Forbidden Planet

Seeing as today is Earth Day and I am strapped for time, I am gently appropriating this post from Ingrid 's blog. I think it is a powerful message to reflect upon.

I think most people underestimate how much energy it really takes to power things. A quick trip to your local science and technology museum / centre should quickly dispel any misconceptions. These places usually have a stationary bicycle connected to a generator and you are encouraged to peddle to try and light a lamp or two. It doesn't take much peddling to realize that it takes a whole lot of work to light a lamp. This realization did not occur to the inventor of an environmentally friendly lamp dubbed the Gravia or to the judges judging it. The idea is that the energy from a slowly descending weight is converted to electricity and used to power high efficiency LEDs, providing approximately 600-800 lumens of light over a 4 hour period. At the end of 4 hours, you just flip the lamp over and the whole process begins anew. It sounds great ... except the energy output seems a little out of whack - especially if you have ever energetically peddled one of those stationary bikes in a s...

Since time immemorial, people have thought the world to be over populated, as can be illustrated from these two ancient snippets: "There was a time when the countless tribes of men, though wide dispersed, oppressed the surface of the deep-bosomed earth, and Zeus saw it and had pity and in his wise heart resolved to relieve the all-nurturing earth of men by causing the great struggle of the Ilian war, that the load of death might empty the world." - Cypria or Kypria, 7th or 8th century BCE. (estimated world population 75 million) "What most frequently meets our view (and occasions complaint), is our teeming population: our numbers are burdensome to the world, which can hardly supply us from its natural elements; our wants grow more and more keen, and our complaints more bitter in all mouths, whilst Nature fails in affording us her usual sustenance. In very deed, pestilence, and famine, and wars, and earthquakes have to be regarded as a remedy for nations, as the means of...

As someone who likes his information unadulterated, I am often annoyed by news reporting, political rhetoric and spin in general. Two nights ago I was listening to The Review on CBC radio, which featured a segment on plasticizers from the The Current earlier that day. Like most "in-depth" reporting, it was not. It was primarily about presenting one side of a story and making it as sensational as possible. Of course, it helps to bring in some experts from McGill University. There were two things about the report that really annoyed me because the information was disingenuously presented. The first was about how not much research has been done on the biodegradation of plasticizers. Ok, then we should do more research. A group from McGill did an experiment in which they put microbes into a container with plasticizer and watched what happened. As expected, the organism broke down the plasticizer, but then, (oh, shock!) they discovered the microbes were dying from compounds the pl...

What is a blog from Canada without some Fall pictures. I didn't manage to get too many shots off this Fall. The sun seemed to conspire against me. Everytime I was out with my camera, it seemed to be cloudy. Nonetheless, I did manage to snap a few and here is a selection. Photo credits: Richard of Forbidden Planet

A brilliant video montage for the 1969 Zager & Evens song of the same title. Most times I advise ignoring the video and just listening to the song. In this case, the video complements the song perfectly.

As tin-tin commented in my previous post , waste water can be reused for other pruposes. While I would not advocate reusing toilet water to water your garden or lawn (unless it is going into a septic tank - in which case, you are already reusing your waste water). You can certainly reuse dirty dish and bath water. Granted, the convenience of scooping the water out the sink, into a bucket and carrying out to your garden may be a bit much. However, here are two ways waste bath and sink water can be reused, rather economically, if only they would build houses this way: (1) irrigating lawns and gardens. It would be a fairly simple matter to have option of redirecting the water into the drainage tiles (like a septic tank) under your lawn. I envision the drainage for the bath and sink would be switchable between sewer and irrigation. Alternatively, it could be fed out to a cistern, though I am not sure I would want standing dirty water :P (2) waste heat could be reclaimed from the water (m...