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Severn Suzuki is a thirteen year old girl who spoke at the United Nations out of fear for the future and the health of planet Earth. Filmed more than fifteen years ago, her words still resonate with the fears that we still have today.

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“In spite of my fear, I am not afraid to change the world in the way I believe it should be changed”.

These words were spoken by a thirteen year old girl, the spokesperson of an environmental group called ECO, at the United Nations. During her speech, she moved and captivated her audience with her firmness, clarity, and farsightedness. But then we forgot about them. Today, I would like to try once more.

Severn’s speech was political and not technical. It was through this approach that made the whole world stop and think, and it is because of this that her speech is still extraordinary and relevant.

The video speaks about the future. It underlines the fear of a future that could no longer exist, and what we should be fighting for to prevent this from happening. The price of our future, of the technological change, is in the resources that we consume in order to generate wealth. We must first think about the sometimes irreversible changes before we proceed any further. And if we are making our ecosystem pay too high of a price, we should ask ourselves if we need to slow down and think about alternative solutions.

Bob Dylan says in his song, “The Times They Are a-Changin’”, “Come mothers and fathers throughout the land. And don’t criticize what you can’t understand”. I am a father. Like many of you will do, watching this video I imagined my children asking the same questions that Severn posed, and I thought that her response was the best one that we could give: “In spite of my fear, I am not afraid to change the world in the way I believe it should be changed”.

More Info:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbmttNtn6f4

Scientists at Delft University in the Netherlands have developed a self-healing polymeric material that is both reusable and durable, and can be our solution to make regular plastic bags obsolete. CB26KJW2DS54 Y23HY9RTZ79W

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Most people are aware of the ongoing crisis with plastic bag build up all over the world. Plastic is one of the hardest materials to recycle, and is not easily biodegradable. The average plastic bag has a lifespan of 20 minutes, before it is thrown away. This massive build up has had a negative effect on the environment, but in the future this will change.

Ever since the mass usage of plastic bags became an environmental problem, many stores have come up with some helpful solutions. Green-wise is a shopping bag that does not rip, and can be used over and over again, unlike those flimsy, thin plastic shopping bags that often break after the first use. Along with Greenwise bags, some superstores are giving consumers the choice to use paper bags as well.

A team of scientists at the Delft Centre for Materials, at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, led by co-chairman Sybrand van der Zwaag, have developed a thermally self-healing polymeric material which is made by using a simple and efficient processing method. This material can be reused countless times, and can save millions of tons of waste each year. This new type of plastic is hard, and allows ground up post consumer pellets of their invention to be turned into “virgin” materials at a higher temperature.

This material is an innovative way of solving the world’s waste problems, as it will allow for products to be easily recycled and reused.

More Info:

• http://www.selfhealingmaterials.nl/

The artificial tree—product of GRT (Global Research Technologies of Tucson, in Arizona)—holds carbon dioxide, thanks to an absorbent coating formed by water and calcium; but in contrast to natural trees, it is not capable of releasing oxygen back into the air.

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According to the EPA, the median amount of CO2 emissions produced by a family of two amounts to 13 tons of CO2 in the atmosphere every year, without taking into account transportation. We thought that we could solve the problem of pollution by simply increasing the “green spaces” and nature and let photosynthesis take care of the rest. Unfortunately, this isn’t an efficient proposal.

Perhaps some of you may remember the Sleipner project, active from off the shores of Norway since 1995: one of the many project developed for entrapment of carbon dioxide. Due to these activities it has been possible to acquire a lot of significant experience for the future development of CO2 recycling systems.

Professor Klaus Lackner, a geophysics professor at Columbia University in New York—interviewed in the video by BBC for the series “Five Ways to Save the World”—has in fact worked since 2003 on a car that would be capable of capturing carbon dioxide and transform it into dust, and in this way allow us to store it underground or in the ocean, lowering the consumption of petroleum or gas.

Lackner has also studied ways to store CO2 based on the process of rock weathering: when the gas that bonds to magnesium forms carbonic rocks that hold the carbon in a permanent and safe manner.

Lackner’s project is truly interesting, but the cost and amount of energy in order to capture the carbon dioxide is greater than what we could achieve by recycling the CO2.

Respecting the protocol of Kyoto, there is no doubt that there is a need to go down the path of reduction of consumption of fossil fuels. Above all, if we are conscious of the demand for energy coming from developing countries, and of the serious environmental damages and problems we will face should we not succeed in balancing our energy consumption within a few years.

More Info.:

• http://www.grestech.com/
• http://www.americanenergyindependence.com/recycleco2.aspx