Category: Pages & Noteboard

This BLOG “sustain-earth” is an In-clusive, Inter-active, Inter-disciplinary and Inter-sectorial platform to implement “Sustainability and Applied Sustainability” in all sectors, on all levels and anywhere. It is, also, a market-oriented platform for transforming “Sustainability and Applied Sustainability”, from individual, narrow and fragmented understanding to a holistic and applied prospective. The search of man for secured living confronted with fundamental life processes on earth and resulted in major threats endangering the land-water resources and the very survival of life.

The “BLOG” is constructed in two parts: Part (1) is a “theoretical and knowledge-based one”; and Part (2) is a “practical and applied one”. Both parts are inter-related and supplement each other where Part (1) “Categories, posts & Discussions” explains the theoretical background upon which Part (2) “Pages & Note-board” is based. Both parts are spanning over all national sectors (private, public and governmental) and involve, also, inter-governmental organizations and relevant international bodies. Furthermore, the structure and built-in dynamics of the “BLOG” seek the integration of individuals, groups, companies, organizations, communities, societies, ….. etc. on both horizontal and vertical levels. The motivation, goal and vision are to bring about coherent sustainable systems through linking together all building blocks. Sustainability, i.e. concepts and knowledge therein, is being explained in Part (1) while Part (2) is devoted to more Applied and practical issues for production, communication and services.

Through its Editorial Board and Guest Bloggers and contact points, the BLOG is acting as “Open Access” instrument for coupling education and research with market and society needs, and thereby supporting professionals, including young ones, for creating, improving and up-dating “Career Development Plans” to suit an ever dynamic and changeable labor market. It is an instrument for enhancing public awareness, promoting capacity building as well as for supporting the development and management of human resources and infra-structures for quality services in public and private sectors.

“Sustain-earth” at Ångström’s Laboratory, Uppsala University

The news letter “Det händer på Ångström” at Ångström’s Laboratory, Uppsala University, has announced an open-call for contributions to “sustain-earth”. Translation from Swedish to English is given below.

Farid El-Daoushy, professor em vid fysik och astronomi, Ångströmlaboratoriet, hälsar alla välkomna att besöka, dela och bidra i “sustain-earth”, en blogg för marknadsföring av utbildning och forskning, popularisering av vetenskap och teknik, stödjande av ”Open Access” med fokus på hållbar utveckling.

Inbyggda funktioner finns för koppling av utbildning och forskning till samhället och marknaden på nationell och internationell nivå samt skapande av karriärutvecklingsplaner. http://sustain-earth.com verkar för ökad hållbarhet inom alla sektorer och på olika nivåer där Sverige är ledande.

In English.

Farid El-Daoushy, professor em at the Department of Physics and Astronomy, Ångström’s Laboratory (Uppsala University) welcomes all to visit, share and contribute in “sustain-earth”, a bolg for marketing education and research, popularization of knowledge and technology, and for supporting “Open Access” with focus on sustainable development.

Embedded functions are available for coupling education and research to the society and the market on national and international levels as well as for creation of Career-Development-Plans. http://sustain-earth.com strives towards enhanced sustainability in all sectors and on all levels where Sweden is a leading nation.

Det händer på Ångström, April 2014

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From Editorial and Guest Bloggers – The African Roadmap Towards Sustainability

“http://ustain-earth.com” represents here the growing attention of Uganda’s political efforts for achieving sustainable socio-economic developments. “The Greens” or “Green Parties” are emerging in Africa, ROBINAH K. NANYUNJA, the President General of Uganda’s Green Party, and a Green MP Candidate for Kawempe North Constituency 2016 in Kampala Uganda, is addressing the needs for implementation of sustainability roadmaps where the green ideology puts environmental responsibility at the same level like other development sectors, means that it provides the necessary political will to curb environmental degradation, which is more often lacking with conventional governments. 

ROBINAH K. NANYUNJA is now a Guest Blogger at sustain-earth.com.

 

 

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GREEN POLITICS ANSWER TO GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGES

The green ideology is a philosophy practiced and advocated for by a coalition of political leaders and activists, whose goal is to advocate for peace, security, unity, preservation of the environment and ecosystem for socio-economic development, all over the world. These political leaders and activists are called “The Greens”. The Green ideology rests on solidarity that can be expressed in three parts: Solidarity with all the people of the world; Solidarity with animals, nature and the ecological system; Solidarity with future generations. For more information on this Political Platform, please, visit: 

http://www.robinahknanyunja.com/robk/?page_id=16.

The fact that the green ideology puts environmental responsibility at the same level like other development sectors, means that it provides the necessary political will to curb environmental degradation, which is more often lacking with conventional governments.  

ABOUT the author: ROBINAH K. NANYUNJA, is the President General, Ecological Party of Uganda, which is Uganda’s Green Party. She is a Green MP Candidate for Kawempe North Constituency 2016 in Kampala Uganda. Full BIO: http://www.robinahknanyunja.com/robk/?page_id=38 
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Mechanized Agriculture in Sudan – Collapse of Sustainable Land-Water Management.

UNEP along FAO, ICRAF and a number of Sudanese NGOs and institutes describe how and why the agricultural sectors in Sudan were gradually degraded and moved rapidly towards more or less total collapse because of environment over-taxation. Since the introduction of mechanization of rain-fed agriculture by the British in 1944 several negative impacts, due to lack of control and planning, were piled up during the last half of the 20th century. This has caused large-scale destruction of environment and triggered severe negative impacts in other sectors as well. The traditional and mechanized agriculture account for 55 and 45 percent respectively of the rain-fed cultivated area. The importance of the irrigated sub-sector is reflected in the fact that while it makes up only 7 percent of the cultivated area, it accounts for more than half of the crop yields. However, irrigated land has own problems. Rapid, uncontrolled privatization, random investment and failure to couple education and research to market and society needs are major causes.

Management of land-water resources in Africa is IMPERATIVE. However, past experiences show not only major failure but the great threats of the blind and random implementation of imported technologies, e.g. Sudan where its cultivable land is about 42 percent with frequent claims that it is the potential ‘breadbasket’ of Africa and Middle East. Agriculture, the largest economic sector in Sudan, became the heart of some of the country’s most serious environmental problems: wide-range of land degradation, riverbank erosion, invasive species, pesticide mismanagement, water pollution and canal sedimentation. Also rangeland’s vulnerability to overgrazing is high and its overlap with cultivation is a major source of potential conflict. The significance of these threats cannot be underestimated: not only are 15 percent of the population partly or wholly dependent on imported food aid, but the population is growing, per hectare crop yields are declining and the enhanced competition over scarce agricultural resources.

The agricultural sector in Sudan is the main source of sustained growth and backbone of Sudan’s economy. Unfortunately, the sector’s economic stake is declining more and more with the emergence of the oil industry. Sudan continues to depend heavily on agriculture, whose share fluctuates around 40 percent of the GDP. The crop and livestock sub-sectors together contribute 80 to 90 percent of non-oil export earnings. With these trends the country will face more unemployment and famine as fifty-eight percent of the active workforce is employed in agriculture and 83 percent of the population depends on farming for its livelihood.

Global warming adds new threats as the agricultural sector in Sudan is highly vulnerable to shortages in rainfall and there has been substantial decline in precipitation and climate change models predict that this trend will continue. Without major action to stop the wave of de-gradation and restore land productivity, the natural resource base will continue to shrink, even as demand grows. Resolving this issue is thus central to achieving lasting peace and food security.

Click to access 08_agriculture.pdf

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Amazing High Tech Farm – A Complete Meal Using A Mobile!

Eric Maundu, owner and founder of “Kijani Grows” (“Kijani” is Swahili for green), isn’t a farmer, he’s an engineer with a computer science degree from USA. Maundu himself ran from agriculture in his native Kenya- where he saw it as a struggle for land, water and resources. In the USA he felt the negative impacts of urbanization, industrial waste and traffic pollution on contamination of soils and degradation in land-water resources. In industrial/urban areas and cities, freeways, roads, light rail and parking lots so there’s not much arable land and the soil is contaminated. With these threats in mind he realized he could farm without soil, with little water via aquaponics and with possibilities to use “self-cleaning” and recycling as well as that he could apply his robotics background to farming. An amazing combination of: physics; chemistry; biology; ecology; and computer science in one system.

No soil, instead Maundu is growing plants using fish and circulating water. It’s called aquaponics- a gardening system that combines hydroponics (water-based planting) and aquaculture (fish farming). It’s been hailed as the future of farming: it uses less water (up to 90% less than traditional gardening), doesn’t attract soil-based bugs and produces two types of produce (both plants and fish)., i.e. a full meal!

Maundu- by being trained in industrial robotics- has taken the agricultural craft one step further and made his “aquaponics” smart. Using sensors (to detect water level, pH and temperature), microprocessors, relay cards, clouds and social media networks. Maundu has programmed his gardens to tweet when there’s a problem, e.g. not enough water or when there’s news, e.g. an over-abundance of food to share. With these smart solutions the same information can be shared with farmers in Iceland and China.” Maundu believes that by putting gardens online, especially in places where solar-powered gardens are totally off the grid), is the only way to make sure that farming remains viable to the next generation of urban youth.

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Do-It-Yourself: How Does Methane Biodigester Work?

There are many technical approaches and levels of complexity for turning leftover food and manure till biogas. Understanding the underlying science and concepts in a simple way can help to gradually construct and develop own solutions to achieve affordable, efficient and friendly fuctional facilities.

You have input material, i.e. initial reactants that are processed under reduced “anaerobic” conditions, i.e. air free from oxygen through using sealed containers, at a suitable temperature, and more or less neutral conditions. The temperature range can vary around 40 degrees celsius, and to be controlled using heat from the sun along with suitable insolation if necessary, i.e. depending on region and season. The initial reactants have to be crushed to facilitate the bacterial reaction where we have two types of bacteria, e.g. those creating acidity and those producing methane. There are high-energy organic matter, i.e. those with high sugar and high carbohydrate content, and low-energy organic matter such as grass and manure (more or less consumed organic matter). High-energy food promote production of acidity, i.e. “acid” type of bacteria while the other methane-producing bacteria are much more accessible in animal manure. The liquid leftover “effluent” from the whole process may be used fertilizer, however it can be beneficial to do some analysis to see the quality in relation to the composition of the reactants. In this context, adjustment of the control parameters, i.e. temperature, duration and acidity as well as the composition of reactants can be part of development and optimization of the production facilities.

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DIY – Biogas from leftover food and animal manure.

Waste from animals and household can have negative and harmful impacts on the environment, i.e. land-water resources, as well as on health because of degradation of sanitation and living conditions. However, when sorted and treated can be useful sources conservation of natural resources, for improves economy, for producing energy, (biogas or electricity, and fertilizers e.g. different forms of organic fertilizers). It is simply because leftover food and animal manure are organic matter rich in carbon which is a basic element for production of biogas. Breakdown of organic matter in the absence of oxygen, i.e. anaerobic digestion with anaerobic bacteria, can produce biogas. Biogas can, also, be produced by fermentation of biodegradable materials such as manure, sewage, municipal and green waste, plants and crops.

Note: In order to get the best possible out-put from DIY “DO-It-Yourself” you are strongly encouraged to address questions, give comments and contribute in discussions. This will in addition to bringing more clarity, will also contribute in making modifications and further adjustment or even developments for better adaptation to local conditions, e.g. climate, mixture of waste, availability of construction material, running conditions and maintenance aspects.

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Amazing Visual Records of African ceremonies with roots back in Stone Ages.

Celebrations and social gathering are very much related to culture. How people live together and enjoy life is a matter of imagination, social context and environment. This can be very much different around the world and culture has also an evolution as it makes people grow with time. Apart from the ancient Egyptian Civilization, Africa had other cultural history and evolution with roots back to the stone ages. However, how much do we know about the cultural history of Africa Apart from colonization and slavery of the white man? Carol Beckwith and Angela Fisher did an amazing and innovative journey in Africa to document, collect and compile facts about contemporary social anthropology and culture ceremonies that we know very little about. This is a part of human cultural evolution that can be traced back to stone ages. It is certainly, worth knowing about it as it is part of our cultural heritage.

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A platform for agricultural research for development stakeholders in Africa

RUFORUM is arranging a Conference during July 21- July 25, 2014 at Maputo, Mozambique
(The Joaquim Chissano International Conference Centre):

4th RUFORUM 2014 Biennial Conference – African Higher Education Week Celebrating the Contribution of Universities & Partners to Africa’s Agricultural Development. For more information visit the following site:

http://www.slu.se/en/international/slu-global/events-at-slu-global/2014/7/4th-ruforum-2014-biennial-conference/

Special thanks to Dr. Charles Masembe of Kampala University, Uganda for information on this Conference. Dr. Charles Masembe is a regular research visitor to Scandinvian universities.

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AREA-EGYPT CONFERENCE – TOWARDS 100% RENEWABLES AND SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES FOR AFRICA

An International Conference arranged by AREA-EGYPT on “TOWARDS 100% RENEWABLES AND SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES FOR AFRICA” will take place during April 27-30 at The American University in Cairo, New Cairo.

Call for participation, papers and sponsorship. Deadline for abstracts March 30, 2014.

In addition to the given program (see attachments), planned field visits will involve: (1) Second Day April 28th: half day Ministry Company, and Systems installed + Pyramids Visits; (2) Third Day April 29th: two hours internal visit tour to AUC Energy Labs; (3) Fourth Day April 30th: full day tour to wind farm and Red Sea Resorts.

ADD+_AREA_EGYPT_INTERNATIONAL_CONFRENCE[1][1]

ADD AREA EGYPT INTERNATIONAL_CONFRENCE[1]-2

Other relevant information “100% Renewable Energy in European Regions”:

Parliamentary Hearing_Folkecenter_Agenda_final

Draft Agenda-1

 

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Emerging Sustainable Technologies are Directed Towards Coastal Regions

 

Increasing pressures on natural resources, in particular availability, accessibility and affordability of Water and Energy “WE”-resources, require Sustainable Management Policies that consider shaping and integrating Sustainable Technologies to meet the growing needs for large-scale and long-term transformation to New Sustainable Life-styles. Unlike, in ancient civilization where population settlements were created at/around fresh surface-water bodies, e.g. rivers, lakes and deltas, future settlements are likely to grow faster at coastal regions “Hydroponic Coastal Colonies” and non-traditional living areas with limited fresh-water resources. Agricultural production may not require land to the same extent as in traditional farm communities; modern technology will allow more Sustainable Cities to grow on coastal areas as well. However, climate change threats for increasing sea-water levels have to be taken in consideration, what we have learned from the past safety and protection measures are always part of any successful socio-economic developments. The future is bright by innovation and not by imitation.

Shaping and Integrating Modern Technologies for Sustainable Cities and Global Food needs

By Chemist/ Safwan Elfar, Qatar

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Turning Waste to Eco-friendly Solutions for Preservation of Natural Resources

Sustainable technologies are emerging solutions that will revolutionize industries and utilize human intelligence for the very survival of the earth. It is about turning waste to eco-products, efficient and economic production, conservation of raw materials and natural resources, protection of environment and the overall improvement of air, water and ecological qualities.

Preservation of ecosystems, and improving the quality of life on our planet, is IMPERATIVE and requires collective human responsibility, transparent engagement of all stakeholders, effective and continuous interaction between all society sectors with focus on the needs of the citizen. Achieving sustainable socio-economic developments requires inclusive implementation policies for environmental awareness, for innovative Career Development Plans and for sound research and education roadmaps.

The environmental pollution, industrial and human waste have already caused many local, regional and global disasters in terms of accelerating threats and enhanced degradation in all life qualities without exceptions, collapse of eco-systems and severe pressures on land-water resources as well as irreversible damages in climate and bio-diversity.

In this context, we have an actual example on how to turn dangerous waste to eco-friendly products. From here we need to take further steps for turning a hazardous By-product in Cement Industry with environmental and health threats to engineered eco-friendly products with new applications for clean water, eco-fertilization and agro-production of food. It is not simple but it is possible. Utilization of Cement Kiln By-Pass dust in civil constructions, water cleaning and diverse agricultural purposes is an example of the so-called “Sustainable Technologies”. In cement manufacturing a by-product generated is known as “cement kiln by-pass dust”, based on its chemical composition it can be used to produce building materials, clean water and eco-agriculture products.

The main target of this process was/is to neutralize the alkalinity of cement kiln by-pass dust and use its nutrient content (potassium) to get hydroponic eco-food production and turn its toxic particulate (breath irritation and risk for lung-cancer) and gaseous nature (green-house carbon dioxide) to environmental friendly carbonates as well as utilize this hazardous material for water cleaning and production of sterilized organic fertilizers. 

http://cementkilnbypassdust.com/

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Social Media as Powerful Early Warning Instruments

 

Social media are powerful and effective early warning instruments especially in cases that require quick and cost-effective health interventions in case of epidemics of infectious diseases. These instruments become very convincing by being combined with relevant health assessment analysis of diseases and risk factors.

http://wordpress.com/read/post/id/3956116/7061/

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The Labor Market – Dreams vesus Reality.

Dreams are not always what one can expect in reality. When it comes to finding your favorite job, dreams may require taking risks and going through frustrations to transfer them to reality. It is am amazing journey that needs hard and continuous training on the job like running a marathon you need to be prepared for it.

http://stevensalvatoreshaw.wordpress.com/2014/01/27/help-me-im-poor-a-professors-lament/

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Irnga-Tanzania – Ruaha Marathon

Give your support to bio-diversity, environment and water issues and create public awareness to protect life from extinguision around the Great Ruaha River and the eventual the drying up of the river itself.

Ruaha Marathon, Irnga-Tanzania, is a social event which you can contribute in shaping it and improving its activities through not only being part of it but also by active initiatives and interactions. Social enterpreneurs can very well innovate in how they can be effective part of making this event move forward towards achieving sustainable socio-economic developments in Africa. All what Africa needs is INNOVATION, where people join together to share solutions. Life is about to serve and get served but do it with quality! Building up sound eco-tourism and green-awareness part supporting rural communities in Africa.

http://www.ruahamarathon.com/index.php/ruaha-national-park

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The Unique Cultural Mosaic of the Growing Africa.

With flourishing economy in Africa, and the vision of young people for transfer to democracy and a better life, innovation in music, fashion and art are gradually penetrating and diffusing in the unique cultural mosaic of the growing Africa. An example is the Ethiopian music that combines different cultural and emotional backgrounds, a needed positive energy for fueling the populations towards the new future.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWHsPbnBhLw&feature=youtu.be

 

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