Leonardo DiCaprio's "The 11th Hour" is a documentary concerning the environmental crises caused by human actions and calls for restorative action through a reshaping of human activity.
The mission of our community is to inspire action at every level: from
individual action, up through our communities, to the state, national
and international level. The actions are all shifting our civilization
to a sustainable future. Let's work and take action together. The time is now. The hope is you. Let's begin.
I have recently begun monitoring my home electricity usage with a new usage monitor. My electricity supplier here in the UK now provides this unit for free in return for switching my account to paper-free, online statements and the supply of a monthly meter reading for bill calculation.
If puplicity is to be believed, more and more suppliers here in UK are now offering similar deals.
The monitoring is proving to be very enlightening indeed. Calibration can be by CO2 emission, KWH or £, over 1, 7 & 30 days and also allows the setting of a target. I am actually enjoying hitting my target then reducing the next weeks target a little to improve my efficiency.
The most immediate effect was for me to actually start putting only the water needed in the kettle. As the monitor immediately displays actual energy use, as it is used, I can tell you that currently, boiling a kettle here in the UK consumes 2.27 KWH, costs 50p ph & produces 1kg of CO2 per hour. How many times a day do you boil more water than you need?!
I strongly recommend that you check if your supplier, wherever in the world, offers such a monitor and if not, maybe you could kick off a customer action group!
I need to get funding from sponsors and local Goverment for a water filtration system and introduce it to the rural areas and most infected Rivers in South Africa. My goal is to have at least 100 of these installed at various locations. My only problem is funding. Below will give you an idea what we are looking at
On the 8th of February, 2007, a solar/wind powered water purification system (Trunz) was installed at the Lynedoch EcoVillage. This unit can process water from lakes, rivers, boreholes, ocean seas and even semi-treated effluent from sewage treatment facilities, transforming polluted water into potable quality water. Using activated carbon filters, microfiltration, reverse osmosis for water desalination/demineralisation, this system can purify 20,000 litres of water per day.
The Trunz system, manufactured in Switzerland, is currently operational in Mauritania, Pakistan, Switzerland and is now being tested in South Africa at the Sustainability Institute. It has been designed for application in developing countires, disaster areas, and remote regions without access to electricity and clean water. For more information please visit the Trunz website.
I guess it had to take a movie( when all i couldve done was go outside) to make me realize that there wasnt enough time and resources left out there for our future kids and grandkids, least, ourselves. But today Im going to sart consciously greening my lifestyle. Not just an after thought or a back of head thing, but an effort to cut the crap I throw in and take in from this planet. I think more than complicating things with this effort, I think its more of simplyfying my life and living in my means..and im actually better off doing so.
At the moment I already try to do things like conserve water and energy (unplug electronics I'm not using, turn lights off etc), recycle, changed a lot of our bulbs to CFL (although I feel guilty tossing lightbulbs that haven't burnt out yet just to replace them), buy organic when possible, try not to waste anything and so on. I also bug people I talk to about going green as much as I can, and it seems I've rubbed off on a few friends. I want to do more though, it doesn't feel like enough.
