Buy Nothing Days every day. Except for maybe a bike.
A recent survey by Accenture interviewed 6,000 consumers in Europe, Asia and North America about their purchasing habits. Over 80% of respondents felt it was important that companies produce environmentally conscious products. In another survey by Nielsen, over half of all participants said that they’d pay more for eco-friendly products and services.
Now is a better time than ever to make your first business venture one with the environment’s best interests in mind. What’s more is that you aren’t constrained to starting a recycling company or becoming a solar panel installer. There are many great opportunities out there that are likely to be in line with your passions and skills.
To help inspire you, here are some low carbon footprint self-employment ideas to consider.
Ink Cartridge Refill Services
It’s no secret that ink cartridges are extremely overpriced, not to mention the waste associated with the packaging. This is why ink refilling services are in demand by both consumers and businesses looking to save money. In addition to being environmentally friendly, all you really need to get started is some ink supplies and filling equipment.
Online Trading
If you have a keen eye for numbers, then perhaps it’s worth considering a career in online trading. With enough experience, trading currencies or other assets like commodity or even cryptocurrency prices can turn into anything from a lucrative side income, to a full-time career. You won’t need much capital to start trading, which can be conducted entirely via an energy efficient laptop or mobile.
Selling Second-hand Books
Despite advancements in e-reading technology, many people still prefer the feeling that comes with paging through a traditional book. These days, you don’t even need to purchase premises, as you can sell your books online through fulfilment services. In doing so, you’ll be preventing countless amounts of paper from going to waste. If you are an eco hero consider classics like Spaceship Earth, Silent Spring, or Cradle to Cradle.
Cleaning Company
There’s money to be made in the cleaning service industry, especially if you can stand out from the competition by offering something unique. One such solution would be to use sustainable products, instead of wasteful and harmful chemicals. This is another business venture that requires relatively little capital to start and is always in demand.
Handmade/Organic Products
Do you see a potential demand for certain products that are otherwise only available in forms that contain harmful chemicals? This may be a great opportunity to start selling a natural, organic version of said product.
As awareness around the toxins contained in many household products today grows, demand for more health-conscious alternatives is soaring. You can run this type of business online and sell through a website, thus reducing start-up costs.
Tree Nursery
While it may seem more labour-intensive than other options on the list, business owners looking to open a tree nursery can start small. Provided you have some land to use, all you’ll need is the necessary seeds and some knowledge on suitable growing methods. You can even start a website and be paid to grow trees on behalf of your customers.
There are many more low carbon footprint business ventures out there to discover. Consider what you’d be most interested in and go for it before someone else does.
Travel, yes, but make a difference always – like Sivan Yaari Borowich did in Africa. Helping desperate people there access clean energy and water.
I guess it’s a reaction to Capitalism, but it is also a product of it. The lifestyle of the digital nomad. For people like Ofir Drori, travelling inspired him to become a hero for wildlife.
If you are travelling the world just to rack up experiences, you are basically just participating in another form of consumption. The only way someone can check out of society and really make a difference in this world is by giving it forward.
So from your #vanlife find a way to make you look less hot, and the experiences connected to the environment and people you share more urgent. Want to help single women out of poverty? Want to make seniors feel like they are still living? Save a peat bog? Give Africa clean water?
Improving digital nomadism?
Don’t tag where you are. Give general, not specific locations. This will help preserve nature. It’s what’s been happening in famous places like the Joshua Tree in California. But it can happen anywhere.
Take more photos of real people you meet. Share real stories, with pain and happiness.
Read books that celebrate simple nature and man in it: Hojoki. Walden. Sailing Alone Around the World. Or the children’s book the Snail and the Whale → if you no longer have an attention span.
Try not to make people jealous; work to inspire, not deflate.
The Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation has released their findings from the largest coral reef survey and mapping expedition ever conducted in French Polynesia. The Global Reef Expedition: French Polynesia Final Report provides a comprehensive summary of the research findings from the expedition, an assessment of the health and resiliency of French Polynesia’s coral reefs, and recommendations for preserving French Polynesia’s coral reefs into the future.
The Foundation embarked on the Global Reef Expedition to understand the coral reef crisis on a global scale. As part of the Expedition, an international team of 73 scientists worked side by side with local experts to gain a thorough census of reef health throughout French Polynesia. Over the course of seven months, they conducted standardized surveys of coral and fish communities and created high-resolution habitat maps of the seafloor using ground truthed satellite imagery.
“The archipelagos of French Polynesia are home to some of the healthiest and most expansive coral reefs on the planet,” said Dr. Sam Purkis, lead author of the study. “Recent models suggest that French Polynesia might serve as a climate refuge for the survival of reefs in the future. All these factors amplify the value of French Polynesia’s incredible reefs and motivated our expedition to this wonderful location.”
This unprecedented scientific mission mapped and surveyed reefs around 29 islands in the Society, Tuamotu, Gambier, and Austral Archipelagoes. The Expedition covered over 8,000 km and conducted nearly 4,000 SCUBA surveys of French Polynesia’s coral reefs and associated fish communities at 264 dive sites throughout the country.
“The field work we did in French Polynesia was a massive undertaking. There have been no other comprehensive coral reef surveys in French Polynesia that covered the vast area we studied. In fact, many of the remote reefs we visited had never been studied by scientists before,” said Alexandra Dempsey, an author of the study who helped coordinate the research mission.
What the scientists found gives us hope for the future of French Polynesia’s coral reefs. The health of reefs in French Polynesia were generally very good but varied greatly by location.
Gambier’s reefs were home to extraordinary coral and fish communities, and had some of the highest live coral cover observed on the entire Global Reef Expedition. In Gambier, for instance, coral cover exceeded 70%. For the South Pacific, these numbers were unprecedented. However, cyclones and severe crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks decimated reefs in the Society and Austral Archipelagoes, locally reducing live coral cover to only 5%. The reefs around Tuamotu supported vibrant fish communities and the highest density of fish and sharks seen in French Polynesia. Generally speaking, the scientists found the healthiest reefs and fish communities were most likely to be found around islands with low elevation and few residents.
“Our research shows that there may be pockets of resilience in French Polynesia’s reefs,” says Renee Carlton, one of the authors of the study. “I am hopeful that in the face of continued natural and anthropogenic pressures, the coral reefs of French Polynesia will continue to flourish.”
In addition to assessments of fish and coral communities covered in the report, high-resolution habitat and bathymetric maps were created through the analysis of satellite data for all the reefs studied, which are available at https://maps.lof.org/lof.Although many changes have occurred to the reefs since the Expedition, this report should provide natural resource managers in French Polynesia with a valuable baseline on the status of French Polynesia’s coral reefs.
The Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation hopes their findings will help protect and preserve French Polynesia’s coral reef ecosystems for generations to come.
Quintana Roo, where the Riviera Maya is located, became a Mexican state in 1957, and from them until the end of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the state focused its resources on building a tourism empire through tariff-free shopping. When the agreement ended in 1994, many flocked to the area lying between Playa del Carmen and Tulum to play on the beaches, shop in stores and see Mayan ruins. When the agreement ended, the foundation had already been laid to make the Riviera Maya a tourism hotbed that approximately 300,000 visitors annually. The number of people visiting the Riviera Maya continues to climb annually, and one of the main reasons is the many beautiful natural attractions in this area called the Mexican Caribbean. There are many natural areas that you will want to visit in Riviera Maya.
Sian Ka’an Biosphere
It only took one year for Sian Ka’an Biosphere to be recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site after its establishment in 1986. Anglers will especially want to visit here because of the still saltwater lagoons that are brimming with fish. Fly fishing is particularly popular here. Tarpons arrive in April and are easily caught until mid-June. If you come from May 1 until about the end of June, expect to catch your limit of bonefish. Barracuda can put up quite a fight before being landed during the winter months when they come to the shallower water. The biosphere is also a great place to watch tropical birds, especially on a sunset cruise. The beach here is beautiful and is often less crowded than in other Riviera Maya locations.
Cenote Chaak Tun
Cenote Chaak Tun is only available on a guided tour, do not forget to bring your waterproof camera because the two main underground caverns are incredibly photogenic. After donning your wetsuit and storing everything in your locker, you will be treated to seeing many beautiful underwater cave formations. One of the draws of visiting Cenote Chaak Tun is diving in the first pool to see the replica of the Virgin of Guadalupe located near its bottom. Pay attention to the Mayan altar as you head to the second underwater pool. Spend some time exploring the jungle after your dives or stay for one of the tequila-tasting parties.
Puerto Morelos Reef
Just a short boat ride away from Puerto Morelos lies the world’s second-largest barrier reef. Since 1998, this part of the Great Mesoamerican Reef has been a national park where you can go scuba diving. You will have a chance to explore two unique areas of the reef. The one under the white breaking line holds lots of seagrasses that are surrounded by sea turtles. When you move to the second area, you will see much more corral. This corral area is home to large schools of grunts, butterflyfish, and parrotfish.
Xcaret Underground Rivers
While the three underground rivers were purchased in the 1980s by a developer, who has built a well-maintained amusement park, the real draw for nature lovers visiting Xcaret is the three underground rivers. You will ride in a boat down these underground rivers that are about 0.3 miles long past beautiful rock formation and pass through cenotes.
Coba
Combine nature with Myan history on a visit to Coba. You can climb the 130 steps on the 137-foot tall Coba Pyramid. Hike to see the Macanxoc Group, which is a series of altars built to worship the Mayan gods. See the sacbe commerce roads constructed by hand. These limestone roads were traveled mainly at night, counting on the moonlight bouncing off their limestone surface to illuminate them. For nature lovers, however, the main reason to visit Coba is to go birdwatching. Over 250 species of birds have been spotted in this area. You will also want to see the four lakes, which may have played an important role in Mayan worship located here.
There are many natural attractions to see in Riviera Maya, so you will want to book yourRiviera Maya luxury vacation rentals early. This area stays in the mid-80s year-round, but you may want to consider avoiding the wet season from July to September when over five inches of rain falls on average monthly. That still leaves plenty of time to visit the Riviera Maya’s natural attractions.
The Arctic region is heating up faster than any other place on Earth, and as more and more sea ice is lost every year, we are already feeling the impacts. Researchers explored strategies for cooling down the oceans in a world without this important cooling mechanism.
Scientists estimate that summer sea ice in the Arctic Ocean will be largely gone within a generation. This is bad news for the world, as ice and snow reflect a high proportion of the sun’s energy into space, thus keeping the planet cool. As the Arctic loses snow and ice, bare rock and water become exposed and absorb more and more of the sun’s energy, making it warmer – a process known as the albedo effect.
Given that it would be very difficult to reverse this trend, even if we do manage to reach the 1.5°C target set out in the Paris Agreement, IIASA (International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis) researchers explored what would happen if we were to reverse this logic and make the Arctic region a net contributor to cooling down the world’s oceans and by extension the Earth. In their new paper published in the Springer journal SN Applied Sciences, the authors analyzed what the Arctic’s contribution to global warming would be if there were no ice cover, even throughout the winter months. They also looked at ways the world could adapt to the resulting new climate conditions.
A beluga whale in the arctic
“The Arctic Ocean ice cover works as a strong insulator, impeding the heat from the ocean below to warm up the atmosphere above. If this ice layer were however removed, the atmosphere would increase in temperature by around 20°C during the winter. This increase in temperature would in turn increase the heat irradiated into space and, thus cooling down the oceans,” explains study lead-author Julian Hunt, who currently holds a postdoc fellowship at IIASA.
According to the authors, the main factor that contributes to maintaining the Arctic sea ice cover is the fact that the superficial Arctic Ocean (the top 100 meters) has a salinity that is around 5 grams per liter (g/l) lower than that of the Atlantic Ocean. This stops the Atlantic Ocean from flowing above the cold Arctic waters. The authors argue that increasing the salinity of the Arctic Ocean surface would allow the warmer and less salty North Atlantic Ocean current to flow over the surface of the Arctic Ocean, thereby considerably increasing the temperature of the Arctic atmosphere, and releasing the ocean heat trapped under the ice. The researchers propose three strategies to achieve this:
The first strategy entails reducing the flow of water from major rivers from Russia and Canada into the Arctic, by pumping the water to regions in the USA and Central Asia where it could be used to increase agricultural production in regions with low water availability. As a second strategy, the researchers suggest creating submerged barriers in front of Greenland glaciers to reduce the melting of the Greenland ice sheets, while the third strategy would be to pump water from the superficial Arctic Ocean to the deep ocean so that it is mixed with the more salty water below. The pumps in such a project would run on electricity generated from intermittent solar and wind sources, allowing a smoother implementation of these technologies.
The researchers’ analysis show that with an average 116 GW of energy during 50 years of operation, these strategies could reduce the salinity of the Superficial Arctic Ocean waters to 2g/l. This would increase the flow of the North Atlantic current into the Arctic and considerably reduce the ice cover on the Arctic during the winter.
Despite the concerns about the loss of sea ice in the Arctic the authors point out that there are several advantages to an ice-free Arctic scenario: Ships would for example be able to navigate through the Arctic Ocean throughout the whole year, which would reduce the distance for shipping goods from Asia to Europe and North America. In addition, the temperature in the Arctic would increase during the winter months, which would reduce the demand for heating in Europe, North America, and Asia during the winter. The frequency and intensity of hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean could also be reduced due to the reduction in temperature in Atlantic Ocean waters. On top of this, the ice-free waters could also help to absorb more CO2 from the atmosphere.
Hunt however cautions that while there are benefits to an ice-free Arctic, it is difficult to predict what the impact will be on global sea levels, as the higher Arctic temperatures would result in increased melting of the Greenland ice sheet. It is also difficult to predict the changes in the world climate as the polar circle will be considerably weakened during the winter.
“Although it is important to mitigate the impacts from climate change with the reduction in CO2 emissions, we should also think of ways to adapt the world to the new climate conditions to avoid uncontrollable, unpredictable and destructive climate change resulting in socioeconomic and environmental collapse. Climate change is a major issue and all options should be considered when dealing with it,” Hunt concludes.
Hairbrained schemes to grow food on Mars. No way. We need a solution now for earth and the answer is regenerative agriculture.
Around the world, ocean dead zones are growing at alarming rates, making entire swaths of underwater habitats uninhabitable by marine life. Most of this is directly tied to agriculture and the way in which it contributes to a completely different, but connected, problem: soil or land degradation. Media coverage of the growing dead zones has failed to explain how and why these sections of ocean are devoid of oxygen and life, but a quick glance at a map of affected areas reveals a telling picture: dead zones exist along the coast and can be directly tied to human activity. The culprit is the copious amounts of chemical fertilizer and livestock manure collecting in runoff and making its way down rivers and into the oceans.
The Downstream Effect of Chemical Fertilizer
This year, scientists predict the Gulf of Mexico could experience one of the largest dead zones in history; an astounding 8,000 miles of ocean, an area the size of Massachusetts, will be hypoxic (or devoid of enough oxygen to support any form of marine life). Any time a river crosses an agricultural landscape and then empties into a body of water, the runoff brings nitrogen and phosphorous which causes a massive algal bloom. The blue-green algae then suffocate the ocean. Ultimately, the marine life is starved of the oxygen it needs and can no longer inhabit these dead zones.
This negative effect of chemical fertilizers and livestock runoff is often defended on grounds that the means justify the ends, that it is impossible to feed the world without chemical fertilizers and protein from animal agriculture. In fact, neither are a necessity, nor are they viable, long term solutions.
A Flawed Solution to Feeding the Planet
Chemical fertilizers are used because of a lack of nutrients naturally present in degraded soil. Land degradation is a process that begins when forests are initially cleared for agriculture and ultimately overfarmed or overgrazed until the carrying capacity of the land has dwindled. Once the original tree cover has been stripped from the entire piece of land, a slow death of desertification ensues as endless rows of a single crop (monocropping) are planted and harvested year after year, depleting the soil with every passing season. Most farmscapes around the world have long been degraded and denuded, leaving many farmers to resort to commercial fertilizers to meet their production expectations.
A monocrop field is left devoid of growth, protection, nutrients, and soil.
When fertilizers are applied to a field, much of it runs off the farm or percolates down through the soil. It not only changes the pH of the soil, it misses the roots of many plants. A small percentage of the nutrients find their way to the roots directly where plants take up the Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium directly. Bypassing the soil to nourish crops creates a dangerous dependence on chemical fertilizers and kills the soil in the process. After adopting chemical fertilizers, the only way for a farmer to continue having productive yields is to purchase more chemical fertilizer.
In his book One Shot, Trees for the Future Executive Director John Leary identifies this rising dependance.
“Farmers used to ensure that everything they took out of the ground was put back in, in the form of biomass (organic material). This created a closed-loop scenario, where phosphate would have the capacity to be reused up to forty-six times as food, fuel, fertilizer, and food again. On the other hand, when phosphorus, in the form of DAP, is applied to nutrient-starved soil, it has the capacity to be used only once. Excess amounts of DAP application run-off into streams, creating algae blooms that pollute water and kill fish and other animals.” (Leary, 48)
These unsustainable practices are the reason for an 8,000-mile stretch of ocean in the Gulf barely capable of sustaining any form of life. The current way of farming is wasteful, expensive, and it’s decimating land and sea biodiversity. We must transition from these degenerative practices to regenerative methods now.
Damaging practices like clearing and burning fields for monocropping make agriculture the number one cause of deforestation.
Healthy soils don’t need chemicals: Transitioning from degenerative to regenerative agriculture
Healthy soils are the basis of any agricultural system and are vital for providing crops with the mineral nutrients and moisture they need, when they need it. Enhancing the air, water, and organic matter in the soil, and protecting all the beneficial organisms that live within it, will result in sustainably higher yields of better-quality crops, be it vegetables, field crops, fruits, or timber.
The solution is clear, cost-effective, and sustainable: Trees.
Instead of clearing fields, intensifying monocrop production, and ultimately degrading the land, agriculture focused on the power of trees (agroforestry) strives to protect the soil, diversify crops, and optimize the land sustainably.
The Forest Garden Approach is a well-planned, four-year regenerative methodology that uses the best techniques in agroforestry to guide farmers through the process of sustainably maximizing productivity.
Trees for the Future has 30 years of experience working with farmers to find innovative ways to revive degraded lands. That is 30 years of research and development, testing the most effective ways to use fast-growing trees to solve the most common and pressing problems farmers face. The Forest Garden Approach proves the power of trees.
“While chemical fertilizers contain just a few macro nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium), trees pull a variety of macro and micro nutrients from the depths of the soil and recycle them into the topsoil through their leaves. These leaves contain nutrients that are essential for people’s health and which have long leached out of the soil – like iron, manganese, zinc, and boron. By tilling leaves into the soil, farmers begin to restore the soil with minerals that help plants grow and ensure healthy nutrient-rich food” (Leary, 54).
Healthy soils are the basis of any agricultural system and are vital for providing crops with the mineral nutrients and moisture they need, when they need it.
Most species in a forest have evolved to grow and flourish in the cooler, more humid understory of other trees. When an area has been completely deforested, new seedlings must have the ability to tolerate 12 hours of hot sun beating down every day. We have learned how to use fast-growing, nitrogen-fixing pioneer trees that start to revitalize highly degraded soils. They rain down large amounts of leaf litter that build the top soil, and their small leaflets decompose quickly.
But the real magic happens in their roots.
Not only do the strong tap roots plunge down into the soil seeking lost moisture and nutrients, but many trees in the Leguminosae family have a symbiotic relationship with bacteria in their roots.
The regeneration process – in fact, the origins of life itself – happens at a microscopic level in the roots of trees. Root hairs trap specific types of bacteria which then enter into the root cells. Over time the root develops a nodule containing a package of nitrogen that may feed the tree now or release the nitrogen in the soil making it available to other plants in the future.
Trees for the Future teaches farmers how to plant diverse rows of nitrogen fixing trees (NFTs) across crop fields. Supplemented with compost and manure, this technique helps substitute and replace the need for chemical fertilizer. When farmers select NFTs that also produce fruit, peas or other valuable products the benefits are amplified.
A living fence of trees works double duty to protect the field from wind erosion and animals while the roots recharge the ground with water and nutrients.
The Forest Garden Approach is a well-planned, four-year regenerative methodology that uses the best techniques in agroforestry to guide farmers through the process of sustainably maximizing
productivity. Farmers first learn to protect their field with thorny barriers so that they can plant many rows of nitrogen-fixing trees across it. The first round of trees planted begins to improve the growing conditions by cooling the land and trapping moisture. Within the improved micro-climate, farmers are able to grow more valuable crops and fruit trees.
The third and final phase is when farmers learn to truly regenerate soil. They learn to make compost to enrich soil, mulches to conserve water, and cover crops to add organic matter. They learn to replace pesticides with non-toxic solutions, and they reduce their use of harmful chemical fertilizers.
The Long Road Ahead
It is visibly clear that ecosystems are dying across land and sea, and the reason is as equally apparent: the inputs and byproducts of wasteful food systems are the cause. If these systems are allowed to remain in place seafood will not be on the menu… there won’t even be a menu.
Changing the entire way in which this planet grows, sells, purchases, and consumes food will be no easy task. Consumers have a responsibility to refuse to allow the status quo of big agriculture business to continue, and farmers have the duty and obligation to feed the planet in a healthy, nondestructive, and sustainable way.
But if each actor can do their part to reduce consumption of meat and dairy, integrate trees into farming and livestock systems, and reduce the use of chemical fertilizer, life on land and sea has a chance. It won’t be easy, but it is necessary, so let’s get planting.
Trees for the Future is working to end hunger and poverty for smallholder farmers through revitalizing degraded lands. Learn more about Trees for the Future here.
Sexy or not, even hooka pipes carry second hand smoke dangers. If you are having a baby, just quit please! You are at risk for gestational diabetes of you smoke ANYTHING while pregnant. Even this man’s second hand smoke.
Smoking during pregnancy is one of the most significant risk factors for poor pregnancy outcomes. Like the world isn’t polluted enough so why would you do it? In the United States, 10.7% of all women smoke during their pregnancy or are exposed to second-hand smoke. In Israel and the Middle East at large where everyone seems to smoke probably every single woman is exposed to secondhand smoke. And yeah, nargillah or hooka pipe is about the same in terms of danger. In doing so, they place their babies at a higher risk for premature birth, low birth weight and developmental delays than do their non-smoking counterparts.
In addition to these risks, an international research team headed by Dr. Yael Bar-Zeev at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Braun School of Public Health and Community Medicine, in collaboration with Dr. Haile Zelalem and Professor Ilana Chertok at Ohio University, found that smoking during pregnancy may also increase a woman’s risk of developing gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). Gestational diabetes leads to higher risks for pregnancy and birth complications such as macrosomia (larger than average babies) and caesarean deliveries. The findings were published this week in Obstetrics & Gynecology.
Bar-Zeev and her team conducted a secondary analysis of data collected by the United States’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) called the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS). For this study, they looked at 222,408 women who gave birth during 2009-2015, of which 12,897 (5.3%) were diagnosed with gestational diabetes.
The researchers found that pregnant women who smoke the same or higher number of cigarettes per day as they did before their pregnancy are nearly 50% more likely to develop gestational diabetes. Those pregnant women who cut down on their number of cigarettes still have a 22% higher risk than women who never smoked or who quit smoking two years before they became pregnant.
“Ideally, women should quit smoking before they try to become pregnant,” Bar-Zeev cautioned. “Further, due to the high risks involved, it’s imperative that pregnant smokers have access to pregnancy-specific smoking cessation programs. Currently, in the United States and Israel, these services are not accessible enough or not tailored for pregnant women and that needs to change”.
Tomatoes and cucumbers may be summer memories, but the craving for good salad doesn’t go away just because it’s winter. Please meet a vegetable that satisfies those salad cravings: kohlrabi.
Have you ever gazed at kohlrabi in the supermarket and wondered what on earth you could do with that strange, bumpy vegetable?
Here’s the news: you can cook it, but even better, make salad.
Being of the cabbage family, kohlabi’s mild flavor asks for a little zing from something acid. Its crunchy texture marries well with a creamy dressing, as coleslaw does.
But don’t reach for the mayonnaise: chef Yotam Ottolenghi developed a sophisticated salad of diced kohlrabi dressed in yogurt and sour cream and brightened with winter herbs. It takes minutes to put the refreshing, tangy salad together, and it keeps in the fridge for a day if there are leftovers.
A handful of baby watercress (Note: I used mixed baby salad leaves)
1/4 teaspoon sumac powder
Salt and white pepper to taste
Peel the kohrabies and chop into dice about 2/3″ – 1.5 cm. big. Place the chopped kohlrabi in a bowl.
Make the dressing in a separate bowl. Combine the yogurt, sour cream, mascarpone, garlic, lemon juice and olive oil. Add 1/4 teaspoon salt and pepper to taste. Whisk the dressing until smooth. (Note: I made the dressing the day before and kept it, covered, in the fridge.)
Gently stir the dressing into the chopped kohlrabi. Mix the fresh and dried mint in, plus half the watercress.
Note:Taste the salad for seasoning and don’t be afraid to add a little more lemon, garlic, salt or pepper to taste. Just take it easy; you don’t want to overpower the dressing.
Pile the salad up on a serving dish. Sprinkle sumac over it and top it with the remaining watercress.
Leftovers made a fine lunch next day, with a couple of hamine eggs (recipe included in our Ultimate Ful and Hummus post) and pita.
We need an oracle to get us out of this debacle. The UN climate group has met for the 25th time. Will anything ever change?
Countries are being urged to significantly raise renewable energy ambition and adopt targets to transform the global energy system in the next round of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), according to a new report by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) that will be released at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP25) in Madrid.
The report will show that renewable energy ambition within NDCs would have to more than double by 2030 to put the world in line with the Paris Agreement goals, cost-effectively reaching 7.7 terawatts (TW) of globally installed capacity by then. Today’s renewable energy pledges under the NDCs are falling short of this, targeting only 3.2 TW.
The report NDCs in 2020: Advancing Renewables in the Power Sector and Beyond will be released at IRENA’s official side event on enhancing NDCs and raising ambition on 11 December 2019.It will state that with over 2.3 TW installed renewable capacity today, almost half of the additional renewable energy capacity foreseen by current NDCs has already been installed.
The analysis will also highlight that delivering on increased renewable energy ambition can be achieved in a cost-effective way and with considerable socio-economic benefits across the world.
“Increasing renewable energy targets is absolutely necessary,” said IRENA’s Director-General Francesco La Camera. “Much more is possible. There is a decisive opportunity for policy makers to step up climate action by raising ambition on renewables, which are the only immediate solution to meet rising energy demand whilst decarbonizing the economy and building resilience.
“IRENA’s analysis shows that a pathway to a decarbonised economy is technologically possible and socially and economically beneficial,” continued Mr. La Camera.
“Renewables are good for growth, good for job creation and deliver significant welfare benefits. With renewables, we can also expand energy access and help eradicate energy poverty in line with the UN Sustainable Development Agenda 2030.
IRENA will promote knowledge exchange, strengthen partnerships and work with all stakeholders to catalyse action on the ground. We are engaging with countries and regions worldwide to facilitate renewable energy projects and raise their ambitions”.
NDCs must become a driving force for an accelerated global energy transformation. The current pledges reflect neither the past decade’s rapid growth nor the ongoing market trends for renewables. Through a higher renewable energy ambition, NDCs could serve to advance multiple climate and development objectives.
There are over 7 billion people in the world utilizing the planet’s resources. As we continue to use these resources, they continue to dry up. In fact, by 2025, 1.8 billion people will struggle to find water to drink. That’s why it’s more important than ever to conserve resources anyway we can, and it starts at home. Here are 7 ways to live a more green life at home.
1. Choose the Right Transportation
We all need transportation to get to work, family events, and stores. Many of us use large cars that waste a lot of gas. When possible, it’s a good idea to avoid driving all together. Walk or take a bike if possible. Of course, not everything is close enough for that to be a possibility.
When you need to drive, drive with the environment in mind. Drive a hybrid or electric car that uses significantly less gas, putting less toxins in the world and leaving gas supplies in tact. If you can’t realistically change your vehicle at the moment, carpool as often as possible.
2. Conserve Water
While the world is made up of mostly water, most of it is not able to be consumed by humans. We need to preserve the water we have left. Start at home by taking shorter showers and not letting the water run when brushing our teeth. You can even switch to low-flow toilets in your home. Most standard toilets use 3.5-7 gallons of water for every single flush. Low-flow toilets cannot use more than 1.6 gallons per flush. That could end up saving you quite a bit on your water bill over the years, too.
3. Buy Energy Star Appliances
There are many items in your home that use a lot of water and electricity. Your washing machine, dishwasher, and your HVAC system all collectively make up a large portion of your utility bills. Using all of this energy is putting more pollution into the world. You need to wash your clothes, though, right? So buy appliances with the EnergyStar logo on them. These appliances are specifically designed to meet certain industry standards when it comes to using less energy and water. Even then, examine the products thoroughly to determine which one will provide the most savings for you and best results for the planet.
4. Keep Your HVAC System Maintained
Your HVAC system needs to be properly maintained. You should clean or change the filter in it regularly. If you don’t, the system isn’t running as efficiently as it could be. You should also make a point to get a checkup and maintenance every single year before winter. The technician will be able to fix any problems that might be slowing it down. And you can reuse any water that comes off it in the summer.
5. Buy LCD/CFL Light bulbs
Iridescent light bulbs are becoming obsolete since there are much better options available. Be sure to put LCD or CFL light bulbs in every room of your home. They use less energy and last significantly longer. It’s a no-brainer! They are a slight initial investment at first, but you save money on your electric bill. There are regulated electricity rates in Alberta, so you will be able to clearly see the difference. There are incentives on when to use power in all the provinces, usually on off-peak hours. My mom puts her dishwasher on later at night to save half the energy costs for running that appliance.
You can check with your power provider in your county. Peak demand is one of the words you can use in Google to find peak demand rates near you.
6. Recycle
You should make a point to recycle in your home. Make it easy by providing two different bins in all of the main areas. Be sure that the recycling bin is clearly labeled.
You can even use recycled materials at the beginning of the home-buying process when building the home.
7. Teach Your Children Good Habits
Good habits start at home. You should teach your children to take these habits with them as they get older and start their own families. We all should do our part. People are more likely to do the right thing when they have encouragement at home.
We have a responsibility to the planet and to future generations to do our part. That does not mean that we should not use cars or appliances. However, it does mean that we should use them wisely. Use these tips to help make your home green. You’ll save money, and you’ll help conserve resources, too. It’s a win-win.
One quarter of the world’s trees are where you least expect them – on very dry land. The land may be dry but it is not a wasteland! The UN creates new tree map helping us understand trees in the Middle East and regions like it for deeper understanding of watershed and food security.
More than a quarter of the world’s forest area is located in drylands, and trees are present on almost a third of the world’s dryland regions, according to Trees, forests and land use in drylands: The first global assessment, launched by FAO today at the High-Level Meeting on Forests at the UN COP25 climate summit.
The results “demonstrate that drylands are not wastelands, but productive landscapes with considerable economic potential and environmental value.”
The report, which includes large amounts of data on global and regional land use and forest cover, represents FAO’s delivery of a promised “collective product” on the status of drylands around the world. The assessment complements FAO’s Global Forest Resources Assessments but differs in that its primary data are developed through visual interpretation of freely available satellite images in a global team effort using FAO’s Open Foris Collect Earth tool.
“Understanding the status and changes of dryland forests, tree cover and land use is vital to evaluate the impact of climate change and human activities, the results of adaptation and mitigation measures and progress towards meeting regional targets for land degradation neutrality,” says Hiroto Mitsugi, FAO Assistant Director-General of the Forestry Department.
Trees and landfill in Lebanon
The new report engaged more than 200 experts and a series of regional workshops in collaboration with partner universities, research institutes, governments and non-governmental organizations worldwide, and draws on information from 213.782 sample plots, each measuring around half a hectare.
While specific instances require reality checks on the ground, the interpretation of high-resolution remote-sensing images presented in the assessment can help policymakers identify optimal investment strategies to combat land degradation and desertification, conserve biodiversity, support livelihoods and help increase the resilience of landscapes and communities, especially in the face of climate change.
What the assessment shows
Drylands, comprising hyperarid, arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid zones, cover about 6.1 billion hectares, or 41 percent of the Earth’s land surface. Of these, some 1.1 billion hectares (18 percent) consist of forest, according to FAO’s assessment.
Drylands are home to an estimated 2 billion people, half the world’s livestock, and more than a third of global biodiversity hotspots, and provide critical migration points for birds. Their ecosystems are vulnerable to water shortage, drought, desertification, land degradation and climate change impacts.The world’s drylands are expected to expand by 10 to 23 percent by the end of the 21st century, with dangerous ramifications for food security, livelihoods and human welfare.
Globally, about 18 percent of drylands are forest, just over half of which have canopy density above 70 percent, while barren land accounts for 28 percent, grassland 25 percent and cropland 14 percent. Trees are also present on drylands outside of forests, notably in Asia and Europe, and all told there are trees on some 2 billion hectares of drylands.
The report offers detailed assessments broken out by region.
FAO also released a new issue of Unasylva exploring the role of forests as nature-based solutions for water management. Its key message is that forested watersheds provide an estimated 75 percent of the world’s accessible freshwater resources and thus constitute are crucial and cost-effective natural infrastructure for the production of high-quality water – including for cities – for more than half the world population. Their management for water will become increasingly important in the face of climate change.
Movies like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind show us what it’s like when painful emotional memories are erased. But can positive ones be implanted too? A new study from Israel says yes. They have done it in animals.
Evolution has helped us evolve to avoid negative experiences and seek out positive ones –– like honeycombs for a big dose of sugar or loud sounds that signal aggressive animals. But as we face a modern life we rapidly changing and industrialized food, can we save the planet by implanting a love for vegan food and a distaste for meat? Welcome to your future, in this new study:
Looking at mice, a new study at the University of Haifa has found a neural pathway in the brain that determines whether a particular taste will have positive emotional value, and therefore consumed in future encounters, or negative, and therefore avoided in future encounters.
The researchers also succeeded in using the neurons identified to erase or transplant memories that were never experienced in reality. The study was published in the Journal of Neuroscience.
“In the current study, we were able, for the first time, to cause mice to assign a negative value to an event that never took place, and accordingly, to remember a feeling that was not experienced in reality,” said PhD student Haneen Kayyal, who led the study with postdoctoral fellow Dr. Adonis Yiannakas from the University of Haifa.
The researchers identified a small population of neurons (hundreds out of several millions) that determine whether the mice like or dislike a particular taste, and even succeeded in silencing or activating them, thus implanting an emotional value that was not experienced in reality.
In the current study, conducted by Professor Kobi Rosenblum the researchers sought to find the neural pathway in the brain that following learning, and assign a negative value to tastes that are inherently positive (following evolutionary processes).
Implanting a desire for just salads or veganism, all day long?
Naturally, we are born with a natural preference for certain flavors, for example, sweet or salty, and are averse to bitter taste. However, throughout life, these innate preferences can be changed by a learning process in which a bitter taste becomes attractive (for example beer) and appetitive taste becomes negative if followed by malaise.
Similarly, mice can be taught to be averse to a sweet taste by associating it with malaise. Following the coupling of sensations, the mice will avoid sweet taste. When investigating the brain activity of mice during the association of a sweet taste with abdominal pain, the researchers found neuronal activation in the insular cortex in the brain, an area involved in complex brain functions, which projects to the basolateral amygdala, which is located in the medial prefrontal cortex and is involved in the formation of emotional memories.
After identifying increased activity in these neurons when mice were studying the association between taste and emotional value, the researchers examined the necessity of this neural pathway to generate negative values by silencing it, by preventing the transmission of neural information between the two brain regions during learning.
Following this manipulation, the mice did not remember the negative experience, and returned to consuming the sweet taste, despite experiencing the same association between taste and malaise. “The findings showed the importance and necessity of the neural pathway that we found, whose silencing prevented the mice from creating a memory for the experience they had been through,” the researchers said.
In the third phase, the researchers exposed another group of mice to the same sweet taste, and immediately activated the same specific nerve cell population that was activated following the consumption of this taste, without any sensory experience of malaise. Two days later, these mice also avoided consuming the sweet taste, although they did not experience any unpleasant sensations in reality.
“The experiments suggest that not only did we identify the neural pathway that underlies the generation of negative values for tastes but we also artificially created such memories by activating the neural pathway that we identified. The interesting thing is that these pathways are highly similar across mammals, including humans and mice. The findings will allow us to explore in the future how a variety of psychiatric illnesses can be treated, ranging from eating disorders that have too-powerful or too-weak “emotional engravings” in response to eating experiences and to dealing with emotional traumas such as PTSD, which do not allow the emotional value of an experience to be eradicated,” Prof. Rosenblum concluded.
Before Ecover was my favorite ecological cleaning brand, it was just someone’s little idea to change the world one sink of dishes at a time. Now look at them! The company started before social media, but were early to connect with bloggers and blogs in a transparent way.
If you want to increase product sales, one of the best ways you can do that is to create buzz around your product with Instagram. If you’re just getting started with the social media platform, then you can use a powerful Instagram bot to help fuel your account growth while you work on the content that generates buzz.
1. Call for (and Use) User-Generated Content
Leverage the following you already have on social. Cross-promote your Instagram account with your other social channels, and announce a call for user-generated content (UGC) to feature on your Instagram account. Create a branded hashtag (#nowaste #worldsoilday #upcycledceramics), and encourage people to use it when they post photos featuring your product on Instagram and other social media channels. Feature at least one a week – and tag the user in it so they get a little shoutout.
2. Offer Discounts
Everyone loves discounts – but what does everyone love more than a discount? An exclusive discount. Create a discount specifically for your Instagram followers that you do not publish elsewhere. You can do the same for people who connect with you on other social media channels, too – so long as you keep the codes unique.
This company Reformation talks to you like you are one of the girls.
Then, pay attention to which codes are used most often. That way you learn which channel is more engaged with you, and where the majority of your target audience is.
In addition to offering discounts to new customers, you may want to offer a discount to returning customers, too, especially if you have a product where refills and replacements are common because it’s a consumable. All too often businesses tend to focus on customer acquisition, when customer retention is where the profit is. Once someone becomes a customer, do everything you can to keep them one of your customers, while still working to bring in new ones.
3. Host Contests
Contests are a great way to get your products in the hands of people who will use it, get UGC to use in the future, and grow your Instagram following all the same time. There are several ways you can do a contest, depending on what your goals are.
Want to grow your following? Host a contest where people have to follow you to enter. As an extra entry, ask them to tag a friend who may also be interested in entering to win.
Back in the day people used to participate in typing contests. You can be much more creative today on social media, or not!
Want to increase your engagement? Host a contest where you have people like the post and leave a comment with a hashtag to enter. Then, use the hashtag to track the number of entries and overall engagement. Make the hashtag unique so you don’t count unofficial entries, but keep it related to your brand.
Try a contest where people submit photos of your product in use, and the best ones (by user vote or a panel of judges) are chosen to win a prize. Remember that because this kind of contest requires the most effort, the prize should be larger than if you were to use another type of contest where the entry is easy and takes only a few seconds.
These are the best option if you have a high-dollar product that people aren’t so willing to invest their money on right away. You can also use this approach with influencers by giving them your product for free in exchange for promotions with their audience.
You can run contests back-to-back so you always have something running. This way you are constantly working on improving your engagement and building your tribe. Just take time to look at the results of each contest and make adjustments so you can continue to get a good return on your investment.
4. Share How-To Content
Use Instagram videos, slideshows, and Stories to demonstrate how to use your product. Demonstrate how to make the most of your product, and you’ll be encouraging people to buy it while also meeting the needs of your current customers.
Show how to set up and use your product. Show how to fix common issues for easy troubleshooting. You can use an Instagram Slideshow to splice together up to 10 minutes of video, as long as you edit it for flow, since you can combine 10 images or 10 one minute videos.
5. Highlight How to Use Your Product in Various Ways
Continuing with the How-to content, use all of Instagram’s features to show the various ways you can use your product. Bonus points if there are unique ways you can use your product compared to the competition, or out of the box ways you can use it that aren’t obvious to the average user.
Take for instance the Foodsaver. It’s a line of products designed to help you cut food waste by vacuum sealing your food so it lasts longer in the freezer. What many people don’t realize is that you can also use the vacuum sealer to save other things – such as your child’s schoolwork and other items you want to preserve, almost like a laminator. You can create bags for storing just about anything.
Whether you need to generate buzz for a product launch or a seasonal product, Instagram is one of the best places to do it. The audience is generally more affluent than other social media networks, and it definitely has more engagement compared to Facebook or Twitter. What’s more is people come to Instagram looking for things to buy, so if you don’t have a presence for your brand there yet, you should get started right away.
Soil can be made and cultivated. To celebrate World Soil Day, start with these soil-friendly tips.
We walk on it, dig into it, and build with it. We depend on it to grow food and clothing, filter water, and support natural ecosystems. Soil is essential to life.
Join the American Society of Agronomy and Soil Science Society of America in celebrating SOIL! World Soil Day is celebrated every year on December 5. The day focuses attention on the importance of protecting soil as one of our valuable, natural resources.
Here are the top 5 ways we can support soil.
Reduce food waste
The food we buy at the grocery store impacts the entire food supply system. One of the easiest ways we can support the soil is by limiting the amount of food that ends up in our garbage. All the food that ends up in our shopping carts requires land, water, nutrients and energy to produce. By consuming more and throwing away less, we will prevent valuable nutrients from ending up in a landfill!
Eat a diverse diet
By eating different types of foods, we can help create demand for a wide variety of agricultural products, which is better for soil. Food diversity helps with biodiversity and soil fertility when land is used to grow multiple crops. For protein sources, the United States Department of Agriculture recommends varying “your protein routine.”
Compost
My boy makes compost by rolling a giant ball.
So maybe our eyes were bigger than our appetites at the grocery store, and we end up with food we can’t finish. Instead of throwing it in the garbage, consider investing in a compost system! Composting can return nutrients in food back to nature. And, compost will be great for our gardens next growing season.
Read labels on lawn and garden products
Walking through the aisles of any home improvement or garden store, there is a seemingly endless array of products for our lawns and gardens. No matter which product we end up selecting, the most important step before applying is to thoroughly read the label and all instructions. Over- and under-application of the product can both cause problems.
Perform soil tests
If we are looking to fertilize our lawn or garden, we need to know what nutrients are already in the soil before applying more. We might be able to save money and apply less fertilizer. Or, we might just need to add one specific nutrient, and not others. A simple way to get reliable results is to have our soil tested. Local university extension services can help provide information on testing soil. It’s usually a matter of scooping up soil from a few areas of the yard and sending it in to the lab!
Fall Armyworm is invading the Near Middle East. New reporting app aims to mitigate risk, spread awareness.
The United Nations launched today a three-year Global Action for Fall Armyworm Control to scale up efforts to curb the growing spread of the invasive pest which is causing serious damage to food production and affecting millions of farmers across the world.
Fall Armyworm (FAW), a crop pest native to the Americas, has rapidly spread through Africa, and to the Near East and Asia in the past four years.
The Fall Armyworm (FAW) is an insect pest, which causes considerable yield losses in cultivated maize, rice, sorghum, millet, and other crops as it is capable of attacking over 80 species of crops, if not under good management and control.
Based on 2018 estimates, every year up to 17.7 million tonnes of maize (corn) are lost to this pest in Africa alone. This amount of maize could feed tens of millions of people; and represents an economic loss of up to $4.6 billion.
“It threatens food security of hundreds of millions of people and the livelihoods of smallholder farmers,” said FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu. He made the remarks at the launch of the Global Action on the sidelines of the FAO’s Council, the Organization’s executive body.
In his address, Qu said that the FAO needs $500 million over the next three years to control Fall Armyworm. Solutions like biological control can stop the Fall Armyworm, if applied correctly. To this end, he proposed the establishment of a Global Action Fund – the first ever multi-partner trust fund aimed at addressing the Fall Armyworm threats, – and encouraged countries to contribute to this funding mechanism.
Insect radar
Countries in the Middle East should consider investing in an insect radar. The idea was proposed more than 20 years and Israel installed its first insect radar in the Hula Valley in 2022.
The initiative also calls for increased partnerships to complement current FAO mechanisms such as Farmer Field Schools and South-South and Triangular Cooperation as well as to create new cooperation channels, Qu noted. In particular, he added, it will feed into FAO’s new data-driven Hand-in-Hand initiative to target interventions where most needed.
“We must all work together, FAO, international organizations, governments, the private sectors, research centres, academia, and civil society. With the proposed Global Action, FAO commits to putting the knowledge, experience and lessons learned from stakeholders and partners at the service of farmers throughout the world to stem the global threat of this pest,” the FAO Director-General concluded.
The 
