Generational thinking . . .

GENERATIONAL THINKING: making plans that will involve the participation of four or five or more generations. It's a headspace that's completely foreign to the Harper smash-and-grab mutilation of our landscape and society. To Stevie, sustainability means how long can he get away with it.

Anyway snotr is a site with an inspiring video, "The Living Bridge", situated in Mehgalaya, a tribal kingdom in Assam, jammed between Bangladesh and Bhutan. It's monsoon central, there, and building bridges requires creativity, with no construction tools or equipment or materials or money.

DOH! . . .

SUSTAINABILITY, FROM SHARE.

Charlie ain't happy . . .

THE NY TIMES MAGAZINE has an article, "Tuna's End", by Paul Greenburg. Doesn't look good for bluefin. 

What was in the water that day was a congregation of Atlantic bluefin tuna, a fish that when prepared as sushi is one of the most valuable forms of seafood in the world. It’s also a fish that regularly journeys between America and Europe and whose two populations, or “stocks,” have both been catastrophically overexploited. The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, one of only two known Atlantic bluefin spawning grounds, has only intensified the crisis. By some estimates, there may be only 9,000 of the most ecologically vital megabreeders left in the fish’s North American stock, enough for the entire population of New York to have a final bite (or two) of high-grade otoro sushi. The Mediterranean stock of bluefin, historically a larger population than the North American one, has declined drastically as well. Indeed, most Mediterranean bluefin fishing consists of netting or “seining” young wild fish for “outgrowing” on tuna “ranches.” Which was why the Greenpeace craft had just deployed off Malta: a French fishing boat was about to legally catch an entire school of tuna, many of them undoubtedly juveniles.

Worth the read.

Ethanol from almost anything?

AROUND THE TIME THAT THE BOTTOM DROPPED OUT of the world economy, GM invested in a start-up by name of Coskata, which has developed a proprietary process to produce alcohol from just about anything.

Pundits were not impressed. Well, it seems that Coskata is the real deal. They've just opened a medium-size installation, and are fixing plans for a humongous one somewhere in the US south-east.

Why should you care? Well, for starters, the Coskata process is energy-positive:

Argonne National Lab has found that with certain feedstocks, the Coskata process can "reach a net energy balance of 7.7" (meaning, the ethanol produced contains 7.7 times as much energy as it took to make the fuel). 

AUTOBLOG has an in-depth article by Sebastian Blanco, that will provide a lot more detail, and is worth the read. This could be the Tar Sands' worst nightmare. Besides, turbos love E-85 . . .

The Kyoto Box

DEFORESTATION FOR FIREWOOD is a major problem in the third world. Shannon Carr-Shand writes for Forum for the Future, a very interesting ecology site, and tells all about this clever invention. It cooks things, and sterilizes water, and it's brain-dead simple and dirt-cheap.

Maybe not so dystopic

Photo by Flickr user Senor Codo.

CONVERTING CO2 INTO FUEL is a hot area of research, according to Wired magazine, who have discovered a new outfit called Carbon Sciences

The company says its "C02-to-Fuel" technology uses CO2 to create ethane, propane and methane, three run-of-the mill hydrocarbons used to make high-grade gasoline and other fuels. The key to the process is biocatalysis, a process where natural catalysts are used to perform chemical reactions. Biocatalysis is a more energy efficient and cost-effective way to break down CO2, making the possibility of a large-scale ramp up economically feasible.

Carbon Sciences has this to say:

Innovating at the intersection of chemical engineering and bio-engineering disciplines, we are developing a highly scalable biocatalytic process to meet the fuel needs of the world. With over 28 billion tons of CO2 emitted each year, there is an abundant supply of raw material available to produce renewable and sustainable fuels for global consumption.