spiral-"Connections" by Edward Kinally

Cool Stuff, Cool Ideas, Cool resources

Solar Cooking

My interest in and passion for solar cooking was born one night in late summer of 2006, when I was researching what we foolishly call "alternative" energy for a novel series and typed "solar cooking" into Google for the first time. Today, I am an accomplished solar cook and solar cooking technology designer and innovator, as well as being an advocate for the simple technology that can do more than any other single technology to mitigate unfavorable climate change.

Solar cooking and water pasteurization technology has the power to clean up much more of the atmosphere than most people realize, to help mitigate the unfavorable climate change we are experiencing, and give us all cleaner air to breathe. It can also save women and girls from arduous labor and the dangers of attack and rape, free millions of girls to attend school, provide jobs and business opportunities all over the world, save at least three million lives a year that are currently being lost to indoor smoke and bad water, provide a healthier diet for people of limited means (fast-cooking starches such as macaroni are chosen over higher-protein but slower-cooking foods such as beans when fuel is scarce or expensive), and promote reforestation in areas where it is desperately needed. Solar cooking addresses all eight of the United Nations Millenium Goals. All that and it can keep your own kitchen cooler in the summer, give you a fun new resource for camping and picnics, and give you some of the tastiest foods you will ever experience.

Global Dimming

Global dimming as a result of the Atmospheric Brown Clouds (ABCs) of black carbon and other particulates (aka aerosols) that circle the globe is having a profound effect on climate change, global warming, plants, migrational patterns (animals, birds, insects), and food production worldwide. In many parts of the world the primary source of the brown clouds is cooking fires (half the world's population still has no alternative to cooking with biomass fuels!). Lots of people talk about global warming, but global dimming is a serious problem that is not getting the attention it should. Educate yourself on the subject of global dimming so you can become part of the solution and help to educate others. The sun is the only source of outside energy our overburdened planet has, and we are cutting ourselves off from that energy with ABCs.

Good article on the Asian Brown Cloud:

http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20020822blackcarbon.html

Good article on how pollution and particulates (aerosols) affect thunderstorms and rainfall:

http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20020501thunder.html

To learn about the ABCs in greater depth, explore the website of Professor V. Ramanathan, an authority on brown clouds and the Asian Brown Cloud:

http://www-ramanathan.ucsd.edu/

Interesting article about miniature unmanned aircraft Professor Ramanathan helped develop to get accurate, 3-tiered, brown cloud samples. This is the scientist who was called to China during the Olympics when the air turned out not to be as good as promised, so he could send up his samplers to find out what was going on up there.

http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=106891&org=olpa&from=news

Information on a fantastic solar cooking project that Professor Ramanathan is working on, that will provide solar cookers (and other less-polluting cooking options) to a large region in India—large enough to actually make a clear plume in the brown cloud—and collect comprehensive information on such things as differences in air quality before and after implementation of the program:

http://www-ramanathan.ucsd.edu/Surya-WhitePaper.pdf

Sustainability

Other Organizations I Admire and Support

• http://backyardharvest.org/
• http://www.friendsoftheclearwater.org/
• http://www.pcei.org/
• http://www.rootsandshoots.org/
• http://www.janegoodall.org/
• http://www.aclu.org/
• http://www.avaaz.org/en/