Reader suggestion please

I will be moving into new home in two weeks. We plan to repaint the inside of the house, rip off the old carpet and polish the floor boards.

Can you suggest some way of using the carpet instead of sending them to a landfill?

At the moment, I am thinking using some of them as the base for a raised vegie bed. But I won't be able to use all the carpet for this purpose. Any other suggestion will be highly appreciated.

Lawn

Some of the numbers related to lawn in USA are really troubling. [source]

20 millions Acres of lawn in the U.S., — more land than any single crop takes up
3 Estimated pounds of pesticides per application for an acre of farmland
7 Estimated pounds of pesticides per application for an acre of lawn
100 miles a late model car would have to drive to produce as much pollution as a lawnmower emits in one hour
1984 Year that the U.S.’s use of synthetic fertilizer on lawns surpassed the amount used on all of India’s food crops

I have been mistaken to think that lawn can at least produce some Oxygen. I did not know that the pesticide used in lawn is linked to health adversely. In the part of world where I live, (Melbourne Australia) water is a scarce resource. I never water my lawn nor I put any fertiliser or pesticide on my lawn. But I will be converting my lawn to raised vegie beds. The above info just make me more absolute to do the conversion.

Worrying times

It is a no brainer. Fossil fuels are stored carbon that lived up to 300 million years ago. Burning almost half^* of these fuel in the last 50 years (releasing 21.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide into our atmosphere each year) released all these stored carbon in a very short period (50 years is nothing compared with 300 million years) obviously will have a tremendous effect on the environment. You don't need a PhD in Climatology to figure out how bad it would be.

Unfortunately, very unfortunate indeed, one of the independent senator, Steve Fielding, was still "unconvinced* after a 2-hour meeting with our Australia's Chief Scientist that human activity is the main cause of climate change. [source]

I echo strongly with Orion77 the concern of such attitude from our politician. Here is a little background of Senator Steve Fielding (from his own website): He has 15 siblings, an engineering degree from RMIT and has worked mostly in management. Here is the interview from Lateline:
Part 1:

Part 2:


It sounds GOOD for him to say that he was trying to listen to both sides of the argument - including the skeptics. However, as a politician, he should not be so naive to ignore efforts of vested interests to discharge a large volume of mis-information and pseudo-science.

^*Everyone has a different opinion on how much of the stored fossil fuel has been burnt. The last major oil field discovered is in 2006 which would supply 2 year worth of consumption for USA alone. I may be over optimistic already!

cross-posted to Atheist Bible Reading and Forum

British supermarket chain powers store checkouts with modified speed bumps

This is absurd and demonstrates the lack of basic Science from the administration of the supermarket. I urge the Brits to boycott this particular supermarket. Here is my reason.

Energy conserves. That's call the law of conservation of energy in secondary school Physics textbooks. The so called "ambient energy technology" is ripping energy from the moving vehicles. If they are really serious about harnessing energy, install solar PV on the roof, install heat pump to move the absorbed heat from the parking lot for some other use.

Simply put, this supermarket is STEALING its customers' energy!

DIY Fuel Briquette

Most suburban families has a lawn. How can you use the grass clipping? Composting is one answer. Other is to use them for fuel by making it into a fuel briquette. Here is a video on how to do that. Just store your homemade fuel briquette for winter heating. This is a carbon neutral way.

Carbon Sink

I am progressively getting convinced that planting tree is NOT a good carbon sink, nor is sequestration in deep well or ocean bottom. Carbon captured in trees is liable to be released back into atmosphere when it is harvested. Deep well and ocean carbon sequestration are subject to earth quarks and untested in sufficient scale.

Do I have a solution? I think I have.

It is biochar. Terra preta has been around for thousands of years and remain stable as carbon. It was estimated that only 2mm thick layer covering all the earth surface with biochar would revert the CO₂ back to the pre-industrial level. If all the “excess” carbon dioxide in the atmosphere were converted into carbon and spread across all the earth’s arable lands, there would be 17kg of charcoal per square metre, in a layer 8cm thick. That’s not an unfeasible notion. The Gardening with Biochar FAQ mentions biochar application rates of around 5kg/m². On the other hand, photos of Terra Preta soils show black layers that are many centimetres thick, so they must contain far more than 17 kg/m² of carbon. [source]

The task is to develop a business model to make producing biochar and burying into soil economically attractive to investor. Anyone?

How to make the super thin spring roll skin

Instruction:


and really they are created like this:

Charcoal production in Pennsylvania

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


Part 4

Solar powered lights using plastic 2-L soda bottles

Solar powered lights using plastic 2-L soda bottles


Will it leak on rainy days? Apparently not!