The biofuel debate is fierce, with some saying crops for biofuel use up food crop space and others saying that biofuel is the only way to get around reliance on oil. But within the next two years, two different companies are getting around the argument, introducing another biofuel option, which would turn garbage into gas.

Two companies, INEOS bio of Lyndhurst, U.K., and Coskata of Warrenville, Ill. have announced that they will soon be able to produce ethanol from garbage on a commercial scale.

INEOS bio has a two year plan for being able to commercially produce biofuel from waste, while Coskata is working on having a facility ready for demonstration by the middle of next year.

Both companies have similar plans for turning garbage into gas, beginning with gasification. Gasification occurs by heating the waste with limited amounts of oxygen to create carbon monoxide and hydrogen.

Incinerating garbage completely produces carbon dioxide and water, explains INEOS bio’s Graham Rice, with the gasification, “We’re trying to go halfway and produce carbon monoxide, which still has a lot of chemical energy.”

The carbon monoxide and hydrogen mixture is then fed to bacteria, which convert the mixture into ethanol. The ethanol is then purified and blended with fuel.

The process uses any form of carbon waste, from tires to biomass, which gets around the controversial matter of using crops for biofuel instead of food.

Coskata’s Wes Bolsen also says the process uses less than half of the water used to convert corn into ethanol. Both companies say the cost is less than other biofuel methods that have been explored thus far.

“Wherever there are people, wastes are generated,” Rice said. “What I’d like to see is every community converting its waste into renewable transport fuel.”

As the world gets smaller, it becomes more important that we all work together to take care of it. World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) at http://www.wwoof.org/ is a way to become educated about organic living around the world. WWOOF is an International program founded in the United Kingdom that provides exchange programs for people around the world to live and work on organic farms on nearly every continent. You volunteer time and work and in exchange, you get to learn about different cultures and meet people while you are being hosted and provide with food and accommodations. WWOOF also charges a small fee to both hosts and volunteers to keep the organization growing and expanding. Each chapter of WWOOF is run individually and volunteers are responsible for communicating with their hosts to make sure that their stay is welcome and they understand their responsibilities.

As organic lifestyles become more popular, WWOOF makes it possible for people to better understand and support organic farming methods as well as cultural differences. If you aren’t a work on your vacation type, but still want to travel and connect with other cultures and environments, The International Ecotourism site, http://www.ecotourism.org, provides a wealth of information on how to travel responsibly. You can even find information on how to visit Al Gore’s icecaps before they disappear.

As the world gets smaller through technological advances, it is important to understand different cultures and get to know communities outside your own. Ecotourism.org provides information on how you can travel, no matter what your interests and goals are. Travel really can be a way to broaden your horizons, especially if you take the time to leave a place a little better than you found it.

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You can’t discover what’s in a black hole unless you go inside. But if you do, you never come back. Such is the problem physicist Stephen Hawking has faced when attempting to deepen his knowledge on the subject, and such was my experience listening to the latest lecture Hawking gave through his cheek. The lecture was given at Caltech University this Wednesday, with over 5,000 people in attendance. Luckily, organizers suspected a cult turn out, and prepared loud speakers outside so an entire field of ears could enjoy the world famous inspirational mastermind through the audio feed.

As I stood in place in the bitter cold on the grass, perked up to a microphone feeding the loud speaker, I was accompanied by my friend who had written to Hawking as a young boy, receiving an encouraging response, making him an instant fan for life. Hawking’s superhero status became clear to me as we stood surrounded by hundreds of people awaiting the lecture. It felt as if satellite was being transmitted from space, and we were all hearing an alien for the first time.

The crowd was so engrossed with every word Hawking had to say, as if he were some sort of scientific prophet, about to reveal to secret of the universe. In fact, the anticipation was so high, at the beginning of the lecture, he was asked a question, and Hawking simply stated, “I don’t know,” followed by at least 1 minute of silence, leaving his cult members spellbound. Was this the lecture? Of course, there was more. Some of the highlights of his 40-minute talk included God and science co-existing, and how black holes have been an ongoing scientific study for over 200 years.

What I find the most amazing about this man is his resilience against the obstacles he’s faced. He was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease in 1963, and his condition rapidly deteriorated at this time. But his lack of health only pushed him to continue his work. Feeling the urgency of life, and that it could literally be taken away from him at any time, Hawking went on to use quantum theory and general relativity to support his hypothesis on black holes. Hawking caught pneumonia in 1985, and doctors suggested to his wife it wasn’t worth keeping him on life support. Instead, a surgeon performed a tracheotomy, which saved his life, but took away his ability to speak.

He now communicates through a computer chip device in his cheek, where he uses muscles to type lectures. This obviously takes a great deal of time, and concentration. His sense of humor reminded us of his human qualities, when his computerized voice sometimes made us forget. Both Hawking, and his lecture under the stars, was nothing less than inspiring, and for the hour in which everyone remained still and silent, his words transcended through all of us, and brought us together. You can’t know the contents of a black hole unless you go inside, risking everything. The concept itself is universal. We risk things every day, never knowing if we’ll succeed or if it’ll lead to our ruin. But we do it anyway, because we dare to defy the odds, as Hawking continues to do.

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While not a manufacturer of green cars per se, Subaru at least makes the gas-guzzlers in an eco-friendly way. The website for the company’s manufacturing plant in Lafayette, Indiana almost looks like an environmental activist page because, well, it is. It serves as representation for the only Subaru plant in the U.S., and possibly the only car-making plant in the world that can boast having zero-waste/zero-landfill status. According to Tom Easterday, Senior Vice President of Subaru of Indiana Automotive, the plant has a recycling rate of 99.8 percent, and it’s been almost four years since the factory sent a load of waste directly to a landfill. About 97 percent of all excess or leftover materials like steel, plastic, wood, paper, and glass to go recycling outlets. The remaining percentage goes to incinerators in Indianapolis to help generate steam. That means most families throw out more garbage than the auto plant, which makes nearly 200,000 cars a year or more. Science Today examined the factory, explaining:

A big chunk of that savings comes from making less waste when cutting out the car pieces from the blanking press, similar to cutting the most cookies from a rolled-out sheet of cookie dough. By cutting the car parts more efficiently, the plant has reduced its steel use by 47 percent since 2000. Plus, the company estimates that its CO2 emissions are down 20 percent in that time.

Subaru reuses just about anything else in the factory as well, including wood pallets and a variety of oil products. The company even takes the plastic, styrofoam, and steel braces the car parts come in and sends them back to the suppliers for continuous usage. The motivation for the company’s efforts may stem from the additional profits recycling provides. Extra styrofoam more times than none goes to factories that produce beanbag furniture. Excess paint from the cars forms into a sludge-like substance that can also be sold to companies who produce railroad ties, parking lot bumpers, and inner padding in bicycle helmets. In 2006 the Environmental Protection Agency acknowledged Subaru’s environmental consciousness with the Gold Achievement Award—a status incentive for companies to go green.

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So this article may convince you to take a day off from We Earth every now and then, a dangerous proposition that probably won’t do me any good, but I’ll take my chances.

Internet addicts are committing to “Unplug Days,” where they shut off the computer, don’t talk on instant messenger, don’t blog, and don’t answer emails, in hopes to try and reconnect with the real world again. It’s even becoming some people’s New Year’s resolutions. Ariel Meadow Stallings, a marketing manager for Microsoft, made a pledge to spend “52 Nights Unplugged” this year.

People like Stallings are beginning to realize their addiction, and attachment to the cyber world, while at the same time admit their disconnect with reality. “I think there is some common-sense part of us that says, ‘Wait a second. This has gone too far. We are too plugged-in,” says Sharon Sarmiento, who admits to blogging and hearing instant message sounds in her dreams.

It’s gotten to the point where I, myself, will go to bed, wondering what email I’ll receive the next morning, just waiting to check my blackberry for anything life changing. Of course, it’s never something that couldn’t have waited, but the instant gratification factor is too easy to fulfill with just the click of a button. When I’m not at work, I must say it’s rare to have my instant messenger turned off, anticipating when a good friend or family member will sign on so I can immerse myself in procrastination.

The real problem with a cyber space addiction is the dislocation it allows from the world outside. Promoting a false sense of communication where one can edit before you respond, and leave out inappropriate spur of the moment thoughts, the internet encloses us in our own little bubbles, which can be dangerous considering other technology, like television, has already been a problem for years.

The Internet has amazing capabilities to connect us, but shouldn’t there be personal limits we set for ourselves? After all, staring at a bright screen for hours on end is hardly communicating. Dr. Dave Greenfield is no stranger to this worry. As the head of the Center for Internet Behavior in Connecticut, he claims people thought he was joking when he began warning the public of virtual addiction back in 1999. A study he conducted estimates 1 out of 10 Americans use technology in a way that will “negatively impact their lives.” He doesn’t have much hope in the unplugged theory, sadly, treating technology junkies just like any kind of addict. It takes them a long time to process the problem.

People like Stallings and Sarmiento are committing to “unplugged day” or what some call a “secular Sabbath.” It’s not that they don’t appreciate computers and what they’re good for, they’ve just realized a line needs to be drawn at some point. “ I love technology, I’m not a Luddite. But I realized it was a problem when I would sit down to check my email and…[I’d] wake up six hours later and find I was watching videos of puppies on YouTube,” admitted Stallings.

She associated that kind of time loss to when she has black outs from being drunk. Now she unplugs for weekends at a time. Maybe this “unplugged” concept will catch on, and there will be a national day of the year for it, like Earth Day. Better yet, a worldwide movement could start those interested on a one day a week diet from the urges of technology. Besides, there’s plenty of other stuff to do…isn’t there?

For the first time in history, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) are actually encouraging people to eat meat, but under unique conditions that only future science can develop.

On the group’s website they claim to offer $1 million to the first scientist who can create “in-vitro-meat,” real, edible animal flesh that is developed in a laboratory instead of through suffering and cruelty. The process would use animal stem cells placed in a medium to grow and reproduce, thus mimicking flesh that could be cooked and eaten.

It’s actually not entirely in the realm of science fiction, The Observer writes:
Artificial animal organs, such as hearts, have already been grown. Stem cells from chickens – or sheep or cows – would have to be seeded in a nutrient-rich mixture and then grown on a solid framework. That framework would have to stretch and bend in order to flex the meat and cause it to develop into muscle. That muscle can then eventually be harvested as meat.
Some very small quantities of such meat have already been grown. The first edible in-vitro flesh was developed from a goldfish in 2000. Numerous companies and scientific research groups are already exploring the field.

Some PETA supporters are conflicted with the proposal, but the organization insists on its website that such a development could be the most rational solution to end animal cruelty:
More than 40 billion chickens, fish, pigs, and cows are killed every year for food in the United States in horrific ways. Chickens are drugged to grow so large they often become crippled, mother pigs are confined to metal cagesso small they can’t move, and fish are hacked apart while still conscious—all to feed America’s meat addiction. In vitro meat would spare animals from this suffering. In addition, in vitro meat would dramatically reduce the devastating effects the meat industry has on the environment.

PETA might be coming to further terms with the fact that meat eaters are here to stay. Trying to convert anyone into something they’re not is nothing but an uphill battle. In-vitro meat may also allow meat eaters and vegetarians to tolerate each other further. At the same time, PETA still isn’t backing down from the stance that, “vegetarians are less likely to get heart disease, diabetes, or various types of cancer.”

A million dollars isn’t much on the table in the world of science and bioengineering, but there might be one scientist willing to make it his or her own to see less animals turn up in our bellies.

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Musicians tend to be a strong eco friendly group. But what’s ironic is that the resources used to make their guitars involve some of the most endangered trees on the planet. The most sought after woods are ones that take years to age and develop to improve acoustic sound. In the past, heavy hitting guitar companies like Gibson, Martin, Fender, Taylor and Yamaha have claimed responsibility for preventing clear-cutting, making sure entire areas with these specific trees weren’t wiped out.

Contradictory facts are now coming to the surface. These guitar companies have paired up with the Greenpeace organization for its Music Wood campaign, to ensure proper auditing of logging practices. Sitka spruce supplier will supervise and carry out the audits. The audits will include awareness of surrounding habitats before the trees are cut down. Music Wood started after clear-cutting of Alaskan Spruce was reported. And though making acoustic guitars is a small part in what these trees are used for, the power of the message Greenpeace can send along with guitar makers, can make a significant difference. “Instrument-making is a very small percentage of the problem,” Greenpeace forest campaign director Scott

Paul says. But the companies’ leadership on the issue “can have really significant implications on the ground,” since Music Wood supporters “are arguably the highest-end and highest-profile consumers of any (tree) species coming from this forest.” By some studies, less than 5 percent of the U.S.’s old growth forests are still standing, taking business overseas to places like Japan.

At the rate consumers are buying instrumental products now, resources would be gone within 15 years. But now that this issue has come to the musically inclined public’s attention, demand for green guitars has risen by an impressive percentage, fueling the fight for more eco friendly wood to produce future instruments.

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Most 17-year-old boys are too busy playing sports, and finishing high school to think about becoming a millionaire, but British born Todd Hadfield made his first fortune at just that age. Creating Soccer.net while still in high school, he sold it to ESPN in the states for 40 million dollars. The now 25 year old soon to be Harvard grad is now setting his sites on something more poignant. Malaria.

Hadfield’s new website, MalariaEngage.org, was inspired by a trip he made to Zambia last summer. “Traveling across Africa and seeing the devastation caused by malaria made me realize there was more to life than putting up soccer scores,” he humbly stated. The political science student claims that everyone he met in Zambia either had a child who died of the disease, or knew someone who had.

He also traveled to Tanzania to meet up with researchers working on treatments, but realized their lack of resources was holding them back. The website aims to earn money towards providing these tools and create awareness that Malaria is a preventable disease. It focuses on 7 research projects in Tanzania that need more support. The site also “increases the return on investment of donors by connecting them directly with researchers working on malaria prevention treatment,” added Hadfield.

Hoping his project will create more than more funds, but a way to connect minds and ideas together, he aims to spark interest in communities that wasn’t there before. Hadfield’s co-founder Peter A. Singer stated, “We feel young African scientists have very good ideas that end up in the dustbin. This is about helping committed young researchers with good ideas to help themselves create a better future.” They hope the site will spread knowledge as well as raise enough money to achieve their goals.

His goal is to fully fund the 7 Tanzanian projects with help of Malaria Engage, and then go on to support other problems within developing countries. He is due to marry in November.

For someone so young to spend his fortune on something of this magnitude is indeed refreshing. The young entrepreneur was awarded the Global Leader of Tomorrow award by the World Economic Forum in Switzerland 7 years ago. He certainly appears to continue living up to his title.

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As awareness of green technology increases, so do the dilemmas it presents.  Most recently, a decision in Scotland shows how some efforts to go green could harm more than they help, and the environmentally conscious are hopelessly divided.

According to the Guardian UK, Scottish ministers rejected a plan to build one of Europe’s largest onshore wind farms in the Outer Hebrides—a massive area of development-free peatland.  Energy minister Jim Mather said the 181-turbine project would have dominated the area and endangered a variety of bird and plant species, not to mention create an eye sore in a naturally beautiful area.  Nearly 11,000 islanders were relieved by the final vote, as were several environmental groups protesting to protect the lands.

The decision has caused claims by the country’s Labour party and other more liberal-minded groups that Mather is deterring efforts to commit to green, sustainable energy.  The wind farms could have also brought 400 new jobs to the area along with covering up to 10% of all of Scotland’s power needs.

The arguments are particularly interesting since they both come from socially and environmentally conscious perspectives.  While clean energy naturally means zero carbon emissions, the necessary industrialization of the land to build the planned wind farm would release 2 billion tons of carbon stored in the soil.

Currently other efforts to build on different peatlands in Scotland are facing similar decisions.  Unfortunately, it seems the areas are ideal for containing alternative energy sources.

Read more from the WeEarth team of writers in the WeEarth Voices E-Zine, Green.