But Seriously, When We Got Our Property, It Was All Just…grass. A Sterile Grass Moonscape, Like A Billion

Yes, climate change can be beaten by 2050. Here's how.

A carbon-free world can be a reality. What would that mean for our jobs, homes and lives?

“Is it possible to turn things around by 2050? The answer is absolutely yes,” says Kai Chan, a professor at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability at the University of British Columbia.

Many scientists have been telling us how the world will look like, if we don’t act now. However, others, like Chan, are tracking what success might look like.

They are not simply day-dreamers either. They aren’t being too optimistic. They are putting together road maps for how to safely get to the planet envisioned in the 2015 Paris Agreement, where temperatures hold at 1.5 degrees Celsius higher than before we started burning fossil fuels, this article from July states.

“Three decades is enough to do a lot of important things. In the next few years—if we get started on them—they will pay dividends in the coming decades,” says Chan, the lead author of the chapter on achieving a sustainable future in a recent UN report that predicted the possible extinction of a million species.

Making these changes won’t mean years of being poor, cold and hungry before things get comfortable again, the scientists insist. They say that if we start acting seriously NOW, we stand a decent chance of transforming society without huge disruption. 

No doubt, it will take a massive switch in society’s energy use. But without us noticing, that’s already happening. Not fast enough, maybe, but it is. Solar panels and offshore wind power plummet in price.  Iceland and Paraguay have stripped the carbon from their grids, according to a new energy outlook report from Bloomberg. Europe is on track to be 90 per cent carbon-free by 2040. And Ottawa says that Canada is already at 81 per cent, thanks to hydro, nuclear, wind and solar. 

Decarbonizing the whole economy is within grasp. We can do this.

“If we have five years of really sustained efforts, making sure we reorient our businesses and our governments toward sustainability, then from that point on, this transition will seem quite seamless. Because it will just be this gradual reshaping of options,” Chan says, adding: “All these things seem very natural when the system is changing around you.”

ive said this before but as climate change ramps up faster and faster and we feel the effects more and more in our everyday lives our infrastructure and architecture is going to need radical changes, and i love building science, but its not just going to be stuff like cranking up the r-values on our houses and other passivhaus things, we have to look at resilient infrastructure like earth berming and building underground like in coober pedy to avoid heat, have to look at flood mitigation tunnels like the tokyo flood control system, have to look at stuff like staten islands seawall

no one solution is going to protect us from climate change, and no small ones either

shits gonna have to change, and not every solution is going to pan out perfectly, but we need to be able to try some pretty over the top seeming stuff

even just where i live, the seasons have dramatically changed over the last decade, old ellicott city has been wiped out by floods twice, summers are hot and humid as hell, this cant last

What if, instead of tropical fish tanks, you had a live video stream of a section of coral reef? Every time you “fed” the fish, it would be a button you clicked to donate to the reef’s protection. As more you “feed” the fish, you’re granted more access to other reefs. And nightvision cameras are included so you can see your wild pets at night too without disturbing them with harsh lighting.

Perfect for folks like me who love fish, but do not love cleaning tanks.

Vegans of tumblr, listen up. Harvesting agave in the quantities required so you dont have to eat honey is killing mexican long-nosed bats. They feed off the nectar and pollinate the plants. They need the agave. You want to help the environment? Go back to honey. Your liver and thyroid will thank you, as well. Agave is 90% fructose, which can cause a host of issues. Bye.

i learned that Binghamton University researchers have been working on a self-healing concrete that uses a specific type of fungi as a healing agent. When the fungus is mixed with concrete, it lies dormant until cracks appear, when spores germinate, grow and precipitate calcium carbonate to heal the cracks (x)

I really want an environmental revolution to happen soon. Gardens everywhere, herbal wisdom flourishing, intelligent environmental policies, aggressive fighting for plants, straying away from reliance on shady food industries and growing our own to help our own and nurture our own, we see everything, how it’s made and who it goes to cause it’s ours typa shit. I really want this.

How to make your own low-tech vertical farm

The Belgian professor Willem Van Cotthem seems to have designed a do-it-yourself vertical kitchen garden system that truly deserves the low-tech label. On his blog, “Container gardening”, he explains how to transform normal plastic bottles into efficient containers (and a container rack) for growing all kinds of plants, even young trees (to be transplanted when reaching sufficient height). The beauty is that the water supply can be automated without the use of electricity

Read more…

What do you think of vertical axis wind turbines? Seems to me they'd complement small domestic PV installations nicely and could use some wider usage

I’ve heard some people get quite preachy about vertical axis wind turbines being no good, but personally I’m rather fond of them. I definitely agree that for domestic use, they make more sense than regular windmills. They’re also much better suited to urban environments.

The typical style of wind turbines are great when you have lamellar flowing air currents, like near the coast or on flat plains, but city wind is more gusty and turbulent. Vertical axis turbines definitely seem ideal for that!

I think some of the reservations people have stem from the fact that, in the past, vertical axis wind turbines have typically been less reliable, and the turbine blades are more prone to fatigue. Though using modern engineering materials and turbine designs, I’m not convinced those old problems still apply.

Some designs for small scale applications are also impressively discreet and quiet – though seemingly rather expensive!