PCC Sound Consumer Bienvenue| Solutions Locales pour un Désordre Global Berkeley Food Institute | Cultivating Diversity, Justice, Resilience, and Health Adding spinach to solar panels nearly triples their efficiency November 05, 2012 “It's not just Popeye that gets the boost.” From DailyMail.co.uk, "It's not just Popeye that gets the boost: Adding spinach to solar panels nearly triples their efficiency" By Eddie Wrenn Ask people what they know of spinach's energy-boosting powers, and most people will start talking about Popeye the Sailor Man. But in a strange twist, it turns out spinach could be placed into solar panels to create a much greater supply of electricity. Scientists in Tennessee discovered that combining the green-leafed veg with silicon produced a much stronger electrical current in solar cells than present methods. And it could eventually lead to a much more efficient form of using the sun’s rays for sustainable energy in the future. Read on ... The Phoenix Turbine Builders Club (PTBC) will guide anybody interested to build a 4kW 24/7 power supply based on solar thermal putting heat into oil.
Real Food Tree Organic Consumers Association Description of Permaculture by the Finger Lakes Permaculture Institute Home » What is permaculture? Permaculture is a design discipline for productive systems such as gardens, farms, homesteads, and urban sites utilizing ecological principles found in natural systems. These ecological principles combined with a design method help to create sustainable, healthy abundant landscapes while meeting basic human needs. The permaculture movement includes organizations all over the world offering demonstration sites, trainings, and technical assistance. Where people have access to land and little else, permaculture’s ideas have spread rapidly. In the 1970s Bill Mollison and David Holmgren created the foundations of Permaculture in Australia. Permaculture is not gardening techniques or a list of proper building materials for a house. Elsewhere… In upstate New York, permaculture activists and their activities are found on UpstateNYpermaculture.Net.
Food Politics Food Share « Sisters' Camelot Since 1997, we have distributed millions of dollars worth of free fresh organic produce and whole foods through our Food Share program. Maybe you’ve seen us around Minneapolis and St. Paul, out in our brightly painted former Metro Transit bus, distributing the kinds of foods you could buy at the Seward Co-op or the Wedge. We make weekly rounds to distributors – Co-op Partners, Albert’s Organics, and other organic food distribution centers. On any given day, we may pick up and then distribute fresh ripe organic produce, prepackaged whole foods, bulk goods, and other items that may be overstock or approaching their expiration dates. The food share coordinator and volunteers make random stops where we share food unannounced at a busy intersection or neighborhood park in low-income neighborhoods around the Twin Cities metro area. Food Share happens twice a week in the winter and three times a week during the growing season, when we add a Farmers’ Market pick-up to our schedule.
5 Juice and Smoothie Infographics for Summer Need a delicious and healthy way to keep cool as the summer heats up? Look no further than your kitchen blender. Homemade juices and smoothies are a good way to lose weight and stay fit in the summer months, and can contain important minerals and anti-oxidants you might otherwise miss. If you fear you might overdo the BBQ and beer this summer, introducing some fruit- and vegetable-based drinks into your diet will help you balance things out. Get started on your summer juicing plans with these helpful how-to infographics: The Ultimate Guide to Fresh Juicing How to Make a Smoothie The Basics of Juicing The Super Smoothie And Just for Fun: Tasty Tweets
Wagner Food Policy Alliance | Community action for equitable food systems. Should We Try to Keep Nature Natural? January 30, 2013 — In the age of the Anthropocene, when human beings have their fingerprints on everything, even altering the climate, does it make sense for ecologists and conservation biologists to talk about pristine Nature? As it becomes apparent that humans have been tampering with the natural ecology for centuries or even millennia, is the pre-Columbian world a useful benchmark in conservation biology and restoration of plant and animal communities in large natural areas? We invited Emma Marris, author of Rambunctious Garden, and Sean Gerrity, president of American Prairie Reserve, to continue a conversation on this topic, which began last summer at the Aspen Environment Forum. Emma MarrisAuthorRambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World Now, that doesn’t mean that 1491 should be forbidden as a restoration goal. It may be that we decide we like the way people back then were managing the land better than we like our current management practices.