Page 86 – Green Prophet

Black churches protected in America with $4 million fund

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January 16, 2024

black church, saving black places — Saving black churches with a new fund. “The heart of our spiritual world is the Black church”

Martin Luther King would be proud: as the US commemorates the life and impact of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund is awarding $4 million in its second round of Preserving Black Churches grants to 31 historic Black churches across the US. With over $95 million in funding, the Action Fund is the largest American resource dedicated to preserving historic African American places. Since launching the Preserving Black Churches in 2022, the Action Fund has provided over $9.8 million in grants to over 80 historic churches. Even though signs of Christianity may be wavering in some communities, the church should stand for community and be a place to gather.

Black churches stand as timeless bastions of faith, resilience, and achievement in communities across America. These sacred spaces have been the birthplace of movements, the planning grounds for change, and a refuge for those seeking solace, says press material from the fund. “We created the Preserving Black Churches program to ensure the historic Black church’s legacy is told and secured.

“That these cultural assets can continue to foster community resilience and drive meaningful change in our society,” said Brent Leggs, Executive Director of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund. Preserving Black Churches is a $20 Million Action Fund program that equips historic Black churches and their congregations with the critical resources and technical preservation expertise to protect the historic assets and legacies they steward.

With this round’s grants ranging from $50,000 to $200,000, the Preserving Black Churches program helps congregations solve urgent and ongoing preservation threats such as deferred maintenance, insufficient funding, demolition, water filtration, and mold contamination.

Curches black America fund — Henry Louis Gates Jr. attends the 16th Annual National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards Gala at Millennium Biltmore Hotel Los Angeles on December 03, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by David Livingston/Getty Images)

“Black churches have been at the forefront of meaningful democratic reform since this nation’s founding. They’re a living testament to the resilience of our ancestors in the face of unimaginably daunting challenges,” said Henry Louis Gates, Jr., historian and advisor to the Action Fund. He is the host of the PBS program Finding Your Roots. “The heart of our spiritual world is the Black church. These places of worship, these sacred cultural centers, must exist for future generations to understand who we were as a people.” Sites selected for this year’s Preserving Black Churches grants include historic sites such as:

St. James AME Church in New Orleans, Louisiana

St James New Orleans — St. James AME Church in New Orleans, Louisiana, via New Orleans Churches

Founded by a group of freedmen, St. James is the oldest Black Protestant church in New Orleans. It served as the headquarters for the Louisiana Native Guards, Black Union soldiers during the Civil War, and was a staging site for marches during the Civil Rights movement. Funding will allow the church to make roof repairs that will stop 18 years of water intrusion in the upper sanctuary balcony and restore the church’s historic facade.

Town Clock Church in New Albany, Indiana

Built in 1852 as Second Presbyterian Church, the building served as a station on the Underground Railroad. Oral histories claims that the structure’s basement hid fugitives and an adjoining tunnel led from the north side of the building to what was once a hotel across the street. Funding will support endowment growth to ensure that the 2014 restoration and preservation efforts are sustained in the future.

Big Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Atlanta, Georgia

The oldest predominantly African American congregation in the Atlanta metropolitan area, Big Bethel AME Church was founded in 1847 and is the birthplace of Morris Brown College—the first educational institution in Georgia to be owned and operated entirely by African Americans. The Church hosted the first National Convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1920. Funding will support time-critical structural repairs and remedy safety concerns due to severe interior and exterior water damage.

Henderson Chapel AME Zion Church

The church was constructed in 1890, and its front gable form represents the architectural style of rural churches built between 1870 and 1950. The church served as a center of cultural activity throughout the Jim Crow Era as the site of lectures, community picnics, and other social activities. The building is not currently in use due to structural issues. Funding will support an architectural assessment and comprehensive preservation plan to restore the chapel so that it may serve as a place of worship, community event space, and tourist attraction.

Man poses with photo of forest he helped restore

Nature

Karin Kloosterman

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January 15, 2024

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Sehmus Erginoglu, 71, decided to do something about an area of wasteland in his home city of Mardin in southern Turkey. He began by clearing out rubbish from the site, then he installed water pipes and eventually started to plant saplings. Today the site is home to a small forest of around 11,000 trees, with thousands more planted in areas nearby. (All pictures by Murat Bayram/MEE) — Sehmus Erginoglu poses with photo of trees he helped restore. *(All pictures by Murat Bayram/MEE)*

A beautiful story to carry one’s legacy and to make Miss Rumphius proud: a man in Turkey has single-handedly restored a forest in his hometown. Sehmus Erginoglu now in his early 70s decided to do something about an area of wasteland in his home city of Mardin in southern Turkey.

According to the Middle East Eye he began by clearing out rubbish from the site about 30 years ago, and then he installed water pipes and eventually started to plant saplings. Today the site is home to a small forest of around 11,000 trees, with thousands more planted in areas nearby.

Sehmus Erginoglu the man who planted trees holding poster — Sehmus Erginoglu

In a world breeding so much intolerance and hatred for the “other” inside Turkey and the Middle East at large, let’s take Erginoglu’s example and make the world a bit better than the way we found it.

As a teen in French class in Canada we read The Man Who Planted Trees (L’homme qui plantait des arbres). The story of Elzéard Bouffier is an allegorical tale by French author Jean Giono, published in 1953 which tells the story of one shepherd’s long and successful effort to re-forest a desolate valley in the foothills of the Alps, near Provence, throughout the first half of the 20th century.

Erginoglu has taken the cue: “I have built 50 spring water fountains in Mardin. I have only planted 10,000 saplings in Savurkapı, and I keep going further. I come every day to water the saplings,” he told Hurriyet, a Turkish newspaper.

His only request to visitors was not to damage the trees.

Turkey’s Agriculture and Forestry Minister Bekir Pakdemirli has shared showing him as an example in the public eyes. But we do know that forest protectors in Turkey have been murdered. And you can go to jail if you are reporting about toxicity in the soil.

A Turkish scientist was sentenced to 15 months in prison in 2019 for revealing the cancer risks posed by toxic pollution in western Turkey. We interviewed researchers who mentioned similar problems with a cancer risk and pollution, and one was threatened by jail time if he released his research. Read our interview with Onur Hamzaoğlu here.

The story of Erginoglu is an inspiration for ecological regeneration brought about by man. And if you are wondering Miss Alice Rumphius is a children’s story about a woman who sought a way to make the world more beautiful and found it in planting lupines.

Israel’s BeeHero a top 100 cleantech company

Tech

Karin Kloosterman

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January 14, 2024

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Pollination is big business in the United States. Pollination from bees, beetles, flies and birds makes sure that olive trees and agriculture crops such as strawberries and almonds will grow. In fact 75% of all pollination comes from bees. But about 40% of managed honey bee colonies in the US were lost between 2021 to 2022, a problem for farms and farmers.

Part of the reason the bees are being lost –– or colonies dying –– I am acutely aware, is because of the conventional farming system that creates monoculture crops and which uses pesticides. However, beekeeping for honey and as a pollinator service is big business in the United States, expected to grow to about $700 million USD by 2027.

A startup from Israel called BeeHero, based now in California with an R&D office in Tel Aviv, is using sensors and data to help conventional beekeepers maintain healthy hives. A sensor in the hive that monitors conditions paired with data inputs from research and a sharing app helps commercial beekeepers keep track of their hives in the field, real time.

In 2022 BeeHero had already raised $42 million USD. This year they are voted one of 100 companies of the year by the CleanTech Group. The Cleantech Group totaled 25,435 nominations from over 65 countries to offers a fair representation of global innovation and private company creation.

Beeher’s latest $42M Series B funding round led by Convent Capital was joined by General Mills, Cibus Capital (formerly ADM Capital), Rabobank, MS&AD, Firstime, J-Ventures, Plug&Play, iAngels, Gaingels, UpWest, and more. By that point they had raised $64M.

BeeHero creates what they call a Healthy Hive Score, a metric for measuring bee health that promotes bee welfare management. Their beehive sensors collectively saved a quarter of a billion bees this past year, according to their data, and beekeepers using BeeHero’s technology have reported 33% fewer colony losses compared to the US national average.

As the human population continues to rise, growers are faced with the challenge of producing more food with fewer resources. Bee pollination is indispensable to this production of the world’s most valuable and nutritious foods, providing $18 billion annually in value to US agricultural crops alone.

BeeHero currently runs the largest database of bee behavior in existence, according to the company. They have amassed data from hundreds of thousands of monitored colonies, and existing academic research, to give beekeepers a way to assess colony health based on colony growth, brood health, and queen presence, normalized against weather conditions and flight hours.

Beehives in Israel, by Karin Kloosterman, near the Banias — Beehives in the Banias, Israel. Photo by Karin Kloosterman for Green Prophet

For growers, they can decide where and when to place bees for better pollination rates: “While beekeepers and growers depend upon strong and healthy hives, they have long struggled to accurately see inside their hives to better understand and care for their colonies, leaving both their crop yields and bottom lines at risk,” says Omer Davidi, the CEO of BeeHero. This is especially true in the United States and Canada where a significant number of colonies do not withstand winter. Other stressors include disease and climate change.

We wrote about the problems with almonds and almond milk here. And our demanding almond milk is also part of the problem. California supplies 80% of the world’s almonds. In 2019, that amounted to 2.5 billion pounds of the nuts. And the demand rises, with companies especially eyeing the growing Chinese market. California farmers have ripped out citrus trees and planted almond groves that cover over 1000,000 acres – an area comparable to the size of Delaware.

While Americans eat plenty of almonds – an estimated 900 grams every year – it’s the demand for almond milk that’s driving the industry. At sales of $1.2 billion yearly, hugely topping other non-dairy milks, it’s easy to see why.

The catch is that almond farmers can’t rely on native bees to pollinate their orchards. There aren’t enough of them, and they can’t be counted on to pollinate a predictable number of trees. The farmers contract commercial beekeepers to transport their hives to the orchards while the trees blossom. 1.6 million hives are needed to make USA almond trees produce every spring – over ten times what other crops, like apples, demand.

And this is where BeeHero hopes to fit into the market.

The first application of BeeHero’s Healthy Hive Score was during the 2023 almond pollination season in California. Growers received scores based on analysis of each of the orchards pollinated by hives under BeeHero management. Based on the average outcome of almonds per acre, growers that worked with BeeHero during this season collectively produced about 270 million pounds of almonds all grown under bee-friendly conditions.

5 Choices an Individual Can Make to Lead a Greener Life

Bhok Thompson

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January 12, 2024

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A lot of people trust major organizations and regulatory bodies to fix all the problems. Sure, major industries like mining and manufacturing are the largest polluters in the world, but what about personal responsibility?

There’s nothing easier than waiting for someone else to fix the problem, but what about making a personal effort to fix the problem? What about personally contributing to the resolution of these problems?

Well, there are five major choices that every individual can make in order to lead a greener life. Here’s how each of these choices can benefit you, other than just saving the planet.

Switch to water-saving practices

RedSea farms tomatoes growing — Tomatoes growing at RedSea farms, Saudi Arabia

Water conservation is important for the future of our planet, but it also lowers your water bill. Most importantly, there’s a way for you to save water without impacting your daily routine in any way.

The first thing you can do is be more mindful of the way you’re spending water. Rinse instead of washing, turn the tap off while brushing, and try to stick to similar water-conserving behavior patterns as best as you can.

The easiest way to save water is to go with low-flow fixtures. By replacing your toilet, faucet, and showerhead with low-flow alternatives, you’ll save huge amounts of water and never feel the difference. Your toilet alone is responsible for one-quarter of all water spent in your household. A low-flow toilet is just as efficient, but it wastes a lot less water.

Next, you want to change the way you’re watering your garden. While drip irrigation is quite an effective (and surprisingly water-efficient) way to water these plants, there’s a way to go even beyond. Smart irrigation systems are, by far, the most efficient way to ensure that your plants get the exact amount of water they need. In other words, it’s a boon to both your water saving and your gardening.

Choose greener digital practices

solar energy in the trees — Looking for a server powered by the sun?

The majority of individuals use at least one or several digital devices. The choice of the right device can reduce the amount of power that your household uses, but it’s not just about hardware.

By using cloud computing, you usually spend less power than if you were to store data on your own devices. Sure, these data centers often get a bad reputation for being power-hungry, but if you look at the equivalent of storing an equivalent amount of data on private devices, you’ll get a chance to see just how big of a difference this can make.

When hosting, make sure to check if the host in question is “green.” Sure, a lot of people don’t pay much attention to the carbon footprint of their site, but all it takes is just a bit of research to make a significant difference.

You can even make a difference with a VPN that’s optimized for server usage. To understand how this works and find the platform that will deliver the best results, you might want to first go through some VPN guides and resources.

Ultimately, you need to be extra careful when disposing of anything containing electronics. Make sure to dispose of it in a prescribed way and prioritize methods that offer recycling.

Green gardening

In order not to drain the soil and torment the ecosystem of your property, you need to start with the right plan. This means researching plants that work well in your climate and taking your soil for analysis. If you make the right selection of plants, your effort will be minimal, and you won’t have to disturb the local ecosystem too much.

Another concept worth exploring is the one of companion planting. Some plants are natural repellents of pests that destroy your other crops. By planting them next to each other, you can improve the crop yield without using pesticides and polluting the soil.

You should also start composting. This way, you’re recycling your food leftovers and providing your garden with a lot of natural nutrients. You can use almost all of your food leftovers except for meat and dairy. Even eggshells can be used.

In order to keep your garden warm during the colder part of the year and prevent it from losing too much moisture during summer, you might want to consider mulching. All you need to do is get a wood chipper and use any branches and debris that you encounter on your property. Just make sure that you don’t do this with processed wood since it has chemicals that might be released into the soil.

Mindful shopping

Another thing you need to do is consider what you’re buying. Read the labels and check how your products are made. It’s not just about buying something that has a harmful or dubious origin, it’s about feeding the money into that industry, potentially making it even larger in the future.

You also want to support ethical businesses by diverting your resources toward them and incentivizing them to keep doing a great job. This will not only feel good but also produce a butterfly effect further down the line.

Buying locally is also a conscientious choice. The thing is that even if someone else is delivering the product, it still has to be delivered. If you’re ordering it from anywhere in the world, the process of shipment will cause pollution. We’re not suggesting that you completely stop ordering products online, but it might be a good idea to start by checking if there are such products locally.

Planning bigger, fewer grocery runs is another amazing idea. This way, you take fewer trips. Ordering online doesn’t really help since you’re having someone take the trip either way. Sure, one might argue that they would be passing down this route to deliver to someone else, and, in that case, this would be the less polluting alternative.

Reexamining your transportation habits

bike on the coast trail — Try cycling by the sea in Venice, LA

Lastly, you need to start reexamining your transportation habits.

Public transportation and carpooling are the best course of action, but they can be quite inconvenient, and they’re not always available. Your office might be too far out of the way, and while walking 30 minutes from the bus station is even greener, the majority of people don’t have the luxury of that much extra time.

You might also want to consider cycling and walking from time to time. Sure, some people live in remote areas, and not a lot of people are willing to relocate in order to get more transportation options (for the sake of eco-friendliness). Still, you don’t have to go that far. We’re just suggesting that you could walk when you have the time and energy.

Most importantly, there is a way that will allow you to save money on gas, as well as keep driving in a more eco-friendly manner. You could switch to an electric car or a hybrid. Sure, a lot of people are concerned about being early adopters and have the so-called range anxiety, but these problems are getting better and better solutions by the minute. If not, you could at least, take gas mileage into consideration when buying your next car.

When you want something done, do it yourself

The last thing you need to consider is the importance of taking action and making adjustments to your life. Sure, your household is not going to save the planet or ruin it, but it’s important to take sides. Spending just one glass of water less per day makes more difference than all the moral grandstanding in the world. Always keep that in m

Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Aquellum is hidden in a mountain in Aqaba

Travel

Karin Kloosterman

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January 11, 2024

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aquellum is a new Araba area giga project by Neom — Aquellum is a new Aqaba-area giga project by Neom on the Red Sea

It seems like every week Neom, the Saudi Arabian-run company building The Line, the world’s first 15-minute city, is coming up with a new idea. Last week the fantasy was about Leyja, “sustainable” hotels in the desert. This week the fantasy is about Aquellum, a futuristic community for global nomads that will be completely encased in a mountain, invisible to anyone outside. But accessible from the Aqaba coast on the Red Sea though a “secret” location.

The coastal destination will be a hub for hotels, apartments, retail spaces, leisure and entertainment zones and innovative hubs, all in a vertical format, says Neom.

Aquellum follows the announcement of the project’s flagship regions, including Sindalah, its luxury island; The Line, a linear 15-minute city that represents the future of urban living; Trojena, its year-round mountain destination and the first outdoor ski experience in the GCC region; and Oxagon, a floating port city.

Some press bites about Aquellum: “A signature space, dubbed The Generator, houses unique research labs for disruptors, innovators, and creative thinkers, offering a platform where the future is reimagined.

“An omnidirectional internal transit system facilitates easy access to upper floors, transporting residents and visitors to their homes and hotels, ascending to rooftop gardens with breathtaking coastal views.”

Fun ideas, but nothing will be developed or populated by foreigners if Saudi Arabia can’t reign in Iran and the troubles with the Yemeni Houthi terrorists. The Houthis have been highjacking ships and firing at Saudi Arabia for years, and most recently taking the opportunity of the Hamas war with Israel to start shooting at Israeli-linked tankers. The Houthis held an oil tanker hostage for years and released it to international bodies just this summer to drain the oil cargo before it leaked into the sea. This was after several years of campaigns to get the Houthis to let the ship go.

Amazon deforestation is killing the lungs of the earth

Isabella Hannah

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January 11, 2024

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Amazon deforestation — Deforestation in the Amazon is causing fewer storms

For the first time scientists have determined that due to the ongoing deforestation in the Amazon basin in recent decades, the number of thunderstorms and rain in the region has decreased significantly, and the area over which they occur has shrunk.

This is opposite to what happens in other places, says climate change expert Colin Price: “In most areas of the world, global warming has resulted in an increase in the number of thunderstorms, but in this study we discovered that precisely in those areas where deforestation has increased the number of storms actually decreased, even with rising temperatures,” he says.

These findings are worrying because a decrease in the amount of storms leads to a decrease in the amount of rain, which in turn causes further damage to the forests. This is a dangerous feedback loop, which could severely damage the forests that provide the earth with a significant portion of the oxygen in the atmosphere and absorb a large portion of the carbon dioxide emitted by us into the atmosphere.”

The research was led by Prof. Colin Price and graduate student Raam Beckenshtein at Tel Aviv University in Israel. The research was published in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society.

What’s happening here? Price who has studied weather events and climate change for decades, postulates: “The Amazon tropical rainforests are the largest in the world and play a critical role in regulating the earth’s climate. These forests are often called ‘the lungs of the earth’, because through the process of photosynthesis the forests produce a significant portion of the oxygen in the atmosphere and absorb a large amount of its carbon dioxide – a greenhouse gas that makes a significant contribution to climate change.”

Cutting down the rainmakers

The rainforests themselves produce their own rain,” says Price. “The trees emit water vapor via evaporation into the air that eventually condenses and forms clouds and rain above the rainforests. The forests influence the local and regional rainfall.”

The researchers point out that these important processes are currently in danger due to the extensive activity of deforestation in the Amazon, from cutting down trees for wood and clearing areas for agriculture, infrastructure development, and mining.

In the 30 years between 1990 and 2020, forests whose total area is larger than the entire continent of Europe were destroyed in the Amazon basin. To sum up: the destruction of rainforests impacts global oxygen levels, while increasing the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and disrupts natural rainfall patterns that may lead to further drought in some areas. In addition, the trees that have been cut down are often burned, releasing additional carbon dioxide into the air and contributing to global warming.

In this study the researchers tracked changes in thunderstorms in the Amazon basin in recent decades using a variety of mapping and tracking technologies.

“We expected to find an increase in the number of storms due to global warming, as has been observed in many regions of the world, but to our surprise we found the opposite trend: a decrease of 8% over 40 years.

“Further analysis revealed that most of the decrease was observed precisely in those areas where the rainforests were replaced by agriculture or other human activity. The decrease can be explained by the fact that the absence of the forests significantly reduced the moisture in the air, which is the source of energy and moisture needed for the formation of thunderstorms.

“The result is fewer thunderstorms, fewer clouds, less rain, and consequently less growth of the forest. This creates a dangerous feedback loop that can cause the forests to dry out and significantly reduce the vital contribution of the ‘Lungs of the Earth’ to oxygen production and carbon dioxide absorption.”

Where is the Amazon Forest and how can you help?

The Amazon is a vast biome that spans eight rapidly developing countries—Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, and Suriname—and French Guiana, an overseas territory of France.

Take deforestation from your diet

Many of the foods we eat are grown on land cleared for beef and soy and palm oil. Eat less beef, palm and soy and it will help.

Buy Amazon Land for preservation

Find a local group near you pooling funds to buy Amazon forests that can be reserved for preservation.

Find ways to support indigenous people

Decision makers and corporations create the fate for the Amazon. Support local people and help them develop sustainable incomes that don’t require slashing and burning the lungs of the planet.

Uzbek greenhouses go digital

Food

Green Prophet

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January 10, 2024

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Uzbek greenhouse, cannabis greenhouse, digital, CBD, Muslim woman — Greenhouses in Uzbekistan go digital

Sitting in a field in the heart of Uzbekistan’s Fergana Valley, Shaodatkhon Oripova’s greenhouse isn’t just the simple structure it used to be. It’s now alive with digital sensors connected to the internet, through which the 62-year-old farmer can control the temperature, humidity, light and soil moisture. Uzbek farmers also work with drip irrigation.

“In the past,” she said, “a lot of my earnings would disappear into paying for utility bills and buying fertilizers,” says the mother of three, whose farm produces herbs, tomatoes, lemons, corn and clover.

Now, Shaodatkhon can better regulate these inputs through the sensors. If anything needs to be adjusted in the greenhouse, her mobile phone buzzes to alert her.

New “smart” farming techniques and technologies, like drip irrigation and pest traps, are helping farmers in Uzbekistan revolutionize their greenhouses, save water and increase their crop yields and incomes. ©FAO/Guzal Fayzieva — New “smart” farming techniques and technologies, like drip irrigation and pest traps, are helping farmers in Uzbekistan revolutionize their greenhouses, save water and increase their crop yields and incomes.

These sensors were particularly useful over the summer when extreme heat and lack of water impacted production from her greenhouse. While other farmers sustained great losses, she was able to maintain her production at close to last year’s levels.

Shaodatkhon has been used to the hard work and highs and lows of farming. “I was born into a family of farmers, and I have been a farmer my whole life, but it has not been easy,” she said.

It is a different type of farming now. Shaodatkhon describes how every day is a new learning experience with digital technology. She can now free up more time for other things such as marketing her produce, spending time with her family and improving her education and quality of life.

Shaodatkhon is one of the farmers taking part in the Smart Farming for the Future Generations project of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). It is closely aligned with the Digital Villages Initiative, which was introduced in the villages of Novkent and Yuksalish in the Fergana Valley of Uzbekistan in 2023.

The Digital Villages Initiative is a flagship programme of FAO aiming to transform at least 1 000 villages around the world into digital hubs. The initiative seeks to foster rural transformation and empower communities through digitalization and participatory approaches to combat hunger, poverty and inequality. The Digital Village Initiative helps farmers access technology to boost production, access rural services and improve livelihoods.

But it’s not just farmers who are getting involved. FAO is also offering training programmes to local young people. A coding camp helped train youth in replicating smart sensor devices. In the culmination of the training programmes, a Digital Villages Hackathon took place in November 2023 yielding an array of innovative agritech solutions to the challenges faced by rural people in the Fergana Valley.

The continuation of regular collaborative innovation workshops, known as “living labs”, also provides a vital platform for exchange among farmers, experts and innovators. During these sessions, farmers like Shaodatkhon and her family discuss the challenges they face, for example heating the greenhouse against the biting winter cold. Other topics brainstormed with a range of local actors and experts have included water scarcity, a lack of infrastructure and limited access to reliable extension services.

Keep your kids away from third-hand smoke

Health

Green Prophet

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January 10, 2024

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Smoking is still a big deal in the Middle East. Tel Aviv smokes like Paris in the 80s, and the hookah and shisha pipe is going strong in every city where the taste of apple tobacco makes you forget that the smoke is bad for your lungs. Vaping is pretty much everywhere in the world. Parents typically shoo the kids outside or smoke on the balcony but the residue from smoking can also do harm, finds a new study, citing third-hand smoke.

Thirdhand smoke is the presence of toxic tobacco by-products that remain on surfaces such as furniture, décor, walls and floors. It does not matter of the tobacco is organic. Some cultures like Native Americans may use tobacco for ceremonial purposes.

In a new study, published in the Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology, researchers tested the surfaces in smoking households where children reside and found troubling results, says Ashley Merianos, a tobacco researcher at the University of Cincinnati who led the study.

Researchers found nicotine on surfaces in all of the children’s homes and detected the presence of a tobacco-specific carcinogen (called NNK) in nearly half of the homes, she says. The study reported that the NNK levels on surfaces and vacuumed dust were similar, which Merianos says indicates that surfaces and dust can be similar reservoirs and sources of thirdhand smoke exposure for children.

“This is critically important and concerning, since NNK is considered the most potent carcinogen for tobacco-induced cancers,” says Merianos, an associate professor in UC’s School of Human Services.

Nicotine affects poorer families

Children living in lower-income households had higher levels of NNK and nicotine found on home surfaces.
Children living in homes that did not ban indoor smoking had higher levels of NNK and nicotine found on surfaces.

Merianos says that NNK and nicotine were still detected in homes with voluntary indoor smoking bans, which highlights the persistence of thirdhand smoke pollutants on surfaces in children’s homes: “This research highlights that home smoking bans do not fully protect children and their families from the dangers of tobacco,” she adds.

Why is pee yellow mystery solved

Nature

Isabella Hannah

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January 10, 2024

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The enzyme that makes urine yellow has been finally identified. It has been known for more than 125 years that a compound called urobilin is responsible for urine’s yellow colour. But it was unclear how exactly it is created from the red-orange bilirubin.

“It’s remarkable that an everyday biological phenomenon went unexplained for so long, and our team is excited to be able to explain it,” Brantley Hall, an assistant professor in the University of Maryland’s Department of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics, said in a news statement.

This waste product from degraded red blood cells can lead to jaundice and neurological damage if too much of it builds up in the body.

The enzyme, bilirubin reductase, is made by gut microbes and converts bilirubin into colourless urobilinogen, which breaks down further into yellow urobilin.

“Gut microbes encode the enzyme bilirubin reductase that converts bilirubin into a colorless byproduct called urobilinogen,” Hall, the study’s lead author, said. “Urobilinogen then spontaneously degrades into a molecule called urobilin, which is responsible for the yellow color we are all familiar with.”

The study authors said that before their research, scientists thought there were multiple enzymes involved, rather than a single enzyme.

Lab-grown meat telling convenient lies about carbon footprint?

Food

Karin Kloosterman

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January 9, 2024

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rib eye steak aleph farms — A steak grown in the lab made by Aleph Farms. Is it a pharmaceutical product or a food product?

Lab-grown meat companies such as US–based Mission Barns and Israel-based Aleph Farms (includes Leonardo Dicaprio as investor), are making cultured meat from animal cells. This process is often marketed to be more environmentally friendly than beef because it’s predicted to need less land, water and greenhouse gases than raising cattle.

But in a preprint, not yet peer-reviewed, researchers at the University of California, Davis, have found that lab-grown or “cultivated” meat’s environmental impact is likely to be “orders of magnitude” higher than retail beef based on current and near-term production methods.

Researchers conducted a life-cycle assessment of the energy needed and greenhouse gases emitted in all stages of production and compared that with beef. One of the current challenges with lab-grown meat is the use of highly refined or purified growth media, the ingredients needed to help animal cells multiply. Currently, this method is similar to the biotechnology used to make pharmaceuticals. This sets up a critical question for cultured meat production: Is it a pharmaceutical product or a food product?

“If companies are having to purify growth media to pharmaceutical levels, it uses more resources, which then increases global warming potential,” said lead author and doctoral graduate Derrick Risner, UC Davis Department of Food Science and Technology. “If this product continues to be produced using the “pharma” approach, it’s going to be worse for the environment and more expensive than conventional beef production.”

The scientists defined the global warming potential as the carbon dioxide equivalents emitted for each kilogram of meat produced. The study found that the global warming potential of lab-based meat using these purified media is four to 25 times greater than the average for retail beef.

A more climate friendly burger in the future?

Beyond Mean plant based burger — Beyond Meat, a flailing meat alternative company that uses pea protein, uses the lab to refine its ingredients for Beyond Burger, but is not considered lab-based meat

One of the goals of the industry is to eventually create lab-grown meat using primarily food-grade ingredients or cultures without the use of expensive and energy-intensive pharmaceutical grade ingredients and processes.

Under that scenario, researchers found cultured meat is much more environmentally competitive, but with a wide range. Cultured meat’s global warming potential could be between 80% lower to 26% above that of conventional beef production, they calculate. While these results are more promising, the leap from “pharma to food” still represents a significant technical challenge for system scale-up.

“Our findings suggest that cultured meat is not inherently better for the environment than conventional beef. It’s not a panacea,” said corresponding author Edward Spang, an associate professor in the Department of Food Science and Technology. “It’s possible we could reduce its environmental impact in the future, but it will require significant technical advancement to simultaneously increase the performance and decrease the cost of the cell culture media.”

Even the most efficient beef production systems reviewed in the study outperform cultured meat across all scenarios (both food and pharma), suggesting that investments to advance more climate-friendly beef production may yield greater reductions in emissions more quickly than investments in cultured meat.

Risner said even if lab-based meat doesn’t result in a more climate-friendly burger, there is still valuable science to be learned from the endeavor.

“It may not lead to environmentally friendly commodity meat, but it could lead to less expensive pharmaceuticals, for example,” said Risner. “My concern would just be scaling this up too quickly and doing something harmful for the environment.”

Save More Money on Bills by Being Energy-Conscious

Energy

Karin Kloosterman

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January 9, 2024

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Every household should strive for financial efficiency, considering how expensive bills are now, and one impactful avenue often overlooked is energy consumption. While swapping incandescent bulbs for LEDs is a known energy-saving hack, true efficiency is a holistic venture that extends beyond just light fixtures. Let’s embark on a journey to unveil practical and often disregarded strategies, shedding light on how considering the role of well-insulated doors and windows can illuminate your path to substantial energy and cost savings.

Understanding the Dynamics of Energy Efficiency

Efficiency goes hand in hand with awareness. Beyond the illumination provided by energy-efficient bulbs, scrutinising the dynamics of your home’s energy consumption can reveal surprising revelations. Unquestionably, lighting contributes, but equally important are the structural elements that regulate your home’s climate.

Weather Stripping Matters

Even the most energy-efficient doors and windows can’t perform optimally if there are gaps allowing drafts. Weatherstripping emerges as a cost-effective solution to seal these often overlooked crevices. A small investment in quality weather stripping enhances the longevity of your doors and windows and results in substantial energy savings.

Windows and Doors to Keep Warm

While we often view windows and doors as mere architectural elements, they wield profound influence over your home’s energy dynamics. Windows with poor seals, for example, will create drafts in your home. New windows, especially with double or triple glazing, will help you save money – statistics show triple-glazed windows can save up to 50% on energy bills.

Doors work similarly – well-fitted internal doors keep rooms warm and well-insulated. Visit websites like doorways.co.uk for good examples. It’s these inexpensive changes to make to your home that can save you money on expensive energy bills in the long run.

Energy-Saving Habits for Your Home

floating home, energy saving — Every home should feel like an eco oasis, and it can be done by saving energy. Here’s how it can be done.

It’s not only about what you can add to your home. It’s about what you can do when you’re in it. Consider these practical tips to make your home more energy-conscious:

Mindful Thermostat Control

nest labs google — A smart home thermostat by Nest

Setting your thermostat to lower temperatures during winter and keeping it on constantly is more eco-friendly than turning it on and off. Experts recommend keeping it between 16 and 17 degrees. Programmable thermostats can automate this process.

Lighting Choices Matter

Opt for energy-efficient LED bulbs – you won’t notice a difference between them and incandescent bulbs. They last longer and consume significantly less energy.

Unplug Unused Devices

Electronics in standby mode still draw power – standby power is estimated to account for up to 40% of a device’s total power usage. Unplug chargers and devices when not in use to prevent unnecessary energy consumption.

Upgrade to Energy-Efficient Appliances

Newer appliances are more energy-efficient focused – you’ll notice the energy rating stickers on most if not all, new appliances. They may have a higher upfront cost but lead to long-term savings and reduced energy consumption.

For a more energy-conscious lifestyle, broaden your focus beyond the conventional tips. There are tons of ways that we can be more energy-conscious in the home. In 2024, sustainability and climate change will be a big topic as the earth’s temperature rises each year.

Turkish garbage collectors open library with rescued books

Karin Kloosterman

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January 9, 2024

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Garbage collectors in the Turkish capital have opened a public library comprised entirely of books once destined for the landfills. The library, located in the Çankaya district of Ankara, was founded after sanitation workers started collecting discarded books. — Garbage collectors in Ankara have turned an abandoned brick factory into a community library full of discarded books.

As a daughter of a garbage collector and reseller, and grand-daughter of a garbage dump manager, I am pretty thrilled to find other garbage collectors appreciate the value in things thrown out. Garbage collectors in Ankara, Turkey, see things the same way and have collected books thrown out in the trash and have created an underground library for all the books. They use the library before and after their shifts.

Initially, the books were only for employees and their families to borrow. But as the collection grew and interest spread throughout the community, the library was eventually opened to the public in 2017. Locals now give books directly to the library.

“We started to discuss the idea of creating a library from these books. And when everyone supported it, this project happened,” said Çankaya Mayor Alper Tasdelen, whose local government oversaw the opening of the library.

Downgrade your expectations for solar energy investments in the UK

Energy

Green Prophet

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January 9, 2024

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A perfect storm of inflation, supply chain disruption, spiralling interest rates and delays in connection to the UK’s national grid means that the swathe of solar farms approved and going through planning permission in the UK are likely to be severely delayed or cancelled undermining any hopes of achieving a government target of a fivefold increase to 70GW by 2035.

A new study by Huw Evans, an Energy Consultant and former Head of Global Economics for BG Group suggests that under the current macro-Economic conditions and impasse at obtaining connection to the National Grid, any chance of these solar farms being viable in the near future is negligible.

The UK government has gambled heavily on promoting solar energy to achieve its stated goal to be carbon neutral by 2035, he says.

In his report, Evans goes on to say that despite greatly increased prices offered by the Government in their Contract for Difference (CfD) allocation round, to encourage Renewable Energy, where prices have been increased by 30% for Solar Energy, solar developers will still struggle to make any return on their investment.

That is before you take into any account delays in connecting to the national grid. “The UK Government has vastly underestimated the increasing costs to develop solar farms, where their assumptions suggest the UK can develop Solar Energy cheaper than anywhere else in the world; based on published data, which is clearly unrealistic!” he says.

The UK not ideal for solar power

Within the report, Evans points to International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) data that shows that given the UK’s climate, solar energy is within the worst 5% areas in the world to develop solar electricity, as only 10%-11% of the capacity of Solar Farms will ever be generated annually compared to double that in places such as Spain, Australia and parts of the US.

For Grid connection, as of November 2023, there are 1,300 projects that are awaiting connection to the grid which amounts to 400 Giga Watts (GW) of Grid access requirements. Companies applying for Grid access have been told they have to wait 15 years before any electricity they produce can be sold.

New rules issued by The National Grid to alleviate the backlog of connections which effectively are “get on, get back or get out of the energy queue” are in danger of creating thousands of acres of White Elephants, as grid connections continue to be delayed with diggers tearing up the landscape and then being suspended as projects are put on hold pending a grid connection date.

Evans points out that this as already happened in Torquay Devon where diggers have already cleared the site only to be told that Grid connection will be at least 5 years and there are indications that that could slip into the mid 2030s.

He further notes that Centrica have said that approximately 80% of the 300 substations across England and Wales need upgrading and “supergrid transformers are huge bits of kit that weigh several hundred tonnes, and it takes years to install them.

“We’re talking five to eight years for each one of these.”

For projects to progress they will probably need an allocation of a Contract for Difference (CfD) in the auction rounds, which come with a deadline of when the project needs to come on stream, a date from The National Grid to be connected which may or may not be in line with the deadline set by the CfD and provide the investor and financiers with a viable return on their investment which in the current climate is very doubtful.

Captive vultures can rewild and join the flock

Animals

Karin Kloosterman

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January 9, 2024

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Captive vultures can rewild and join the flock

Vulture in captivity, join the flock — Vulture in captivity learns to join the flock with biologist *Ron Efrat*

We know from watching the movie Fly Away Home with Anna Paquin that Canadian geese bred in captivity identify and imprint on the first mother they see. We also learn that Canadian geese can learn to fly with airplanes, and then evetually rewild. True story. Does the Fly Away Home theory really work for all birds?

Bird biologists from Israel say there are two types of experiences affect the behavioral skills of animals: the animal’s environment during its early development but also its acquired experience. The researchers wanted to understand how migration is impacted when captive birds are released and how fast vultures they studied could acquire experience.

The biologists attached two groups of vultures with trackers –– one group was born in the wild, a second group was born in captivity. Could captive birds catch up with their wild counter-parts? The researchers find out the answer is yes, but it takes time.

This news will certain be useful for falconers in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, where falconry is more than a sport. It’s a way of life. The Saudi prince takes his falcons on their own plane.

Model Omar Borkan Al Gala and his falcon.

The researchers, led by Ron Efrat from the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, followed Egyptian vultures during migration, a critical and challenging period for them, and investigated how their flying skills developed by examining their performance using high resolution tracking. Egypt borders Israel in the southern tip.

“We were able to generate data on the vultures’ migration and flying skills. The data made it possible to learn about the value of early experience and acquired experience and their impact on the ability of birds to cope with challenging periods such as migration,” explained Efrat, one of the lead investigators. “It seems that birds, like humans, are also affected by their life experience,” he said.falcon

The flight skills of two groups of birds of the species Egyptian vulture (Neophron percnopterus), a long-distance soaring raptor, were assessed using GPS transmitters for autumn migrations of 65 individuals.

The two groups were quite different in terms of their early life experiences: one group was raised in captivity and the other in the wild. The birds in both groups improved their flight and migration performance as they gained experience. However, the improvements observed were most evident for vultures raised in captivity.

During their first migration, the captive-bred birds were less efficient but were able to catch up with the migration performance of those raised in the wild as early as the second migration. Thus, the experience gained helped offset the shortcomings of their early life experience at an early stage.

Just as it is harder for humans to learn a language in old age, the vultures that hatched in captivity and were set free at a later age found it difficult to learn the necessary flying and roaming skills, but eventually caught up with those that learned earlier.

Vultures are being bred in Israel part of a new $7 million USD program to help their population. The plan includes breeding programs, safe nesting zones, feeding stations and the removal of poisoned animal carcasses from their habitats. Bedouin communities in the Negev and Arab farmers in the Wadi Ara area, Galilee have been laying out poison traps to target wolves, jackals and foxes that attack livestock. But the poison bait is inadvertently killing vultures.

The research group in the latest vulture release research includes Prof. Nir Sapir from the University of Haifa, Prof. Thomas Mueller from Frankfurt University, and the Senckenberg Research Center in Germany, and Ohad Hatzofe, Bird Ecologist of the Israel Nature and Parks Authority.

Their findings were published in the journal Current Biology last month.

Are there sustainable options to glass wine bottles?

Food

Karin Kloosterman

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January 9, 2024

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women drinking out of a can — How many oz in a bottle of wine? Time to ask how many in a wooden cask or can?

Would you be happy to pour your friends a glass of wine from a wooden cask or sip your favourite rose from an aluminium can? Are there more sustainable wine drinking options for consumers and will they go for them? This is a questions marketing researchers at an Australian business school are asking.

While alcohol is forbidden in Islam, there is a growing wine market in Mediterranean countries, such as Israel, which is emerging as boutique wine tastemaker. Winemakers in Canada have started using plastic corks which you can still find on European-sold wine (cork is being depleted faster than it grows) and people have gotten used to them. But can drinking habits accept a flask made from wood, from pottery or from terapacks?

Conventional glass wine bottles are the wine industry’s largest source of carbon emissions, with the manufacture of a single bottle generating 1.25kg of carbon dioxide. In total, the production and transport of glass wine bottles make up more than two thirds of the wine industry’s total carbon output. Here are 10 ways to lower your personal carbon footprint, in case you are wondering.

Traditional glass bottles have long been the preferred choice of packaging among wine lovers due to the belief that wine looks and tastes better in glass. While glass bottles have been the wine industry’s go-to for centuries, they are not the most carbon-friendly option available. They are however a better alternative to plastic which does not break down and which probably won’t be recycled. In America only 5% of plastics are actually recycled.

Researchers from the University of South Australia’s Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science and the University of Adelaide’s Business School have explored people’s wine packaging choices, and how attributes such as price, brand, and messaging can influence them.

hipsters at a wine bottling manufacturing site in Brooklyn — Making wine at boutique winery. A sense of purpose. Will custom-made champagne bottles be a thing of the past?

Researcher Jakob Mesidis says previous wine packaging research has largely focused on wine label and closure (cork or screw-top) preferences, but little attention has been paid to the format of the packaging. He says, “We knew that consumers weren’t buying alternatively packaged wine at the same rate they were buying it bottled, so we wanted to know what we should change to motivate them to choose more sustainable options.”

Australia’s main alternative wine packaging formats are the ‘bag-in-box’ (also known as cask wine) and aluminium cans, although new formats, such as flat plastic wine bottles, are gradually entering the market each day. Consumers might also be curious about the effect of plastics and the acidic environment of wine leaving toxins into the final sip.

These alternative formats are up to 51% more carbon efficient than glass, but Mesidis says Australian consumers are resistant when it comes to these more environmentally friendly options. He does not provide data on MENA, European or North American consumers in countries like Canada or France. “There are some underlying prejudices in relation to alternative wine packages as they are seen as the cheaper, low-quality option when compared to glass bottles, which come with a sense of heritage and luxury,” he says.

So, what can the wine industry do to bring consumers on board?

In a survey of 1200 Australians, the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute found that cask wine and flat plastic wine bottles were the most preferred formats after traditional glass bottles. Cans were the least preferred, as they were closely tied to specific occasions, such as drinking outdoors. There was no creative options such as hand-made pottery which could be converted into jars for other purposes, mentioned in the survey.

Street bistro, wine, beer streets of Paris, frites sign — It will be hard to get the French to stop drinking wine from bottles.

Results found that package format was the biggest influence on people’s choices. Price came second, while the importance of brand and eco-messaging varied depending on the respondent’s age and how many eco-friendly behaviours they claimed to engage in.

Alternative wine formats were also typically bought more by younger people. Consumers were found to be more likely to choose alternative wine packaging when it is priced at a mid-to-low price range and if it comes from a well-known, prestigious brand.

“If a smaller, less-known winery’s mission is to grow its brand as much as possible, relying solely on alternatively packaged wines is not the way to go. Most Australians—for the time being—are still going to reach for a glass bottle when they’re at the shops,” Mesidis says.

“Larger, more prestigious brands are likely to see more success with alternatively packaged wine. Ultimately, this research provides wine marketers with a foundation for their low-carbon wine packaging strategies, rather than blindly navigating this relatively new field.

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Switch to water-saving practices

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Mindful shopping

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Take deforestation from your diet

Buy Amazon Land for preservation

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Nicotine affects poorer families

A more climate friendly burger in the future?

Understanding the Dynamics of Energy Efficiency

Weather Stripping Matters

Windows and Doors to Keep Warm

Energy-Saving Habits for Your Home

Mindful Thermostat Control

Lighting Choices Matter

Unplug Unused Devices

Upgrade to Energy-Efficient Appliances

The UK not ideal for solar power

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