Thatch huts, South Africa. Photo source: ©© slack12
Excerpts;
There are a lot of things you can do to reduce your carbon footprint, like going vegetarian or driving an electric car, but chances are your house maybe be having a larger impact on the environment than you’d like.
“Green building” is an effort to curb the environmental toll of inefficient homes, and it’s taking hold in the construction sector. The Huffington Post reached out to nine architects to talk about their stunning projects that are not only sustainable, but beautiful too…
Read Full Article And View Images, Huffington Green
Building a Home Using Straw Bale Construction, Mother Earth News (01-12-2014)
Solid, rugged, inexpensive, and twice as fire-proof as conventional lumber, straw bale construction is an idea who’s time has come…
Gorgeous Brittany House Built By Hand of Straw, Wood and Earth, Tree Hugger
Sand Wars, An Investigation Documentary, By Denis Delestrac
“Sand is the second most consumed natural resource, after water. The construction-building industry is by far the largest consumer of this finite resource. The traditional building of one average-sized house requires 200 tons of sand; a hospital requires 3,000 tons of sand; each kilometer of highway built requires 30,000 tons of sand… A nuclear plant, a staggering 12 million tons of sand…”—Denis Delestrac
Sand Thieves Are Eroding World’s Beaches For Castles Of Cash, by Martine Valo, Le Monde
The pillaging of sand is a growing practice in the world. This is because it represents 80% of the composition of concrete that it is the object of such greed…
Sand, Rarer Than One Thinks: A UNEP report
Sand and gravel are mined world-wide and account for the largest volume of solid material extracted globally. Formed by erosive processes over thousands of years (John, 2009), they are now being extracted at a rate far greater than their renewal. Furthermore, the volume being extracted is having a major impact on rivers, deltas and coastal and marine ecosystems (Figure 1), results in loss of land through river or coastal erosion, lowering of the water table and decreases in the amount of sediment supply. Despite the colossal quantities of sand and gravel being used, our increasing dependence on them and the significant impact that their extraction has on the environment, this issue has been mostly ignored by policy makers and remains largely unknown by the general public.
BE THE CHANGE:
PETITION: Take Action To End Global Beach Sand Mining, Coastal Care
Illegal sand mining, near Tangier, Morocco. Photograph: © SAF — Coastal Care
