cordless lawnmower in SA

When I was living in Ontario five years ago, I bought a cordless lawnmower. But I haven't seen one here in South Africa - until now. The Brio cordless electric 500 Rotary Lawn Mower is available from BesTech Outdoor for just under R4,000. They have other cordless garden tools too. Since most of South Africa's electricity is produced from coal, this is not emission-free gardening - but the emissions from the coal-generated electricity used by the mower is far less than what spews out of petrol-driven lawn mowers, and if you charge it with solar panels or a wind turbine, then the benefit is multiplied.

Of course it would be better if we just had less grass, but until everyone converts their gardens to mini urban farms, or indigenous gardens, this is the next best thing for reducing environmental impact - a compromise not unlike buying a hybrid car.

solar power in Botswana

Botswana must have more solar water heaters per head than just about any country. I don't have statistics, but the rooftop panels are ubiquitous. Botswana is a relatively poor country, but I was surprised to learn from the UNDP country factsheet that the country in 2005 had a higher GDP per capita than neighbouring South Africa, which is the economic powerhouse of sub-Saharan Africa. Botswana produces 2.4 tonnes of CO2 per person annually, which is higher than the sub-Saharan average of 1.0, but I suspect that the widespread use of solar power is not the result of policies to reduce emissions. It is more likely because many people do not have access to electricity from the national grid, and because solar water heating makes economic sense.

For the same reason, there are a number of widespread applications for photovoltaic panels, though not all of them are mainstream. I have been to Botswana a number of times, but this week was the first time I saw pv panels being used by the informal businesses that supply a privatised form of public phone - people using cell phone connections to offer a service to the public, as in the picture above.

After I saw this one in Gaborone, I kept an eye out for other pv applications. I did not see a single one on the roof of a building, but I did see one powering a true public phone on the road between Gaborone and Francistown, just south of Serowe. And on the same road, just north of Gaborone, was this cellular tower with pv panels.

What I found interesting about this one, was that when I took the picture - at the end of a hot, sunny day - a diesel generator was running at the base of the tower. Which highlights one of the key problems with high-tech solutions: if there isn't the budget and the inclination and the skills to maintain the infrastructure, the capital investment is a waste of money.

changing the world, one switch at a time

Most technological innovations that aim to reduce carbon emissions do it either by switching to renewable energy sources (Strategy One), or by increasing the energy efficiency of the technology (Strategy Two). A third strategy is to eliminate or reduce the use of the technology altogether.

So, for example: to reduce emissions from lighting, you could install photovoltaic panels (Strategy One), switch to LED lights (Strategy Two), or design a house to provide more natural light (Strategy Three). Or for transport: switch to an electric motor and charge the batteries using green energy (Strategy One), reduce the weight of the car and use a more efficient propulsion system (Strategy Two), or make it easier to walk or cycle by providing safe and convenient routes for pedestrians and cyclists (Strategy Three).

In most cases, the third strategy is the most effective at reducing emissions, but also the most difficult to achieve. This is partly because it often requires coordinated planning on a level that is rarely achieved. In the transport case, urban planners, transport engineers and others need to put their heads together, and in the lighting case architects and building engineers need to do the same. Just as difficult is the behaviour change that is required by the users - people who need to travel, or people who buy and occupy buildings. There is immense resistance to change, and some would argue that inducing change in a certain direction can have unintended consequences, or not be effective at all. (Think of ethanol from corn, encouraged by subsidies in the US.)

Here's an idea for Strategy Three that, for all I know, could have some unintended consequence; but what I like about it is its simplicity and ease of implementation. The SmartSwitch is like having someone tell you not to turn on the lights unneccessarily:

SmartSwitch doesn't restrict the user from turning on a light, but rather it passively encourages behavior change. SmartSwitches can be programmed to respond to either personal or communal electrical usage. In a home wired with SmartSwitches, lights can become harder to turn on during hours of peak demand. The switches can also be customized to reflect household-specific energy conservation goals.

surplus containers

It may be time to go out and buy a shipping container for conversion into a dwelling or office. Something I've thought would be a nice project, if I had the time, and not terribly expensive. They are used all over South Africa as instant shops and offices, most commonly in informal settlements and construction sites, but what about taking your house with you any time you moved? Even across the ocean, since the containers are made for shipping.

global carbon monitoring

Japanese space agency Jaxa launched a satellite in January called Ibuki, and NASA is launching one this month called OCO (orbiting carbon observatory), both of which will be monitoring the global carbon cycle. Earth's ecosystem circulates an estimated 330 billion tons of CO2 each year. The oceans absorb a lot of that, and there are many other carbon sinks. How much is absorbed by different sinks is a matter of scientific debate, but these satellites will create a global accounting system to see how CO2 cycling varies over time, perhaps even allowing us to see the effects of policy changes that change carbon emissions.

how green is your valentine?

From sexy organic cotton T-shirts (some designed to unleash your inner eco-warrior) to knickers that change colour as they warm up to show the effects of global warming, there seems to be many ways to salve a guilty conscience.

But is organically grown cotton really green? Although I haven't gone so far as to shun cotton, I have a hard time believing that any cotton can be good for the environment - organic or not. Some people argue that increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will boost cotton yields, and the cotton industry lobbyists tout its ability to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere. And certainly organic cotton is better than regular cotton for its  reduced use of insecticides, herbicides and synthetic fertilizers to grow it.

Possibly the biggest problem with cotton is the water consumed - and this applies equally to organic cotton. According to a study released last August:

The UK has become the sixth largest net importer of water in the world, the environment group WWF will tell a meeting of international experts in Stockholm, with every consumer indirectly responsible for the use of thousands of litres a day. Only 38% of the UK's total water use comes from its own resources; the rest depends on the water systems of other countries, some of which are already facing serious shortages.

The study makes the first attempt to measure the UK's total "water footprint" and highlights the extent to which our imports come from countries which are running out of fresh water. It calculates that:

Average household water use for washing and drinking in the UK is about 150 litres a person daily, but we consume about 30 times as much in "virtual water", used in the production of imported food and textiles.

Hemp would be better for conserving water. There is more, though, and this is where cotton growing hits home in Africa. Joseph E Stiglitz writes on the issue of subsidies and global trade:

Subsidies hurt developing country farmers because they lead to higher output – and lower global prices. The Bush administration – supposedly committed to free markets around the world – has actually almost doubled the level of agricultural subsidies in the US.

Cotton illustrates the problem. Without subsidies, it would not pay for Americans to produce much cotton; with them, the US is the world’s largest cotton exporter. Some 25,000 rich American cotton farmers divide $3 to $4 billion in subsidies among themselves – with most of the money going to a small fraction of the recipients. The increased supply depresses cotton prices, hurting some 10 million farmers in sub-Saharan Africa alone.

climate change summit to take SA budget proposals to the next stage

While Trevor Manuel's budget speech to Parliament on Wednesday included almost nothing on environmental issues, there are quite a number of tax proposals related to energy and the environment in the Treasury's budget for 2009, as pointed out by Urban Sprout. Both carrots and sticks have been thrown into the pot.

An interesting one is that "Certifed Emission Reductions (CERs) sold by local companies in deals facilitated by the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism may be tax-exempt or subject to capital gains tax instead of normal income tax". This sounds to me like a throw-away sop to environmentalists, since there have been virtually no CDM projects in South Africa to date. Of course, if the UN's climate conference in Copenhagen at the end of the year produces a meaningful change of pace under Kyoto, that may change - but the negotiations are mainly about what happens post-2012, when the current phase of the Kyoto Protocol ends, so the effects of this tax exemption will still be insignificant for the next few years. Still, it's a step in the direction of encouraging change, and government is gradually putting things in place.

There is also a report on Engineering News highlighting the climate change and energy aspects of the budget.

To take these measures to the next stage is next month's national climate summit and science conference in South Africa that was announced last May, which will "translate cabinet's climate change policy decisions and directives into fiscal, regulatory and legislative packages as well as sectoral implementation plans."

empowerment in the palm of your hand

For some inexplicable reason I get a warm fuzzy feeling when I see project information georeferenced on Google Earth. Must be the anticipation of what we could really do if we got serious about it. Here's a map of projects that use cell phones in developing countries to provide mobile access to services or data. Seems to me there are more phones than people in developing countries, so this has got to be a way to help empower poorer communities. [via Patrick Burnett]

floral sabotage

If seed bombs are a protest against conformity, neatness and suburban monoculture, I wonder about the backlash if communities were to really roll up our collective sleeves and start transforming front lawns into wild squares of unexpected flora, or productive vegetable patches. We've been thinking of doing the latter, and in the meantime the weeds are getting out of control. I have experienced summers of neighbourhood discontent before, when weed seeds started to scatter in the wind, and the pressure to get out the lawn mower is intense. Yet something inside me says, "let's see what happens."

Guerilla gardening for a healthier and more beautiful environment is one thing, but what happens when the tables are turned and people start spreading genetically modified seeds where farmers are trying to stay GM-free? A Welsh agricultural saboteur has done just that. Will we have protest gardens in future that will compete against healthy green urban spaces? As I plant my organic seeds, will my neighbour start spraying pesticides around the neighbourhood, out of spite?

I really do wonder. Right now, we have neighbours with dogs that bark at all hours of the night. When one starts, it sets off others until there is a cacaphony of canine howling, seemingly for miles around. And just as they start to settle down, one of them blurts out a final bark and sets the whole lot off again. I have nothing against dogs, but I do have something against people who think that keeping other people awake at night is alright. We can't argue against this. We have had conversations with the neighbours about it, but there isn't a set of common community values that allows them to say "oh, I see what you mean," or us to accept sleepless nights in the name of fighting crime. They think they are doing us a favour by keeping burglars away, and they may even think that we are the ones who aren't doing our bit to protect the neighbourhood.

It's this lack of shared values that makes me think it's quite possible to have garden wars in the not-too-distant future. "You wanna grow lettuce? Heh, let's see how you like these snails." Maybe that's what I've already unleashed with my special patch of weeds. Watch this block.

above or below?

Wouldn't it be interesting to see where the high water mark would be if the Greenland ice sheet were to melt? Where will your house be?