Food Choices Have a Large Impact on The Environment and More

You don’t have to be a environmental scientist to know that we are having a huge influence on the state of our planet and people are only starting to take action now. Even as recently as the 90′s, not many people really considered where their nutrition 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. Here are some ideas to help save the planet and local economies when having a simple meal.

Local Suppliers. 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 fridge 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.

Choose Less 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. More often than not this packaging is unnecessary, so try and avoid those products that go over the top with it.

Ethically Sourced Accessories. It is not only what food you buy than can have an effect on the planet. Everything from the cutlery you use to the little wine gifts you buy others can have an impact and you should think carefully before making a choice. Ask yourself where this ware has come from, is it something that could be made from a more sustainable textile, and is this a disposable product when I could be purchasing a reclaimable one? A good example of this is chopsticks as the disposable kind accounts for acres of lost rain forest every day.

Technorati Tags:: environment, ethics, food, planet, sustainable

Will we save our Earth by algae oil?

Will oil made by algae save us?

In our green real estate section we usually try to focus on environmentally friendly ideas for our homes. If you drive around daily in a car that needs more and more gas and you feel guilty, this article will bring you some interesting information about a new research. Oil is an essential part of our everyday lives. Nowadays, the fundamental part of a life in the developed world is a car, and nearly everybody owns one. So do I, of course, as a realtor who drives around daily. Life would just be impossible without our dear car. Unfortunately, we all know the two basic problems connected to driving: unsound oil supplies driving prices up and down and the environmental harm caused by fuel burning and the related carbon dioxide emissions.

Craig Venter is an American biologist and also a successful businessman who founded The Institute for Genomic Research. He mainly deals with genetic engineering and his most recent project has aroused a great deal of heated debate.

Algae are known for producing natural oil, which is already part of a number of experiments with biofuels. Venter wishes to go further. He is trying to find out if it’s possible to modify the genomic structure of algae in order to make them produce oil of almost the same structure as the traditional crude oil. This option is so much better, as you can use existing oil industry infrastructure like refineries, and even make plastics in the same way as from crude oil refining employing the same production plants that are presently being used. As Exxon Mobile, being one of the most successful oil producers in the world, heard of all this, they gave Venter a $600 million contribution to go on with his research.

Now your concern might be, where is the environmental benefit? Well, right here. It is quite possible that the algae oil could help us cope with one of our most serious threats of the present world. Plants take the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, utilize it in a photosynthesis process to produce the oil and then the oil is burned and turned into oxalates. It will of course take more time to work all this out, this promising solution won’t be available this or next year. But for sure it is a possible way to try, and Craig Venter with his team have gone the first steps towards a success on a field where others have already 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 realtors can’t.

Technorati Tags:: algae, environment, gas, green living, oil, planet