In July this year I took half a million steps as I was banned from driving. I’m using that phrase for comedic effect. As I had one arm in a sling driving was out of the question for a few weeks and then it was out of the question because my tendons and muscles were in need of physio therapy.
Carbon Footprint By not using the car for around one and a half months alone I avoided using at least one tank of diesel for every month of injury and one scooter tank of petrol per week of petrol.
A Dry Paléo after the rain A dry Paléo is as normal as a wet one. On Friday and Saturday if you went to Paléo you would hear the sploutch sploutch of shoes walking through mud. Along with the sploutch sploutch you would also hear the noise of people slipping and catching themselves. Surprisingly people only had dirty shoes. Even their trousers were intact. It’s the grass that suffered. On Sunday when I went to Paléo I could take some amusing images.
When you’re driving from Nyon to the airport without traffic the journey takes about twenty minutes. If you decide to drive into the city of Geneva that journey time is doubled thanks in main part to traffic lights. It once took me over one hour when scuba diving in Hermance to drive from Place des Nations to the other side of the Mont Blanc Bridge. That’s over one hour for less than two kilometres.
A Plastic Ocean is an excellent documentary detailing the problems and threats caused by plastics entering water systems and eventually reaching the seas and oceans. This documentary starts with a team trying to film whales. When they finally do find the whales off the coast of Sri Lanka they notice that there is a film of oil and plastic build up miles from the shore. They say that this bit of ocean should be clean as the beaches had been unused for years.
Ecosia is an environmental search engine for those who want to do social good through their web browsing habits. The principle is simple. You go to the Ecosia main page and type in your search engine query. For every search engine query that you do ad revenue is generated. This ad revenue is then invested into tree growing projects in a number of countries. [caption id=“attachment_3527” align=“aligncenter” width=“300”] At the time of writing, Ecosia earned enough to plant 8.
In the age of drones this is how shark reporting should be done. The Coast guard or local surfing schools should fly a drone around and check to see whether there are any sharks present. If and when they spot a shark or groups of sharks they could temporarily close the beach until the threat is gone. It reduces the need for shark nets. It also reduces the need and desire to kill any shark that is spotted as people are informed ahead of this time.
I went to watch Dirty Gold War at the Graduate Institute at lunch time today. The film is interesting because it makes you think about the environmental impact of gold mining. We’re familiar with the stories of gold mines in South Africa. We’re familiar with the stories of the gold rush. We don’t often think of the environmental impact of Gold mining in rain forests in Latin America. This documentary introduces the topic well.
While in Spain for three weeks I was playing with the Xtorm solar Charger. I found that it worked well for the charging of tablets and e-book readers but not mobile phones. [caption id=“attachment_3462” align=“aligncenter” width=“225”] Solar charger and external battery[/caption] For years I have wanted to play with solar power. I have wanted to buy a solar panel that I could fix to my bag or that I could use to charge devices.
Learning about Tiny Houses is interesting. There are a number of features/documentaries online where people build their own tinyhouses either from shipping containers, trailers or other structures. The aim of these tinyhouses is to maximise space and reduce costs. Some of these homes are entirely off the grid. They collect rain water and solar panels provide power. The bedroom is often built above the kitchen and climbing wall holds are used instead of ladders or conventional stairs.
When Gordon Buchanan was following bears in the United States we watched the resulting documentaries on television. We have seen him a number of times in episodes of countryfile as well. Now he is working on getting footage of wolves in the wild. For this project he is staying out in the wild and following a pack of wolves day after day for weeks. As part of this project he is filming with a broadcast camera and gopro cameras which he fixed on to a “rock crawler”.