Blog Archives
Light to the Poor, One Liter at a Time
In the slums of Manila, an innovative project is shedding light on the city’s dim and dreary shanties. Plastic bottles jut from the roofs, bringing light to the dark dwellings below. The technology is as simple as it could be. Each bottle contains water and bleach. When placed snugly into a purpose-built hole in the roof, the home-made bulb refracts and spreads sunlight, illuminating the room beneath.
Eco-entrepreneur Illac Diaz is behind the project.
[Illac Diaz, A Liter of Light Project]:
“What happens is, the light goes through the bottle, basically a window on the roof, and then goes inside the water. Unlike a hole which the light will travel in a straight line, the water will refract it to go vertical, horizontal, 360 degrees of 55 watts to 60 watts of clear light, almost 10 months of the year.”
The initiative, known as “A liter of light”, aims to bring sustainable energy practices to poor communities, an idea originally developed by students at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Working with low-income communities, local governments and private partners, the project has installed more than 10,000 bottle lights across Manila and the nearby province of Laguna.
For residents, it means less money spent on electricity to power lights during the daytime, and more money on food.
Article excerpted from www.dutiee.com
Study: “Organic” Label Automatically Means Food Is Healthy
A new study from Cornell University graduate student Jenny Wan-chen Lee [pdf] either shows that the label “organic” creates some sort of placebo effect in which people are convinced they’re eating healthier, or that people can be really stupid. Maybe it’s a little of both? In her study, 144 volunteers were asked to compare “organic” and “regular” samples of yogurt, cookies and potato chips, rating them on taste, estimated fat content and estimated calorie content. However, all of the samples were in fact organic. Take a wild guess what happened.
Volunteers almost unanimously preferred the taste of the perceived “organic” samples, which they believed to be more nutritious and worth more money. And these perceptions were consistent across all the samples. Lee refers to this type of thinking as a “halo,” akin to “judging an attractive person as intelligent, just because he or she is good-looking.” For another example of the organic “halo,” check out this Penn & Teller video in which “organic” food doesn’t even taste better anyway (start around 1:45):
Article excerpted from www.gothamist.com
Earth Hour 2011
Earth Hour, 8.30pm, Saturday 26th March 2011. http://earthhour.panda.org/
In under four short years, Earth Hour has become the largest campaign in history for the planet. It has grown from one city, one country to over 128 countries and territories in 2010. Earth Hour — By The People, For The Planet.
If you can achieve this, imagine what else can be done.
Mines Green Circle 