This Site has Moved to SonOfFiveRivers.com

Click Here to Vist NEW Site: www.SonOfFiveRivers.com

I’ve been blogging for several months now and I’m glad to have recieved the feedback I have.  I’ve enjoyed the experince and for that reason I’ve decided to take blogging to another level.  I’ll be self hosting my blog and that means you’ll see a lot more creativity in the design, functionality and layout of the new blog.

Check it out: www.SONofFIVErivers.com

Cheers

20/20 vision for 1 billion by the year 2020

Atomic physicist Joshua Silver invented liquid-filled optical lenses to produce low-cost, adjustable glasses, giving sight to millions without access to an optometrist.

This is an amazing vision for someone to have….

Let me introduce you to the man himself.  His name is Josh Silver and he’s going to delivers his brilliantly simple solution for correcting vision at the lowest cost possible — adjustable, liquid-filled lenses.

More than 30,000 of his lenses have been distributed in 15 countries, and a new model will scale that number up to millions.

http://www.vdw.ox.ac.uk/

Microinsurance for the Poor

Tsunami insurance for the poor

A new health insurance plan will enable the poor in India to buy health insurance for less than 10 cents a month, and it will cover natural disasters including Tsunamis.

The new program is a partnership between and aid group, CARE International, and a private insurer, Allianz. It is expected that over 200,000 customers will buy insurance within a year. According to Allianz, the communities have been involved in designing the new policies, which will cover death, medical treatment for injuries in accidents, help with funeral and hospital expenses, as well as paying wages during illness.

“Microinsurance provides a comprehensive measure of social security in an area which desperately needs this sort of protection against accidents and shocks that can push poor communities right to the limit,” said Wolfgang Jamman, national director of CARE Germany.

But don’t be so quick in calling this charity work. With an estimated market of 250 million policy holders in India, there sure is a buck or two to be made.

Posted by Alan Pereira (World Bank Private Deveopment Secotor Blog)

Transforming the Water Barrel

The practical and durable design of the Hippo Water Roller enables more water to be transported more efficiently than traditional methods.  The Hippo, with it’s large drum capacity of 90 litres / 24 gallons, frees women and children from having to spend a large portion of every day dedicated to collecting water for their households

Chulha (Traditional Stove in India)

Research cited by the World Health Organization indicates that nearly half the world continues today to cook with solid fuels including dung, wood, agricultural residues and coal. Such “bio-mass” fuels are blamed for diseases that result in deaths numbered in more than one million per year.

The Chulha is a stove designed to limit the dangerous health conditions caused by traditions of indoor cooking in many rural areas of the developing world.

BIO-MASS BREAKTHROUGH

The way the design teams behind the Chulha stove design like to put it, they’re “helping 400 million people give up smoking.”

What at INDEX: is called Design to Improve Life is termed, at Philips Design, “Philanthropy by Design.” And Philips’ teams in India and the Netherlands have worked together to create this smokeless response to a vast health problem.

Initially intended for rural and semi-urban parts of India, the design is intended to take the dangers of indoor cooking with bio-mass fuels out of an equation that health officials say affects the health of millions of people each year.

Bio-mass fuels include wood, dung and other substances which, when burned give off an array of particles dangerous to human respiratory systems. Adequately ventilated in an outdoor setting, there usually is no problem with such cooking. But by one estimate, as many as half the people of the world may still be cooking indoors with bio-mass fuels. And trapped inside, the smoke involved can become a lethal mix of indoor pollutants.

As the Philips design teams have noted, once they began to study the problem, the range of application was a huge issue. “The stove would have to accept different bio-mass fuels,” the teams wrote, “be widely available in different seasons and locations, adapt to people’s needs when cooking chapatti (bread), steaming rice, boiling water, and be able to accept different non-standard cooking vessels.”

The improved stove directs the smoke out of the house through a chimney. Philips went on to make its intellectual property on the design available free of charge – even working to develop molds that would allow NGOs (non-governmental organizations as identified by the UN) to make the stoves for people who need them the most.

One of the NGOs Philips has identified as a partner in the development of the Chulha is the Appropriate Rural Technology Institute of India.

Lights without Light Pollution

I consider my self an amateur astronomer,  so I was pleseantly surprised when I read this in a newsletter from my local electricty supplier, BC Hydro.  (and Yes I’m susbscribed to the online newsletters of my Gas & Electricty suppliers, doesn’t it just make sense?)  Enjoy the article & some pictures I found:

Astronomers big on Power Smart’s battle against light pollution

Rob Klovance
bchydro.com

Detail of a photo of the Pelican Nebula taken by John McDonald through a telescope at Astronomy Hill near Victoria in 2007. (W.J. McDonald photo)

It took a trip to Saltspring Island for amateur astronomer John McDonald’s grandkids from Vancouver to see the milky way for the first time. But for McDonald, it’s the story of a group of visiting Tokyo schoolkids that hammers home the allure of the elusive dark sky.

“These kids were staying at a fairly dark place up island,” says McDonald, a retiree who lives in Victoria. “Someone took them out at night to show them the milky way… and they couldn’t’ get them to go back in.

“These kids had never seen a star except the sun.”

McDonald and other B.C. star-gazers couldn’t be happier to hear that BC Hydro Power Smart has launched a campaign to fight light pollution that includes rebates on flat lens streetlight products. To them, the need is significant and the timing is perfect – the United Nations has declared 2009 the International Year of Astronomy, an initiative that coincides with the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s use of the telescope.

It’s not just about dark skies

And if you’re thinking that an astronomer’s battle against light pollution is just a tad self-serving, think again. Before we start talking about the stars, McDonald has already dealt with a laundry list of light pollution costs – wasted energy, wasted money, dangerous glare for drivers and detrimental effects on wildlife, including birds and fish.

“I think most of us are very keenly aware of the fact we’re using up energy, and that there’s a cost to it,” says McDonald, fresh off a trip to Costa Rica in which he shot a mind-blowing time-lapse video of the sky throughout the night. “And the amount of energy that is wasted in lighting up the bottoms of clouds and sending light off into space to do nothing is a considerable expense. It’s billions of dollars in North America.”

Our ‘addiction’  to light

Most of us think that the brighter the outdoor lighting, the better. McDonald thinks that attitude is a byproduct of growing up in an age here in B.C. where “hydro power has been basically a free service”. He speaks of us being addicted to light while largely ignoring the costs of that addiction.

In 1996, at the request of the US Congress, the National Institute of Justice conducted a landmark assessment of crime and violence in the United States. The study found little research to support the idea of “brighter-is-safer”, and even suggested that in some circumstances poorly designed illumination might actually increase personal vulnerability.

“There’s nothing worse than having somebody with motion security lighting,” says another astronomer, Paul Greenhalgh of Abbotsford. “To me it’s not security at all, it’s illumination. The day that a streetlight walks into court and testifies that this guy did what he did – that he stole that car – is the day I’ll eat my telescope.”

A billion bucks in wasted energy

Inefficient and excessive night lighting causes significant loss of energy globally. In North America, the energy wasted in illuminating the sky is estimated at a billion dollars. Good, clean outdoor lighting improves visibility, safety, and a sense of security, while minimizing energy use, operating costs, and ugly, dazzling glare.

There are three types of light pollution:

• Light trespass, which occurs when light crosses property lines. Poor outdoor lighting shines onto neighbours’ properties and into bedroom windows, reducing privacy, hindering sleep, and giving the area an unattractive look.
• Glare, which comes from an overly bright source of light compared to background lighting levels. Glare  is light that beams directly from a lamp into your eye. It serves no purpose and hampers the vision of pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers. If you can see the bright lamp from a distance, it’s a bad light. With a good light, you see lit ground instead of the dazzling lamp.
• Sky glow, which spills upward from urbanized areas and blocks the view of the stars

If we were to think of lamps as taps and leaking light rays as drops of water, we would never tolerate it. But, we seldom think about the impact of light pollution.

Reducing light pollution has a variety of benefits, including energy savings and helping eliminate light exposure that disrupts sleep cycles, causes fatigue and strains the immune system.

What we can do to help

Greenhalgh’s Fraser Valley Astronomers Society has successfully lobbied the City of Abbotsford to apply a new policy to streetlighting. All new streetlamps in the city will be fitted with full cutoff lighting, which all but eliminates light not central to the task of lighting the street. And all existing lamps will be retrofitted with full cutoffs as part of their ongoing maintainence cycle.

Power Smart is out to remind people that we all have the power to help reduce light pollution and save energy and money, both with the lighting choices we make at home and the choices we make at our businesses.

Here’s a short list of things we can do:

• Assess your requirements. Ask yourself if the lighting is really needed. If so, determine what area has to be lit, how much illumination is needed, and when is the lighting required.
• Adopt “part-night lighting” by turning off non-essential lights after midnight. You save energy and money.
• Install timers or motion sensors to turn your security lighting on only when needed. You save energy and money.
• Adjust your security and outdoor lights so that they do not trespass into your neighbours’ house. Casting light onto adjacent areas is a waste of energy
• Direct light where it is needed. Use lights that shield the lamp and direct the light down rather than out and away.
• Avoid glare. A luminaire that emits a concentrated beam of light offers better visibility than one that shines light in all directions. In certain cases, glare can compromise safety.
• Choose the most efficient lamps. Certain types of lamps consume less energy than others with the same light output. Choose lamps with a high lamp efficacy such as CFLs.
• Choose the right luminaire. Light directed towards the sky does not improve night vision.
• Choose luminaires that have a flat lens and a shield that completely shades the upper surface of the lamp or are classified as cut off and full cutoff by IESNA (Illumination Engineering Society of North America). The lamps sit back further in these luminaires causing the light to be cast down rather than out to the side. Therefore light cannot escape above 90 degrees horizontal plane. You can even install the lights under balconies and eaves.
  

How BC Hydro is fighting light pollution

BC Hydro is doing its part to reduce light pollution and help its customers save energy and money. Some of BC Hydro’s initiatives that help customers reduce light pollution and save energy include:

• In-store instant discounts on ENERGY STAR light fixtures and ENERGY STAR Specialty CFL lamps. These lamps use up to 75% less energy than regular incandescent lamps.
  Mail in rebates for the purchase of ENERGY STAR CFL lamps.
• Funding for studies to determine how municipalities can use adaptive street lighting to reduce street lighting levels without impacting safety. This will help municipalities dim their street lights by up to 50% during low traffic periods.
• Incentives for business customers to install lighting controls such as timers and occupancy sensors to turn of lights when lighting is not required.
• Incentives for municipalities and businesses to install ornamental streetlights with high efficiency lamps with flat lenses. The fully-shielded flat-lens lamps do an equally good job of illuminating the road by directing the light to where it is needed without sending light up into the sky or out into your eyes. The ground and roadway will be well illuminated. And, because no light is wasted, a lower wattage lamp can be used to illuminate the desired area.
• Technical and financial assistance to customers who plan to reduce their lighting energy consumption by re-designing their lighting and de-lamping to reduce over illumination.
• Lighting design tools and financial incentives for developers and builders of new buildings.
• Funding for energy managers who target energy efficiency measures at customers’ facilities.
• Training and development opportunities on energy conservation for businesses and their employees.

Source: BC Hydro

Other Cool Links:

Our Vanishing Night (National Geographic article)

Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (Vancouver)

International Astronomy Day, HR MacMillan Space Centre, Vancouver

The Sky Tonight (Diagram of constellations in current evening sky, Vancouver)

Water Filter (Turns filthy Water Drinkable)

I hope this guy doesn’t sell out and he actually uses the technology for good.   I hope this isn’t a case of selling to the highest bidder which would probably create wars instead… I hope this guy starts a social enterprise out of this instead of a for profit business, and a “foundation.”

What is LIFESAVER bottle?
LIFESAVER bottle is the world’s first all in one ultra filtration water bottle. It will remove bacteria, viruses, parasites, fungi and all other microbiological waterborne pathogens without using chemicals like iodine or chlorine which leave a distinctive foul taste. LIFESAVER bottle produces filtered sterile drinking water quickly and easily. It incorporates LIFESAVER systems’ unique FAILSAFE technology (another world first) which shuts off the bottle’s cartridge upon expiry, preventing contaminated water from being drunk.
With LIFESAVER bottle there is no need for tablets, boiling, chemicals, tubes, shaking, scrubbing, waiting or effort. LIFESAVER bottle produces clean, sterile drinking water with no foul taste – fast!

With cutting-edge nanotech, Michael Pritchard’s Lifesaver water-purification bottle could revolutionize water-delivery systems in disaster-stricken areas around the globe.

http://lifesaversystems.com/

Save the Children – History (2 Sister)

At the beginning of the 20th century, two sisters had a vision to achieve and protect the rights of children. Their vision has survived into the 21st century.

“All wars, just or unjust, are waged against the child.”

Eglantyne Jebb

The beginnings: Save the Children founder arrested in Trafalgar Square

“A Starving Baby and Our Blockade has Caused This”. That was the headline on a leaflet drawing attention to the plight of children on the losing side of the First World War. Save the Children’s founder, Eglantyne Jebb, was arrested and fined for distributing it in Trafalgar Square.

After the war ended, the British government kept up a blockade that left children in cities like Berlin and Vienna starving. Tuberculosis and rickets were rife.

“The children’s bones were like rubber. Clothing was utterly lacking. In the hospitals there was nothing but paper bandages.” Dr Hector Munro, Save the Children, 1919.

Eglantyne Jebb and her sister Dorothy Buxton decided that direct action was needed as well as campaigning. The Save the Children Fund was set up at a public meeting in London’s Royal Albert Hall in May 1919. From that day to this we’ve been raising funds to provide relief to children suffering the effects of war.

State of the Village Report: The World as a Village of 1000

If the world were a village of 1000 people:

• 584 would be Asians
• 123 would be Africans
• 95 would be East and West Europeans
• 84 Latin Americans
• 55 Soviets (still including for the moment Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, etc.)
• 52 North Americans
• 6 Australians and New Zealanders

The people of the village would have considerable difficulty communicating:

• 165 people would speak Mandarin
• 86 would speak English
• 83 Hindi/Urdu
• 64 Spanish
• 58 Russian
• 37 Arabic

That list accounts for the mother-tongues of only half the villagers. The other half speak (in descending order of frequency) Bengali, Portuguese, Indonesian, Japanese, German, French, and 200 other languages.

In the village there would be:

• 300 Christians (183 Catholics, 84 Protestants, 33 Orthodox)
• 175 Moslems
• 128 Hindus
• 55 Buddhists
• 47 Animists
• 210 all other religons (including atheists)

• One-third (330) of the people in the village would be children. Half the children would be immunized against the preventable infectious diseases such as measles and polio.
• Sixty of the thousand villagers would be over the age of 65.
• Just under half of the married women would have access to and be using modern contraceptives.
• Each year 28 babies would be born.
• Each year 10 people would die, three of them for lack of food, one from cancer. Two of the deaths would be to babies born within the year.
• One person in the village would be infected with the HIV virus; that person would most likely not yet have developed a full-blown case of AIDS.
• With the 28 births and 10 deaths, the population of the village in the next year would be 1018.

In this thousand-person community, 200 people would receive three-fourths of the income; another 200 would receive only 2% of the income.

• Only 70 people would own an automobile (some of them more than one automobile).
• About one-third would not have access to clean, safe drinking water.
• Of the 670 adults in the village half would be illiterate.

The village would have 6 acres of land per person, 6000 acres in all of which:

• 700 acres is cropland
• 1400 acres pasture
• 1900 acres woodland
• 2000 acres desert, tundra, pavement, and other wasteland.

The woodland would be declining rapidly; the wasteland increasing; the other land categories would be roughly stable. The village would allocate 83 percent of its fertilizer to 40 percent of its cropland — that owned by the richest and best-fed 270 people. Excess fertilizer running off this land would cause pollution in lakes and wells. The remaining 60 percent of the land, with its 17 percent of the fertilizer, would produce 28 percent of the foodgrain and feed 73 percent of the people. The average grain yield on that land would be one-third the yields gotten by the richer villagers.

If the world were a village of 1000 persons, there would be five soldiers, seven teachers, one doctor. Of the village’s total annual expenditures of just over $3 million per year, $181,000 would go for weapons and warfare, $159,000 for education, $132,000 for health care.

The village would have buried beneath it enough explosive power in nuclear weapons to blow itself to smithereens many times over. These weapons would be under the control of just 100 of the people. The other 900 people would be watching them with deep anxiety, wondering whether the 100 can learn to get along together, and if they do, whether they might set off the weapons anyway through inattention or technical bungling, and if they ever decide to dismantle the weapons, where in the village they will dispose of the dangerous radioactive materials of which the weapons are made.

(Donella H. Meadows is an adjunct professor of environmental studies at Dartmouth College.)

Links worth checking out:

Doctors Per 1000 People

If the World was a Village of 100

It Starts with “The Man in the Mirror”

There are lessons we can learn from Michael Jackson.  In his life he  gave $350,000,000.00+ US Dollars to chairties.  This is a time in history where US dollar was king of currency.    The Man in the Mirro is one of my favorite MJ Songs because it speaks to us as individuals…  Enjoy the Video, The lyrics are below!) [If you’ve never heard it and this link breaks, its worth checking it out on you tube.www.youtube.com

Mickael Jackson – Man In The Mirror
Uploaded by yannaki.

………………..

Mickael Jackson – Man In The Mirror Lyrics

I’m Gonna Make A Change,
For Once In My Life
It’s Gonna Feel Real Good,
Gonna Make A Difference
Gonna Make It Right . . .As I, Turn Up The Collar On My
Favourite Winter Coat
This Wind Is Blowin’ My Mind
I See The Kids In The Street,
With Not Enough To Eat
Who Am I, To Be Blind?
Pretending Not To See
Their Needs
A Summer’s Disregard,
A Broken Bottle Top
And A One Man’s Soul
They Follow Each Other On
The Wind Ya’ Know
‘Cause They Got Nowhere
To Go
That’s Why I Want You To
KnowI’m Starting With The Man In
The Mirror
I’m Asking Him To Change
His Ways
And No Message Could Have
Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World
A Better Place
(If You Wanna Make The
World A Better Place)
Take A Look At Yourself, And
Then Make A Change
(Take A Look At Yourself, And
Then Make A Change)
(Na Na Na, Na Na Na, Na Na,
Na Nah)

I’ve Been A Victim Of A Selfish
Kind Of Love
It’s Time That I Realize
That There Are Some With No
Home, Not A Nickel To Loan
Could It Be Really Me,
Pretending That They’re Not
Alone?

A Willow Deeply Scarred,
Somebody’s Broken Heart
And A Washed-Out Dream
(Washed-Out Dream)
They Follow The Pattern Of
The Wind, Ya’ See
Cause They Got No Place
To Be
That’s Why I’m Starting With
Me
(Starting With Me!)

I’m Starting With The Man In
The Mirror
(Ooh!)
I’m Asking Him To Change
His Ways
(Ooh!)
And No Message Could Have
Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World
A Better Place
(If You Wanna Make The
World A Better Place)
Take A Look At Yourself And
Then Make A Change
(Take A Look At Yourself And
Then Make A Change)

I’m Starting With The Man In
The Mirror
(Ooh!)
I’m Asking Him To Change His
Ways
(Change His Ways-Ooh!)
And No Message Could’ve
Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World
A Better Place
(If You Wanna Make The
World A Better Place)
Take A Look At Yourself And
Then Make That . . .
(Take A Look At Yourself And
Then Make That . . .)
Change!

I’m Starting With The Man In
The Mirror,
(Man In The Mirror-Oh
Yeah!)
I’m Asking Him To Change
His Ways
(Better Change!)
No Message Could Have
Been Any Clearer
(If You Wanna Make The
World A Better Place)
(Take A Look At Yourself And
Then Make The Change)
(You Gotta Get It Right, While
You Got The Time)
(‘Cause When You Close Your
Heart)
You Can’t Close Your . . .Your
Mind!
(Then You Close Your . . .
Mind!)
That Man, That Man, That
Man, That Man
With That Man In The Mirror
(Man In The Mirror, Oh Yeah!)
That Man, That Man, That Man
I’m Asking Him To Change
His Ways
(Better Change!)
You Know . . .That Man
No Message Could Have
Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World
A Better Place
(If You Wanna Make The
World A Better Place)
Take A Look At Yourself And
Then Make A Change
(Take A Look At Yourself And
Then Make A Change)
Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!
Na Na Na, Na Na Na, Na Na,
Na Nah
(Oh Yeah!)
Gonna Feel Real Good Now!
Yeah Yeah! Yeah Yeah!
Yeah Yeah!
Na Na Na, Na Na Na, Na Na,
Na Nah
(Ooooh . . .)
Oh No, No No . . .
I’m Gonna Make A Change
It’s Gonna Feel Real Good!
Come On!
(Change . . .)
Just Lift Yourself
You Know
You’ve Got To Stop It.
Yourself!
(Yeah!-Make That Change!)
I’ve Got To Make That Change,
Today!
Hoo!
(Man In The Mirror)
You Got To
You Got To Not Let Yourself . . .
Brother . . .
Hoo!
(Yeah!-Make That Change!)
You Know-I’ve Got To Get
That Man, That Man . . .
(Man In The Mirror)
You’ve Got To
You’ve Got To Move! Come
On! Come On!
You Got To . . .
Stand Up! Stand Up!
Stand Up!
(Yeah-Make That Change)
Stand Up And Lift
Yourself, Now!
(Man In The Mirror)
Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!
Aaow!
(Yeah-Make That Change)
Gonna Make That Change . . .
Come On!
(Man In The Mirror)
You Know It!
You Know It!
You Know It!
You Know . . .
(Change . . .)
Make That Change.