Interview with Julia Fürst, a biology student in the field of biodiversity and conservation biology
Reminder: the following information applies to the Zurich area, Switzerland
Is every exotic plant automatically a neophyte, i.e. invasive?
"No, one in ten plants is non-native, one in 100 plants is a neophyte."More...
Hello everyone,
For my project I am going to find out if there is a difference between the waste from shopping in a supermarket or in a local shop.
PLANT MORE TREES
Planting more trees helps to maintain healthy soils and humidity levels in the air around the would. It begins when tree regulates the water cycle. Tree absorbs air and transpire effectively filtering and controlling where they are.
- „Oxygen generated by the ocean“
The post suggests (incorrectly) that coral reefs produce O2.
Trees are plants that produce O2 (Even trees need O2 to breathe, they just produce much more than they use.).
Corals are colonies of animals that need oxygen to breathe. They live in an inner symbiontic (give and take) relationship with tiny green algae which are „microscopic plants“, producing O2 and food for the coral...
- Oceans do provide the planet with most of its oxygen – but it’s not the coral reefs that are producing it!More...
Batterien und E-Mobilität: Fakten und Fake News zu Umweltrisiken
Marcel Gauch, Sustainability Delegate, Project Manager at Technology & Society Lab, Empa
Batterien und E-Mobilität: Fakten und Fake News zu Umweltrisiken from su-pa on Vimeo.
What is a tree?
A plant having a permanently woody main stem or trunk, ordinarily growing to a considerable height, and usually developing branches at some distance from the ground is called a tree.
Trees near me
Uses of tree
TREES COMBAT CLIMATE CHANGE
TREES CLEAN THE AIR
TREES PROVIDE OXYGEN
TREES COOL THE STREETS AND THE CITY
TREES CONSERVE ENERGY
TREES SAVE WATER
TREES HELP PREVENT WATER POLLUTION
TREES HELP PREVENT SOIL EROSION
TREES SHIELD CHILDREN FROM ULTRA-VIOLET RAYS
TREES PROVIDE FOOD
TREES HEAL
TREES REDUCE VIOLENCE
TREES MARK THE SEASON
TREES CREATE ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES
TREES ARE TEACHERS AND PLAYMATES
TREES BRING DIVERSE GROUPS OF PEOPLE TOGETHER
TREES ADD UNITY
TREES PROVIDE A CANOPY AND HABITAT FOR WILDLIFE
TREES BLOCK THINGS
TREES PROVIDE WOOD
TREES INCREASE PROPERTY VALUE
TREES INCREASE BUSINESS TRAFFIC
Thank you.....
Hello to anyone who reads this,
Even in a first world country such as Belgium poverty is still present, though not as prevalent as it may be in other countries. Because of this, there are many food banks present, all under one larger organization. I'm going to be looking into the fact if this is a sustainable organization. The first question is of course: where does this food come from? Most of the products gathered are products that could have been both imported or made here in Belgium. This already doesn't seem good.
There is however a large twist to this. These products aren't explicitly imported for the food banks, instead, they are products that would've been thrown into the trash otherwise. Thanks to this, they reduce waste by a large amount. However, they don't solely rely on wasted food, no. A large part, about a third, of their donations, are from the European food bank federation. This may cause some emissions due to it having to be transported to Belgium, but it's not nearly as far as it would be if it came from another continent.
Food for the Future is a unique project in which the Province of Flemish Brabant, Rikolto (Vredeseilanden), Colruyt Group, University College UCLL and KU Leuven together with young people, experts, farmers, etc. look for ways to feed the growing global population in a sustainable way. Food for the Future wishes to fuel the debate by bringing together people from the business community, governments, consumers and civil society organizations. They have chosen 3 products: Andean crops, pulses and seaweed.
I'm going to investigate why they have chosen their products and if they are sustainable or not. So my research question is: Why did the project food for the future chose the products: Andean crops, pulses and seaweed? Are these sustainable?
Hello everyone,
The food that we eat today comes from a lot of places around the world. This way of producing our food isn't sustainable enough in long term. With the growing world population, a lot of extra food production is going to be needed. This food can be produced in countries around the entire world, but it can also be grown close to the cities where the food will be consumed.
Nowadays many people move to an urban environment, rather than stay in rural areas. This is mostly the case because almost all of the jobs now are located in the big cities. As a result these cities expand themselves but not only in size, also in hight. A lot of the cities that exist today have a lot of high rise building at their centre. Because of the grow of cities and the population density a lot of food is needed to feed all the people that live in there without the land that is needed to grow al this food. This is why many developed countries import food from all around the world to feed their people, but this food need to be transported first. The transportation of all of the food that travels around the world contributes to almost 1/4th of all the carbon emissions around the world.
The problem to this solution? Growing crops close to where it is needed, near the cities. The only problem is that there is not enough space to grow all of the food, but a solutions has been found for this, vertical farms. Vertical farms can use up less space while producing way more food than traditional farms. These vertical farms can be used in combination with hydroponics farms, the growing of plants in water instead of soil, to be very cost efficient while still yielding a lot off food.
These vertical farms can be placed anywhere in or around cities where there is space left: parks, parking lots, but also abandoned warehouses. These abandoned places can be filled or replaced with farms that can together produce a lot of food.
Vertical farms are almost always very labour efficient, only a few people are needed to run one, so it will also help the potential unemployment in cities, but not a lot. Another positive thing about a farm like this is that they can run year-round because of the controlled climates that is used in them.
Urban Crop solutions is a Belgium company that sells scalable, city-based, vertical plant factories that can be placed anywhere if there is some space left. The factories have to ability to mimic any climate to make plant grow possible every time of the year. They also have very optimised light systems that makes sure that every plant gets light 100% of the time for maximum crop yield. Water that is given to the plants is recycled as much as possible, so that nothing is wasted.
An example of the work of Urban Crop Solutions is a banana nursery located at the university of Leuven in Belgium. Here they are working on grow new banana plants in climates that are more extreme compared to the climate nowadays on earth. After the plants are grown they are checked for resistances to the potential climate change and if any trees look promising, they are transferred to the African highlands to ensure the future of the local farmers there.
Improve city climate
To improve our city climate we have to start with ourselves. We have to be willing to change our habits and get used to new surroundings. Our imagination consists of a climate friendly city which is filled up with a lot of trees and solar panels. We think that these two methods would be the most effective and probably the easiest to improve our city climates significantly.
First of all, we would have to plan the locations and the financing of our city trees, parks and solar panels. The second step would be to actually install them and get people used to it. Then we would like to make some calculations to exactly define by how much we improved the actual climate of the city and how much energy we saved.
Petar and Leandro
With this project we would like to make the population, especially large companies, aware of the need to change the climate and that big cities make a large part of it. One way to change this is to have green roofs. Since there is not much room to plant trees in cities anyway, this can be done on large roofs.
We imagine that our project will motivate some to implement it. Furthermore, the project should fulfill our imagination to have a positive influence on the climatic conditions. With this procedure the quality of living should be increased and the rainwater can also be evaporated better.
We are aware of the fact that this implementation could be expensive and that the investment costs are higher than for a conventional roof. Furthermore, such roofs need to be maintained. But if you take a closer look, there are many more advantages. A green roof serves as a habitat for plants and animals!
To get more information about this topic, we might do an interview or create surveys.
Who knows, maybe in 20 years big cities all over the world will already change to green cities...
Karishma & Kamanya