laodan's favorite sustainability web sites

Last login: 2 hours agoLaodan: laodan is a 56 year old guy from Wisconsin, USA.; Likes 1,587 pages, 24 videos, 8 photos • 227 fans • Received 64 reviews; Member since Aug 08, 2005

Favorites » His sustainability pages

Display:
List
• Grid

Organic Cuba without Fossil Fuels: Jan 25, 10:44am 4 reviews science, energy, sustainability
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/OrganicCubawithoutFossilFuels.php; Organic Cuba without Fossil Fuels in The Institute of Science in Society Online
Cuba's experience has opened our eyes to agriculture without fossil fuels, a possibility rapidly turning into a necessity for mitigating climate change as world production of petroleum has also peaked. Dr. Mae-Wan Ho Organic Cuba without Fossil Fuels FAO report on Cuba UN report "Hunger and malnutrition in the countries of the Association of Caribbean States" Comments on MetaFilter This is no time for ideological sabre-rattling. All societal experiments to power the economy with non-fossil fuels are important. Peak-oil is at our doors and we better have access to experiments shedding light on possible alternative paths for entering the future.

Solar chimney - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Dec 1, 2007 6:25pm 1 review energy, sustainability
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_chimney; The path to passive energy in Wikipedia
A solar chimney - often referred to as a thermal chimney - is a way of improving the natural ventilation of buildings by using convection of air heated by passive solar energy. A simple description of a solar chimney is that of a vertical shaft utilizing solar energy to enhance the natural stack ventilation through a building. The solar chimney has been in use for centuries, particularly in the Middle east, as well as by the Romans. Solar chimney Passive Solar Heating and Cooling solar chimney to produce electricity Passive means that you employ techniques that don't require any initial energy input. Passive techniques are generally simple to implement and, most importantly, they help you to reduce your demand from others and from society. You then become more autonomous which means that you increase you level of freedom. Dependency creates serfdom while autonomy creates freedom!

How Africas desert sun can bring Europe power | Science | The Observer: Dec 1, 2007 6:03pm 4 reviews economics, alternative-energy, energy, sustainability
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/dec/02/renewableenergy.solarpower?...; How Africa's desert sun can bring Europe power in The Guardian by Robin McKie
Europe is considering plans to spend more than 35bn dollars on a string of giant solar power stations along the Mediterranean desert shores of northern Africa and the Middle East. More than a hundred of the generators, each fitted with thousands of huge mirrors, would generate electricity to be transmitted by undersea cable to Europe and then distributed across the continent to European Union member nations, including Britain. Billions of watts of power could be generated this way, enough to provide Europe with a sixth of its electricity needs and to allow it to make significant cuts in its carbon emissions. At the same time, the stations would be used as desalination plants to provide desert countries with desperately needed supplies of fresh water. ... Europe would provide initial funds for developing the solar technology that will be needed to run plants as well as money for constructing prototype stations. After that, banks and financial institutions, as well as national governments, would take over the construction programme, which could cost more than 400 bn dollars over the next 30 years. How Africa's desert sun can bring Europe power Desertec, as this project between Europe and North-Africa is called, is based on a technology dubbed 'concentrating solar power'. Things are staring to move in the right direction and hope is thus on the way. But before such projects materialize in supplied electricity it will take a decade or two. So in the meanwhile the energetic problem of humanity will persist. In short the demand for oil and gas is growing faster than its supply and prices are shooting up. This shows us that the world will soon enter into a period of scarcity and the intensity of the problem will thus be multiplied: - peak oil means that half of all the oil in the ground has been pumped in the past. It was the cheapest oil to pump and costs will now increase drastically. But peak oil also means that the total oil supplied is going to decrease annually by a percentage of 2 to 7%. - the oil producing countries are on an oil consumption binge that is leading to less and less oil available for export. The next 2 decades will thus be extremely difficult for all of us in terms of our energetic bills. My personal take is that we should start by reducing our needs for energy in our homes through insulation and the use of passive solar and geo-thermal techniques to reduce the quantity of energy we need. Our transportation needs could be solved by a combination of increased public transportation choices and our private use of vehicles running from non-fossil power sources: compressed air, auto-generation of hydrogen,etc...

Economists View: Are we Headed for Collapse?: Nov 11, 2007 12:58pm 0 review economics, sustainability, collapse
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2007/11/are-we-headed-f.html

The Oil Drum | World Energy to 2050: A Half Century of Decline: Nov 10, 2007 10:03am 2 reviews petroleum, energy, sustainability, globalization
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3222; World Energy to 2050: A Half Century of Decline in The Oil Drum by GliderGuider (Paul Chefurka)
Throughout history, the expansion of human civilization has been supported by a steady growth in our use of high-quality exosomatic energy. This growth has been driven by our increasing population and our increasing level of activity. As we learned to harness the energy sources around us we progressed from horse-drawn plows, hand forges and wood fires to our present level of mechanization with its wide variety of high-density energy sources. As industrialization has progressed around the world, the amount of energy each one of us uses has also increased, with the global average per capita consumption of all forms of energy rising by 50% in the last 40 years alone. This rosy vision of continuous growth has recently been challenged by the theory of "Peak Oil", which concludes that the amount of oil and natural gas being extracted from the earth will shortly start an irreversible decline. World Energy to 2050: A Half Century of Decline Part 1. Energy Decline and National GDP in 2050: The Growth of Destitution Part 2. Peak Oil and the World Problematique Excellent presentation. This visualization of the use of fossil fuels along the long history is particularly impressive. Everyone interested to understand what is coming our way should be reading this article.

Sweden&039;s sustainable finance system (transcript) | Global Public Media: Nov 6, 2007 11:15am 1 review economics, financial-planning, sustainability, finance
http://globalpublicmedia.com/transcripts/2832; Sweden's sustainable finance system via The Oil Drum, in Gloval Public Media. An interview of Oscar Kjellberg from the JAK Members Bank by Andi Hazelwood
JAK stands for land, labor and capital. The reason is that money makes trade with products very easy, but it can be made and used in many ways. It's a tool, and like any tool it can be used for good or bad. JAK was for people who want to use money in a just and sustainable way. We have had that since the Danish thought it in 1931, and the idea was taken over to Sweden in 1965. So we've been operating the savings and loan since '65. Andi Hazelwood: So how does JAK bank work that's different than the conventional system? Oscar Kjellberg: It's an interest-free savings and loan system, and it's a cooperative bank. The members borrow at no interest, and the loans are financed by the members' deposits. Let's say I borrow you $53 per year, and you pay me back $1 per week. I'm helping you, but what's in it for me? If you pay me $2 per week instead, one as a lead payment and the other that you are saving with me, then you are giving me a resource to use during the year and when the loan is repaid you get your savings back. If you would have borrowed this from a commercial bank, the rates would have been about the same per week, but you would not have had any savings at the end of the year. This is one of the reasons why we are doing this. It's cheaper, and we are saving money instead of paying it as an interest to commercial banks. Sweden's sustainable finance system (transcript) Sweden's sustainable finance system (audio) Well worth reading.

See more popular pages about sustainability liked by other StumbleUpon users.

StumbleUpon

Favorites » His sustainability pages

Recent visitors

People he is a fan of

Show pages he liked about