Google Earth To Help Save The World?
Sustainable Wanaka Wastebusters
New Zealand homes have historically been extremely inefficient: 30 years after insulation became mandatory, around 350,000 homes are poorly insulated or have no insulation at all. Many of those are in the Queenstown Lakes District, where many houses were built for summer use only but are now lived in year round.
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Featured Extract: A Deeper Shade of Green
Read the full introduction to the acclaimed sustainable home design book, A Deeper Shade of Green:
"We have just experienced – once again – a year of weather contrasts. In New Zealand, it brought floods to the north and droughts to the east and to the south, with Taranaki suffering tornadoes in-between. Insurers lament the costs, increasing by the millions from year-to-year, of damaged homes, roads and infrastructure."
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Eco Competition - Win Earth Movie Tickets!
Register your postal address with Sustainable Living Programme today to enter a draw for two of 10 available free cinema passes to see EARTH, the amazing new movie from the BBC's Natural Film History Unit.
Made over a period of 5 years and filmed across the planet, EARTH follows the lives of three animal families - polar bear, elephant and humpback whale - to give you a new perspective on the beauty and inter-connection of the natural world and the importance of preserving it.
Click here to enter
Featured Home: Otago Coast
This home is located on the Otago coast. It has a floor area of 340 m², was built between 2002 and 2003, cost approximately $350,000, and is occupied by two adults and children. The whole house was built using materials that have as low embedded energy as possible and very good insulation. This off-grid home comprises strawbale construction, double glazing, Solar Combi System, wood fired central heating, exposed thermal mass, energy-efficient appliances, and utilisation of wind energy. The design of all the systems is such that it flows into the occupants lives without any big changes.
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Urbanites get their fingers Green
City dwellers are lapping up the self satisfaction of feeding their friends and family with their own home grown produce; they’re embracing the shift towards becoming more eco-friendly as they get their hands back in the soil. Sarah Davies, founder of Patch from Scratch, a boutique company that sets clients up with organic vege gardens, cites the increasing awareness of chemicals and pesticides, coupled with the recognition and desire to become more eco-friendly, as driving factors for city dwellers’ increasing interest in vege gardening.
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Featured Website: Simply Good Food
Simply Good Food is a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programme designed to supply people in the Wellington & Wairarapa regions with a regular, year-round supply of quality fruit, vegetables, herbs and other seasonal foods.
The Wairarapa Growing Company (WGC), a partnership of growers in the Wairarapa, is bringing New Zealand's first CSA inititaive to the region, supplying fresh, locally produced food to you and your family. All of the produce is grown organically in sustainable ways, using heritage seed varieties where available. The food is unique for its outstanding taste, high nutritional benefits and natural vitality.
www.simplygoodfood.co.nz
Featured Animation: 350.org
Featured Campaign: No Plastic Bags
'No Plastic Bags' is a new grass roots website dedicated to a New Zealand free from plastic carry bags. Around the world more and more countries are banning or taxing plastic bags and it is time for New Zealand to wake up and do the same.
This is about much more than fixing the problems directly caused by plastic bags, it is about increasing the capacity of our society to change. Because very significant change is what is required to face the twin threats of climate change and peak oil.
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Featured Info: Getting Off Grid
Tony Woods gets people “off the grid”. And with big changes coming to the way power’s supplied to your property, you may need Woods’ energy self-sufficiency services sooner than you think. Damian Christie reports.
If I hadn’t seen him building a windfarm with my own eyes, I might have thought Tony Woods was a spy. Or an international arms dealer, or a drug smuggler (but with a base in Timaru).
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Featured Video: Mocumentary Trailer
Scientist-turned-filmmaker Dr. Randy Olson, is a fan of Al Gore's global warming movie, but asks, "Where are the scientists?"
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Featured Info: Healthy Building Materials
Our immediate environment affects our physical and psychological health. Given that most of us spend around 80% of our time indoors, and a lot of the rest of the time looking at the outside of buildings, buildings are a major part of our lives.
Buildings also affect the natural environment, both locally and globally. Gas and solid fuel burnt for heating and hot water contributes towards climate change. Waste from the construction industry makes up about 40% of total landfill in New Zealand.
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The gap between believing and doing
When it comes to sustainable behaviours, have you ever felt like a hypocrite? Like you’re not walking the talk?
Chances are, the psychological term for the feeling you are experiencing is Cognitive Dissonance. It is probably not a pleasant feeling, but it is very handy for telling us we are out of alignment with ourselves, and a potent catalyst for change.
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Featured News: Smart thinking on renewable energy
An Australian state has given renewable energy a huge push with a new law designed to make investment in small scale renewables very attractive for the average household and business. Under a new law passed last week households and businesses in the Australian Capital Territory which generate their own power will be able to sell power back to their retailer for nearly four times the price of electricity. Retailers will be required to buy the electricity at that price with the cost passed on to all other consumers.
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Featured Product: Pohutukawa Gift
A baby tree is a gift that is as memorable as the occasion for which it is given. Trees can be used to mark many significant moments in our lives; births, birthdays, housewarming, marriage, death or just to say "thanks". Give a gift that goes on giving.
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Featured News: Sustainable Architecture
The ADNZ Resene Design Awards 2008 were presented last Saturday night. A sustainable design by Bob Burnett Architecture was popular receiving awards in 4 different categories. It won the Sustainability Award and the Bathroom Award. Also it was a finalist in other categories, New Single Dwelling Award over 250 sqm and Residential Interiors Award.
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Featured Idea: My Farm
MyFarm is an urban farm. The idea is to grow vegetables in backyard gardens in the city. This increases local food production helping to create a secure and sustainable food system. The US 'My Farm' use organic practices and strive to grow the best tasting most nutritious vegetables.
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Featured Info: Green Guide to Electronics
With expanded and tougher criteria on toxic chemicals, electronic waste and new criteria on climate change only Sony and Sony Ericsson score more than 5/10 in our latest Guide to Greener Electronics.
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Featured Info: GE Food Problems and Risks
Genetic engineering of plants is not like any form of plant breeding. It is most often carried out using a soil bacterium called Agrobacterium, or involves foreign DNA being literally shot into plant cells with a ‘gene gun’. In the wild, Agrobacterium inserts a small piece of its own DNA into plant cells, usually creating tumours called crown galls.
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Featured Story: Floating Eco Islands?
It's common knowledge that the planet is warming, ice caps are melting, and water levels are rising. The international scientific community predicts that a temperature elevation of 1°C will lead to a water rise of 1 meter, resulting in massive land loss and the displacement of millions of people world wide. Vincent Callebaut, a visionary Belgian...
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Featured Eco Home: Waipu Cove
Rainwater is collected from the roof for washing and toilet cisterns, and a solar hot water cylinder ensures that there is plenty of free hot water on sunny days. Inside, natural timber floors and cabinetry work with passive heating and ventilation to provide a low-toxic environment.
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Featured Home: Eco Village Lifestyle
Situated in the Kohatu Toa Eco Village, this home and land is designed to feed a family for the entire year. It has a well established and organic orchard, sub tropical orchard, and vegetable gardens in good heart. There are three different living spaces - The main house, a double bedroom sleepout/office, and a smaller single bedroom cottage.
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Featured Event: Eco Film Fest
The NZ International Film Festival starting in July has a fantastic line up of films about sustainable living, eco-communities and environmental protection from around the world. Make sure you put the dates in your calendar and share with your friends!
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Featured Challenge: SHAC
Nine teams from the country’s leading tertiary institutions have signed up to the challenge of providing a more sustainable way of life for New Zealand home owners. The Sustainable Habitat Challenge 09 (SHAC 09) is an Otago Polytechnic initiative. It’s funded by the Ministry for the Environment’s Sustainable Management Fund to foster...
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Featured Community Story: Rubbish Free Year
You may think its crazy, but my husband and I have challenged ourselves to live for one year without creating any household rubbish. We started officially on the 1st of February 2008 but also had a trial run during January. We’ve had plenty of “What will we do about…?” conversations, so if you’re wondering what the rubbish free options for toothpaste, shampoo, or bread, etc, click on the Rubbish Free Guide link above.
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Featured Website: Vertical Farm
By the year 2050, nearly 80% of the earth's population will reside in urban centers. Applying the most conservative estimates to current demographic trends, the human population will increase by about 3 billion people during the interim. An estimated 109 hectares of new land (about 20% more land than is represented by the country of Brazil) will be needed to grow enough food to feed them, if traditional farming practices continue as they are practiced today. At present, throughout the world, over 80% of the land that is suitable for raising crops is in use (sources: FAO and NASA). Historically, some 15% of that has been laid waste by poor management practices. What can be done to avoid this impending disaster?
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Featured Organisation: Sustainable Business Network
The Sustainable Business Network provides practical advice and support to assist business with this challenge. We support our members with networking opportunities, programme delivery, training and sustainability assessments.
Ecological and social issues are becoming more important than ever and consumers are calling for action. We have reached the sustainability tipping point and it is now the imperative for business this century.
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There is an entire industry of stock plan books and plan sites. Some are created by architects and designers with talent; others are full of the usual faux manors. Very few are modern designs and fewer still are what one might call green. All of them are ripped off constantly by every builder and client who isn't willing to hire an architect and is...
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In Al Gore's brand-new slideshow he presents evidence that the pace of climate change may be even worse than scientists were recently predicting, and challenges us to act.
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A new Google Earth skin takes you through the next hundred years of climate change, which has particularly startling consequences for the north pole.
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By Linda Sieg
KOBE, Japan (Reuters) - Environment ministers from the G8 rich nations on Monday urged their leaders to set a global target to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, a small but vital step in the fight against climate change.
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New Foothold for LED Lights
Dusseldorf, Germany, has 17,000 gas street lamps. The city's power utility has decided to replace 10,000 of them with LED street lights, but that hasn't happened yet. So far, only about 25 of them have been installed.
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The answer to the question "Can sustainable, green homes be built in mass production?" led Michelle Kaufmann to found Michelle Kaufmann Designs (MKD), a leading design/build firm that uses off-site modular technology to create contemporary eco-friendly homes.
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Films about sustainable living, eco-communities and environmental protection from around the world at the New Zealand International Film Festivals.
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Ecoshow NZ is more than a trade exhibition. It incorporates an Eco-Forum and Workshops (both discussions and hands-on) lead by national and international experts and attended by key players and decision makers.
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The plate tectonics of the transportation sector are shifting and the new landscape is starting to become clearer. The change is particularly obvious in the US where fuel prices have been relatively low compared to most of the rest of the world for a long time.
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Daniel Schipper has come up with this “Folding Greenhouse” design for city dwellers that need to spread their botanical love. This light-weight, flexible and modular greenhouse is perfect for small spaces and unfolds faster than you can say origami.
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