What does our fridge about us?

For three years, Mark Menjivar photographed 60 refrigerators people of 20 u.s. communities. The fascinating idea â€" which is part of a film project which aims to explore how the social subjects relate to feeding â€" led him to conclude that, in fact, you are what you eat.

"The more time spent listening to the stories of the people, more thought in the food we eat and the effects that this has on us as individuals, and in our community," explained Menjivar to the Splendid Table.

The first photo, curiously, was his own fridge â€" that's when the idea began to take shape. "I discussed the idea as a project of portraits, so I invited people in which he was interested, for one reason or another, to participate", he stressed. Most people didn't know Mark, which eventually help the "veracity" of the project.

"They are portraits of rich and poor. Vegetarians, Republicans, members of the NRA (National Rifle Association, a North American Association pro-gun), people who have been left for back, dreamers, "he continued.

The refrigerators were portrayed so raw â€" the photographer came to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator and photographed. No food was placed or removed.

See pictures below and, by order, meet some of the stories of the owners of refrigerators.

1. Fridge Cook of Marathon, Texas, which, for some reason, there's a snake dead inside.

2. This refrigerator belongs to a distributor of advertising from San Antonion, Texas, who lives with €310 ($ 980) a month.

3. Refrigerator of a former owner of an amusement park in Alpine, Texas, a former prisoner of war of World War II.

4. the interior of a refrigerator of a bartender who lies down to 8:0 and up to 4:0 pm is full of packages of food to bring home.

5. the fridge of a documentary filmmaker from San Diego, Calif., whose work helped send million for disadvantaged children in Uganda.

6. the fridge this Carpenter/photographer is full of venison, dead in the family estate, in Texas.

7. This is the fridge of a family of San Angelo, Texas, whose father is a construction worker, the mother is housewife and wakes every day at 4:0 to make breakfast for the family.

8. This is the fridge of a botanist of Fort Wayne, who lives alone.

9. Refrigerator of an artist from Brooklyn, New York, owner of a vegan bakery.

10. A primary school science teacher had passed to consume only local products a week ago when the photo was taken.

Read More

The unknown dangers of household appliances and electronic devices (with video)

When Tania's father, a young student of the 9th year of the Neighborhood Padre Cruz, in Lisbon, tried to put the old TV in the trash can, close to home, her daughter wouldn't let him. "I had to explain: this goes to the point Electron," explained the young man to the green economy.

The case of Tania repeats every day, all over the Country, and that's education on the part of parents ' children that Amb3E intends to continue to invest with the Pow project, an initiative to raise awareness of young people to the importance of channelling of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) through Electron Points, allowing its treatment and recycling.

"We live surrounded by appliances and devices such as computers, microwaves ... I can't live without this equipment," said the green economy Director of communication Amb3E, Sónia Freire.

Second in charge, there are many unknown dangers of abandoning this equipment on the street. "There are many dangers to public health and the environment. Are equipment that has hazardous components inside, so you should enter the circuit run by Amb3E to be properly dismantled according to the strictest standards of environmental safety, "explained the responsible.

The Pow project takes place in three phases, has the duration of a school year and encourages young people and national schools to participate in a challenge of videos that can function as elements of behavioural change at the national level.

The Amb3E has increased the level of collection of WEEE since 2006. Last year alone forwarded form 29 thousand tons of waste through the point electron and reception centres.

See the episode 147 of the green economy.

Read More

Fukushima refugees may never return home

The Japanese Government won't fulfill the initial goal for the return of some 160 million people to their homes, after the tsunami and Fukushima nuclear disaster, and many of these are already remaking their lives elsewhere.

"You can't take a temporary life forever," explained Ichiro Kazawa, 61 years and whose home disappeared in the tsunami. The Japanese citizen pleneava come home next year, with 88-year-old's mother, but I know that's not going to happen. Now, she wants the Government to admit too.

A report by the Liberal-Democratic Party Government coalition leader, asked the Government to abandon the promise made to all 160 thousand evacuated their homes affected by radiation could, one day, be inhabited.

The report also calls for financial support to these citizens to move to new houses elsewhere â€" and that the State spend more money with the storage of huge amounts of radioactive waste, which is up to 20 km evacuation zone.

Decontamination is behind on seven of the 11 cities selected, which forced the authorities to declare that they will not finish the work before the deadline, i.e. March 2014. Thus, 160 thousand temporary refugees will become permanent.

Foto:  raneko/ Creative Commons

Read More

Sumatran tiger walk to extinction

After the extinction, in the last century, the Tiger of Bali or Java, now is the Sumatran tiger will disappear, due to habitat loss and hunting. Until 1978, according to the Guardian, about a thousand tigers lived in Sumatra, but a very accelerated process of deforestation and hunting took the number down to 400. The island, once painted green, has lost more than half its forest cover since 1985, and the big losers were the Tigers.

According to the organization that monitors trade in wildlife, Traffic, every year die 40 Tigers in Sumatra, due to poaching. Which turns out to be facilitated by the loss of habitat. Without a stable place to stay, Tigers are also attacked by farmers.

In fact, the Sumatran tiger had very large conservation plans, but they were destroyed by the construction of a road that cut the Indonesia tropical forest, a reserve which is being restored by British conservationists.

This road, built to carry coal, destroyed one of the largest areas of biodiversity on the planet, a global priority for conservation of habitats.

The road has more than 50 meters wide and will take the product of five mines in the South of the island to the river Lalan, province of Jambi. When the project is finished, the extinction of the Tiger will be closer.

Photo: clickforhelpeu under Creative Commons license

Read More

Moscow will build the first public park in 50 years

A u.s. architectural firm won the tender for the construction of Zaryadye Park, the first public park that will be born in Moscow in the last 50 years.

Located near red square, the Zaryadye, with 129.5 thousand square meters, is part of Vladimir Putin's plan to "project a new image of Moscow and of Russia to the world", refers to the Inhabitat.

The Zaryadye will rise on the site where once located the Hotel Rossiya, a Soviet-era architectural concept, which was demolished in 2006. The name, Zaryadye, is a tribute to the neighborhood that existed at that location and that in the Decade of 1960 has just been demolished for the construction of the Hotel Rossiya.

The Park, which will cost €148,8 million (R$465,3 million), will revitalize the downtown Moscow. The architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the chassis that won the contest, projected a hybrid landscape, through the principles of "savage urbanism". The Zaryadye will be divided into four parts, representing the various climatic zones that can be found in Russia: tundra, marshes, steppe and forest.

Through the combination of historical artifacts, like the Kremlin-style gardens, with modern sustainable technologies, including artificial microclimates systems, the Zaryadye Park aims to capture the relationship between the culture, history, landscape and urban architecture of Moscow.

It is foreseen that the construction of Zaryadye start at the end of 2014 and takes between two to three years to be completed.

Read More

Ghost stations of the London underground (with MAP)

The London underground is undoubtedly one of the most linked to mobility in the world. 150 years ago, opened the Tube has 270 stations active, a journey of around 400 kilometres.

As is normal in such ancient infrastructure and that accompanied the growth of London â€" from three to nine million people â€" the Tube opened new stations, closed others and even went so far as to not open some that had already built.

This is the historic facet and black project comes in almost Us Versus Them, Dylan Maryk, an enthusiast for the London underground, at the beginning of the year, the map of the ghost of Tube stations.

Those who know the London underground knows that the tunnels are multiplying. Many of them cannot be accessed, which favors the map of Maryk. Many of the stations were closed for lack of passengers, other eventually close due to other, more modern constructions.

This is where the draft Maryk wins a fascinating dimension, which describes not only the mystical dimension of the Tube but also its own evolution over a century and a half.

And if you want to get even on this subject, visit the website Abandoned Stations. Here you can receive the list of abandoned stations and by clicking on the name, numerous photos-today and yesterday-the site. May have a warranty: some of the pictures are scary.

Read More

China: smoothing of the one-child law will impact the environment and natural resources?

The Chinese Government will ease the birth policy in force in the country, which, until now, allowed only one child per couple. The Executive was contemplating an exception, and only for couples where both members are only children, who were allowed to have two children. The new family planning policy will now allow those couples in which one spouse is an only child, the possibility of having up to two children.

Despite being a breakthrough in China's restrictions on its citizens, the authorities continue to defend the usefulness of the "one-child policy", citing arguments with more than 30 years. The key argument that the Government continues to invoke for the birth in the country restriction is that without this standard, China would not have sufficient resources to develop at the pace of recent years.

If it wasn't for the "one-child policy" China would have over 400 million people and "per capita resources, including soil, seeds, forests, fresh water and energy would be 20 percent less than current levels," the spokesman for the Chinese Health Ministry, Mao Qun ', at the end of the plenary session of the central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, referred to the Quartz.

The figures from the Ministry of health are questionable. Most academics dispute the fact that the Chinese Government contend that this measure prevented the birth of 400 million children. However, the assertion of Mao Qun ' an reiterates need conflict of China by natural and human resources.

Even if the "one-child policy" was abolished, which would lead to the birth of over 9.5 million children, reveals the Quartz, these children would not grow at a pace sufficient to replace the labor force of the country or to take care of the elderly population, which increases increasingly. But the abolition of this law would mean, on the other hand, what else needed 9.5 million people food, water and a home livable.

A quantity of facts would make it difficult to increase the population. Currently, the amount of arable land per capita is half the world average. Pollution, erosion and transformation of rural areas in cities, part of China's urbanization plan, means that 40% of the soil is considered to be "degraded", according to United Nations standards, being thus more unfavourable, in economic terms, to cultivate.

Aware of this, China has a lack of drinking water and energy production, since it has consumed intensely underground water reserves, especially in the North of the country. Currently, China concentrates approximately 20% of the world's population, but has only 7% of the resources of drinking water on the planet. In this sense, the Government warned that the demand for water already exceed the supply in 2030.

The Government made it clear, however, that the intention is to just soften the "one-child policy". Given the conditions of land available for cultivation and the available water resources of China, as well as the Government's intention to maintain levels of economic growth in recent years, a smoothing of this law is the maximum that can be hoped for from the Chinese Government.

Foto:  Joan Vila / Creative Commons

Read More