Word I learned this week —
Localvore: this describes someone who adheres to a local diet. A localvore only eats food grown within a specific nearby area, buying fresh, usually organic produce directly from farmers and small markets.
What I watched for the first time—
A Chilling Performance by Italian composer, Ludovico Einaudi. What's crazy about this is you can actually see chunks of iceberg breaking off and falling into the ocean while he's playing the piano.
Innovation I think is simple but amazing —
The Great Bubble Barrier
This is a bubble screen created by pumping air through a tube with holes in it. The tube is located on the bottom of a waterway. The Bubble Barrier creates an upwards thrust of bubbles, which brings waste to the surface of the water and by placing the tube diagonally in the waterway, the Bubble Barrier uses the natural current to guide the plastic to the catchment system at the riverside. Both ships and fish can pass through the Bubble Barrier, but plastic will be stopped.
What inspires me during these challenging times –
"As coronavirus spreads around the globe, most of us are experiencing a new normal, from countries in lockdown to people practicing social distancing. The similarity between the situation Isaac Newton found himself in Cambridge in 1665 and society today is striking. Between the summer of 1665 and the spring of 1667, Isaac Newton made two long visits to Woolsthorpe in order to escape the plague affecting Cambridge. Many town-dwellers, like Newton, retreated to the relative safety of the countryside. This time period turned out to be the most intellectually fruitful of his whole life; while escaping the Great Plague, Newton’s enormously productive time at Woolsthorpe Manor is often called the Annus Mirabilis, or the “Year of Wonders’. During this time, he made revolutionary inventions and discoveries in calculus, motion, optics, and gravitation." National Trust
News I'm celebrating –
There's an unlikely beneficiary of coronavirus: The planet
“Satellite images released by NASA and the European Space Agency show a dramatic reduction in nitrogen dioxide emissions -- those released by vehicles, power plants, and industrial facilities -- in major Chinese cities between January and February. The visible cloud of toxic gas hanging over industrial powerhouses almost disappeared. "This is the first time I have seen such a dramatic drop-off over such a wide area for a specific event," says Fei Liu, an air quality researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. From February 3 to March 1, CO2 emissions were down by at least 25% because of the measures to contain the coronavirus, according to the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), an air pollution research organization. As the world's biggest polluter, China contributes 30% of the world's CO2 emissions annually, so the impact of this kind of drop is huge, even over a short period. CREA estimates it is equivalent to 200 million tons of carbon dioxide -- more than half the entire annual emissions output of the UK.”
That's about it for me. If you have any feedback, a favourite part or suggestion you'd like to share about the above please let me know. If you have a speaker or vendor recommendation for our expos you can send me a note anytime.
Have a wonderful week and let's keep creating a green future together,
The future is bright,
~Kristin