10 ideas that could save the planet

NOW Magazine
Feb 24-March 3, 2010

10 ideas that could save the planet

1. SHUT DOWN COAL-FIRED PLANTS
We’re already producing 23 per cent more electricity than peak demand forecast for this summer. And 27 per cent more power than peak demand forecast for the summer of 2014, according to a report released this week by the Ontario Clean Air Alliance. You’ve read this right. We have energy to burn, minus the coal currently choking our lungs. A coal shutdown can be accomplished without brownouts or spending millions on dangerous nukes, but we do have to commit to stop selling our surplus power to the U.S. when the economy picks up. Cancelling coal isn’t far-fetched. All it’ll take is a champion in the Liberal cabinet.

2. PRIME THE POWER OF OCEANS
In the past four decades, the oceans have been soaking up heat, expanding and rising at a rate about 50 per cent faster than previously estimated by the UN panel on climate change. Scared yet? But now scientists are finding that oceans have enormous carbon storage potential. The United Nations Environment Programme Blue Carbon report of October 2009 says the restoration of coastal and marine ecosystems such as mangrove forests, seagrass meadows and saltwater marshes could mitigate human-induced carbon emissions by up to 25 cent. Good news, because a study published last year suggests the warming of the oceans could shift Earth’s axis by up to 1.5 metres by the end of the century. Think about what that may mean for the Arctic ice cap. Kaboom. Let’s get planting.

3. BRING BACK THE GRASSLANDS
We all know downing burgers and carving up steak seriously messes with our personal carbon tally thanks to the energy hidden in feed production. But turns out that’s only true of conventionally raised meat. The latest eco wisdom is that we need to restore our native grasslands – and a livestock industry raised on lush, rotating grass pastures instead of feed might just do the trick. Grasslands remove CO2 from the air, in some cases more effectively than forests, and nurture precious topsoil. Cows raised this way produce 20 per cent less climate-wrecking methane. And while the barren feedlots of conventional farming turn cow dung into toxic waste, animal poo dumped on luxuriant growing grass becomes organic fertilizer.

4. PUSH MARKET SMARTS
Talk about a top-notch recycling breakthrough: ForestEthics is reusing everything it learned getting corps like Victoria’s Secret, Office Depot and Williams-Sonoma to heed the Forest Stewardship Council label to do some shaming on the tar sands. After sending letters to the top Fortune 500 firms explaining how dirty oil is bad for branding, ForestEthics landed a deal just weeks ago with Whole Foods. The company agreed to boycott tar sands oil in its deliveries. And Bed, Bath & Beyond promised to discourage suppliers from using it. According to ForestEthics’ Nikki Skuce, the org is in talks with 30 other major firms. If FE does for filthy fuel what it did for trees, we can kill off this worst-scenario crude one corporate pledge at a time.

5. TAP INTO YOUR BODY HEAT
Couch potatoes, rejoice! Just sitting around doing nothing could soon be considered useful work. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has announced the invention of body-heat power. Thanks to advances in technology, slight increases in temperature can be harnessed to power biomedical devices like heart-rate monitors. This marks an amazing leap for those who try to make alkaline batteries work longer by just rubbing them in their hands. Other visions for the tech include the boring task of monitoring air quality in heat ducts, or the more exciting distant hope of powering the cellphones that will be built into our skulls.

6. GET TOUGH ON FISH FARMS
No buying fish without checking the SeaChoice pocket guide, of course. And BC Pacific salmon is chronically in the use-with-caution category. No wonder, since evidence is mounting that wild salmon stocks in the province’s northwest are being destroyed by disease and parasites originating inside the open-pen nets of coastal fish farms. BC is resisting calls from eco groups, including the Suzuki Foundation, to regulate the growing industry. Time’s running out. Scientists have recently discovered that sea lice from fish farms are killing juvenile pink salmon before they can make their way to spawning grounds upstream, a development with the potential for devastating fallout in whale and bear populations that rely on the fish. But don’t assume all fish ops are bad. Ecos are now endorsing a new tech using closed-containment tanks that remove fecal matter, parasites and uneaten food scraps from the effluent produced by fish farms.

7. MOPPING UP WITH FUNGUS
We’ve got way more uses for our precious mushrooms than sautéing them with butter. Look to the fungi for a major planetary cleanup operation. Nature’s trusted recycler can lick up oil spills and sponge away E. coli runoff. But now these wondrous organisms are stepping up to deal with our plastic problem, too. Remember the bisphenol A (BPA) gender mutation scare? Nalgene sure does. Well, after we all ditched our plastic bottles, the issue seemed over – except for those 2.7 million tons of BPA waste dumped in landfills each year. Enter white-rot fungus. A recently published study from the Indian Institute of Technology in Chennai, India, shows that in combo with ultraviolet light, the fungus can decompose BPA-laden plastic without emitting any harmful chemicals.

8. RIP UP THE PAVEMENT
Green roofs and tree planting are great, and we love them, but they can’t offset the concrete overkill causing our city to overheat – and sending warm runoff to destabilize the ecology of our lakes and rivers. Heat given off by pavement in summer averages 48° to 67° Celsius. Get out the backhoes and jackhammers, it’s time to tear up the grey matter and start planting wherever possible. Where it isn’t, we need to use porous materials that absorb less of the sun’s rays. Decreasing absorption by a mere 4 per cent cities worldwide could achieve reductions in global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions worth about $400 billion.

9. TURN THE HEAT UP ON SOLAR
Morning has broken on all things solar. IBM has come up with a new kind of solar panel that can dramatically cut the cost of this technology while increasing efficiency by 40 per cent. The trick is the use of abundant resources copper, zinc, tin and sulphur for the cells instead of expensive indium and gallium. Then there’s the new Solar Island project based in Switzerland, which aims to build solar islands miles in diameter in the middle of the ocean. The prototype will be constructed in the United Arab Emirates and could lead the way in energy harvesting in areas that can’t afford to sacrifice arable land to solar arrays. In this case, solar means solar-thermal – mirrors create steam, which in turn drives energy-generating turbines.

10. HARVEST H20
What’s old is new again on the farm. Aquaponics, which relies on tech as old as the Aztec chinampa, is making a serious comeback for obvious reasons: it’s smart and sustainable. The novel farming method fuses freshwater fish farming with cultivation of plants in water rather than soil, which leads some enviros to deem the whole operation not an organic one at all. Still, despite that debate, this is a tasty growing option when land is at a premium. The natural filtration that occurs through the plant roots’ returns fresh H2O. In more advanced systems, cow manure from nearby farms can be used to heat the greenhouse. And guess what? A small version of all this can be readily adapted to our little downtown yards.