Happy Encounters: Toronto Becomes First City To Mandate Green Roofs

In this world of concrete, utilising the many available rooftops to build a green environment is just what we need.

Summer is just around the corner, and for those who live in big cities, that means spring warmth will soon give way to searing heat. Green roofs can help regulate city temperatures, giving people, and the electrical grid, a much needed break.

Toronto is the first city in North America with a bylaw that requires roofs to be green. And we're not talking about paint. A green roof, also known as a living roof, uses various hardy plants to create a barrier between the sun's rays and the tiles or shingles of the roof. The plants love the sun, and the building (and its inhabitants) enjoy more comfortable indoor temperatures as a result.

Toronto's new legislation will require all residential, commercial and institutional buildings over 2,000 square meters to have between 20 and 60 percent living roofs. Although it's been in place since early 2010, the bylaw will apply to new industrial development as of April 30, 2012. While this is the first city-wide mandate involving green roofs, Toronto's decision follow's in the footsteps of other cities, like Chicago and New York.

Under the direction of Mayor Richard Daley the city of Chicago put a 38,800 square foot green roof on a 12 story skyscraper in 2000. Twelve years later, that building now saves $5000 annually on utility bills, and Chicago boasts 7 million square feet of green roof space. New York has followed suit, and since planting a green roof on the Con Edison Learning Centre in Queens, the buildings managers have seen a 34 percent reduction of heat loss in winter, and reduced summer heat gain by 84 percent.

But lower utility bills aren't the only benefit of planting a living roof. In addition to cooling down the city, green roofs create cleaner air, cleaner water, and provide a peaceful oasis for people, birds and insects in an otherwise polluted, concrete and asphalt-covered environment.

Happy Encounters: Poo for Tea from China's National Treasure, the Giant Panda

Here is something new and interesting.. using Panda's as organic fertilizers for tea.  Would you want to have a sip of that?

YA'AN, China (Reuters) - China's national treasure, the giant panda, will become even more precious if one businessman succeeds in using their dung to grow organic green tea he intends to sell for over $200 a cup.

An Yanshi, an entrepreneur in southwest China, grows the tea in mountainous Ya'an in Sichuan province using tons of excrement from panda bears living at nearby breeding centers.


The first batch of panda dung tea will be sold in lots of 50 grams that will cost some 22,000 yuan ($3,500) each, a price An said makes it the world's most expensive tea. Most people use about 3 grams of tea per cup.


An defended the steep price, saying he would channel profits from the initial batches into an environmental fund. Future batches would be cheaper, he added.


"I thank heaven and earth for blessing us with this environmental panda tea," the 41-year-old former teacher and journalist said at a weekend event to promote the tea.


"I just want to convey to the people of the world the message of turning waste into something useful, and the culture of recycling and using organic fertilizers."


Dressed in a panda suit to promote his tea, An invited a dozen or so guests to help hand-pick the first batch of tea at his plantation at the weekend.


The fertilizer made the tea a health boon, An said, because pandas only eat wild bamboo and absorb only a fraction of the nutrients in their food. And pandas make plenty of fertilizer.


"They are like a machine that is churning out organic fertilizer." An said. "They keep eating and they keep producing feces.  Also, they absorb less than 30 percent of the nutrition from the food, and that means more than 70 percent of the nutrients are passed out in their feces."


After brewing the first pickings, An described the tea as fragrant and smooth. Some of his guests, however, were not impressed.


"It's sold at such a sky-high price, perhaps this is just hype," said 49-year-old Li Ximing. ($1 = 6.3227 Chinese yuan)

Happy Encounters: New system could eventually ‘eliminate’ batteries

This is another new discovery related to how technology could help improve our environment and save our planet from the toxic wastes of batteries.  The idea of using radio waves as power seems real cool.  Wonder when we'd be able to see such a product from the gadget shops.

"Researchers at the University of Bedfordshire have developed a new technique for powering electronic devices, which they claim could eventually eliminate the need for conventional batteries.

Developed by Prof Ben Allen at the Centre for Wireless Research, the system - believed to be a world first - uses radio waves as power.

The university has now filed a patent application to secure exclusive rights to the technique, the BBC reported.

Prof Allen and his team, including David Jazani and Tahima Ajmal, have created a system to use medium wave frequencies to replace batteries in small everyday gadgets like clocks or remote controls.

The new technique developed as part of the university’s research into 'power harvesting' uses the 'waste' energy of radio waves.

Prof Allen said that as radio waves have energy - like light waves, sound waves or wind waves - these waves could be used to create power."

View 'link' for the full article from Deccan Chronicle.