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Posts Tagged ‘planet’

To save energy and the environment we are all doing something everyday. We are all recycling papers, cans, bottles and plastics. When we shop for home appliances like bulbs we always look for energy saving bulbs for our rooms. Especially during the cold weather why turn up the thermostat when you have humidifiers in place. In Germany most people have installed luftbefeuchter (as they call it in Germany) to save energy and also increase the heat, how? Keep reading.

Humidifiers add moisture in the air that is flowing inside your house/room, and from the humid moisture the temperature just gets warmer inside the house. Even when the temperature is only 19 or 20 degrees we still find the weather very hot in UK because it gets very humid. When you visit Chile, Spain or Italy you can easily relax under the sun of 30 degrees because it’s less humid there. What is my point? Well its simply less humid more cold and more humid less cold. The air in the house gets warmer as the humidity increases.

Than electric or gas heater humidifiers uses less energy which means you can save quite a bit of money through humifidiers. Make sure to insulate the loft if you have one. Some houses which are built 20 to 30 years ago let’s the heat through the ceilings or through the roof and runs into the atmosphere. Here is another way you can save energy and also it is very cost effective. Make sure you seal gaps in your walls, ceilings and floors. This won’t let the heat out into the atmosphere and will keep it inside the room. By doing the above you will also be saving money.

In Spain and Chile humidifiers is called humidificadores and in Italy humidifiers are called umidificatori.

Unless you have been living on another planet recently, you will know that environmental and sustainability issues have been a hot topic. Going back a couple of decades, not many people worried about where their grub tableware or other products were sourced from. It was a case of what do I want and where do I get it. Nowadays however, we cannot afford to live in the same manner, especially if we want to secure a future for the next generation and beyond. Taking some time to think about where you get and how you consume your food can have a surprisingly big impact.

Local Producers. We take it for granted these days that we can pop down the local shop and buy some fruits from exotic shores and wines from the other side of the world for example. However, a huge amount of these products are flown thousands of miles from other countries and this causes problems. Not only does the transport release vast amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, due to burning fuel and having to use a food and wine cooler to keep the produce chilled all the way, but also local food suppliers struggle to compete with low foreign costs. If you want to see the important businesses in your local area survive for years to come then make sure you use them whenever you can.

Fight Packaging. You only have to take a walk down one of the isles to see how much food packaging is wasted making products look pretty. A single cake might be singly wrapped, inside a little box with a plastic place-holder, which is cloaked in cellophane and transported within a cardboard box, with the other cake boxes. It is often the case that such packaging is completely redundant, so do your bit and try to buy loose or sensibly wrapped goods.

Green Accessories. Ensuring your meal times do not cost the planet means thinking about more than just your food. Everything from the cutlery you use to the little wine gifts bought for yourself or other can have just as much influence and the consumables themselves. Ask yourself where this product has come from, is it something that could be made from a more sustainable material, and is this a disposable product when I could be buying a reusable one? Disposable chopsticks for example cause thousands of trees to be cut down every day, when a good reusable pair can last a lifetime.

Can oil produced by algae save the planet?

In our green real estate section we usually try to focus on environmentally friendly advice for our homes. However, this time it will be about some interesting research, which can help us to get rid of the feelings of guilt connected with driving our gas guzzling cars. Our daily routine has many important parts and oil is usually one of them. Almost everyone in the developed world has a car, which is a necessary part of everyday life, and so do I, as most of the realtors who have to drive around their neighbourhoods on a daily basis. Life would just be difficult without our beloved car. Unfortunately, we all know the two basic problems related to driving: unsound oil supplies driving prices up and down and the environmental harm caused by fuel burning and the related carbon dioxide emissions.

The Institute for Genomic Research was started off by Craig Venter, an American biologist and a successful enterpreneur. He predominantly deals with genetic engineering and his newest project has aroused a great deal of heated debate.

Some experiments have already been working with biofuels, some of them also with natural oil produced by algae. But Craig Venter is ready to explore more than that. He is trying to explore if it’s possible to modify the genomic make-up of algae in order to make them produce oil of almost the same composition as the traditional crude oil. This option is so much better, as you can use current oil industry infrastructure like refineries, and even produce plastics in the same way as from crude oil refining employing the same production plants that are presently being used. It doesn’t shock us that one of the companies producing the most oil on the planet, Exxon Mobile, donated $600 million for Ventor to go on with his research.

Now your question might be, where is the environmental benefit? Well, right here. The oil produced by algae could well contribute to coping with one of the most serious problems of our world. Plants use the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, use it in a photosynthesis process to create the oil and then the oil is burned and turned into oxalates. Of Course, we can’t suppose this miracle solution to be available this year or next, but science indicates us there is always some way we can try, and Craig Venter and his team have a very good chance of succeeding where others have tried and failed. There are many people in Canada and elsewhere that want to protect the environment, but due to their occupation, it is very difficult for them to stop using cars, just like so many of my fellow Toronto real estate agents can’t.