The tiger prawn industry in Thailand
exploits people and the environment. Small fish and juvenile sharks,
caught by Thai trawlers operating illegally in foreign waters from
Indonesia to Bangladesh, are ground into fishmeal for prawn food. As
fishing stocks are depleted, local fishermen are affected. Thai trawlers
operators often hire Burmese workers who are exploited and abused. The
Thai prawn industry is the largest of its kind in the world and markets
prawns to European consumers. Watch this original investigative report
by Swed Watch, a Swedish organization reporting on Swedish business
relations in developing countries.
Earth Focus is an
environmental news magazine that puts a human face on the environment by
featuring under-publicized stories about how changes in our environment
are affecting everyday people.
Maximum distance from the sun: 94 million 537 thousand miles
Minimum distance from the sun: 91 million 377 thousand miles
Mean distance from the sun: 92 million 957 thousand and 200 miles
Mean Orbital velocity: 66000 miles per hour
0rbital eccentricity: 0.017
Obliquity of the ecliptic: 23 degrees 27 minutes 8.26 seconds
Length of the tropical year: equinox equinox 365.24 days
Lenght of the sidereal year: fixed star fixed star 365.26 days
Length of the mean solar day: 24 hours and 3 minutes and 56.5555 seconds at mean solar time
Length of the mean sidereal day: 23 hours and 56 minutes and 4.091 seconds at mean sederial time
Mass: 6600 milion milion milion tons
Equatorial diameter: 7927 miles
Polar diameter: 7900 miles
Oblateness: one 298th
Density: 5.41
Mean surface gravitational acceleration of the rotating earth: 32.174 feet per second per second
Escape velocity: 7 miles per second
.In the winter of 2006, a strange
phenomenon fell upon honeybee hives across the country. Without a trace,
millions of bees vanished from their hives. A precious pollinator of
fruits and vegetables, the disappearing bees left billions of dollars of
crops at risk and threatened our food supply. The epidemic set
researchers scrambling to discover why honeybees were dying in record
numbers — and to stop the epidemic in its tracks before it spread
further.
Silence of the Bees is the first in-depth look at the
search to uncover what is killing the honeybee. The filmmakers of Bees
take viewers around the world to the sites of fallen hives, to high-tech
labs, where scientists race to uncover clues, and even deep inside
honeybee colonies. Silence of the Bees is the story of a riveting,
ongoing investigation to save honeybees from dying out. The film goes
beyond the unsolved mystery to tell the story of the honeybee itself,
its invaluable impact on our diets and takes a look at what's at stake
if honeybees disappear. Silence of the Bees explores the complex world
of the honeybee in crisis and instills in viewers a sense of urgency to
learn ways to help these extraordinary animals.
who killed the honey bee?
Vanishing of the Bees (2009)
More than honey
Einstein once said: “If bees ever die
out, mankind will have only four years left to live”. In the past five
years, billions of honeybees simply vanished for reasons still obscure.
If the bees keep dying, it will have drastic effects for humans as well:
more than one third of our food production depends on pollination by
honeybees and their life and death are linked to ours.
Life without the bee is unthinkable. But,
between pesticides, antibiotics and monoculture, the queens and their
workers are losing their power.
MORE THAN HONEY, a new documentary by the
Swiss filmmaker Marcus Imhoof, is looking into the fascinating world of
bees, showing small family beekeepers (including the beekeeper of ERSTE
Foundation beehive, Heidrun Singer) and industrialized honey farms.
MORE THAN HONEY is a film on the relationship between mankind and
honeybees, about nature and about our future. Honeybees show us that
stability is just as unhealthy as unlimited growth, that crises and
disasters are triggering evolution and that salvation sometimes comes
from a completely unexpected direction.
Scientists discover what’s killing the bees and it’s worse than you thought
As we’ve written before, the mysterious
mass die-off of honey bees that pollinate $30 billion worth of crops in
the US has so decimated America’s apis mellifera population that one bad winter could leave fields fallow.
Now, a new study has pinpointed some of the probable causes of bee
deaths and the rather scary results show that averting beemageddon will
be much more difficult than previously thought.
Scientists had struggled to find the
trigger for so-called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) that has wiped out
an estimated 10 million beehives, worth $2 billion, over the past six
years. Suspects have included pesticides, disease-bearing parasites and
poor nutrition. But in a first-of-its-kind study published today in the journal PLOS ONE,
scientists at the University of Maryland and the US Department of
Agriculture have identified a witch’s brew of pesticides and fungicides
contaminating pollen that bees collect to feed their hives. The findings
break new ground on why large numbers of bees are dying though they do
not identify the specific cause of CCD, where an entire beehive dies at
once.
When researchers collected pollen from
hives on the east coast pollinating cranberry, watermelon and other
crops and fed it to healthy bees, those bees showed a significant
decline in their ability to resist infection by a parasite called Nosema ceranae.
The parasite has been implicated in Colony Collapse Disorder though
scientists took pains to point out that their findings do not directly
link the pesticides to CCD. The pollen was contaminated on average with
nine different pesticides and fungicides though scientists discovered 21
agricultural chemicals in one sample. Scientists identified eight ag
chemicals associated with increased risk of infection by the parasite.
Most disturbing, bees that ate pollen
contaminated with fungicides were three times as likely to be infected
by the parasite. Widely used, fungicides had been thought to be harmless
for bees as they’re designed to kill fungus, not insects, on crops like
apples.
“There’s growing evidence that fungicides
may be affecting the bees on their own and I think what it highlights
is a need to reassess how we label these agricultural chemicals,” Dennis
vanEngelsdorp, the study’s lead author, told Quartz.
Labels on pesticides warn farmers not to
spray when pollinating bees are in the vicinity but such precautions
have not applied to fungicides.
Bee populations are so low in the US that
it now takes 60% of the country’s surviving colonies just to pollinate
one California crop, almonds. And that’s not just a west coast
problem—California supplies 80% of the world’s almonds, a market worth
$4 billion.
In recent years, a class of chemicals called neonicotinoids has been linked to bee deaths and in April regulators banned the use of the pesticide for two years
in Europe where bee populations have also plummeted. But vanEngelsdorp,
an assistant research scientist at the University of Maryland, says the
new study shows that the interaction of multiple pesticides is
affecting bee health.
“The pesticide issue in itself is much
more complex than we have led to be believe,” he says. “It’s a lot more
complicated than just one product, which means of course the solution
does not lie in just banning one class of product.”
The study found another complication in
efforts to save the bees: US honey bees, which are descendants of
European bees, do not bring home pollen from native North American crops
but collect bee chow from nearby weeds and wildflowers. That pollen,
however, was also contaminated with pesticides even though those plants
were not the target of spraying.
“It’s not clear whether the pesticides
are drifting over to those plants but we need take a new look at
agricultural spraying practices,” says vanEngelsdorp
Here is the story of a rapidly developing
industry called Geo-engineering, driven by scientists, corporations,
and governments intent on changing global climate, controlling the
weather, and altering the chemical composition of soil and water — all
supposedly for the betterment of mankind. Although officials insist that
these programs are only in the discussion phase, evidence is abundant
that they have been underway since about 1990 — and the effect has been
devastating to crops, wildlife, and human health. We are being sprayed
with toxic substances without our consent and, to add insult to injury,
they are lying to us about it. Do not watch this documentary if you have
high blood pressure.
"Why in the World are They Spraying?"
People around the world are noticing that our planet's weather is
dramatically changing. They are also beginning to notice the long
lingering trails left behind airplanes that have lead millions to accept
the reality of chemtrail/geoengineering programs. Could there be a
connection between the trails and our severe weather? While there are
many agendas associated with these damaging programs, evidence is now
abundant which proves that geoengineering can be used to control
weather. In this documentary you will learn how the aerosols being
sprayed into our sky are used in conjunction with other technologies to
control our weather. While geoengineers maintain that their models are
only for the mitigation of global warming, it is now clear that they can
be used as a way to consolidate an enormous amount of both monetary and
political power into the hands of a few by the leverage that weather
control gives certain corporations over the Earth's natural systems.
This of course, is being done at the expense of every living thing on
the planet.
Ever wondered why the sky is overcast
nearly every day, why people are coughing and getting sick, and why
everything on the news is suddenly a crisis? This film is handed out to
anyone with a free hand where I live yet I havenât found it on the Web
so thought Iâd extend its reach to a wider audience.
Donât Talk
About the Weather chronicles a grass-roots investigation into
chemtrails, analyzing the different and contradictory official
explanations, as well as uncovering official documents that prove
chemtrails are not only real, but are a WEAPONS SYSTEM.
It also
examines media involvement, including subliminals and
counter-intelligence, and links the subject to an all-encompassing
political agenda. There should be something new here for anyone who
sticks with it, as each section takes a different perspective.
Information presented to provoke intelligent and peaceful debate.
Recent studies have proven plants have feelings, too
Researchers from Michigan State
University have discovered that plants have a rudimentary nerve
structure, which allows them to feel pain. According to the
peer-reviewed journal Plant Physiology, plants are capable of
identifying danger, signaling that danger to other plants and marshaling
defenses against perceived threats. According to botanist Bill Williams
of the Helvetica Institute, "plants not only seem to be aware and to
feel pain, they can even communicate."
This research has prompted the Swiss
government to pass the first-ever Plant Bill of Rights. It concludes
that plants have moral and legal protections, and Swiss citizens have to
treat them appropriately. The Penn State Vegetarians Club would do well
to investigate this data before claiming to be superior to those of us
who do not subscribe to the idea that eating meat is morally wrong.
Stephen Johnson
Plants Have Feelings!
One day, Backster connected a lie
detector to the leaves of a dracaena, commonly known as a “dragon tree.”
He wanted to see how long it would take for the leaves to react when he
poured water on the plant’s roots. In theory, a plant will increase its
conductivity and decrease its resistance after it absorbs water, and
the curve recorded on graph paper should have gone upward. But in
actuality, the line that was drawn curved downward. When a lie detector
is connected to a human body, the pen records different curves according
to the changes in the person’s mood. The reaction of the dragon tree
was just like the undulation of human mood swings. It seemed that it was
happy when it drank water.
Plants Have ESP
Backster wanted to see if the plant would
have any other reactions. According to past experience, Backster knew
that a good way to elicit a strong reaction from a person is to threaten
that person. So Backster dunked the leaves of the plant into hot
coffee. No reaction. Then he thought of something more terrifying: burn
the leaves that were connected to the lie detector. With this thought,
even before he went to get a match, a bullish curve rapidly appeared on
the graph paper. When he came back with a match, he saw that another
peak appeared on the curve. It was likely that when the plant saw he was
determined to start burning, it got frightened again. If he showed
hesitation or reluctance to burn the plant, the reactions recorded by
the lie detector were not so acute. And when he merely pretended to take
action to burn the leaves, the plant had almost no reactions. The plant
was even able to distinguish true intentions from false ones. Backster
nearly rushed out into the street to shout, “Plants can think! Plants
can think!” With this astonishing discovery, his life was changed
forever.
Later, when Backster and his colleagues
did experiments around the country with different instruments and
different plants, they observed similar results. They discovered that
even if leaves were picked off from a plant and cut into pieces, the
same reactions were recorded when these pieces were placed near the lie
detector electrodes. When a dog or an unfriendly person suddenly came
in, the plant reacted too.
Plants Are Experts at Detecting Lies
Generally for experiments involving lie
detectors, electrodes are connected to a suspect and then the suspect is
asked meticulously designed questions. Everyone has a clear-headed
side, which is usually called “conscience.” Therefore, no matter how
many reasons and excuses one gives, when lying or committing a bad deed,
that person knows clearly that it is a lie, a bad deed. Hence, the
body’s electric field changes, and this change is what is recorded by
the equipment.
Backster did an experiment in which he
connected the lie detector to a plant and then asked a person some
questions. As a result, Backster discovered that the plant could tell if
the person was lying or not. He asked the person what year he was born
in, giving him seven choices and instructing him to answer “no” to all
of them, including the correct one. When the person answered “no” to the
correct year, the plant reacted and a peak was drawn on the graph
paper.
Dr. Aristide Esser, the director of
medical research at the Rockland State hospital in New York, repeated
the experiment by asking a man to incorrectly answer questions in front
of a plant the man had nurtured and cared for since it was a seedling.
The plant did not cover up for its owner at all. Incorrect answers were
reflected on the graph paper. Esser, who had not believed Backster, saw
for himself that Backster’s theories were correct.
Plants Can Recognize People
In order to test how well a plant can
recognize things, Backster called on six students, blindfolded them, and
asked them to draw lots from a hat. One of the choices had instructions
to uproot one of the two plants in the room and destroy it by stomping
on it. The “murderer” had to do the deed alone, and no one else was to
know the culprit’s identity, including Backster. In that way, the
remaining plant could not sense who the “killer” was from other people’s
thoughts. The experiment was set up so that the plant would be the
exclusive witness.
When the remaining live plant was
connected to a lie detector, every student was asked to pass by it. The
plant had no reactions to five students. But when the student who had
committed the crime walked by, the electronic pen started drawing
frantically. This reaction indicated to Backster that plants are able to
remember and identify the person or thing that causes them harm.
Remote Sensitivity
Plants have close ties with their owners.
For example, when Backster returned to New York from New Jersey, he
found from the records on the graph paper that all his plants had
reactions. He wondered if the plants were indicating that they felt
“relieved” or were “welcoming” him back. He noticed that the time of the
plants’ reactions was the moment when he decided to return home from
New York.
Sensitivity to Life on a Microscopic Level
Backster discovered that the same fixed
curves would be drawn on the graph paper when plants seemed to sense the
death of any living tissue, even on the cellular level. He noticed this
by accident when he was mixed some jam into the yogurt he was going to
eat. Apparently, the preservatives in the jam killed some of the
lactobacilli in the yogurt, and the plants sensed this. Backster also
found that the plants reacted when he ran hot water in the sink. It
seemed they reacted to the death of bacteria in the drain. To test his
theory, Backster did an experiment and found that when brine shrimp were
put into boiling water via an automatic mechanism that did not require
human intervention, the plants had very strong reactions.
The Heartbeat of an Egg
Again by accident, Backster noticed plant
reactions one day when he cracked an egg. He decided to pursue this
experiment and connected the egg to his equipment. After nine hours, the
graph paper records indicated the heartbeats of an embryonic chick –
160 to 170 beats per minute – the same as a chick embryo that had stayed
in an incubator for three or four days. However, the egg was an
unfertilized egg that was bought from a store. There was no circulatory
system inside it either. How could Backster explain the egg’s pulse?
In experiments done at Yale University
Medical School during the 1930s to 1940s, the late professor Harold
Saxton Burr discovered that there were energy fields around plants,
trees, human beings, and cells. Backster thought Burr’s experiments
offered the only insight into his egg experiment. He decided to put his
plant experiments aside for a time to explore the implications of the
egg experiments and how his findings might relate to the issue regarding
the beginning of life.
Reference:
The Secret Life of Plants by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird
The above article is summarized from these four articles from Zhengjian Net:
It means even on the lower levels of
life, there is a profound consciousness or awareness that bonds all
things together. Published in 1973, The Secret Life of Plants
was written by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird. It is described as
“A fascinating account of the physical, emotional, and spiritual
relations between plants and man.” Essentially, the subject of the book
is the idea that plants may be sentient, despite their lack of a nervous
system and a brain. This sentience is observed primarily through
changes in the plant’s conductivity, as through a polygraph, as
pioneered by Cleve Backster. The book also contains a summary of
Goethe’s theory of plant metamorphosis.
That said, this book is about much more
than just plants; it delves quite deeply into such topics as the aura,
psychophysics, orgone, radionics, kirlian photography,
magnetism/magnetotropism, bioelectrics, dowsing, and the history of
science. It was the basis for the 1979 documentary of the same name,
with a soundtrack especially recorded by Stevie Wonder.
what plants talk about
This
program integrates hard-core science with a light-hearted look at how
plants behave, revealing a world where plants are as busy, responsive
and complex as we are. From the stunning heights of the Great Basin
Desert to the lush coastal rainforests of west coast Canada, scientist
J.C. Cahill takes us on a journey into the “secret world of plants“,
revealing an astonishing landscape where plants eavesdrop on each
other, talk to their allies, call in insect mercenaries and nurture
their young. It is a world of pulsing activity, where plants
communicate, co-operate and sometimes, wage all-out war.
Scientists Confirm that Plants Talk and Listen To Each Other, Communication Crucial for Survival:
However, new research, published in the
journal Trends in Plant Science, has revealed that plants not only
respond to sound, but they also communicate to each other by making
“clicking” sounds.
Using powerful loudspeakers, researchers at The
University of Western Australia were able to hear clicking sounds coming
from the roots of corn saplings.
Researchers at Bristol University
also found that when they suspended the young roots in water and played a
continuous noise at 220Hz, a similar frequency to the plant clicks,
they found that the plants grew towards the source of the sound.
“Everyone knows that plants react to
light, and scientists also know that plants use volatile chemicals to
communicate with each other, for instance, when danger – such as a
herbivore – approaches,” Dr. Gagliano said in a university news release.
“I was working one day in my herb garden
and started to wonder if maybe plants were also sensitive to sounds –
why not? – so I decided as a scientist to find out.”
While it has been long known that plants
grow towards light, previous research from Exeter University found
cabbage plants emitted methyl jasmonate gas when their surfaces are cut
or pierced to warn its neighbors of danger such as caterpillars or
garden shears.
Researchers from the earlier study also
found that the when the volatile gas was emitted, the nearly cabbage
plants appeared to receive the urgent message that and protected
themselves by producing toxic chemicals on their leaves to fend off
predators like caterpillars.
However, new research, published in the
journal Trends in Plant Science, has revealed that plants not only
respond to sound, but they also communicate to each other by making
“clicking” sounds.
Scientists suspect that sound and vibration may
play an essential role in the survival of plants by giving them
information about the environment around them.
Researchers said
sounds waves are easily transmissible through soil, and could be used to
pick up threats like drought from their neighbors further away.
Gagliano said that the latest findings shows that the role of sound in
plants has yet to be fully explored, “leaving serious gaps our current
understanding of the sensory and communicatory complexity of these
organisms”.
In addition to other forms of sensory response, “it is
very likely that some form of sensitivity to sound and vibrations also
plays an important role in the life of plants,” she added
There's nothing they are leaving
untouched: the mustard, the okra, the bringe oil, the rice, the
cauliflower. Once they have established the norm: that seed can be owned
as their property, royalties can be collected. We will depend on them
for every seed we grow of every crop we grow. If they control seed, they
control food, they know it -- it's strategic. It's more powerful than
bombs. It's more powerful than guns. This is the best way to control the
populations of the world. The story starts in the White House, where
Monsanto often got its way by exerting disproportionate influence over
policymakers via the "revolving door". One example is Michael Taylor,
who worked for Monsanto as an attorney before being appointed as deputy
commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1991. While
at the FDA, the authority that deals with all US food approvals, Taylor
made crucial decisions that led to the approval of GE foods and crops.
Then he returned to Monsanto, becoming the company's vice president for
public policy.
Thanks to these intimate links between
Monsanto and government agencies, the US adopted GE foods and crops
without proper testing, without consumer labeling and in spite of
serious questions hanging over their safety. Not coincidentally,
Monsanto supplies 90 percent of the GE seeds used by the US market.
Monsanto's long arm stretched so far that, in the early nineties, the US
Food and Drugs Agency even ignored warnings of their own scientists,
who were cautioning that GE crops could cause negative health effects.
Other tactics the company uses to stifle concerns about their products
include misleading advertising, bribery and concealing scientific
evidence.
Learning to 'Live Free' comes from experience and personal growth ... Lets break our conditioning!
Patent For A Pig: The Big Business of Genetics
The American biotechnology firm,
Monsanto, has applied for a patent for pig breeding in 160 countries.
The patent is for specific parts of the genetic material of pigs which
Monsanto’s genetic researchers have decoded. If this patent is granted,
pig breeding would be possible with the approval of the company.
Farmers and breeders are naturally
alarmed because these genes have long existed in the great majority of
their pigs. Using DNA tests they can prove that there is no new
invention in the patent applications but that, instead, granting this
patent would be to allow a part of nature to fall into the hands of a
single company.
Monsanto’s influence on the patent
offices is huge. If the patent is approved, money will have to be paid
to Monsanto for every pig in the world carrying this genetic marker.
This has long been the case for certain feedstuffs, such as genetically
modified maize. Many farmers in the US have already become dependent on
the company.
It is not merely a question of money,
however, but also a question of the risk posed to consumers. In America,
as in Europe, cases of infertility in animals fed with genetically
modified maize are becoming increasingly common. No-one yet knows what
effects such products are having on humans.
The Growing Threat Genetically Engineered Trees - Award winning
documentary film explores the growing global threat of genetically
engineered trees to our environment and to human health. The film
features David Suzuki, who explores the unknown and possibly disastrous
consequences of improperly tested GE methods. Producer: tankerenemy.
Creative Commons license: Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works
3.0
Arjuna is set in Kobe, Japan, where the protagonist, Juna, is
attending high school. The story opens on her telling her boyfriend,
Tokio, she feels too cramped in the city, and deciding to take a trip to
the Sea of Japan. On the drive, they get in an accident, and Juna dies.
As her spirit leaves her body, Juna sees
the Earth suffering, visualized by worm-like creatures, the Raaja,
entwining the planet. A young boy, Chris, appears to her, and offers to
save her life if she will help the planet. She agrees, and is
resurrected.
An earthship is a type of passive solar
house made of natural and recycled materials. Designed and marketed by
Earthship Biotecture of Taos, New Mexico, the homes are primarily
constructed to work as autonomous buildings and are generally made of
earth-filled tires, using thermal mass construction to naturally
regulate indoor temperature. They also usually have their own special
natural ventilation system. Earthships are generally off-the-grid homes,
minimizing their reliance on public utilities and fossil fuels.
Earthships are built to utilize the available local resources,
especially energy from the sun. For example, windows on sun-facing walls
admit lighting and heating, and the buildings are often
horseshoe-shaped to maximize natural light and solar-gain during winter
months. The thick, dense inner walls provide thermal mass that naturally
regulates the interior temperature during both cold and hot outside
temperatures.
Internal, non-load-bearing walls are
often made of a honeycomb of recycled cans joined by concrete and are
referred to as tin can walls. These walls are usually thickly plastered
with stucco.
The roof of an Earthship is heavily insulated – often with two layers of four inch poly-iso insulation – for energy efficiency.
The Earthship as it exists today, began
to take shape in the 1970s. Mike Reynolds, founder of Earthship
Biotecture, a company that specializes in designing and building
Earthships, wanted to create a home that would do three things; first,
it would be sustainable architecture, using material indigenous to the
entire planet as well as recycled materials wherever possible. Second,
the homes would rely on natural energy sources and be independent from
the "grid", therefore being less susceptible to natural disasters and
free from the electrical and water lines that Reynolds considered
unsightly and wasteful. Finally, it would be economically feasible for
the average person with no specialized construction skills to be able to
create. A building being built of cans in the 1970s The design used with most earthships. A large series of windows and the use of tires characterize the earthsheltered building
Eventually, Reynolds' vision took the
form of the common U-shaped earth-filled tire homes seen today. As a
concept, the Earthship was not limited to tires – any dense material
with a potential for thermal mass, such as concrete, adobe, dirtbags, or
stone could theoretically be used to create a building similar to an
Earthship. However, the earth-rammed tire is part of the definition of
an Earthship.
Unlike other materials, rammed-earth
tires are more accessible to the average person. Scrap tires are
ubiquitous around the world and easy to come by; there are an estimated 2
billion tires throughout the United States. As of 1996, as many as 253
million scrap tires were being generated each year in the United States,
with 70% being reclaimed by the scrap tire market (leaving perhaps 75
million scrap tires available for reuse as whole tires).[1] In addition
to the availability of scrap tires, the method by which they are
converted into usable "bricks", the ramming of the earth, is simple and
affordable.
The earth-rammed tires of an Earthship
are usually assembled by teams of two people working together as part of
a larger construction team. One member of the two person team shovels
dirt, which usually comes from the building site, placing it into the
tire one scoop at a time. The second member, who stands on the tire,
uses a sledge hammer to pack the dirt in. The second person moves in a
circle around the tire to keep the dirt even and avoid warping the tire.
These rammed earth tires in an Earthship are made in place because,
when properly made, they weigh as much as 300 pounds and can be very
difficult to relocate.
Additional benefits of the rammed earth tire are its great load-bearing capacity and its resistance to fire.
A fully rammed tire, which is about 2
feet 8 inches wide, is massive enough to surpass conventional
requirements for structural load distribution to the earth. Because the
tire is full of soil, it does not burn when exposed to fire. In 1996
after a fire swept through many conventional homes in New Mexico, an
Earthship discovered in the aftermath was relatively unharmed.[2] Only
the south-facing wall and the roof had burned away, compared to the
total destruction of the conventional homes.
Currently, Earthships are in use in
almost every state in the United States, as well as many countries in
Europe. The use of insulation on the outside of tire walls, which was
not common in early designs, is improving the viability of Earthships in
every climate without compromising their durability. Earthships are
continually being built by Earthship Biotecture around the world. Their
popularity and use of inexpensive materials has inspired many to build
their own homes as well.
The Earthship was designed as a structure
that would be free of the constraints of centralized utilities, which
most modern shelters rely on. Earthships must be able to create their
own utilities, and to utilize readily available sustainable materials.
In order to be entirely self-sufficient, the Earthship needs to be able
to handle the three systems of water, electricity, and climate.
Earthships are designed to catch and use
water from the local environment without bringing in water from a
centralized source. Water used in an Earthship is harvested from rain,
snow, and condensation. As water collects on the roof, it is channeled
through a silt-catching device and into a cistern. The cisterns are
positioned so they gravity-feed a WOM (water organization module) that
filters out bacteria and contaminants and makes it suitable for
drinking. The WOM consists of filters and a DC-pump that are screwed
into a panel. Water is then pushed into a conventional pressure tank to
create common household water pressure.
Water collected in this fashion is used
for every household activity except flushing toilets. The water used for
flushing toilets has been used at least once already: frequently it is
filtered waste-water from sinks and showers, and described as
"Greywater".
Greywater, used water that is unsuitable
for drinking, is used within the Earthship for a multitude of purposes.
First, before the greywater can be reused, it is channeled through a
grease and particle filter/digester and into a 30"-60" deep rubber-lined
botanical cell, a miniature living machine, within the Earthship. With
imbedded plants, this filter also potentially can be used to produce
food (for example, by using a fruit tree). Oxygenation, filtration,
transpiration, and bacteria-encounter all take place within the cell and
help to cleanse the water (Reynolds 2000). Within the botanical cell,
filtration is achieved by passing the water through a mixture of gravel
and plant roots. Because of the nature of plants, oxygen is added to the
water as it filters, while nitrogen is removed. Water taken up through
the plants and transpired at their tops helps to humidify the air. In
the cell, bacteria will naturally grow and help to cleanse the water.
Water from the low end of the botanical
cell is then directed through a peat-moss filter and collected in a
reservoir or well. This reclaimed water is then passed once more through
a greywater board and used to flush conventional toilets.
Often, greywater made at earthships is
not polluted enough to justify treatment (its "pollution" being usually
just soap, which is often not environmentally damaging). At earthships,
plants are placed at outlets of fixtures to regain the water and the
nutrients lost (e.g. from the soaps). Usually, a single plant is placed
directly in front of the pipe, but mini drain-fields are also sometimes
used. The pipe is made large enough (5,08 cm) so that the formation of
underground gas (from the greywater) is avoided. This is done with
kitchen and bathroom sinks, and even showers, washing machines, and
dishwashing machines. The plants are usually placed indoors with the
sinks and outdoors with the washing/dishwashing machines and shower (to
avoid indoor "floods"). Also, with the latter, larger drain-fields are
used instead of a mere plant being placed before an outlet.
Black water, water that has been used in a
toilet, was usually not created within many of the earliest earthships
as the use of conventional toilets was discouraged. Instead, in the
early days composting toilets were advocated, which use no water at all.
However, with the new greywater treatment system design (as used in
Nautilus and Helios) created by Michael Reynolds, flush toilets have now
found a place in the earthship and the general water system has been
redesigned according to the new "6-step process".
Now, when the newly included
flush-toilets are used, blackwater is not reused within the Earthship.
Instead, blackwater is sent to a solar-enhanced septic tank with
leach-field and planter cells (the whole being often referred to as the
"incubator"). The solar-enhanced septic tank is a regular septic tank
which is heated by the sun and glazed with an equator-facing window. The
incubator stores the sun's heat in its concrete mass, and is insulated,
to help the anaerobic process. Water from the incubator is channeled
out to an exterior leach field and then to landscaping "planter cells"
(spaces surrounded by concrete in which plants have been put). The cells
are similar to the botanical cell used in greywater treatment and are
usually placed just before and under the windows of the earthship.
In cases where it is not possible to use
flush-toilets operating on water, dry solar toilets are now advocated,
instead of regular composting toilets. If this is the case, obviously no
black water is formed and the use of an incubator is thus (usually) not
necessary. Instead, regular "planters" (plants used for sucking up
water/nutrients) are then used. When using regular planters as well, no
chemical soaps or detergents can be used.
The space where the WOM (water
organization module), graywater pump panel, pressure tank, (first set
of) batteries, and POM (power organising module) are stored is in a
small room referred to as the "systems package".
Earthships are designed to collect and
store their own energy from a variety of sources. The majority of
electrical energy is harvested from the sun and wind. Photovoltaic
panels and windturbines located on or near the Earthship generate DC
energy that is then stored in several types of deep-cycle batteries. The
space in which the batteries are kept is usually a special,
purpose-built room placed on the roof. Additional energy, if required,
can be obtained from gasoline-powered generators or by integrating with
the city grid.
In an Earthship, a Power Organizing
Module is used to take stored energy from batteries and invert it for AC
use. The Power Organizing Module is a prefabricated system provided by
Earthship Biotecture that is simply attached to a wall on the interior
of the Earthship and wired in a conventional manner. It includes the
necessary equipment such as circuit breakers and converters. The energy
run through the Power Organizing Module can be used to run any
house-hold appliance including washing machines, computers, kitchen
appliances, print machines, and vacuums. Ideally, none of the electrical
energy in an Earthship is used for heating or cooling.
The interior climate of an Earthship is
stabilized and made comfortable by taking advantage of many phenomena.
Mainly, the Earthship tries to take advantage of the properties of
thermal mass and passive solar heating and cooling. Examples are large
front windows with integrated shades, trombe walls and other
technologies such as skylights or Steve Baer's "Track Rack" solar
trackers (dualling as an energy generation device and passive solar
source).
The load-bearing walls of an Earthship,
which are made from steel-belted tires rammed with earth, serve two
purposes. First, they hold up the roof, and second, they provide a dense
thermal mass that will soak up heat during the day and radiate heat
during the night, keeping the interior climate relatively comfortable
all day.
In addition to high thermal mass, some
Earthships may be earth-sheltered. The benefits of earth-sheltering are
twofold because it adds to the thermal mass and, if the Earthship is
buried deep enough, allows the structure to take advantage of the
Earth's stable temperature.
The Earthship is designed in such a way
that the sun provides heating, ventilation, and lighting. To take
advantage of the sun, an Earthship is positioned so that its principal
wall, which is nonstructural and made mostly of glass sheets, faces
directly towards the equator. This positioning allows for optimum solar
exposure.
To allow the sun to heat the mass of the
Earthship, the solar-oriented wall is angled so that it is perpendicular
to light from the winter sun. This allows for maximum exposure in the
winter, when heat is wanted, and lesser exposure in the summer, when
heat is to be avoided. Some Earthships, especially those built in colder
climates, use insulated shading on the solar-orientated wall to reduce
heat loss during the night (Reynolds 2000).
Natural ventilation Natural convection cooling an Earthship
The earthships usually use their own
natural ventilation system. It consists of cold(er) air coming in from a
front ("hopper") window, especially made for this purpose and flowing
out through (one of) the skylights that are placed on the earthship. As
the hot air rises, the system creates a steady airflow - of cooler air
coming in, and warmer air blowing out.
Earthships rely on a balance between the
solar heat gain and the ability of the tire walls and subsoil to
transport and store heat. The design intends to require little if any
auxiliary heat. Some earthships have suffered from overheating and some
from overcooling.
Some earthships appear to have serious
problems with heat loss. In these cases heat appears to be leaking into
the ground constantly during the heating season and being lost. This
situation may have arisen from the mistaken belief that ground-coupled
structures (building in thermal contact with the ground) do not require
insulation. The situation may also be due to large climatic differences
between the sunny, arid, and warm Southwest (of the USA) where
earthships were first built and the cloudier, cooler, and wetter
climates where some are now being built. Malcolm Wells, an architect and
authority on earth-sheltered design, recommends R-value 10 insulation
between deep soils and heated spaces. Wells's insulation recommendations
increase as the depth of the soil decreases.
In very limited and specific situations,
uncommon during the heating season, thermal mass can marginally increase
the apparent R-value of a building assembly such as a wall. Generally
speaking thermal mass and R-value are distinct thermodynamic properties
and should not be equated. Thermal performance problems apparently seen
in some earthship designs may have occurred because of thermal mass
being erroneously equated to R-value. The R-value of soil is about 1 per
foot
Having an earth-bermed home with windows facing the sun is a good idea in any climate where heating is required.
Collecting rainwater that falls on the roof reduces the runoff
impact of the building and may reduce water and even sewer service fees.
Having a combination of photovoltaic cells and wind generation is a prudent way to provide electricity in many situations.
Using curved modules as horizontal arches to resist earth loads is a sound structural design.
On-site processing of runoff water, grey water, and black water
using plant beds reduces the environmental impact of the building.
Rubber tires make a wind- and puncture- resistant wall. They may be safe from outgassing when plastered semi-airtight.
Rubber tires are usually free and it may be possible to be paid to
take them. It also is beneficial to keep them out of landfills or
prevent them from being illegally burnt.
Potential to eliminate utility bills.
The structure is highly moldable to different aesthetic tastes.
In 2000, Michael Reynolds and his team
came to build the first residential earthship in Boingt (Belgium). While
water, power module, solar panels and the team were on their way to
Europe, the mayor of Boingt put his veto on the building permit. So
Josephine Overeem, the woman who wanted to build the earthship, and
Michael Reynolds decided to do a demonstration model in her back yard at
her residence in Strombeek (Belgium). CLEVEL, invited Reynolds from
Belgium to Brighton in the UK, and orchestrated plans for the earthship
in Brighton, started in 2003. This was the beginning of a series of
trips made by Reynolds and the construction of earthships in the UK,
France and the Netherlands.
In 2004, the very first Earthship in the
UK was opened at Kinghorn Loch in Fife, Scotland. It was built by
volunteers of the SCI charity. In 2005, the first earthship in England
was established in Stanmer Park, Brighton with the Low Carbon Trust.
In 2007, CLEVEL and Earthship Biotecture
obtained full planning permission to build on a valuable development
site overlooking the Brighton Marina in the UK. The application followed
a successful six-month feasibility study, orchestrated by Daren Howarth
and funded by the UK Environment Agency and the Energy Savings Trust.
The successful application was for sixteen one, two, and three-bedroom
earthship homes on this site. The homes are all designed according to
basic earthship principles developed in the United States and adapted to
the UK. 15,000 tires will be recycled to construct these homes (the UK
burns approximately 40 million tires each year). The plans include the
enhancement of habitats on the site for lizards that already live there,
which is the reasoning behind entitling the project "The Lizard". This
will be the first development of its kind in Europe, and successful
development in Brighton may help to pave the way for similar projects
around the UK and other places. Unfortunately, since planning permission
in 2007, nothing has been realised.
The first official Earthship home in
mainland Europe with official planning permission approval was built in a
small French village called Ger. The home, which is owned by Kevan and
Gillian Trott, was built in April 2007 by Kevan, Mike Reynolds and an
Earthship Crew from Taos. The design was modified for a European climate
and is seen as the first of many for the European arena. It is
currently used as a holiday home for eco-tourists.
Further adaptation to the European
context was undertaken by Daren Howarth and Adrianne Nortje in Brittany,
France. They obtained full planning permission in 2007 and finished the
Brittany Groundhouse as their own home during 2009. The build
experience and learning is elegantly captured in the UK Grand Designs
series and in their book.
Meanwhile earthships have been built or
are being built in Portugal, Spain, France, Belgium, The Netherlands,
United Kingdom, Sweden, Estonia and Czech Republic. A good overview of
the earthships built in Europe can be found on the web page of European
Earthship Builder United, together with information on earthships being
built. An good chronological overview on the earthships built in Europe
by Michael Reynolds can be found in the article 'Europe'.
The first official earthship district (23
earthships) in Europe is currently being developed in Olst (the
Netherlands). Building will start in spring 2012. In Belgium, 1
earthship hybrid is also being built, intended as demonstration
buildings. Since it is illegal to use tyres in Belgium (for risk of
leaking toxic metals like lead and zinc), The project uses sandbags to
build their earthship instead.
The Earthships built in Europe by Michael
Reynolds aren't always performing as promised and some show problems
with moist and mould. Some research into performance was done by the
University of Brighton on the Brighton Earthship. Further research to
adapting all but southern parts of European climate are definitely
needed.
The first earthship built in africa, is
by Angel and Yvonne Kamp from 1996 to 1998. They rammed a total of 1,500
tires for the walls. The earthship, near Hermanus, is located in a 60
hectare private nature reserve which is part of a 500000ha area enclosed
in a game fence and borders the Walker Bay Nature Reserve. The second
earthship in South Africa, is a recycling centre in Khayelitsha, which
run a swop shop concept. The centre was finished in December 2010.
Two other projects in development in
South Africa, is a bed and breakfast combined information / training
centre in Orania and a residential house in Swaziland.
composting toilet is a dry toilet that
uses a predominantly aerobic processing system that treats excreta,
typically with no water or small volumes of flush water, via composting
or managed aerobic decomposition.[1] Composting toilets may be used as
an alternative to flush toilets in situations where there is no suitable
water supply or waste treatment facility available or to capture
nutrients in human excreta as humanure. They are in use in many of the
roadside facilities in Sweden, in National Parks both in the United
States and the United Kingdom.[citation needed]
The human excrement is normally mixed
with sawdust, coconut coir, peat moss to support aerobic processing,
absorb liquids, and to reduce the odor. The decomposition process is
generally faster than the anaerobic decomposition used in wet sewage
treatment systems such as septic tanks.
Although there are many designs, the
process factors at work are the same. Rapid aerobic composting will be
thermophilic decomposition in which bacteria that thrive at high
temperatures (40-60 °C or 104-140 °F) oxidize (break down) the waste
into its components, some of which are consumed in the process, reducing
volume, and eliminating potential pathogens.
Drainage of excess liquid or leachate via
a separate drain at the bottom of the composter is featured in some
manufactured units, as the aerobic composting process requires moisture
levels to be controlled (ideally 50±10%): too dry, and the mass
decomposes slowly or not at all; too wet and anaerobic organisms thrive,
creating undesirable odors (cf. Anaerobic digestion). This separated
liquid may be diverted to a blackwater system or collected for other
uses. Some units include a urine-separator or urine-diverting system.
Where solar heat is used, this might be
called a "solar" toilet.[2] These systems depend on desiccation to
achieve sanitation safety goals[3] features systems that make use of the
separated liquid fraction for immediate area fertilization.
Urine can contain up to 90 percent of the
N (nitrogen), up to 50 percent of the P (phosphorus) and up to 70
percent of the K (potassium) present in human excreta.[4] In healthy
individuals it is usually pathogen free, although undiluted it may
contain levels of inorganic salts and organic compounds at levels toxic
to plants.[5]
The other requirement critical for
microbial action (as well as drying) is oxygen. Commercial systems
provide methods of ventilation that move air from the room, through the
waste container, and out a vertical pipe, venting above the enclosure
roof. This air movement (via convection or fan forced) will vent carbon
dioxide and odors.
Some units require manual methods for
periodic aeration of the solid mass such as rotating a drum inside the
unit or working an "aerator rake" through the mass. Composting toilet
brands have different provisions for emptying the "finished product,"
and supply a range of capacities based on volume of use. Frequency of
emptying will depend on the speed of the decomposition process and
capacity, from a few months (active hot composting) to years (passive,
cold composting). With a properly sized and managed unit, a very small
volume (about 10% of inputs) of a humus-like material results, which can
be suitable as soil amendment for agriculture, depending on local
public health regulations.
Composting toilets greatly reduce the
volume of excreta on site through psychrophilic, thermophilic or
mesophilic composting and yield a soil amendment that can be used in
horticultural or agricultural applications as local regulations allow.
In combination with a Constructed wetland these even require only the
half area.[6]
These should not be confused with the pit
latrine, arborloo or tree bog all of which are forms of less controlled
decomposition, and may not protect ground water from nutrient or
pathogen contamination or provide optimal nutrient recycling.
FIRST EARTH is a documentary about the
movement towards a massive paradigm shift for shelter -- building
healthy houses in the old ways, out of the very earth itself, and living
together like in the old days, by recreating villages. An audiovisual
manifesto filmed over the course of 4 years and 4 continents, FIRST
EARTH makes the case that earthen homes are the healthiest housing in
the world; and that since it still takes a village to raise a healthy
child, it is incumbent upon us to transform our suburban sprawl into
eco-villages, a new North American dream.
In this feature length film Gary Burns, Canada’s king of surreal comedy, joins journalist Jim Brown on an outing to the suburbs.
Venturing into territory both familiar
and foreign, they turn the documentary genre inside out, crafting a
vivid account of life in The Late Suburban Age.
Since the end of World War II, one of
kind of urban residential development has dominate how cities in North
America have grown, the suburbs. In these artificial neighborhoods,
there is a sense of careless sprawl in an car dominated culture that
ineffectually tries to create the more organically grown older
communities.
Interspersed with the comments of various
experts about the nature of suburbia, we follow the lives of various
inhabitants of this pervasive urban sprawl and hear their thoughts.
However at the end, there is a twist that plays on the falseness of the
world in they live.
Rocket stoves are superefficient wood-fired stoves that can easily be built using readily available and recycled materials
In this video, Nathan and Tony describe
two different rocket stove systems, detailing the inner workings of the
stoves and their unique ability to store heat much more effectively than
traditional wood stoves.
grandma stone - samui thailand
Maximum distance from the sun: 94 million 537 thousand miles
Minimum distance from the sun: 91 million 377 thousand miles
Mean distance from the sun: 92 million 957 thousand and 200 miles
Mean Orbital velocity: 66000 miles per hour
0rbital eccentricity: 0.017
Obliquity of the ecliptic: 23 degrees 27 minutes 8.26 seconds
Length of the tropical year: equinox equinox 365.24 days
Lenght of the sidereal year: fixed star fixed star 365.26 days
Length of the mean solar day: 24 hours and 3 minutes and 56.5555 seconds at mean solar time
Length of the mean sidereal day: 23 hours and 56 minutes and 4.091 seconds at mean sederial time
Mass: 6600 milion milion milion tons
Equatorial diameter: 7927 miles
Polar diameter: 7900 miles
Oblateness: one 298th
Density: 5.41
Mean surface gravitational acceleration of the rotating earth: 32.174 feet per second per second
Escape velocity: 7 miles per second
Albedo: 0.39