SuperForest

Good morning, SuperForest!

It feels like it’s been a while since I’ve written a proper post, and it isn’t until you sit down and start writing that you realize how much you missed it. We’ve mentioned it in the past; whenever the number of posts seem to drop significantly, it usually means that some pretty amazing stuff is going on behind the scenes on SuperForest and these past few days were certainly no exception to this trend. We’ve also mentioned that we would try to do a better job of keeping you SuperForesters in the know when it comes to said “behind the scenes” actions and being so, we’re going to backtrack a bit and spread out some details of a few of our fabulous experiences throughout the next couple of days.

On Wednesday, SuperForester Jackson came down to San Diego for a few days to work on all things SuperForest. During the days prior, I had it all thought out; organized meetings, planned discussions…the works. But as it is often the case, none of this really happened. SuperForest tends to operate better on its own terms. And though a great deal was accomplished in what felt to be a very short period of time, SuperForest has taught me time and time again that spontaneity sparks creativity and flexibility feeds inspiration. There was much discussion on water conservation, on SuperForest projects, partnerships, aaaand…

We learned how to bake fortune cookies!

On Thursday, we spent the day with the incredible SuperForester Maureen who kindly offered to show us how to bake these treats. The ingredients are plain, the recipe is simple, and the taste is rockin’ (plus, writing your own fortunes or messages is pretty wicked, too!)

Here’s a quick vid featuring SuperForesters Maureen, Jackson, and Iman showing us how it’s done:

And you can find the detailed recipe, here.

Love!
C

Last night I took my brother to see the live stage production of the Pee Wee Herman Show (more on that later :)) Before leaving for the theater, we checked google maps and found that, thanks to the Super Bowl, most folks were avoiding the freeways. I’d never before seen them this clear and thought a screengrab was in order.

Yay! Traffic free! Thank you, Super Bowl!

In California, high school students are only required to take Physical Education classes until the 10th grade. Being a 12th grader then, I have, for the last couple years, hardly exercised. Yes, I bike to the beach every now and then, and I do pay attention to my diet, but I can’t remember the last time I went for a run. High School P.E. did very little to increase my interest in exercise. In fact, the way my teachers treated “Mile Mondays” like they were some sort of punishment, REALLY turned me off to the idea of exercising for fun. They had it all backwards.

Exercise makes us feel good. It comes as no surprise then, that a recent German study highlights once more the biological benefits of exercise. Take it from the New York Times:

Recently, scientists in Germany gathered several groups of men and women to look at their cells’ life spans. Some of them were young and sedentary, others middle-aged and sedentary. Two other groups were, to put it mildly, active. The first of these consisted of professional runners in their 20s, most of them on the national track-and-field team, training about 45 miles per week. The last were serious, middle-aged longtime runners, with an average age of 51 and a typical training regimen of 50 miles per week, putting those young 45-mile-per-week sluggards to shame.

From the first, the scientists noted one aspect of their older runners. It ‘‘was striking,’’ recalls Dr. Christian Werner, an internal-medicine resident at Saarland University Clinic in Homburg, ‘‘to see in our study that many of the middle-aged athletes looked much younger than sedentary control subjects of the same age.’’

Even more striking was what was going on beneath those deceptively youthful surfaces. When the scientists examined white blood cells from each of their subjects, they found that the cells in both the active and slothful young adults had similar-size telomeres. Telomeres are tiny caps on the end of DNA strands — the discovery of their function won several scientists the 2009 Nobel Prize in medicine. When cells divide and replicate these long strands of DNA, the telomere cap is snipped, a process that is believed to protect the rest of the DNA but leaves an increasingly abbreviated telomere. Eventually, if a cell’s telomeres become too short, the cell ‘‘either dies or enters a kind of suspended state,’’ says Stephen Roth, an associate professor of kinesiology at the University of Maryland who is studying exercise and telomeres. Most researchers now accept telomere length as a reliable marker of cell age. In general, the shorter the telomere, the functionally older and more tired the cell.

The sedentary older subjects had telomeres that were on average 40 percent shorter than in the sedentary young subjects, suggesting that the older subjects’ cells were, like them, aging. The runners, on the other hand, had remarkably youthful telomeres, a bit shorter than those in the young runners, but only by about 10 percent. In general, telomere loss was reduced by approximately 75 percent in the aging runners. Or, to put it more succinctly, exercise, Dr. Werner says, ‘‘at the molecular level has an anti-aging effect.’’

I can’t help but think, “Duh”. As if we needed another reason! As if I needed another reason! Running is good for your body! Duh! Running is good for your soul! Let’s see you prove that, scientists! Well… it is good for the sole… Zing!

You can view the entire article HERE.

Love,

Chris

Although I’ll admit to being a little disappointed when I realised that “7D” referred to the camera, rather than Disneyland in 7 dimensions (more than twice as many “D” as Avatar!;) I just liked this vid: a day in Disneyland, to Radiohead’s “Videotape”, by Brandon Moza:

Love

P

Good Day SuperForest!

I hope you are all having awesome weekends! At some point I’ll probably resist the compulsion to attempt to pun on the inclusion of the word “news” in “renewables” but until then I can offer you only a sheepish apology.  I like to follow developments in the renewable energy sector and wanted to offer a small selection of bitesize treats for you - a balanced meal of things we can do in the first person in our own homes with our own resources and a side order of larger scale industry-wide investments:

California to Subsidize Your Solar Water Heaters:

California regulators have approved a $350 million program to subsidize the installation of solar water heaters to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  The program will allocate $250 million for the replacement of hot water heaters fueled by natural gas and $100.8 million for those powered by electricity with solar water heaters (a nifty storage tank and solar array using the sunny sun to warm the water) and “customers of California’s three big investor-owned utilities will receive rebates of up to $1,500, or about 30 percent of the cost of replacing a residential natural-gas hot water heater with a solar system”.

UK Government Announces “Feed in Tariffs” for Your Investment in Home Renewable Energy:

The UK government has announced its plan to provide financial incentives (”Feed in Tariffs”) for small scale adoption of solar power!  The Guardian breaks it down here but, in short, “the government has finally agreed to reward households and businesses installing electricity-generating measures with enough of a return to make it a serious financial, as well as an environmental, investment. If you’ve got the money (which is a big “if”) and, crucially, a sunny, south-facing roof, you can earn a 7%-10% tax-free return, an income that will rise in line with inflation. At the same time, you get to do more than your fair share in reducing the UK’s carbon­ emissions.” The government has also said that it will be giving feed-in tariffs to households installing solar water heaters (like in California!), from April 2011.

Inevitably there’s argument as to whether the plans are too timid, but if want to suggest it to your parents, your landlord, or if you’re a homeowner yourself then now is a great time.

(pretty pics from the Carbon Trust)

UK Carbon Trust Announces £22m Funding to Develop Marine Energy Technologies:

The UK Carbon Trust (a not-for-profit company with the mission to accelerate the move to a low carbon economy by providing specialist support to help business and the public sector cut carbon emissions, save energy and commercialise low carbon technologies) announced this week plans for its Marine Proving Fund to provide £22 million (US$35m) funding (money from the Department of Energy and Climate Change) for what it considers to be the six most promising marine (ie wave and tidal) energy technologies under development in the UK.  They’ve selected 6 companies to receive the grants to help move from prototypes to commercial projects. This is exciting as research by the Carbon Trust shows that 25% of the world’s wave and tidal technologies are being developed in the UK, but that financial constraints have frequently inhibited progress because they’re not yet considered commercially viable - but if we only ever invested in the technologies that are already successful businesses we’d never move forward.

nom nom nom

P

I wanted to keep this post as plain and simple as possible but as I was hitting publish, it played with my conscience not to include a better description of the artist behind it. Designer Olly Moss is the wonderful being to thank for this simplistic but extremely truthful message. Make sure you check out some of his other work here and here, his wide range of artistic focus and sheer wit is sure to make you chuckle.

Thanks to SuperForester Patricia for the hat!