With the increasing role of ICT and modern building techniques, e.g. 3D-printing comes increasing needs for sustainable building materials and a great number of sensors for automation and control. Here is one example: (http://www.kmccontrols.com/products/Understanding_Building_Automation_and_Control_Systems.aspx)

In all human civilizations building and constructions were central components in human life with continuous struggle for sustainable comfort living in harmony with nature. As the concept of sustainability did not exist in the same way as we know it today, ancient solutions were based on practical use of naturally available materials in combination with the sun as source of heat and thermal energy. Climate/weather conditions played major rules in building and construction and people adapted living to their environment.

The Egyptian Pyramids, temples and living rooms were built more than 4500 years ago with zero energy consumption, zero carbon dioxide emissions and no toxic waste. How the Pyramids and those buildings were built is still matter of speculation and debate. According to historical data ancient Egyptians built the Giza Pyramids; Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure in a span of 85 years in the 26th century BC. How such sustainable technology was mastered is still a mystery what regards saving energy, water and environment.
Most of current problems today are related to implementation and use of technologies whether or not suitable for the environments. Because of this, the conform of modern technology comes with very high price in terms of economy, environment and above all an enormous loss of cultural and locally based building codes that developed throughout several generations. Only, in few cases where enough resources and investments exist there are successful examples, however it remains to see how such solution can be expanded on larger scales. The “world’s first carbon neutral zero-waste city” is slowly becoming a reality of epic proportions. The prototypical sustainable city, Masdar, is currently under construction twenty miles outside of Abu Dhabi. When finished, the city will be powered entirely by renewable energy, making it one of the world’s most sustainable urban developments. The city has its own sustainability-driven research center, which is devoted to the development of alternative energy (http://youtu.be/FyghLnbp20U).

Among most recent advances in building material is a new type of cement that is based on Pozzolan, which can be found in nature from volcanic deposits. Also, industrial waste from iron and power plans can be recycled and used in producing green cement. Green cements, as compared to OPC “ordinary Portland cement”, are very energy and water saving, environmentally much more friendly with no waste remains and no emissions of GHG. Also, have enormous advantages especially what regards production cost, mechanical properties, duration and maintainance. Modern technology can produce sustainable building materials, green cement, for erection of complicated structures that have excellent durability but in much much faster time as compared to ancient civilizations. Currently, the best possible sustainable building materials can bring about energy saving of more that 90% with very near zero carbon dioxide emission and zero waste remains.

To understand the importance of Pozzolan in modern technologies for production of green cement one has to back 2000 years ago. The Romans at that time started making concrete but it wasn’t quite like today’s concrete. They had a different formula that resulted in not as strong as our modern concrete. Yet structures like the Pantheon and the Colosseum have survived for centuries, often with little to no maintenance. Geologists, archaeologists and engineers have arrived a key component in the Roman’s concrete: volcanic ash. Usually,  three parts volcanic ash were mixed to one part lime, according to Vitruvius, first-century B.C. architect and engineer. Modern research shows that the very secret of durability of the buildings of the Roman Empire was due to the chemical composition of concretes made with Pozzolan, i.e. the ash’s unique mix of minerals appears to have helped concrete to withstand chemical decay and damage. For information (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-secrets-of-ancient-romes-buildings-234992/).

In all human civilizations building and constructions were central components in human life with continuous struggle for sustainable comfort living in harmony with nature. We give here only some few examples. As the concept of sustainability did not exist in the same way as we know it today, ancient solutions were based on practical use of naturally available materials in combination with the sun as source of heat, the wind as source of mechanical and thermal energy. Climate/weather conditions played major rules in building and construction and people adapted their living to the environment.

The Egyptian Pyramids, temples and living rooms were built more than 4500 years ago with zero energy consumption, zero carbon dioxide emissions and no toxic waste. How the Pyramids and those buildings were built is still matter of speculation and debate. According to historical data ancient Egyptians built the Giza Pyramids; Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure in a span of 85 years in the 26th century BC. How such sustainable technology was mastered is still a mystery what regards saving energy, water and environment.

Traditionally other cultures have always adapted sustainable and eco-friendly methods, e.g. Indian architecture, designing and planning, in constructions. Living in harmony with nature has been an integral part of Indian culture, e.g. what regards waste disposal, light and temperature control, use of local materials, kitchen gardens and low carbon print.

Environmentally conscious buildings have been around for much longer than the public debut of our modern environmental crisis. Since the early 19th century, residents of Yazd, Iran, have been using wind as an alternative energy source to cool their homes on warm summer days. A ‘windcatcher’ is an ancient Persian architectural element used in various central and southeastern towns and cities in Iran, where the majority of the ecological fabric are made up of deserts. In deserts, the temperature varies greatly between day and night, with windcatchers becoming essential for keeping homes at a consistently comfortable temperature. Also, for the region located in northeast Iran at the foot of Mount Sahand, the mound-like homes are carved from volcanic rock, meaning that most of the materials needed to construct them were already located on site. Technically, the dwellings aren’t true underground homes since a portion of them sits above ground, but since much of the living space is buried, inhabitants can expect cooler temperatures during the day without having to jack up the air conditioning (and saving a lot of energy). Similar volcanic structures with carved homes/villages exist also in Turkey.

In certain parts of the world, wood was always a popular building material, e.g. in Scadinavia. Yet the use of wood is seldom seen amongst the modern or classic constructions. Due to a series of destructive fires in the 15th century, the use of timber as an architectural material was banned for sometime. Danish non-profit organization Realdania Byg commissioned Vandkunsten architecture studio to design a holiday house that combines the most up-to-date construction techniques with local traditional materials. The architects designed and built a traditional house clad in seaweed—a material that was once used in hundreds of homes on then Danish island of Læsø, of which only 20 remain today.

Most of current problems today is that people implement and use technologies whether or not suitable for their environments. Because of this the conform of modern technology comes with very high price in terms of economy, environment and above the enormous loss of cultural and locally based building codes that developed throughout several generations. Only, in few cases where enough resources and investments exist there are successful examples, however it remains to see how such solutions can be expanded on larger scales. The “world’s first carbon neutral zero-waste city” is slowly becoming a reality of epic proportions. The prototypical sustainable city, Masdar, is currently under construction twenty miles outside of Abu Dhabi. When finished, the city will be powered entirely by renewable energy, making it one of the world’s most sustainable urban developments. The city has its own sustainability-driven research center, which is devoted to the development of alternative energy (http://youtu.be/FyghLnbp20U).

Among most recent advances in building material is a new type of cement that is based on Pozzolan, which can be found in nature from volcanic deposits. Also, industrial waste from iron and power plans can be recycled and used in producing green cement. Green cements, as compared to OPC “ordinary Portland cement”, are very energy and water saving, environmentally much more friendly with no waste remains and no emissions of GHG. Also, have enormous advantages especially what regards production cost, mechanical properties, duration and maintainance. Modern technology can produce sustainable building materials for erection of complicated structures that have excellent durability but in much much faster time as compared to ancient civilizations. Currently, the best possible sustainable building materials can bring about energy saving of more that 90% with very near zero carbon dioxide emission and zero waste remians.

Additional new comers in green cement era is effective production and construction through automation and 3D Printing technologies (http://inhabitat.com/3d-printed-quake-column-draws-on-ancient-incan-building-techniques-to-withstand-earthquakes/). Architecture is tapping into 3D printing technology in a major way through the production of building elements and structural components. Recent developments have also begun to work on creating seismically resistant structures. California-based architecture firm Emerging Objects has developed a design called the Quake Column, which draws on the ancient Incan building technique known as “ashlar” and merges it with modern technology.

GCC countries (Gulf Cooperation Council) are moving faster to SuperGreen solutions in building and construction projects.

Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) and the Emirates Green Building Council are strengthening cooperation for supporting a green economy in Dubai and the sustainable development of the Emirate. All future trends support the Green Economy for Sustainable Development initiative, launched by HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.

Follow the news:

http://www.albawaba.com/print/business/pr/dewa-and-emirates-green-building-council-discuss-promoting-green-economy-695944

With increasing worldwide population and predictions that 75% of the world population will be living in cities by the year 2050, building towards the sky can be unavoidable necessity. That would require more durable constructions and materials with appropriate building and architecture solutions. Future  Cities would require management policies with balanced policies consumption/waste versus protection/conservation of nature in accepted social context. Http://sustain-earth.com

Among the consequences of economy driven policies in ASEAN countries is the increasing economic gaps between countries in the region. For sustainable large-scale and long-term socio-economic developments it is vital to promote less developed countries as well. Shift from commercially driven agriculture to new technologies where the regional natural resources are not only used sufficiently but, also, sustainably managed in a manner that respect traditional systems of the rural areas. 

Commercialization always has some draw-backs as well, e.g. depletion soil fertility, and excessive use of chemical fertilizer, herbicides and pesticides with long-term impacts and threats on ecosystems in different ways. Strategies need to be implemented to create sustainable and profitable farming systems that realize the existence of vital rural societies in tact with the natural functioning and metabolism of natural eco-systems and in harmony with existing biodiversity.
https://www.jircas.affrc.go.jp/english/program/proC_1.html

Sustainability has been part of the human awareness since the birth of the ancient man on planet Earth. The instinct for survival and wellbeing has never been crystallized in well-structured components for building up webs of instrumental coordinated solutions until the 1980s with the introduction of the most widely quoted and used definition of sustainability. An imperative and collective need put forward by the Brundtland Commission of the United Nations in 1987: “sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” 

The Earth is a unique planet in our universe with complex functioning structure of systems that support the evolution of complex webs of metabolic processes for sustaining all living forms on Earth.

 The man has always struggled for his survival on earth and in particular to get access to and to secure affordable food resources not only for himself but for the new comers as well.

After and during the industrial revolutions, the focus of humans was directed mostly on technical issues to free mankind from manual work, to find resources and technology for  basic necessities through mechanical and machinery work. The Man realized the role of science and technology for his wellbeing and since the nineteen and twenty centuries the advances in science and technology emerged more and more to be the only inevitable route for improving the living conditions. This didn’t come for free and price and costs for humans started to be huge with clear finger-print on the accelerating divergence of the three basic drivering wheels of sustainability: economy, environment and social drivers. 

Economic interests resulted in increasing consumption of natural resources with severe impacts on degradation of the environment because of increasing waste and pollution, and piling up of social defects in particular the remarkable failure in erasing global poverty. These along with enormous indicators of the declining natural resources as being defined by the so-called resource “peaks”.
 

The divergence and fragmentation of these drivers and spheres brought considerable, and yet, accelerating threat for the survival of humans.  The net result of what humans achieved in science, technology, policies and politics were in direct conflict with not only the search for wellbeing but also the very basic needs for survival.

The major spheres of the functioning and metabolism of all life forms on earth were  brought out of their natural equilibrium, e.g. the atmosphere with an increasing temperature because of global warming.

Global warming and accelerating production of waste and pollution have caused enormous damage on the hydrophere with irreversible effects on the ecological resources where humans are dependent on, e.g. fish.

The growing human population still induces additional challenges for achieving the goals for global sustainability developments.

The era of sustainable developments has already started but it is still in its infancy and the needs of the necessary knowledge are enormous in particular what regards building the underlying science and technology as well as the associated management policies in all sectors and on all levels.

For more information on sustainability visit: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability

Http://sustain-earth.com” is an integrated coherent platform for Applied sustainability. Interests and efforts put by its coordinator and manager of started already through a simple experiment at the age of fourteen. As a young student, at Abo-Tyg/Assiut secondary school, starting to learn chemistry I bought a small amount of hydrochloric acid from my pocket money. I added the acid to a soil sample from the garden, it was a violent reaction in the test tube with evolution of gases. An exciting experiment where drew my attention with the conclusion that there must be geochemical reactions taking place in the environment. This in addition to continuous observations from summer holidays that I spent at the village of my grandfather, Cairo’s Waraa. Some local industries, farmers and poor people of the village, as is the case for many other villages on the Nile, used or you may say “abused” the water of the Nile to do their household needs, e.g. cleaning, washing animal and the removal of waste in general. These events and my experience of the continuous lack of water in the very arid environments prevailing in southern parts of Egypt as it rains one per decade etched an enormous early interest that caused gearing my early geology, chemistry and physics university education towards research on environmental waste, pollution and their impacts on global aquatic systems.

This resulted in an academic career in Environmental Physics a discipline that I created myself with further created further work in Applied Sustainability.

Water and nutrients are essentials for the evolution and sustainability of life on earth. The magic, secrets and drivers of life on earth are not human inventions. Human innovation is merely restricted to accelerating the natural metabolic processes on earth, e.g. production of food in agriculture, animal husbandry and fisheries, beyond natural rates and limits. The growing global population and the underlying industrial and economic systems continue to fuel the so-called human innovation towards a never ending spiral for more and more unsustainable consumption of the natural resources.

Humans can not servive on earth without clean water, healthy environment and sustainable food production. However, these requirements can only be fulfilled through sustained production and consumption of energy and natural resources for supporting the basic needs for humans, e.g. housing, education, health, transport and communication. What originally started for the benefits of human developments turned out to major threats for human survival because of increasing waste and pollution from use and abuse of the natural resources.
Humans have interfered in the natural functioning and metabolism of all life forms on earth with negative impacts on essential and global biogeochemical cycles. Examples are: global warming as resulted from malfunctioning of the global carbon-cycle. Degradation in O-cycle (oxygen cycle) is also remarkable because of unfit and polluted air in urbanized living areas, in particular cities as result of expansion of traffic and transport systems and random industrial activities; poor access to oxygen in aquatic systems because of eutrophication in aquatic systems and excessive use of fertilizers on land; enhanced photo-reactions in the atmosphere with the associated negative impacts of tropospheric production of ozone.

Declining reserves of natural phosphorous, are among emerging threats, because of increasing production and use of this limited natural resource with irreversible impacts on P-cycle. Agricultural and industrial nitrogen inputs to the environment currently exceed inputs from natural N fixation. The impacts of anthropogenic N-inputs have significantly altered the global N-cycle over the past century. Global atmospheric N₂O have increased from pre-industrial levels where most of which are due to the agricultural sector.

Human activities have major effects on the global S-cycle. The burning of coal, natural gas and other fossil fuels has greatly increased the amounts of sulphur in the atmosphere,?ocean and depleted the sedimentary rock sink, i.e. instead of being burned at steadily rates. Over most polluted areas there has been a 30-fold increase in sulfate deposition. The enhanced sulphur and nitrogen oxides in the atmosphere is causing negative impacts through acidification of aquatic systems with global negative feedback effects on aquatic life and vegetation.

All in all quality of global land-water resources are under accelerating threats from pollution  and waste.

http://www.flatheadwatershed.org/natural_history/natcycles.shtml 

The emerging economies are like express trains, if you don’t catch one of these trains you will left behind with an old ticket worth nothing.

All of the so-called emerging economies suffer from increasing poverty. The fast developing economies in these countries and regions do not leave enough time for coordinating all the necessary instruments and tools to provide sustainable social-economic infra-structures.

http://www.poverties.org/urban-poverty-in-india.html#gallery[pageGallery]/2/

One out of every three children never sets foot in a classroom. Two major questions need to answered in this context:

(1) what shall we do with one third of the world population lacking education;

(2) can we naive enough that we will have global SECURITY under such conditions.

With what is happening around the world we can not run away from answering these two strategic questions. As a result of these two questions many other questions are currently facing us with merely no sustainable answers. “Sustain-earth.com” will continue to address the emerging global threats facing the future of our planet.

Edible Insects as a Food Source 

Nutrient food is what we need and in the era of sustainability where the global population keeps growing while the natural resources on the planet Earth are declining more and more it becomes IMPERATIVE to have accessible and affordable nutrient food. Edible insects are emerging more and more as a food sources adding more insects to the Menu. 

The idea of eating insects is not new, in China, edible wasp collecting and cooking techniques were documented in the Tang Dynasty (618-907).  Also in Europe, Aristoteles (384-322BC) wrote about the best taste of a Cicada nymph and in early 20th century, the taste of chafer beetle soup (“Maikafersuppe”), was described as comparable to lobster soup, a highly appreciated dish in Germany and France. This culture expanded enormously, today about 1,900 edible insects are being consumed worldwide, mainly in Africa, Mexico and Asia, e.g. silk worm and crickets (http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/06/will-eating-insects-ever-be-mainstream).

“Why not eat insects?” asked American pamphleteer Vincent Holt already in 1885, proof that selling the idea is nothing new. Two billion people worldwide routinely eat bugs an already appreciated food. Insects have also invaded foodie moments in the western world being a novelty in the European food scene as subversive garnishes for salads or cocktails, or on the menus of experimental pop-up (http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/06/will-eating-insects-ever-be-mainstream).

Scientific American already supports high quality popular science. In this case describing the approach of biologists Mitchell Moffit and Gregory Brown by being unique to present biological concepts “fun, Informative and Extremely Successful”. They provide informative explanations, on topics people really want and need to know, in clear simple and colorful diagrams with pedagogic presentations (http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/psi-vid/2012/12/12/asap-science-fun-informative-and-extremely-successful/).

Here is how Mitchell Moffit and Gregory Brown use the scientific approach to inform on the relevance of insects in the exoanding food market (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iM8s1ch5TRw).

What is Poverty? Why do we have poverty or more importantly why poverty is much abundant in the so-called developing countries? Are the people there different, if yes how, why and since when? If no, why then they became poor and what are the reasons? What instruments do we have to monitor poverty? Since when we realized that we have poverty? Did poverty happen over-night? What are the differences between absolute poverty and relative poverty? Why economic models, including the ones that won the Nobel Prize were successful to solve poverty only in limited parts of the world? So, many questions to be asked and even with proper answers on these questions we will continue to have poverty unless we have sincere and serious sustainable solutions.

Though United Nations was founded 1945 (http://www.un.org/en/about-un/index.html) it was not until recently when UN observed that there is poverty and started to set ambitious goals in 2000 to reduce global poverty and inequality by 2015. Yet much of the poverty is still left and more seriously many impacts and threats from poverty are expanding and deepening on several scales. While the UN claims that it successfully cut extreme poverty in half, the multinational groups are conflicted about how much developing regions such as sub-Saharan Africa can improve by 2030 (http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2014/12/31/un-wants-to-end-poverty-hunger-by-2030). 

GDP, which is used in economic models, by the World Bank and by politicians to monitor the economic growth around the world, fails enormously to bring about sustainable socio-economic developments around the world. It has even brought severe negative impacts in the developing countries and created new threats for the whole planet Earth and on the global scale. What regards the developing countries GDP can very well be used not as “Growth Domestic Product” but as “Growth Domestic Poverty”, as least for some if not for many developing countries. Major solutions need to be taken to switch over to more realistic indicators other than GDP that keeps pushing the developing world down hell the poverty spiral.

http://youtu.be/7M3WJQbnHKc

Many rural areas in the developing countries, in particular Africa and Asia, suffer from lack of clean water and sanitation. Poverty makes the situation extremely severe for large population what regards accessibility but also affordability. There exist simple, economic and Effective systems for water purification, e.g. biosand, that can remove the solid particulates and disease-causing micro-organisms from contaminated water. Slow sand filters contain very fine sand and usually function without pre-treatment and chemical additives such as flocculation and chlorination.

Harmful bacteria, parasites and other micro-organisms are greatly reduced through the so-called “bio-film”, a biologically active layer in top layers of the sand that gets created and destroys most pathogens “disease-causing organisms” as they can not survive there. The pathogens get consumed by micro-organisms in the bio-film as they are trapped in and on the sand surface; other filtration mechanisms support the quality improvement.

http://www.lboro.ac.uk/well/resources/fact-sheets/fact-sheets-htm/Household%20WT.htm

Recent research tells that our immune system is mainly located in out digestive system. About 80% of the immune system lives in the gastrointestinal tract and probiotics can help. Probiotics, unlike antibiotics, can replenish the microflora in intestinal tract and promote a number of health-enhancing functions, including digestive function. They are found in unfermented and fermented milk, yogurts, miso, tempeh, soy drinks and some juices (http://instituteofhealthsciences.com/probiotics-help-immune-system-in-your-gi-tract/).

Our digestive systems get astonishing amount of solid foods and liquids from the entire meals of our lifetimes. Making right choices of these individual meals help our digestive systems to extract healthy compounds, process waste and to fend off nasty microbes. These are prerequisites to be healthy, feel well, make stomach lean, soothed, keep diseases away and be cancer-free.

Here are key advices on what you need to eat and why: http://www.besthealthmag.ca/best-eats/digestion/the-foods-to-eat-for-a-healthy-gut#YSkr4oW2RWdxDzIA.97