahara
desert in Morocco that gets only a few inches of rainfall a year,
88% of the trees planted with the box survived after it was
removed. In a test group planted without the box, but watered once
a week, only
10% survived. Pieter has developed a biopolymer version that
will biodegrade, releasing nutrients into the soil, and is talking
to a Dutch bank about a micro-finance scheme to enable farmers to
buy the Waterboxx. ($26) Pieter thinks they could also promote
reforestation, replanting the two billion hectares of trees we have
cut down in the last 2000 years. See www.groasis.com
ECONEWS APPEAL Last months EcoNews appeal brought in $1,000, for
which Im very grateful. but it was only 1/3rd of the amount that
EcoNews needs to keep going for another six months. So if you had
thought of chipping in, please do. You can mail your donation to
EcoNews, 395 Conway Road, Victoria V9E 2B9, or donate through
PayPal. Thankyou!
OCEAN WARMING The worlds oceans are warming up and the rise is
both significant and real, according to one of the most
comprehensive studies into marine temperature gathered over the
past two decades. The upper 700 metres warmed significantly between
1993 and 2008, even though there has been a slight leveling off in
the increase since 2003. Global warming is not going away, just
because the deniers think it doesnt exist, and the looming
emergency is as grave as ever. We must wean ourselves off fossil
fuels - ideally by 2020. No-one believes this to be possible, but
this is what the climate science demands if we are to safeguard our
childrens future. On Monday June 6th, theres a big Climate Rally
focused on the Push for a Green Economy and Climate Sanity at the
Alex Goolden Theatre. The goal is to pile the pressure on Ottawa to
include climate change in the G-8 and G-20 Summits (see Green
Diary).
GEOTHERMAL DRILLING Geothermal energy is of the solutions that
could replace coal-fired power, using heat 3 to 10 km below the
Earths surface to create steam and run electrical generators. A
Massachusetts Institute of Technology study found that enhanced
geothermal energy could supply 2,500 more power than the entire USA
consumes. The holdback has been the high cost of drilling, to which
the solution may be a new way of drilling that uses super-heated
water fired at supersonic speeds to carve through the rock, instead
of mechanical abrasion. In August, Potter Drilling will use the new
technique to drill a 4-inch hole through 1000 feet. Compared to
regular drilling,
water-drilling doesnt have a bit that wears out, and it can
drill continuously, 3-5 times faster than a mechanical drill. The
trial is being funded by the US Department of Energy and Google.
The eventual goal is to be able to drill to 10 kilometres.
(Guardian)
ALGAE FOR AIRPLANES Another problem we have to solve is how
airplanes will fly without fossil fuels. The solution that is
getting the most attention is biofuel made by farming algae. Virgin
Airlines, Continental and the Chinese government have all held
successful trials, and the US Defence Advanced Research Projects
Agency (DARPA) has successfully extracted oil from algal ponds at a
cost of $2 a gallon ($0.52/litre); they say that large-scale
refining, producing 50 million gallons a year, will begin in 2013,
yielding 1000 gallons per acre from an algal farm that could use
household sewage or brackish water. Global flying uses 5 million
barrels of oil a day, and is responsible for 2.4% of the cause of
global warming, when all factors are taken into account. New
Scientist magazine reported research showing that this much oil
from algae could be grown on 66,000 square kilometres, or 276
barrels per hectare (about the size of Ireland, 0.13% of the worlds
farmland). DARPA expects to produce 1000 gallons per acre, which is
59 barrels per hectare, five times less than New Scientists
numbers. If DARPA is correct, flying would require land equivalent
to 0.6% of the worlds farmland. 70% of the worlds farm and
pastureland is used to raise animals for meat and dairy. Looking
ahead, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has designed a
green airplane for NASA that could be flying by 2035 that uses 70%
less fuel, with similar cuts in air and noise pollution, by
redesigning the plane as a double bubble, with the engines in the
rear where the air is slower moving in the wake of the fuselage,
allowing engines to use less fuel for the same amount of thrust.
For a photo, Google MIT + double-bubble.
CELL-PHONES AND CANCER It was all over the news in May - a huge
new study compiling research from 13 countries which concluded that
there was no association between the use of cell phones and brain
cancer. Or so it was reported in North America, and by the US
National Cancer Institute. But what awful selective reporting that
was. In
Britain, the Sunday Times reported Heavy mobile users risk
cancer. So how come the difference? Firstly, the study defined
heavy use as more than 30 minutes a day. The researchers defined a
regular user as making just one call a week over a 6-month period.
Er - hullo? Has anyone seen a teenager without a cellphone glued to
the ear recently? Secondly, it excluded anyone under the age of 30,
because it was a ten-year study. The real news, which should have
alarm bells ringing, was that people over 30 who used a cell-phone
for 30 minutes a day had a 33% increased risk of developing glioma
tumours, a form of brain cancer. Because of the age delay and the
30 minutes a day assumption, the study is deeply flawed. If you
want to protect your childrens health, do everything within your
powers to keep them off their cell phones.
PREVENTING CANCER Run for the Cure - its hard to naysay it, but
its so frustrating to know that only 2% of all the money raised
goes to actually help prevent cancer. In its studies of babies cord
blood, the Environmental Working Group found 201 known and
suspected carcinogenic chemicals in 20 babies. In May, the US
Presidents Cancer Panel said that public health officials have
grossly underestimated the likelihood that environmental
contaminants trigger a large proportion of cancers. On Saturday
June 26th, Guy Dauncey and friends will be running/walking at Elk
Lake to raise funds for Prevent Cancer Now, to provide help where
it is sorely needed. See www.preventcacnernow.ca. Call Guy
250-881-1304 if youd like to help.
ACTION OF THE MONTH
A MORATORIUM ON DRILLING IN THE ARCTIC & WEST COAST
Believe it or not, July 1st is the date set for US exploratory
drilling for oil to start at Arctic drill sites up to 140 miles
off-shore, in an area notable for extreme storms, gale-force winds,
moving sea ice, darkness and subzero temperatures. Greenpeace and
the World Wildlife Fund are both calling for a moratorium, and a
permanent Arctic Treaty. We must also protect Canadas West
Coast.
Action: Write immediately to Prime Minister Stephen Harper,
urging action.
Rt Hon Stephen Harper, Office of the Prime Minister, 80
Wellington St, Ottawa K1A 0A2.
[email protected] Tel: 613-992-4211