Magical medicine!

I strongly recommend you to watch this! Health and climate are closely related. Walking, biking or running is beneficial for both yourself, your economy and the global climate!

I´m currently revising for my next final exam: energy and environment. There are several fascinating, worrying and interesting subjects brought back to my attention! Among them the effect food production has on the environment.

For my international readers, the bar graph is in Norwegian, but I´ll explain:

The image to the left is taken from one of our energy and environment-lectures. The bar graph gives an overview of the amount of CO2 emissions produced by various types of food. The scale is measured in grams CO2 equivalents per kg of the product. Not surprisingly, vegetables give very little emissions, while meat from cattle is by far worst. Cheese is the third worst, and vegetables grown in greenhouses give very high emissions compared to vegetables and fruit growing outside.

In short: a low-carb diet is disastrous for the environment. A varied, balanced diet with lots of vegetables is the key to sustainability!

Intelligent thermostat saves energy

Now here´s something I like! The intelligent thermostat Nest is just what we need to increase the efficiency in energy consumption. By automatic, flexible systems it´s easier to reduce the need of energy for heating and cooling buildings.

In a global scale, an automatic, easily operated thermostat controlling the temperature isingenious, just like the iPhone- generation would expect. The user-friendly and esthetic design is, by the way, designed by none other than Tony Fadell. He´s the mind behind Apple´s iPod and iPhone! If revolutionizing the music industry is possible within a few years, I feel pretty confident the same should be possible in the energy sector.

Longlasting short-sightedness

The ice levels in the Arctic Sea once again lie close to the year of historic minimum, 2007. This was the year we didn´t get snow in Norway until January. We´ve had the warmest November ever, and still the snow is delaying. I feel like emphasizing the depth of nature´s connected patterns yet again, though it should be obvious. See the National Snow and Ice Data Center for more info about Arctic ice levels here.

I´m still amazed by humans ability to think incredibly short-sighted. How is it possible to ignore scientific knowledge because we have comfortable and cheap solutions within reach? How can it be so difficult to understand the need of sustainability?

It´s quite logical really, the math is pretty straight-forward. I will repeat it, just in case. It all boils down to one thing: we don´t have more than one globe. The consequence is: we can´t use more than the limited resources accessible. One plus five never equals one.

So we should use the resources available to develop sustainable solutions, which will last despite of population growth. Renewable will deliver energy for years and years ahead because we already have an unlimited power supply: the sun. In my eyes, developing yet other methods for squeezing the last drops of oil out of the already exhausted soil is madness. What we need is to think further than profit next year or decade, steering towards the "plan ahead"- mentality. Use natural and human resources for constructive solutions, not to create new problems which will delay the process more than absolutely necessary.

Global sustainability and balance is required within several fields, but perhaps most importantly concerning environment and economy. The two are closely related, so regulating one in the right direction will have positive affects on the other.

Luna Solar Energy

This is a visionary energy concept from the Japanese Luna Ring Shimizu Corporation´s researchers. The idea is to establish a giant ring of solar photovoltaic cells on the moon´s surface, to transport solar energy to the earth by microwave power transmission. I love their ability to think outside the box! Clean, concentrated energy transmitted directly from space seems like a comfortable solution to our global energy problems. 7 billion people definitely need clean energy.

There are lots of physical and ethical issues related to projects like the Luna Ring: among them the immense cost and technological challenges. Think about the initial amount of energy we would have to use for transporting all the resources and materials to the moon in the first place! And do we really trust ourselves enough to believe we would use the energy constructively where it´s needed, with no possibility of abusing the immense amounts of energy? A giant laser turned towards our own planet could lead to frightening possibilities. Who should be in charge of operating it? The richest, most populous, poorest or most prosperous country? All countries? How do we finance it, and which role would the contributors play afterwards? As in all cases where energy is involved, I believe thinking before acting would seem like a good idea.

You can read more about the Luna Ring project here.

Update: renewable energy in focus

Hi!

Long time, no see. Well, I wanted to give you a little update again. As I said earlier, I´ve been busy studying for the past couple of months. It is a bit of a challenge, but I´m getting along all right. The best subject for me is without doubt energy and environment. It´s really exciting learning more about renewable energy! I realized I was on the right track when our professor told us Enovas book about renewable energy is part of the course. I read the book four years ago!

Take a look at the e-version of the booklet at renewable.no here

New website

Hello!

Sorry for little activity lately. The studies at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology are indeed time consuming! I have also joined a student organization, Start NTNU. We work with innovation and entrepreneurship, great fun but quite demanding.

In addition I´ve been working on a new website together with a friend. The address is http://only1planet.info (only1planet.com and .no are also coming). It´s not finished, but in progress!