HYDROPONICS ONLINE: DIY HYDRO-GARDEN

by Dominic Muren, Philadelphia, USA on 05.20.05 at TreeHugger.com

So you want to start a garden. Maybe it’s because you can only find non-local organic food at your supermarket. Or maybe it’s because you have some cool heirloom potato or tomato seeds your grandparents gave you. Or maybe you just want to grow something yourself. The only problem is you live in a downtown apartment so your access to a yard is…limited. Well faithful treehugger, there’s hope for you yet…

If you’re living in a windowless cell, or somewhere that only gets minimal light, you’re still out of luck — plants need sun, so you’re probably better off sticking to the ol’ lucky bamboo, or a ficus. But, if you have a little balcony, or access to a rooftop, like so many smaller places do, this system from Hydroponics Online might be just what you are looking for. And the best part is, you can build it yourself in about a weekend, for around a hundred bucks.

The 11 plant hydro-garden is awfully simple: A tub to hold your nutrient solution, a bunch of pipes with pots to hold the plants, and a pump to get the nutrients where they need to go. Easily available PVC pipe, soda bottles, and a pond pump make this project only a hardware store away.

As you can see from the photos, 11 plants isn’t the limit for the number you can set up with this system. In fact, if you’re looking to start a greenhouse, and you’ve got a little more land, this is a great way to make it more portable. Hydroponics online even has gardens for sale, if you can’t scrape together the 11 soda bottles (or the time) to finish it yourself.

Additional Resources:

5 Essential Green Living Skills Our Grandparents Knew

NASA: Hydroponics

NUMBER OF AMERICANS WHO BELIEVE IN CLIMATE CHANGE DROPS, STUDY SAYS

View of the Planet Earth From Outer Space

Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent, Guardian.co.uk.

22 October 2009

The number of Americans who believe in global warming has plummeted, falling 20% in two years, a survey said today.

Only 57% of Americans believe there is solid scientific evidence that the Earth’s atmosphere is warming, said the poll of 1,500 people by the Pew Research Centre for the People & the Press.

That is a fall of 77% from 2007. The number of people who believe that human activity is causing global warming also fell to just 36%.

The public uncertainty about the evidence behind global warming comes as the Senate prepares to begin debate next week on climate change legislation. Yesterday, 18 scientific organisations wrote Congress to reaffirm the consensus behind global warming.

Michael Dimock, the associate director of the Pew Centre, said the economic crisis and the struggles over healthcare reform had squeezed out climate change and the environment as issues of concern. “The public is just not as focused on global warming and environmental [issues] as they have been in the past.”

But James Hoggan,  a PR executive and author of Climate Cover-Up, blamed an intense lobbying campaign against global warming legislation now before the Senate. “I would say a big part of this problem is this campaign to mislead Americans about climate science,” he said. “This is a very sophisticated group of people who know how to create doubt and confusion and they have done a very good job of it.”

The decline was sharpest among independent voters and Republicans. Republicans in Congress have almost uniformly lined up against climate change legislation. There were also regional differences, with people in the mid-west and Rocky mountain states less inclined to see climate change as a serious problem.

But the perceived lack of concrete evidence for global warming did not necessarily hurt the prospects of voting on climate change legislation, Dimock said. Half of Americans polled remain in favour of putting limits and carbon emissions and making companies pay for their emissions — the basics of the cap and trade bill now before the Senate.

A majority, 56%, also want America to join other countries in a global agreement on climate change.

Additional Reading/Follow-Up:

(NYT) Weekend Opinionator: Are Americans Cooling on Global Warming?

Related Websites:

Living Off the Grid: Zero Carbon Footprint (Video)

Tumbleweed Homes – A Tour (Video)

The Guardian’s Quick Carbon Calculator

Impact of Global Temperature Rise of 4 C (Interactive Map)

LIST OF ORGANIZATIONS:

1. The Abundant Wildlife Society of North America

2. Californians for Population Stabilization

3. Oregonians for Food and Shelter

4. Animal Welfare Council

QUESTION(S):

1. Just focusing on the names of the above organizations, what do you think they stand for?

2. What is ‘astroturfing’ and what are ‘front groups’?

3. Pick one organization (from above) and research that organization. What’s so strange about the organization? Is there  a difference between the name of the organization and what it does?

Discover Magazine Blogs (80beats)

Doctored Videos Easily Manipulate Eyewitnesses

A person can witness an event in real life, see a doctored video of the same event, and then convince themselves that what they saw on the video is what actually happened, according to a recent study that casts doubt on the reliability of eyewitness testimony.

Psychologists set up an experiment where they filmed two people sitting side by side–one experimental subject and one researcher pretending to be a participant–playing a gambling game where they bet phony money on whether or not they could answer multiple choice questions correctly. They were told that the person with the most money at the end would win a prize.

After the game, the researchers edited the video of the experiment so it appeared that the under-cover researcher was cheating by not giving money back after making a losing bet. The results showed that almost half of the people who watched a doctored video of an event believed the video rather than their actual experience, and some were even convinced to testify as an eyewitness to the fictitious happenings [LiveScience]. They were told to sign the eyewitness statement only if they were 100 percent sure that their partner cheated. Nearly 40 percent of those that watched the fake video decided their partner was cheating and signed the statement. The researchers published their results in a recent edition of the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology.

In an era of easily manipulated photo and video evidence, the researchers say their findings have major implications for law enforcement officials and policy-makers, adding yet more evidence that eyewitness testimony cannot always be accepted as fact [Wired.com]. The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that prison inmates do not have a right to DNA testing, so for some criminal cases, law enforcement agencies may never know just how reliable eyewitnesses are.

Related Content:
80beats: In a Sensory Hack, What You Touch Affects What You See
80beats: Think DNA Evidence Can’t Be Faked? Think Again.
80beats: Even “Impartial” Jurors Use Emotion and Self-Bias in Decisions

Hydroponics Window Farm

Via: http://www.brokencitylab.org/

Additional Resources:

http://www.onearth.org/node/1339

http://our.windowfarms.org/category/how-tos/

WindowFarms.org

As part of the Eyebeam OpenLab residency program, Rebecca Bray and Britta Riley have been working on a project called, Window Farms. Fashioned out of recycled and/or low-cost materials, the project calls for vertical gardens that use hydroponics to grow beans, tomatoes, and lettuce.

Designed with crowdsourcing and R&DIY (Research & Do-It-Yourself) in mind, the project is not meant to create a one-size fits all product, but rather a framework to further develop and refine the process. If urban agriculture is one the many necessary steps we’ll have to take to create sustainable cities, this is one way in which food production can be managed at a household or neighbourhood scale.

[via Scaledown & Eyebeam]

Directions:

Please answer the following questions in paragraph form (at least 2 paragraphs for each response).  Use specific examples from the film to support and illustrate your responses. Choose 2 out of the 5 questions below.

1. What was your emotional response to the film after you finished watching it?  Did you have a favorite scene? What specific cinematic techniques did the director use to help evoke this response?
2. Why does Hannibal Lecter capture our interest so strongly? What qualities of his character are so intriguing?
3. This film suggests that the question of evil is complex in connection with individuals like Jame Gumb. Do you believe that any societal or personal factors can explain such monstrous evil? What explanations might be made for Lecter?
4. Why does Lecter talk to Starling? What about her character appeals to him? And why does he tell her he has no plans to call on her, “the world being more interesting with you in it”?
5. How does The Silence of the Lambs examine the point of view of the obsessive psychopath?  What sheds some light on the inner workings of Jame Gumb?  Why does he collect that particular species of moth? He covets things—what does this mean?

Questions Courtesy of: www.smartscion.com/filmandnovel/LambsDQ.doc

What kind of a person is Gov. Perry?

A person can witness an event in real life, see a doctored video of the same event, and then convince themselves that what they saw on the video is what actually happened, according to a recent study that casts doubt on the reliability of eyewitness testimony.

Psychologists set up an experiment where they filmed two people sitting side by side–one experimental subject and one researcher pretending to be a participant–playing a gambling game where they bet phony money on whether or not they could answer multiple choice questions correctly. They were told that the person with the most money at the end would win a prize.

After the game, the researchers edited the video of the experiment so it appeared that the under-cover researcher was cheating by not giving money back after making a losing bet. The results showed that almost half of the people who watched a doctored video of an event believed the video rather than their actual experience, and some were even convinced to testify as an eyewitness to the fictitious happenings [LiveScience]. They were told to sign the eyewitness statement only if they were 100 percent sure that their partner cheated. Nearly 40 percent of those that watched the fake video decided their partner was cheating and signed the statement. The researchers published their results in a recent edition of the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology.

In an era of easily manipulated photo and video evidence, the researchers say their findings have major implications for law enforcement officials and policy-makers, adding yet more evidence that eyewitness testimony cannot always be accepted as fact [Wired.com]. The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that prison inmates do not have a right to DNA testing, so for some criminal cases, law enforcement agencies may never know just how reliable eyewitnesses are. READ ON.