Growing mushrooms from used coffee grounds

Two college students ditched plans to enter the consulting and banking fields when they discovered they could grow mushrooms using coffee grounds. The Back to the Roots founders say they diverted 1 million pounds of coffee grounds from the landfill in 2011.

Topics: Sustainable Agriculture and Forestry ,Organic Farming

The Secret Lives of Our Clothes

Theres a price tag thats being hidden from us everyday. Not the one that tells us how much money to pay but the underlying costs of every outfits life cycle.

As the video explains, the environmental impact of cotton production can be astounding. From depleting reservoirs and aquifers to serious problems with pesticide runoff, these hidden costs have very real, long term impacts on cotton growing communities and their ability to survive. But even beyond the small but growing organic cotton market, some brands are pioneering more sustainable forms of cotton purchasing through the Better Cotton Initiative.

Similarly, sweatshops are creating social upheaval, stress, depression and exploitation in many parts of the world. But some mainstream brands are taking steps to ensure true accountability and transparency about workers rights and suppliers employment practices, while others are simply passing the buck.

But what does all that mean for the consumer? How do we differentiate between the businesses stepping up and doing whats right, and those who are not? Thats where, says the video, organizations like GoodGuide come in. As Jaymi already reported in her post on the GoodGuide iPhone app, they do the homework for you. Provide ratings on environmental and social performance. And give you easy ways to access that information.

And each time we use guides like this to make our purchasing decisions, we push others to change their ways too.

Topics: Sustainable Agriculture and Forestry ,Sustainable Homes and Communities ,Corporate Social Responsibility

Solar Greenhouses in Ladakh

GERES has worked with local NGOs in Ladakh to design a robust greenhouse that captures and retains the suns heat. It has built 600 greenhouses that enable villagers to grow vegetables throughout the year - even when temperatures drop to -25°C. Greenhouse owners eat eight times more vegetables than before and their incomes have increased by 30 percent. The project is leading to better nutrition and health for over 50,000 people a quarter of the local population.
GERES won an Ashden Award for Sustainable Energy in 2009.

Topics: Sustainable Agriculture and Forestry ,Sustainable Homes and Communities

Back to the Start: Sustainable future

The film, by film-maker Johnny Kelly, depicts the life of a farmer as he slowly turns his family farm into an industrial animal factory before seeing the errors of his ways and opting for a more sustainable future.
Back to the Start- performed by country music legend Willie Nelson.

Topics: Sustainable Agriculture and Forestry

Conservation Farming and Sustainability

Helen Atthowe, Missoula County Extension Agent (Missoula, Montana) talks about the farming techniques she used near Stevensville, Montana. She calls it Conservation Farming.

Helen is well known in the Missoula area, not just as the Missoula county extension agent, but also as one of the most popular vendors at the Missoula farmers Market / Missoula Saturday market.

The goal of our conservation farming is to increase farm profitability by decreasing labor and land requirements while striving to mimic the ecological principles that make native plant systems sustainable. The ecological principles we hope to mimic include reduced tillalge, increase species and genetic diversity, closed nutrient cycles, and creation of more diverse habitat. We look at our farm from a landscape or watershed level and hope to reconnect wild areas, agriculture and urban areas. Conservation agriculture is both biologically and socially a local agriculture.

Were trying to develop an agriculture system, in this case a vegetable production system, that sponsors its own fertility.

Biological pest management: .. mimic from a natural system is to sponsor our own pest control. Were creating habitat for beneficial insects, parasites and predators ...

We are trying to provide habitat for birds, and pollinator insects and for other mammals that may be in the system. Were trying to create a link between natural systems and agricultural systems.

Includes footage of an all native hedgerow.

Helen talks about issues with voles and how the voles attracted snakes, coyotes and foxes.

Topics: Organic Farming

One million pounds of food on 3 Acres of Land

Producing around 1,000,000 pounds of food over just three acres of land every year. The plants are grown simultaneously using the vertical spaces, with 300 to 500 yards of worm compost to supplement the nutritional requirements of the plants.

Topics: Sustainable Agriculture and Forestry

My Water's On Fire - The Fracking Song

My Waters On Fire Tonight is a product of Studio 20 NYU (http://bit.ly/hzGRYP) in collaboration with ProPublica.org (http://bit.ly/5tJN). The song is based on ProPublicas investigation on hydraulic fractured gas drilling (read the full investigation here: http://bit.ly/15sib6).

Tallest Solar Tower to Power 150,000 homes for 80 years in Arizona

A new solar energy generator called Solar Tower has been proposed by EnviroMission in Arizona. The massive structure is likely to be built on unused desert land at a height twice that of Empire State Building. The building is likely to be constructed over a huge greenhouse. The solar panels of the green house will capture the solar energy and use it to heat the air below. This is eventually designed to power around 150,000 homes till the year 2095. The building has a price tag of about $750 million which will be paid back in 11 years.

Jamie Oliver's TED Prize wish: Teach every child about food

food scenario..

Tidal power: how it works

Learn how tidal energy system works….