Pedal Power February 15, 2008
Posted by Graham in : Renewable Energy , 1 comment so farI had the pleasure of visiting the Cork Community Bike project in Cork City the other day where I found Garrett Blake and Rob in the workshop. 
Both have been to the inspiring Maya Pedal Project in Guatamala which has created a great range of pedal powered machines including grinders, mills, pumps and generators. This is exactly the kind of appropriate and sustainable, empowering technology we should be focusing on more, rather than putting all our faith in high-tech solutions such as thin-film solar
Garrett, who has a Masters in Sustainable Energy from UCC, founded the project three years ago to promote training and facilities for bikes and pedal powered machines in Cork. From their website:
“Cork community bikes is developing a do-it-yourself bike workshop for the community to use. Our work aims to salvage unwanted bicycles from the waste stream, repair them and resell them. We work with local schools and youth groups promoting the use of bicycles and sustainable transport . We want the workshop to be a centre of training and a social focus for anybody with an interest in bicycles in the cork city.”
I had a go on their pedal-powered dynamo which can be used to power sound systems at festivals. This is something I could really do with, having limited power at home, for charging batteries. A good dynamo with a fit pedaler can generate something in the range of 100watts, enough to run a laptop computer for example.
Another good site with info on pedal powered dynamos can be found here.
Pedal power is of course a key part of any post-oil society and it is great to see projects like this springing up providing such tools and skills. All power to their pedals.
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Monbiot on Population February 1, 2008
Posted by Graham in : Environment, Human Ecology, Overshoot, Peak Oil, Population , 8comments[Update: See John Feeney’s excellent response to Monbiot here.]
A few people have pointed me to George Monbiot’s recent article on population in the Guardian. While it is welcome that Monbiot addresses the issue I wanted to reply because I found it really disappointing, failing to join the dots and in some ways misleading.
The main thrust of the article is that some environmentalists complain the issue of population is ignored- perhaps for political reasons- even though it is the “number one environmental problem” and Monbiot sets out to discuss whether this is in fact true. The basic issue in this debate is, can we really give out as it were about the large populations of the developing world when over-consumption in the West is in fact having a bigger environmental impact? (more…)
