Thẻ: Climate change adaptation

In Vietnam, IKEA-style wind turbines are powering off-grid communities

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

mekongeye.com

By Vuong Thi Hao Linh 3 July 2023 at 10:53

The 1% of Vietnamese households without electricity rely on decentralized, micro renewable systems for power supply. Are such innovations sustainable?

Wind turbine vietnam

A mini wind turbine set up in the countryside of Vietnam. PHOTO: 1516 energy

LAI CHAU, VIETNAM – In November 2019, teachers and students at the Pa U elementary boarding school in Muong Te district in Vietnam’s Lai Chau province had electricity for the first time.

The power came from a rudimentary micro wind turbine system, which was sold and delivered to the school by a local startup named 1516 and assembled by the teachers.

The setup was simple: aluminum tubs affixed to a sturdy wooden rod, linked to a sun box that contains a charge controller, a solar battery and an inverter to generate electricity.

Lai Chau
Source: Mapbox

“The children were so excited to see those turbines in action,” recalled teacher Bui Thi Minh Khuyen. Despite a limited output that can only sustain the school’s energy needs until 10pm, the new power supply has made a vast difference.

Pa U schoolteachers assemble a wind turbine. PHOTO: 1516 energy

Previously, the school only had light bulbs powered by cheap solar panels imported from China. Fans, radios, TVs, phones and laptops were luxuries the school could not power.

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Hidden carbon: Fungi and their ‘necromass’ absorb one-third of the carbon emitted by burning fossil fuels every year

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

theconversation.com

Beneath our feet, remarkable networks of fungal filaments stretch out in all directions. These mycorrhizal fungi live in partnership with plants, offering nutrients, water and protection from pests in exchange for carbon-rich sugars.

Now, new research shows this single group of fungi may quietly be playing a bigger role in storing carbon than we thought.

How much bigger? These microscopic filaments take up the equivalent of more than a third (36%) of the world’s annual carbon emissions from fossil fuels – every year.

As we search for ways to slow or stop the climate crisis, we often look to familiar solutions: cutting fossil fuel use, switching to renewables and restoring forests. This research shows we need to look down too, into our soils.

This shows how mycorrhizal fungi (fine white filaments) connect to plant root systems (yellow) and out into the soil. Scivit/Wikipedia

This fungi-plant partnership is 400 million years old

Mycorrhizal fungi are hard to spot, but their effects are startling. They thread networks of microscopic filaments through the soil and into the roots of almost every plant on earth.

But this is no hostile takeover. They’ve been partnering with plants for more than 400 million years. The length of these complex relationships has given them a vital role in our ecosystems.

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Climate change is disrupting the birds and the bees

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này
  • By Claire Asher

 

8 August 2017

BBC_Our changing climate seems set to disrupt just about everything. From rising sea levels to ocean acidification, the list of negative consequences from climate change is endless. But one area that often goes unmentioned in the climate change discussion is sex.

Over the last two decades, scientists have found that warmer temperatures are quietly spoiling the mood, making it harder for plants and animals to reproduce.

Here are five ways that climate change is ruining sex lives.

It’s a numbers game

While humans and many other animals determine sex genetically, many reptiles and some fish use the incubation temperature of the eggs to set the gender of their offspring. This means that changing global temperatures could alter the ratio of sexes produced, making it harder for these animals to find mates. Tiếp tục đọc “Climate change is disrupting the birds and the bees” →