A better world #16: fair trade

A better world #15: friends?

A better world #14: equal access to education

A better world #13: more technology

A better world #12: recyle and gender rights

A better world #11: free higher ed

A better world #10: smile

A better world #09: keep the diversity, bridge the economic gap

A better world #08: redistribute

A better world #07: respect and tolerance

A better world #06: educate for peace

A better world #05: we do need more education

A better world #04: imagine there's no country

A better world #03: downsize

A better world #02: protect mother nature

A better world #01: get to know each other

What would you do to make the world a better place?

Happy Earth Day!

Some  years ago, when I was studying sustainable development and the Earth Charter Initiative, I did a small study where I asked different people what would they do to improve our world. 

In the next days I'll be posting some of the answers I collected, which I recorded in their native language and script besides an English translation. For each, I added a close up photo of the person, their first name, age, occupation, and their country or countries.

Below is the premise. I invite you to join and contribute with your own 2 cents. You can comment below or send the info to hisandhersustainabletrip@gmail.com and we'll post it for you.

What would you do to make a happy earth day truly happy?

Feliz Día de la Bicicleta / Happy Bike Day!

Dejando de lado la historia de cómo surgió el Día de la Bicicleta, festejemos a la gente que opta por usar bicis bajo viento y marea, y a veces, literalmente:

A apoyar la iniciativa para reciclar en ciudad de Las Piedras, Uruguay

Una nueva iniciativa busca fomentar la separacion de residuos orgánicos de residuos reciclables en los domicilios de la ciudad de Las Piedras.

Como saben los que vienen siguiendo nuestras busqueda de una vida mas sustentable, el separar los residuos es una de las formas mas faciles de disminuir la cantidad de nuestros desechos.

Aplausos por la iniciativa de Las Piedras y a colaborar. Para mas informacion pueden ir al blog del programa Las Piedras Recicla o a su pagina en Facebook.

Y al resto de las ciudades del pais, a ver si se suman a la iniciativa.

So, what's the best technology ...

That is often the question I get when entering a discussion about sustainable, green, or alternative energy technologies.

Windmills in eastern Uruguay

The answer ... well, it depends.

It depends on the context in which the technology will be applied. Most likely than not, it would be a combination of wind, solar, and water. For example a city's electrical power plant could be supplemented by wind farms, solar farms, and perhaps tidal or micro-hydro (think mini dams) power generators. None of these technologies by themselves will contribute 100% of the time.

Dr. John MacDonald, co-founder of MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA) and Day4 Energy, pointed out during a presentation at the GreenTech Exchange forum, that the estimated time at which we will not be able to meet energy demand worldwide with traditional energy sources (coal, gas, petroleum) would be between 2012–2015 (pessimistic view) and 2030 (optimistic view). Much of the energy demand is related to the development and growth of the BRIC countries, so energy demand will continue to grow. We can curb the energy demand, just not enough ... we would only delay the inevitable.

To reach a sustainable state we need to reduce our energy consumption while increasing our energy production. This would mean replacing some of the traditional energy sources with alternative ones.

So, what needs to be done to allow alternative technologies to take hold within the energy production cycle? A couple of things: 1) develop system management software capable of responding to the energy demands within a city and selecting the appropriate power generator, and 2) develop systems to store the generated energy.

One company that is contributing to this solution is REV Technologies. They noted that fleet vehicles spend about 80% of their time parked in a parking lot. Their idea: convert these vehicles to electrical cars, store the grid energy in their batteries, and dump it into the grid when the power company needs it. The client earns revenue from selling the energy back to the power company and the power company can meet the demand without installing another power generator.

Another area of development in power generating technology is in fuel cells (FC). They have advanced far enough to be considered viable in a business sense. In fact, many of the major automobile companies have FC models ready to be produced. But they still face two problems: one is infrastructure — where do you go to fill up on hydrogen? The second is the catalyst used in FCs: platinum. A very small amount of platinum exists in the world and therefore, it's an expensive resource. Yet, so far, it is the only element that can catalyze the reactions within the FC and other important industrial chemical processes. Therefore, for FC to really hit the market we would need to replace platinum with an economically viable catalyst.

What I'd like to point out is that we have a long way to go before we can stop using the traditional energy sources.

So, what do we do in the meantime? Science will continue to discover new technologies and materials that take us closer to a sustainable state. But we need to modify our behavior as a collective: we need to take greater responsibility with regards to how we use energy and demand that measures are taken at a regional, national, and global level to modify our unsustainable use of energy.

At an individual level we can have a direct impact in the choices we make, from minimal details in our everyday life to considerable changes in our lifestyle. From the construction of our homes and use of public spaces, the selection of appliances, whether we use a car or public transport, take our own shopping bags instead of using more plastic bags ... the list goes on. After all, we can have all the technologies that would help us manage our energy use in a more sustainable and efficient manner, but it won't matter if we don't understand or choose to use these technologies.

Bikes instead of cars in urban centers / Bicicletas en vez de autos en centros urbanos

Because a video and actual examples are worth a thousand words:




Video in English con subtítulos en español

Pickled wild mushrooms: sooo yummy!

After picking the wild mushrooms, it was time to wash them carefully. Then, boiling the mushrooms 3 times (each time changing the water) to get rid of the bitterness. And then, the pickling.

Some basic ingredients are enough (cc) OSJ

I like adding other veggies: in this case I had onions and bell peppers, carrots are also good. Some other flavors from the garden: I had rosemary and bay leaves. Peppercorns and coarse salt are good additions too.

I cut everything in thin slices and put it to boil in a pan with olive oil, vinegar and water in 3 equal parts. Just enough to cover everything. About 5 minutes and it's ready. Let it cool down.

Everything chopped and ready for the pan (cc) OSJ

After it has cooled you can store them in glass jars. In the fridge, they probably last up to a month or more. I'm guessing on that, because we always finish them before that. They're that good.

We went a couple of days later around the house and there were mushrooms everywhere: we picked enough to prepare a pot-full of mushrooms and have enough now for a few weeks.

Pot-full of wild mushrooms! (cc) OSJ

A few jars to eat and share (cc) OSJ

They're super on bread or crackers, and have tried also with a tomato salad.


Any other tip on mushroom picking, preserving or eating? Please share :)

Foraging for wild mushrooms: a child's game

Rembember the giant monster mushroom in our first year of blogging? That was the last surviving mushroom at the end of the season. This year, we're here at the beginning of mushroom season (with all the rain, it began early) and we have the happy surprise to get a handful of them right on our door step.

Talk about a local 100-mile diet, this was more like a 10-steps diet!

Home-delivered mushrooms, courtesy of Eucalyptus tree stump (cc) OSJ

I'd been reading about the behind the scenes of wild food foraging and mushroom pickers back in Canada when a bunch of little mushroom buds popped up in front of my door. Time to call the nephews for some food-appreciation class.

My garden fairy proudly showing the big mushroom
she helped pick (c) OSJ

I've found that the    alleged yucky-factor of veggies disappears when kids have a chance to see the whole process, from the little seed that sprouts to when they pick the fruits. Involving them in the production of food generates some sense of ownership and pride in collaborating to provide food. Or something like that.

So, after helping them 'discover' the mushrooms and waiting for a couple of days for the mushrooms to grow to an edible size, we picked them by cutting, not uprooting, so that they would grow again next year.

Then, off to processing (coming next)!

Enough for everyone to get a taste (cc) OSJ

Cutting carefully and leaving the smallest ones
to grow a couple of days more (cc) OSJ

Slow down: thoughts on stress & the glorification of busy

Just sharing excerpts and related thoughts on slowing down...

“Big cars, shiny jewelry, expensive clothes, McMansions – [are] all designed to establish our status and all tied to our drive for reproductive success.  Stress is just the latest in this long list.  Being stressed shows the world just how in demand we are, how important we must be, how busy we are gathering resources for our tribe.  Trouble is, stress is killing us.” Stress is preventing “from maximizing our happiness and optimizing our life satisfaction,” writes Andrew Shatte from meQuilibrium.

"These humans really don't get it: slow is sexy"

But, where is all this stress coming from? Tim Kreider explains it in terms of the glorification of busy. Busy is “the default response when you ask anyone how they’re doing,” “a boast disguised as a complaint.” But it is a self-imposed busyness: “work and obligations [people have] taken on voluntarily, classes and activities they’ve 'encouraged' their kids to participate in. They’re busy because of their own ambition or drive or anxiety, because they’re addicted to busyness and dread what they might have to face in its absence.” Worth reading the whole article on the Opinion Pages of the New York Time.

Someone who knows how to take it easy

Perhaps it's time for bit of reflection and trying to slow down? I know I need to remind myself all the time to do just that. Time for some meditation.

Yoga on the go: making space and time in your head

A mat, a laptop, internet, and
yoga on the go! (c) OSJ

As a nomad, I've found it difficult to give myself the time and space to practice yoga. I recognize it's more of an issue of not being able to keep with habits while on the road (everything changes all the time! you don't know how tomorrow will look like!) than actually finding a physical space or some free minutes.

I got inspired by my friend Julia, who always makes a priority to create the time for her Qigong. I remember her telling me how she went a nearby park to practice.

Far from any yoga class, but thanks to internet and an My Yoga Online service provider, I decided to take advantage of the lovely settings and mellow Fall weather, plopped my mat on the patio, and had a literal sun salutation yoga session.

You can see the yoga class  here:

ROCK as ONE

You can check previous attempts to do yoga while on the road or, actually, on the sea.