Until the girls were abducted, I didn’t know much about Burkina Faso. And I didn’t think I wanted to know more until I stumbled upon Tiébélé, a village full of the most elaborately-painted earthen homes and mausoleums. Rita Willaert has a treasure trove of images on her flickr page. Hit the jump to see just a few – these are pure art.
The beautiful painted earth homes of Burkina Faso
Always wanted to help heal Palestine? Help Mashjar Juthour
Mashjar Juthour is a living museum of what little wild fauna and flora still exist in Area C, a portion of Palestinian territory controlled by Israel, but it’s struggling to get by. Aiming to create a sacred green space for the Palestinian people and supporters, a place to heal and regenerate, its founders humbly ask for our help.
skyTran’s magnetic sky pods to be tested in obscure Israeli city
Magnetic levitation technology enthusiasts around the world are waiting to see what will happen in Israel, where skyTran has teamed up with Israel Aerospace Industry (IAI) to prove the viability of their Hover Car personal rapid transit (PRT) system. The levitating sky cars will be tested in Lod, a run-down industrial city south of Tel Aviv.
Radical recycling: a chicken is now a lamp
Imagine you’re at an old taxidermy museum and you go out back and find one of their broken ducks in the trash. You see it and you say “hey, that would make a great lamp!” People might think you’re weird. But Sebastian Errazuriz doesn’t really care. He found such a thing and now it makes light where it once made sound.
Drones monitor flamboyances of flamingos in this Arab country
“Drones are the future of conservation,” said Dr. Shaikha Salem Al Dhaheri when commenting on his team’s plan to use drones to monitor flocks of flamingos at the Al Wathba Wetland Reserve in United Arab Emirates.Dr. Al Dhaheri is executive director of Terrestrial and Marine Biodiversity at the Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi (EAD.)
He explained that the drones will capture still and moving images of flamingos in their difficult to reach habitats such as the reserve’s lagoons and mud flats. These unmanned aerial vehicles weigh only a little more than a kilogram and have a top speed of more than 50 kilometers per hour. Dr. Al Dhaheri believes they will provide high quality data while minimizing time, costs and close human interactions with the flamboyances of flamingos at the reserve.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeqDGFDeAZA&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]
A record number of 200 flamingo chicks were counted at the reserve during the summer of 2013. This is the highest number since the Arabian Peninsula’s first successful greater flamingo breeding took place here in 1998 and established the site’s protected status.
Flamingos can be seen at the reserve all year round and a successful robotic monitoring program will give naturalists useful information which can be used to protect the species and its natural environment. This isn’t the first non-military use of drones, lets hope it won’t be the last.
Photo and video from the Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi
Modern mashrabiya is Arab architecture made in the shade – check out these stunning photos
Thousands of folding glass panels cover the southern facade of the Al Bahr Towers in Abu Dhabi (above). Reacting to sunlight, they form a protective skin to decrease interior solar gain. It’s a modern riff on the best known element of Arabic architecture, in play since the Middle Ages. Meet the modern mashrabiya.
The best environmental photographs in the world
Picture what happens when the world’s only independent, chartered organization dedicated to achieving a sustainable world teams up with one of the oldest environmental engineering companies to underwrite an environmental photo contest. The eye-popping images of this year’s Atkins CIWEM “environmental photographer of the year” shortlist tell it all.
Saudi Arabia group makes pact with Masdar for green energy
Despite the turbulence tearing through the Middle East, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have solidified their commitment to clean energy with the newly formed Framework Agreement on Strategic Cooperation between Masdar and King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy (K.A.CARE.) It’s leadership we desperately need.
PV solar bridge for breakout net-zero Falcon Island development
Some projects that cross my desk are blatantly not as “green” as their investors want us to believe, yet have many redeeming qualities. Take Al Hamra Real Estate’s breakout mega-development, Falcon Island. It’s slated for construction in Ras-al-Khaimah, the emirate north of Dubai, and it’s going gangbusters with solar energy.
Elon Musk’s SolarCity inks huge solar deal in NYC
Tesla’s Elon Musk has made serious inroads to implement widespread use of electric vehicles, but he’s also got a hand in one of the most important solar energy deals of the century. Last week SolarCity purchased Silevo in New York in order to significantly scale up production of super efficient, high quality solar panels.
Mass extinction on its way thanks to humans, new study shows
Researchers from Duke University in the United States warned that planet Earth is on the brink of a mass extinction event comparable to the one that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
Al Farjan sports clubs for a greener, fitter Qatar
What’s the best way to get a nation of increasingly obese residents to embrace a healthier life? Host a World Cup and build a bunch of awesome sports clubs. Having secured 2022, the Qatar Olympic Committee has now commissioned Grimshaw Architects to install green recreational facilities throughout the emirate.
Water Farmers get fresh with aquaponics for food in Toronto
Dream of fresh organic food? Have little land in your town or city but plenty of patience? There is a new city gardening movement called aquaponics or AP. The movement is creating missionaries, new converts and maybe even some gurus, but there are also real people doing it in backyards, parks, basements or a garage near you.
Create an ocean water health sensor and win $2 million
Ocean acidification has reached record levels, so the deep-pocketed Board of XPRIZE are at it again – using “incentivization” to spark technological breakthroughs to “benefit humanity”. They’re holding out a pair of $1 million carrots to tempt everyone to conjure up a better sensor to measure ocean acidification – a malady caused by our continual pumping of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
A quarter of all that gas gets absorbed by the oceans, changing the water chemistry – making it more acidic, with dire consequences.
“A good number of ocean scientists say ocean acidification is the biggest threat to ocean health,” Paul Bunje, the lead scientist behind the ocean health prize, told Live Science. It threatens aquatic ecosystems, in turn harming sea-life. Seem a far-away problem? Consider the knock-on impact to our bellies and wallets, as acidification destroys fisheries and tourism sites that depend on thriving marine ecosystems.
Technology for gauging acidification is inadequate or expensive. “Because of the under-investment in ocean science and research, there aren’t enough tools present to measure what’s happening in the sea,” said Bunje. “We’ve mapped the dark side of the moon and Mars to higher resolution than the bottom of the ocean.”
Enter the folks at XPRIZE. Last September they launched the Wendy Schmidt Ocean Health XPrize to incite development of either the most accurate or the most affordable ocean pH sensors. Anyone can compete, and teams or individuals can register for the competition until June 30.
The competition has three phases. In September, teams will be allowed three months to lab-test their devices. In February, trials will be held at the Seattle Aquarium in Washington state.
Finally, in spring 2015, finalists will test their devices off the coast of Hawaii, at depths of nearly 10,000 feet – 50% deeper than any pH sensor has ever been tested.
Seventy teams from 19 countries have registered so far, ranging from academics, commercial enterprise, home tinkerers and high school clubs. You still have time to get in on the action!
XPRIZE is an innovation engine led by visionaries that include Elon Musk, James Cameron, Larry Page, Arianna Huffington, and Ratan Tata. Founded in 1996 by entrepreneur Peter Diamandis, this non-profit conducts public competitions to encourage technological development for the good of the planet.
According to their website, they believe that tapping into the “indomitable spirit of competition brings about breakthroughs and solutions that once seemed unimaginable.”
Rather than throwing money at a problem, they incentivize solutions and challenge the world to solve it. Contest themes are audacious but achievable, and tied to measurable goals.
An earlier X Challenge, prompted by the 2010 BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, was a $1.4 million competition to develop better technology for cleaning up oil spills. The winning team developed a solution that was four times better than the industry standard, Bunje said. They plan on launching more competitions focused on ocean health.
“By 2020, we could move away from an unhealthy state and be on an unstoppable path to healthy oceans,” Bunje said.
