Actionables for Issues that Matter
Used plastic bottles best known for clogging the world’s oceans.
Resulted in surprisingly short supply, as consumer brands compete to meet recycling targets.
Spot prices for recycled PET flakes have plastic-bottle waste doubled in Europe.
Plastic bottles have been recycled into carpets and takeaway food cartons
Now clothing brands are also vying for them in fashion industry.
Has not figured out how to recycle plastic based garments such as polyester
Wildfires are getting worse. Fires grow more severe and more common.
Firefighters are stretched thin.
Fire fighting technology is emerging with 3 companies leading.
Reining in wildfires will take much more than tech solutions
But some startups think there’s a role for AI, ML, drones, and more
This machine learning tool [is] hopefully going to reduce the hours spent fighting a fire
Help them control future fires with planning,
Sonia Kastner founder and CEO of Pano told Emerging Tech Brew. “They were calling for cameras and drones and satellites and AI.
Here is what composter expert, Mike, did and related.
“There is a lot of material that could be composted at home and not sent to the landfill.
BUT people will tell you they do not have the space next to their swimming pool
and they do not have the time to maintain it. It also assumes they have a garden.”
Hauling it away for composting is yet another cost like garbage removal.
I am fortunate that my small burro will suck up our leaves and remove them.
My grass is cut every week and is mulched back into the grass.
End of Leaf blowers means more composting.
Less leaves and greenery going to literal waste.
Leaf Vacuums will replace blowers as composting becoming serious business.
Composed material is Not just a pile of dirt and leaves rotting in the backyard.
Compost market to 2025 by product type (yard trimming, food waste, manure, mushroom compost, & various composting.
Global compost market is expected to reach an estimated $9.2 billion by 2024.
Leaf Blowers are finally on their way out.
Took years of opposition and advocacy for ban over next 2 yrs.
Using small, gas-powered equipment like leaf blowers and generators ends up being
Much worse for the environment than driving a car for the same amount of time,
New law was driven by powerful California Air Resources Board (CARB),
Next is composting focus and public education.
We need work force trained & ready to make America Work.
Something like the National Guard.
How bout a program for National Service for at least a year or two of young lives?
Gen Stanley McChrystal called on President Biden to invest in national service
That would be one million young Americans annually — Males & Females.
Rebuild civic and social connections by bringing participants together
Cow manure hitting the environmental fan.
#1 source of methane in agriculture comes from livestock burping & manure.
Climate experts won’t be able to limit warming without tackling methane.
Methane is the main component of natural gas.
Can leak into the atmosphere from pipelines or other sources -landfills, erupting volcanoes, & decomposing veggies.
New satellite technology and development provides tracking & data,
Previous systems tech predates planning for cloud computing & AI-based data analysis.
For eNow satellite technology can measure each tree’s health, size, and species
Can now compute total biomass of trees & ability to pull carbon dioxide out of the air.
Muon Space & others plans to launch a fleet of satellites designed to analyze Earth’s atmosphere, land, & water in detail
Another Hard Knock for Molokai.
There is a shortage of Electricity on Molokai & it is unaffordable,
Are large electricity deserts throughout Molokai on Hawaiian homestead land
Utility poles do not reach some Hawaiian homestead lands on the Island.
Hawaiian Electric Co .uses its monopoly status to gain max fee revenue,
Molokai is ready to create a new reputation– not the “island of hard knocks”
Rather it’s a community that knows how to successfully steward the environment.
Now seeks a way that supports the economy while preserving the culture.
Fighting forest fires is changing;
It’s time to reverse a century of fire-management policy
Will require sweeping regulatory reforms, and tons of money.
This means reversing a century of US fire suppression policies
Relying on deliberate, prescribed burns therefore controlled.
Clearing out the vegetation that builds up into giant piles of fuel.
Designated areas would be burned over a 30 to 50-year period
Here we go again! CleanTech Comeback.
Heady valuations & investor FOMO (fear of missing out) for Cleantech are present again.
Industry has matured, entering a new phase of development
Thus justifies the latest burst of investor enthusiasm
Funding in the first half of 2021.$16 Billion of funding in 1Q and 2Q 2021;
At least Four Industry Segment Involved:
Energy. Transport, Industry, & Farming
Newly elected congressman spends time listening to Molokai citizens
Seeks to learn what the issues, problems & challenges on Molokai
Spent four days on Molokai in August
Listened to learn about deer, water, farming,and need for funding
Talked to farmers, gardeners, and even fishpond restorers.
Hot Streets Surfaces Get hotter
Black asphalt absorbs heat from Sun: White road surface reflects heat from Sun.
Dark-colored asphalt absorbs between 80 & 95 percent of the sun’s rays.
White road surfaces reflect heat and sun light. Paint & new alternative materials being used.
Example is concrete, or white asphalt, but more expensive choice for road surfaces.
But lasts longer & provides more stable environment for heavier vehicles.
Other alternative materials reduce consumption of natural aggregates/recycles materials
And are being used instead of black asphalt.
Is your car’s catalytic converter about to be stolen?
An Easy Grab and Go process can remove the unit within a minute or two.
Thieves can remove a catalytic converter quickly, often in less than two minutes,
Only tools a thief needs are a wrench or a reciprocating saw (for converters.
Recyclers then extract the metal and resell it for as much as $6,000 an ounce,
Crime or converter theft has risen in tandem with sharply rising metal prices.
Thieves sell to metal recyclers for $20-$200. Usually around $70
Burn, Baby, Burn–Never seems to stop,
Forest management is expensive, labor intensive, & still difficult to implement
‘Forest Fires keep burning out of control in California.
Now state must begin to work with fires, not just fight them.
Means reversing a century of U.S.fire suppression policies & practices.
Focus seems to be about reduction of the fuel that burns in the forest fires.
Can only rely more on deliberate, prescribed burns to clear out vegetation & piles of fuel.
New ways, technology, techniques and planning being gradually mobilized
The Moon & Climate Change are at work.
Higher tides and more coastal flooding are coming to Hawaii & West Coast
Accelerating number of high-tide flooding days to start in the mid-2030s.
Novel statistical model projects future flooding days for Hawaii & California.
Will figure & reflect changes in tidal range and sea-level projections.
Rapid increases in flooding at high tide expected in coastal areas will occur.
Includes Gulf of Mexico and Pacific coastlines, including Hawaii.
Mid-to late-2030s to be the tipping point from which a regional issue transitions.
Kill them pesky weeds the safe way.
People are NOT using Roundup to kill garden & lawn weeds any more.
Organic weed killers are on the market & homemade version easy to make.
Home made weed killers made from vinegar and other household items being adopted.
Home Made Alternative Weed Killer to Commercial Roundup can be easily made.
See formula for home made Organic weed killers made from Vinegar.
Just as powerful without risk to people and pets. Easy & safe solution,
Coral reefs are dying in many global oceans.
Project Underway to create reef restoration technology & recolonization.
Project Underway to create reef restoration technology.
Seeking to restore dead reef off the coast of Caribbean nation Antigua & Barbuda
Effects of climate change have led to coral bleaching & dead reefs.
Grow Food Locally:
Actual economies & advantages to raising food & crops at a local level.
Small-scale integrated localized settlements & economies enable enormous reductions in food costs.
Large savings with production in small scale, highly self-sufficient & cooperative local economies.
Study uses input–output analysis of one product, eggs. to make a local production even more viable.
Illustrates how big the difference & scale between two paths of food production can be.
Involves rarely recognized “diseconomies of scale” in assessing the impact of food sourcing.
Tons of microplastics are floating in the Ocean & in the air over the western United States.
Particles stay airborne for nearly a week–enough time to cross oceans & blow inland from & to the Ocean, particularly West Coast of U.S.
Plastics that are falling from the sky are smaller than 5 ml & from many sources.
Plastic bags & bottles thrown into waterways & break down into smaller pieces of tiny microfibers.
Particles fall off washed synthetic clothing; Then flushed into wastewater treatment plants.
Any remaining microfibers get flushed out to ocean along with the treated water.
$100 million Carbon Mapper project using satellites can detect & measure Greenhouse Gas leaks.
Satellites can also detect chemical signatures for excess salts or fungus on the ground.
And measures intensity of green chlorophyll & track fugitive methane emissions.
This potential to “shake up” the field of greenhouse gas monitoring & verification.
Means now capability to monitor leaks up to more than 80 times the warming power of CO2.
Food security is foremost to the residents & citizens of Hawaii.
Hawai‘i imports more than 80% of its food. Some islands even more.
So each island needs to grow at least 50% of its staple crops to be self-sufficient.
To achieve that level of food security, experts say it will take old values & new tools & money. .
Farmers need more support from incentives, advocacy, state support to gain food sovereignty.
Replacing food imports with Hawaii-grown alternatives would strengthen island chain’s economy.
Apparently thousands of barrels of DDT are still on the Ocean floor after years of litigation.
Recent UC Santa Barbara Study & Senator Feinstein briefing re-surfaced problem.
Thousands of barrels of DDT dumped in 3,000 feet of Ocean may still be there.
Use of Two high tech robots scoped 36,000 acres of ocean floor show barrels of DDT.
Scripps NOAA mapping efforts contributed to the find & confirmed the extent of larger dump area.
EPA intends to implement capping project, placing clean sediment over the contaminated ocean floor to isolate it from bio-availability.
This posting may seem to be remote, not necessarily applicable, & even obtuse.
But Glenn Teves’ recent Online presentation at Cornell shows what can be done with small farmers.
Shows science driving Beginning Farmer Program on Molokai which was triggered by the Law of the Minimum.
The core source is derived from Justus von Liebig’s Law of the Minimum
Growth is dictated not by total resources available, but by scarcest resource.
States that if essential plant nutrients is deficient, plant growth will be poor.
Environmentalist want logging to stop and introduced legislation to do so;
Loggers and environmentalists battled then found common ground
Log company & tree huggers cooperated & saved the town of John Day, Oregon.
Timber industry survived because environmentalist fought to save their jobs.
Realized that some logging was absolutely essential to make overgrown forests healthy.
Eastern Oregon forests were prone to fires.
Loggers and environmentalists were at odds over what ought to be done
