Make a House in 2 Hours

(Photo via Inhabit)

The company Concrete Canvas has created a cement fabric cloth that can make buildings and event disaster shelters in 2 hours after its been soaked in water. The material can last up to 10 years. The only draw back is that it uses PVC, which is known to leak toxic chemicals.

CONCRETE CLOTH: Flexible Material Makes Durable Disaster Shelters | Inhabitat: “When a disaster strikes, it’s often difficult to get shelters up in time for displaced residents. Enter Concrete Canvas’s new Concrete Cloth, a durable waterproof building material made of cement sandwiched between fabric. The cloth, which won Material ConneXion’s Material of the Year 2009 award, can be molded into any shape when bonded with water — and it takes just two hours to set!”

(Via Inhabit.)

7 Points for Fantastic Food and Cities

Dr. Wayne Roberts spoke on food policy and a new vision for cities at Toledo Library in the US. As always his witty humour is always a hit. The photos he uses in the presentation are also quite insightful. Dr. Roberts also proposes hopeful solutions and answers to fixing cities and the food system. If you want the quick written summary you can read it below.

Watch the full video and get the quick written summary at FoodCycles.org.

Profits Kill Children

(Photo via Amazon)

Author John Wargo talks about how humans act to put greedy profit making ahead of people’s health and the environment and how it has to change in his latest book, Green Intelligence.

People, pollution and profits – opinion – 02 November 2009 – New Scientist: “Wargo blames air pollution for the 74 per cent increase in asthma among young children in the US between 1980 and 1995. This is one of a series of well-sourced examples in Green Intelligence that Wargo gives in support of his contention that governments and regulatory agencies have failed to protect us from pollution.”

(Via New Scientist.)

Get the book through Yale University Press or Amazon.

Farmed salmon murder wild salmon

Recent research shows that salmon farms leads to a 50% higher amount of deaths of wild salmon in an area for every new generation of fish. Previous studies have shown that farmed salmon also breed with wild salmon while spreading diseases and worse. The researchers suggest better farm management however that’s tough because fish farming is getting so huge.

Salmon farming killing off wild salmon | Practical Fishkeeping magazine: “Salmon farming is slowly killing off wild salmon, according to a recent study by Canadian scientists. “

(Via Practical Fishkeeping.)

You can read the article about it here.

RESOURCES
Salmon lice from farmed fish could wipe out wild Salmon

Salmon Better Than Beef Farming

(Photo via Practical Fishkeeping)

A recent study found that salmon farming is better than beef farming though not by much. In fact UK’s salmon farming was the worst of the lot while Norway’s salmon farms scored the best. In fact if Norway (or any salmon farm) were to switch to more plant feed instead of feeding ground animals they could cut the environmental destruction in half.

Salmon’s ecological finprint measured – environment – 04 November 2009 – New Scientist: “Overall, salmon farming has been a food success story: global production has soared from 500 tonnes a year in 1970 to 1.5 million tonnes today. But it also consumes energy, pollutes coastal waters and depletes populations of the smaller fish on which the salmon are fed.”

(Via New Scientist.)

Facebook bans breast feeding photos

(Photo via Sydney Morning Herald)

Breast feeding mothers had their pictures banned as “obscene content” by Facebook in 2007. I wonder if this issue ever got solved? As things go online the idea of privacy and what’s acceptable or not is being pushed to the limit.

Facebook ban incurs ‘lactivist’ wrath – web – Technology – smh.com.au: “Thousands of Facebook members are on the warpath after the social networking site removed images of breastfeeding mums and banned others for posting ‘obscene content’.

They call themselves ‘lactivists’ and say Facebook’s practices are discriminatory.

Facebook’s hardline stance on what its members can publish on their profiles is somewhat hypocritical given that it was caught running an image of a topless model in a banner ad for a dating service.

The mothers, many from Australia, started a petition in the form of a Facebook group called ‘Hey, Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene!‘. The group now has almost 7000 members.”

(Via Sydney Morning Herald .)

In fact it kind of reminds me of the controversy over gardening on front lawns. Weird, eh? Oh and their group size is nearly 250,000 today.

So what do you think are acceptable photos for Facebook? That aren’t obviously pictures of drunken madness and the stuff you know shouldn’t be up on a social network?

REFERENCES

Facebook ban incurs ‘lactivist’ wrath
Hey, Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene!

How Facebook/Internet Don’t Make You Lonely

(Photo via LifeDev)

According to a recent PEW survey, Internet, mobile phones, Facebook and Twitter don’t actually increase loneliness at all. In fact, the survey finds that people using these things actually have more varied and interesting social circles (compared to your real life ones for some) — you might talk with people you’d never have bothered or had time to know in real life.

Get the full post and download links at Sunny Lam & Associates.

How Crises Kill Public Life Support

(Photo via MailOnline)

Simon Enoch talks about how economic crises (caused by our really messed up banking system this time) are often used as an excuse to cut important public social services. These cuts were totally un-necessary and were used to make people even more vulnerable to mean business practices in the market and work place.

Canadian Centre For Policy Alternatives – Parting Shots: The Coming Austerity: “Canadians have seen this before. During the supposed ‘debt crisis’ of the 1990s, the common refrain was that Canada would face outright bankruptcy and International-Monetary-Fund-imposed austerity unless it pursued a vigorous gutting of all things public. Paul Martin’s infamous 1995 budget did just that, sacrificing 45,000 civil service jobs, privatizing CN Rail and Petro-Canada, slashing federal transfers to the provinces and transforming unemployment insurance into the woefully inadequate program it is today.

Progressive economist Jim Stanford argues that much of this belt-tightening was not only unneces sary, but ultimately damaging to the Canadian economy. As Stanford documents, Canada could have reached its deficit reduction targets through economic growth alone, without having to endure the draconian cuts to our social programs. Stanford concludes that the $50 billion in public programs and assets that were sacrificed to the deficit gods would have ‘made an incredible difference to the concrete quality of Canadians’ lives’ had they remained invested in public services and assets.”

(Via Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.)

Is Big Business Stealing the Word Local?

(Photo via TravelBlog)

Localwashing: How corporate America is co-opting “local”: “HSBC, one of the biggest banks on the planet, has taken to calling itself ‘the world’s local bank.’ Starbucks is removing its name from at least three of its Seattle outlets, the first of which just reopened as ‘15th Avenue Coffee and Tea.’ Winn-Dixie, a 500-outlet supermarket chain, recently launched a new ad campaign under the tagline ‘Local flavor since 1956.’ The International Council of Shopping Centers, a consortium of mall owners and developers, has poured millions of dollars into television ads urging people to ‘Shop Local’—at their nearest mall.”

(Via Utne.)

Paid Agents Work Against Change

(Photo via VatorNews)

Lobbyists Accused of Blocking Climate Change Efforts | BNET Energy Blog | BNET: “Could lobbyists really be working against the greater good? Say it ain’t so.

The Center for Public Integrity says it is so. The organization sent out a team of reporters to eight countries starting this July, with the intent of figuring out just how much paid industry lobbyists are affecting the debate on climate change. The answer: a whole lot.

In the United States alone the number of lobbyists working on climate change issues has blossomed to 2,800, four times the number that existed six years ago, fielded by companies like ExxonMobil.”

(Via BNET.)