Conservation: A Promissory Note?

So…After having to endure so much more global ennui this past month, EnviroNauts are going to try and take a more local approach to plotting-out sustainable Futures for ourselves…

Earth Hour 2011

March 26th saw Earth Hour come and go here in Toronto, and astoundingly for a city so bent on demonstrating its political correctness,  the initial visibility enjoyed by this annual event is showing signs of flickering right out.

What started as an easy way to for armchair environmentalists and idealists of all types to make a token, yet satisfyingly visible gesture about kicking their energy habits (even just for an hour) has now seemingly fallen right off the radar for most people…at least for this year anyhow. See pics below;

A Green God Complex?

Franklin D. Roosevelt once said that “rules are not necessarily sacred, but good principles are.” Unfortunately, there there seems to be a scarcity of good sacred principals available to sustaining Society through difficult times nowadays, which might explain a rise in Fundamentalism (radical or otherwise) as we search for any unassailable principals to rally around as a Society .

What we see instead, is that our greatest temples are built to represent the power of money and commerce, and the graven images of celebrities that we’ve idolized now seem to hold the place of of demi-gods in many people’s lives. Popular as they may be, these cultural icons make rather poor pillars build the Future upon, no matter how well they might reflect our dreams and aspirations today.

When looking for leadership from the more obvious sources, it almost seems strangely naive to suggest that we simply rely on politicians to step up with clear plans. Much less for the ruling Corporate Elite to offer the leadership required to build a sustainable future for Humanity. So where are our guiding principals coming from in cynically post-modern age?

Starting Conversations with EcoCardz

There’s no end to the added value that can be derived from putting a good ecological spin on products and services these days. If even the dirtiest petrochemical giant can figure out how to greenwash it’s image, then it’s a surefire bet that Governments and Corporations will be riding that bandwagon for as far as they can get it to go. Using whatever fuels and feelgood terminology that can find to sell their image to a Public that is demanding more environmental responsibility. Clearly the movement towards Corporate Sustainability is a Darwinian step in the right direction, and Ontarians are already seeing just how far their own government will push them in the interest of trying to create a Green legacy for themselves…as misguided as it might seem to be at this point. But what about true grassroots change? Where does the average Consumer look to for signs of green growth from small local businesses, and brave entrepreneurs in this evolving market?

One such example is a bold little startup company called EcoCardz.com which is hoping to leverage the longstanding hype of a paperless society at the fist step in most business relationships…The exchange of business cards. By facilitating an electronic link at that level, EcoCardz hopes to not only spare the paper and printing of personal or business cards, but also to use our electronic networks to greater advantage by facilitating those first personal connections between people.

Here’s how…

Diesel’s Vision

	At one time, Diesel power was poised as an alternative to big Coal and Oil… Today it could once again bridge the sustainability gap, offering Industry and Transportation the time to find its renewable power for the Future. Learn More Here

At the World’s Fair of 1900 in Paris France, Rudolph Diesel demonstrated the virtues of his new pressure-ignited “rational heat motor”  which came to bear his name to the world then, and has done so to the present day. We’ve come to also know Rudolf Diesel as an eminent mechanical and thermal engineer, a multi-lingual and knowledgeable patron of the Arts, and not least of all a highly progressive Social Theorist. Although his legacy is inestimable, his rise to fame was as quick as it was brief…and leaves us with some unanswered questions about how Diesel’s vision may have offered us a different world than the one ruled by Oil and Big Banks.

Hemp Diesel

A century ago, Diesel Power and Hemp Products could have combined to side-track (eliminate?) our dependencies on Oil and Forestry… …Things could still come full circle! CLICK HERE to learn how Diesel can clean up it’s act, and kick the big-oil habit!

In 1893, German inventor Rudolf Diesel published a paper entitled “The Theory and Construction of a Rational Heat Engine” which described a motor in which air is compressed by a piston to a very high pressure, causing a temperature spike where injected fuel is auto-ignited and efficiently burned in the expanding compression during the down-stroke. This basic concept results in a simple, safe, cool, highly efficient engine that could run on locally produced vegetable oils – and therefore level the playing field for those who otherwise couldn’t compete with the large steam-powered Industries and Shippers of the day.

Unfortunately, in the early 20th century big-banks and financiers were already exerting their powerful will, in support of their oil and forestry interests, and thus assuring the dominance of emerging petro-chemical industries. So instead of seeing how Diesel’s vision would have played out, we’ve had to wait until the combined and destructive effects of a Financial, Energy, and Environmental crisis, here the 21st century, could obviate the ideals and benefits that Rudolf Diesel had envisioned for Society, well over a century ago; when he built his first engines to be run on the same types of bio-fuels that we now have available today, and which could have cut coal and oil out of the picture from the very start.