Coming Back Soon!

Please excuse our lack of posting this week... Greenthinkers is re-launching later this week (if I can get my act together!) or early next week.

There is a fresh new look and many other improvements.

And, I know there are a bunch of new posts ready so stay tuned!

The Sustainable Games

The Turino (aka Turin) Olympics are excitedly touting themselves as the sustainable games.

As they say, the mountain at the centre of the Games is a theatre for competitions, but also as an element to be defended and appreciated. Their goal is to guarantee the sustainability of the Olympic Programme in all of its development phases but to also transform environmental challenges into new opportunities.

Working mantras include ensuring the Games have a neutral impact on the climate, checking the good environmental management of the permanent works, introducing environmental requisites in the creation of temporary works, reducing the environmental impact of the work carried out in offices, minimizing the impact from the management of waste produced during the event, and exploiting the environmental services of the sponsors and suppliers of the Games.

These are certainly wonderful sentiments and goals.

A great wealth of dense, green-themed political-speak material is available on the Games' website here.

Forever Flashlights

Have you seen this?

The Forever Flashlight uses no batteries or bulbs. Instead it uses Faraday's Principle of Induction and a bright LED to produce light without batteries. The light is shaken for about 30 seconds to recharge a capacitor and it will then provide about 5 minutes of light. As the light is shaken, a magnet passes through a metal coil generating electricity. During prolonged use it can be shaken for 10-15 seconds every 2 or 3 minutes.

Plus, the bright LED will last for thousands of hours and does not burn-out like a typical lightbulb - it should never need replacement.

Interesting. Worth a test-drive for sure.

Photo credit: Amazon.com

Ingredients for Extinction?

A growing body of evidence indicates that sea lice from salmon farms are killing the Pacific Coast's wild salmon. Salmon are the lifeblood of the coast and must be saved.

In late 2005, the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform (CAAR) began an add campaign alerting salmon consumers to the perils of choosing farmed salmon versus wild salmon.

Part of the campaign encouraged concerned consumers to let Safeway know they have a responsibility to encourage their salmon suppliers to adopt more sustainable practices. The weight of evidence from published science is hard to dismiss. Here’s hoping Safeway listens.

But how can we tell if a fish is farmed or wild? According to the David Suzuki Foundation, being marked “fresh” doesn’t necessarily mean it’s wild. But you can tell a great deal by the species: Atlantic Salmon are farmed. Chinook (aka Spring) and Coho might be farmed or might be wild. About 25% of B.C.’s farmed salmon are Chinook or Coho, and Coho is farmed in Chile, although primarily for export to Japan. Sockeye, Chum and Pink are wild.

Greenthinkers Health: French Parad'ox

As we have all heard, studies suggest a close relationship between the moderate consumption of red wine and a healthy heart. This phenomenon has been named the "French Paradox," because although the French eat as much saturated fat as Amercians and Canadians, they enjoy better overall cardiovascular health.

And with that in mind, Health From The Sun has introduced French Parad'ox which supplies polyphenols and anthocyanosides, potent antioxidant nutrients believed to be responsible for the many benefits of red grapes and red wine. These benefits are said to extend beyond a healthy heart and include keeping the skin healthy and youthful in appearance by protecting the collagen and elastin in your skin - quite a nice product for those who want the benefit of red wine but don't want to imbibe. Each marc extract capsule is said to contain an amount of antioxidant polyphenols equivalent to the amount in two glasses of red wine, minus the alcohol of course.

Why Drive a Hybrid?

Sticking to the green(er) car theme, Toyata's Camry Hybrid Superbowl commercial.

Go Green By Going Yellow

GM also goes green in their Superbowl Ad.

It's Easy Being Green

Kermit and the 36/mpg Ford Escape Hybrid in the Ford Superbowl commercial.

Green Bakery

The Birdbath Bakery (note: slow, flash-heavy website) is a new green bakery in NYC, said to be the first of its kind, just opened in the East Village. The walls are made from wheat and sunflower seed; the floor from a cork by-product. The paint is milk-based, and its pigment derived from beets. Denim insulation make a base for the bamboo counter, and the staff is clad in hemp-and-linen jackets.

In Cool Hunting's own words...

It's a thought about what a neighborhood bakery could be; a complete expression of its organic/green identity. Milk paint, Bamboo, Ultra Touch, Wheat Board and cork are some of the materials used in the bakery, and all of the ingredients used in the products are organic.

Code named after the sunflower seed husks used in one of the materials, check it out early in the day as it is said to remain open only until all the cookies are sold.

Photo credit: Cool Hunting

The Reviews Are In: Hand Crank-Powered Phone

The SideWinder Cell Phone Charger from Innovative Solutions and Technologies' is a sweet little hand crank-powered gizmo that you can use to charge your mobile phone anytime and anywhere - without an electrical outlet, of course.

Each two minute wind-up session is said to give you about six minutes of talk time. With a small LED light for extra illumination, it is also said to work with most cell phone models.

According to the review on CNET:

The good: The IST SideWinder is compact, light, and reusable. Its LED throws 5 minutes of light after a couple minutes of cranking.

The bad: The IST SideWinder is tough to crank; several minutes of cranking gave us only a few minutes of phone life. Also, it won't work on a completely dead phone battery.

The bottom line: The IST SideWinder might be small, reusable, and environmentally friendly, but we never got a decent cell phone charge from the device.

Hmmm, certainly not an A+ review. But maybe it's worth checking out for ourselves.

Ekobo!

Ekobo is an eco-friendly enterprise specializing in the design and manufacture of contemporary hand-crafted home accessories made from a natural and renewable resource: bamboo (a fantastic material with which to work...and it replenishes itself in half the time as other woods, though it is technically a grass).

They combine modern aesthetics designed in France and hand-crafted with local Vietnamese craftmanship to sustain artisanal communities, while promoting bamboo as a socially and environmentally-responsible material, for our current market place. Check out their colourful kitchen accessories!

Photo credit: Sustainable Style

That's A Wrap

Paporganics (paper gan' iks) is a New Hampshire-based, artist-owned company creating stationery and gift wrap made from organic cotton, hemp, flax, and recycled fibers. A love of organic food and gardening inspires their designs, and a commitment to sustainable living dictates their choices of papers and inks.

Sustainability means living in a way that will create a future for all people to flourish while keeping the planet balanced and healthy. Stationery is only one small piece of the picture.

Even so, approximately 7 billion greeting cards are purchased annually by consumers. Think of the impact of producing those cards on 100% recycled paper and other organic agricultural fibers, and then keeping them in the paper stream by recycling them again. Now expand that vision to encompass the entire paper industry. Now we're going somewhere!

Environmental Science Symposium at the University of Guelph

This past weekend I attended the 12th annual Environmental Science Symposium at the University of Guelph.


The theme symposium this year was water. Water conservation, science, products, politics, etc. It was all well-covered.

A vareity of exhibits and speakers made for an informative day, including well-known Canadians Margaret Trudeau (speaking of her experiences with WaterCan) and Maude Barlow (Council of Canadians). Others included Mike Nagy of the Green Party and Karen Farbridge, the former Mayor of Guelph.

I don't quite fit into the famous Canadians category, but I was there wearing my Envirolet® hat to discuss our composting toilets systems. I brought a funky green toilet with me too!

You can read more on Envirolet® Buzz, where I have also posted on the symposium.

A great film called Thirst (directed by Alan Snitow & Deborah Kaufman) was also screened and was able to perfectly sum up the entire theme of the day:

Is water part of a shared "commons," a human right for all people, or is it a commodity to be bought, sold and traded in a global marketplace? Thirst tells the stories of communities in Japan, Bolivia, India and the United States that are asking these fundamental questions, as waste becomes the most valuable commodity of the 21st century.

[Via the sysmposium web site]