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Monday, November 7, 2016

Adidas Creates Sneakers That Are Made Entirely from Ocean Trash

With Earth’s oceans being overloaded with plastic trash, engineers all over the world are making efforts to find innovative ways to remove this harmful debris from the marine environment. Thus, Boyan Slat of The Ocean Cleanup promises to launch a massive ocean cleaning system in 2016.

But what if there was also a way to give this plastic a new life and use it for further production? German footwear giant Adidas has proposed a non-trivial idea on what to do with ocean waste – to make shoes out of it, of course!

The company has created a prototype of sustainable sneakers made almost entirely from ocean trash. In particular, the upper shoe is made out of illegal gill nets and other plastic debris removed from the ocean while the shoe base incorporates sustainable materials.

Collecting plastic from the ocean to knit the sneakers was not an easy task. In fact, it was done with the collaboration of the nonprofit organization Sea Shepherd, which organized a 110-day expedition to track illegal fishing boats in West African waters. The green part of the Adidas shoes is nothing but fishing netscollected in the course of this expedition.
At the same time, Adidas plans to release a line of sustainable sneakers later this year, believing that there will be no problem with finding plastic waste, such as fishing nets and beach trash, to be used in the production.

The company claims that this initiative is aimed not only to recycle ocean trash but also to help reduce and avoid the production of plastic waste. Thus, Parley for the Oceans, a new nonprofit organization founded with the support of Adidas, is developing innovative technologies to alter the structure of plastic and make it less harmful to the environment, as well as to minimize the use of plastic in production in general.

“We’re going to end ocean plastic pollution only if we’re going to reinvent the material,” said Cyrill Gutsch, Parley for the Oceans founder. “Plastic doesn’t belong in nature, it doesn’t belong in the belly of a fish, it doesn’t belong out there. The ultimate solution is to cut into this ongoing stream of material that never dies, is to reinvent plastic.”

The company seeks to develop a material that would decompose safely in the environment, unlike the conventional plastic that is estimated to take more than 500 years to break down.

Adidas hopes that the use of this innovative material could eventually go beyond the production of footwear. “We don’t have to limit ourselves,” said Eric Liedtke of the Adidas Group. “We can put this in T-shirts, we can put this in shorts, we can put this in all kinds of stuff.”

Thursday, November 3, 2016

Only 10 Countries in the Entire World Are Not Currently at War

United States — A troubling report by the Institute for Economics and Peace found a mere ten nations on the planet are not at war and completely free from conflict. According to the Global Peace Index 2016, only Botswana, Chile, Costa Rica, Japan, Mauritius, Panama, Qatar, Switzerland, Uruguay and Vietnam are free from conflict. Iceland tops the list of most peaceful countries in the world, followed by Denmark, Austria, New Zealand, Portugal, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Canada, Japan, and Slovenia — while the United States ranked far lower, at 103. Palestine, placed in the index of 163 nations for the first time this year, ranked 148th.

War-torn Syria placed at the bottom of the list, lower than only South Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen, Central African Republic, Ukraine, Sudan, and Libya.

“The index gauges global peace using three broad themes: the level of safety and security in society; the extent of domestic or international conflict; and the degree of militarisation,” the report states.

Though 81 countries improved their level of peace according to those criteria, those gains were muddied by deteriorating peace in 79 other nations. In the last decade, “the average country score deteriorated by 2.44 per cent with 77 countries improving while 85 countries deteriorated, highlighting the global complexities of peace and its uneven distribution.”

While Central and South America continue to earn the worst marks for societal safety and security, the U.S. represents one of the only exceptions due to its “excessive incarceration rate.”

Overall, Europe held its spot as the most generally peaceful region, while the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA) remains consistently the most tumultuous on the planet.

“The historic 10-year deterioration in peace has largely been driven by the intensifying conflicts in the MENA region,” the report notes. “Terrorism is also at an all-time high, battle deaths from conflict are at a 25-year high, and the number of refugees and displaced people are at a level not seen in 60 years.

“Notably, the sources for these three dynamics are intertwined and driven by a small number of countries, demonstrating the global repercussions of breakdowns in peacefulness.”

According to the report, the United States spends an outrageously high percentage of the globe’s military expenditures — 38 percent — while the next largest military spender, China, accounted for considerably less, 10 percent of the global share. In the score of militarization, the least peaceful countries include Israel, Russia, North Korea, Syria, and the U.S.

Of particular note in this year’s tenth anniversary index — the most comprehensive to date — globalization of conflict, in repercussions such as the growing refugee crisis, is driving a growing disparity between the least and most peaceful nations.

In fact, the “number of refugees and displaced persons increased dramatically over the decade, doubling from 2007 to 2015, to approximately 60 million people. There are nine countries with more than 10 per cent of their population classified as refugees or displaced persons with Somalia and South Sudan having more than 20 per cent of their population displaced and Syria with over 60 per cent displaced.”

While actual terrorist activity most heavily impacts Syria, Iraq, Nigeria, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, its ripples spread worldwide.

“Many countries are at record high levels of peacefulness, while the bottom 20 countries have progressively become much less peaceful, creating increased levels of inequality in global peace,” according to the report.

As the world descends into a far less peaceful state overall, the staggering cost of militarism and violence becomes painfully clear — 13.3 percent of the globe’s total economic activity, $13.6 trillion in purchasing power parity, concerned violent conflict. That’s the equivalent of “$1,876 for every person in the world.”

Working toward peace will require the international community to promote peaceful, just, and inclusive societies, the IEP urged in conclusion, though such goals aren’t expected to be reached quickly or easily.

India’s Organic Rice Revolution Proves GMOs Are Unnecessary

(trueactivist) In a world with an ever-increasing human population, increased food production is of obvious concern. With the world population projected to reach 9.6 billion by 2050, many people, especially those with connections to biotechnology and agrochemical companies, say that genetically modified food (GMO) is necessary in order to satisfy increased global demand for food. However, do we really need GMOs to feed the world?

The unbiased scientific evidence strongly suggests that the answer is no. Genetically modified foods do not increase yields and often damage nearby crops that aren’t genetically engineered to resist herbicides, causing them to actually reduce regional yields. Even the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), which is often dominated by agrochemical interests, released a report that showed there was no increase in yield potentials for GM crops over the past 15 years. In addition, the majority of GMOs grown aren’t even used to feed hungry people.

In the US, the world’s largest producer of GM crops, 40% of all GM corn is used for ethanol fuel production and the majority of GM soy is used as animal feed. Though one could argue that GM animal feed means increased meat production and cheaper meat, meat production is currently extremely unsustainable and damages the environment. Also, GM-fed animals produce meat that is unhealthy and of low quality.

The latest evidence highlighting the ineffectiveness of GMOs comes from one of India’s poorest regions. In Bihar, India, farmers are breaking world records for rice production without agrochemicals or GMOs. In 2013, Sumant Kumar and his family produced an astounding 22.4 tons of rice on only one hectare of land, much more than anything achieved by GM seed companies and their expensive herbicides.

Since rice is the staple food for more than half the world’s population, this amazing feat is big news. Kumar wasn’t the only farmer to have amazing yields either. Many of other families in his community, as well as those in rival communities, recorded over 17-ton yields per hectare. These spectacular yields are all thanks to the adoption of a new organic method of growing rice known as the System of Rice Intensification (SRI). SRI involves transplanting young rice plants spaced widely in a square pattern and using continuously moist soil as opposed to the common practice of rice field flooding. Organic fertilizers and rotary weeding were also used. This technique also allows farmers to adapt to the climate, as erratic weather is becoming a regular occurrence. It also prevents farmers from becoming dependent on expensive agrochemical products.

This new organic rice-growing method could not have come at a better time for India. Since GMOs were introduced in the country in 2002, poor Indian farmers have become trapped in vicious debt cycles by adopting GM seeds and herbicides. Originally marketed as a method to make farmers wealthier and produce more, they have instead become so indebted to foreign GM seed and agrochemical companies that many farmers have been taking their own lives. In 2009, the number of GM-debt related suicides was so high, that an Indian farmer was estimated to commit suicide every 30 minutes. Thanks to the advancements made by these organic farmers in Bihar, India, we can expect this horrible trend to turn itself around, allowing farmers in India and around the world to reclaim their livelihoods and become more auto-sufficient while also farming sustainably.

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