Happy Earth Day. We hope you’ve enjoyed your stay on this planet so far, but we can’t say that the planet has enjoyed hosting us.
Let’s face it: most of us feel pretty self-assured if we remember to unplug the toaster before we go on vacation. But given the sobering report findings recently released by the United Nations, we need to get a bit more creative with our conservation tactics.
If “business as usual” continues, global warming could range from 3.7 to 4.8 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by the end of this century. To gauge, Earth’s average surface temperature has risen just 0.89 degrees Celsius since 1901, and already oceans are acidifying and polar ice caps are melting. Years in the making, this latest instalment in a series of reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was released last week. Just in time for Earth Day on April 22.
Luckily, as the situation becomes more severe, green products and services for the average consumer are getting more radical. Here are a few “extreme green” solutions from around the world. They seem a bit ridiculous, but they make riding your bike to work look much more manageable in comparison.
Rent A Goat is lending herbivores to manicure lawns and nosh on invasive species growing over irregular landscapes, terrain more easily traversed by nimble hoofs than riding mowers.
Goats are quieter and often cheaper than machines, safer than chemical pesticides, and scatter bonus natural fertilizers instead of carbon emissions. Running an older model gas-powered mower for one hour spews as much pollution as four hours of driving in a car.
With four-chamber stomachs, goats digest a variety of vegetation, including poison ivy, an aggressive plant normally controlled with concentrated herbicides. According to the U.S.-based Rent A Goat, the majority of herbicides miss their targets anyway, winding up in our food and waterways. And, it’s unlikely the herds will unionize, so labour disruptions are minimal.
Toilet paper report
Global tissue paper consumption exceeded 31 million tons (2. 8 million metric tons) in 2012, a record high. Tissue forecasts expect demand to grow along with the population.
But a Japanese company called Oriental has invented a tree-saving solution. Insert 40 sheets of A4 office paper into its curiously named White Goat machine and 30 minutes later a roll of toilet paper pops out (granted, this involves some planning ahead). In that half-hour, the machine shreds, dissolves, thins, dries and winds last year’s budget report into toilet paper.
One machine reportedly saves 60 cedar trees annually, not to mention the paper kept out of the trash. At 600 kg and $100,000 (plus shipping from Japan), it’s not without drawbacks. But if White Goat seems cumbersome, remember that computers once occupied entire rooms. Office-made toilet paper could be the future.
Earth will be home to an estimated 9 billion residents by 2050, and our little planet is buckling. We don’t know how we’ll manage the food, fuel, water or climate crises while these 9 billion are alive. Never mind once they’re dead.
Human burials involve a lot of concrete, lacquered wood, steel and embalming fluid (mostly formaldehyde, a known carcinogen), all hauled in to a final resting place beneath chemically fertilized lawns. In the U.S. alone, over 800,000 gallons of embalming fluid are buried in cemeteries every year. The environmental implications manage to make death even more depressing. Or, you can become a tree.
Rather, after cremation, ashes from the deceased can germinate a tree sapling with Bios Urn. The Barcelona-based company ships its biodegradable urns to customers worldwide; ashes are then mixed with local soil and seeds in the container, which is designed to ensure plant roots extract nutrients from the ashes.
For traditionalists, The Green Burial Council certifies eco-friendly cemeteries and funeral providers in Canada and the U.S. Renewable woods, embalming alternatives and shallow graves facilitate decomposition.
Green activists can rest in peace.
Brothers Craig and Marc Kielburger founded the educational partner and international charity Free The Children and the youth empowerment movement We Day.