Categories
Energy Resources Videos

Saul Griffith on kites as the future of renewable energy

In this brief talk, Saul Griffith unveils the invention his new company Makani Power has been working on: giant kite turbines that create surprising amounts of clean, renewable energy.

Categories
Organizations Resources Videos Waste Management

Story of Stuff

Story of Stuff – How Things Work, About Stuff

From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It’ll teach you something, it’ll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.

© Tides Foundation & Funders Workgroup for Sustainable Production and Consumption

Categories
Community Kitchen Gardens Organizations Resources Videos

Even the White House is doing it: inside the White House kitchen garden

First Lady Michelle Obama and White House chef Sam Kass tell the story of the first garden on White House grounds since Eleanor Roosevelt’s Victory Garden during World War II. This new garden was planted in the Spring of 2009 with the help of local elementary school children and has yielded a constant supply fresh produce for the First Family and White House events.

Categories
Get Inspired Organizations Stories Videos

Willie Smits restores a rainforest and speaks on TED

About this talk

By piecing together a complex ecological puzzle, biologist Willie Smits has found a way to re-grow clearcut rainforest in Borneo, saving local orangutans — and creating a thrilling blueprint for restoring fragile ecosystems.

About Willie Smits

Willie Smits has devoted his life to saving the forest habitat of orangutans, the “thinkers of the jungle.” As towns, farms and wars encroach on native forests, Smits works to save what is left.

Source: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/willie_smits_restores_a_rainforest.html

Categories
Community Kitchen Gardens Resources Videos

Rooftop farming booming in New York

Urban farming is a growth industry in New York city’s concrete jungle and with little open land free, agriculturalists and beekeepers have taken to the rooftops to pursue their passion.

Andrew Cote uses the emergency fire ladder to climb up to the roof of his East Village building, where he tends to 250 bee hives.

Cote, a professor of Japanese literature doubles up as president of the New York City Beekeepers Association, and is happy the city authorised beekeeping in mid-March after an 11-year ban.

‘The city wants to plant one million trees, and the trees need to be pollinated,’ Cote told AFP.