Newsletter – July week 5

Is the billionaire space race a final admission that humans need to look for a new home? It would seem so, given the aim of SpaceX, being “to make humanity multiplanetary” and to establish a permanent human colony on Mars, while Amazon founder Jeff Bezos champions the idea with the declaration that “we can have a trillion humans in the solar system.”

Maybe this kind of thing excites you and you’re thrilled at the idea of floating in zero gravity. Truth is, you might not have an option, as the race to make space life a reality moves us closer to making this one less so. For more info, here is a very good post on the carbon footprint of space travel, which calculates that for Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic tourists, the carbon footprint of their 10 minute flight is roughly equivalent to a 25-year carbon footprint for the average person.

I typically avoid including depressing info in my newsletters unless they’re a a game changer, which space tourism is.

But lets get onto happier items. Below is a snippet of the positive things happening around the world at the moment. Enjoy ……

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What happens when you leave a field alone for 60 years? This article gives us the answer.

A great interactive map for the Wild Atlantic Way

New Zero Waste store opens in Cavan

Research into food waste in Dublin gives you a chance to participate

Eco skincare brand Beauty Kitchen are now providing refills on some products via Holland and Barret stores

Cramped seats with long queues or luxurious overnight travel? Midnight Trains hopes you’ll choose the latter

UK start up sells made chopping boards, plant pots and more, created from recycled plastic bottle caps

Ireland’s Upcycle Challenge has a prize pot of €6,000 to share amongst makers of clever upcycled products. Deadline is 15th of October.

Colder man-made caves could save bats in the US from infections exacerbated by warming temperatures

A tool to help pedestrians walk in the shade in Barcelona

Mattel reveals Barbies made from recycled ocean-bound plastic

When life gives you a tomato glut, make ketchup

Study shows how urban trees can drop temp by up to 1.4 degrees

President Higgens signs the Climate Bill into Irish law

 

Till next week, in the meantime find me on on Facebook or Instagram and if you want to read previous newsletter, just click the link.

Elaine

PS – For any one new to the website the best article to start with is this one.