environment | Building the World

February 20, 2019
by buildingtheworld
0 comments

Building Better Coasts

Climate change is causing sea rise resulting in coastal erosion, flooding, and threatening ports and cities. Jakarta is in extreme danger: thirteen rivers run through the city, causing frequent flooding. The mega-city of 10 billion is doubly endangered: urban land is suffering subsidence, parts of Indonesia’s capital (some predict 95%) could be deluged by 2050.

Reed beds revitalize polluted waters. Image: wikimedia

Even rivers like the Thames and Lea in London are not immune. But the city of London Bridge is responding. Thames21 is planting reeds that oxygenate rivers, restoring the habitat marred by pollution; reeds convert toxic ammonia to nitrate. Reed beds also provide habitat for aquatic life. In an echo of the Canal des Deux Mers, the canalized section of the River Lea will receive new reed beds every 300 meters over the length of the river coursing through London.

Indonesia, image: wikimedia.

Meanwhile, Jakarta is exploring response including artificial recharge, a method used a half-century ago by Tokyo in a time of subsidence; to support the program, groundwater extraction was halted and businesses were required to utilize reclaimed water. Jakarta would need to use only rainwater; could catchment systems help? The Dutch, formerly involved in the region, have returned: Institute Deltares reported on the efficacy of the current plan to build the Great Garuda Sea Wall (32 km) along with 17 artificial islands at the cost of (US$) 40 billion. Included in the plan is a new lagoon waterway that can be lowered during floods allowing water to drain. Another method: biopori – digging a hole of 100cm depth to allow rainwater to more easily absorbed into the land, replenishing groundwater. Indonesia may offer an example to many places in the world surrounded by water; how can we build better coasts?

“Jakarta, the fastest-sinking city in the world.” 12 August 2018. By Tom de Souza, with interactive elements by Arvin Surpriyadi, Davies Surya, and Leben Asa.

“Project Reed Beds.” Thames 21. https://www.thames21.org.uk/project-reedbed-2/

Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported Licen

January 23, 2019
by buildingtheworld
0 comments

PLANETARY HEALTH DIET: Menu Icon

Blue Marble: Icon for the Planetary Heath Diet on Menus? Image: NASA

If the Planetary Health Diet is adopted on menus, what should the logo be? GF means Gluten Free. V stands for Vegetarian; K means kosher.

Kosher Icon on a menu. Image: wikimedia

Icons are a special part of communication. NIKE’s “Swoosh” became popular worldwide because it’s an image rather than a word. The Tennessee Valley Authority promoted use of electricity with the logo of a fist grabbing a lightening bolt, perhaps reference to the myth of Prometheus.

The Planetary Health Diet needs a planet-related symbol, small enough to display next to a menu item. Many dietary icons like K and GF are surrounded by a circle, easy for the eye to spot on a busy menu. What if the Planetary Heath Diet icon were a circle we all know? Would you recognize the Blue Marble as a menu icon?

Should the World Economic Forum endorse the Planetary Health Diet? Image: WEF logo, wikimedia.

A diet that could feed 10 billion, ease the suffering of 11 million who go hungry, improve the health of 2 billion whose diet choices cause diabetes and cardiovascular ills, save health care costs, improve productivity, halt climate change, help achieve the Paris Agreement COP21, and advance the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), might be of interest to the World Economic Forum, meeting in Davos. The World Economc Forum could agree upon a global menu logo for the Planetary Health Diet.

“Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT-Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems.” 16 January 2019. The Lancet. https://www.thelancet.com/commissions/EAT

McCartney, Paul. “One Day A Week” video with Sir Paul McCartney, Mary and Stella McCartney, Woody Harrelson, and Emma Stone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulVFWJqXNg0

Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported Lice

January 18, 2019
by buildingtheworld
0 comments

Food for Thought (and 10 Billion People)

Menu of the future dish: celery, olives, and walnuts on a nest of zucchini noodles with fresh tomato sauce and spinach garnish. Source: Shahmai.org. wikimedia.

World population is growing: soon, we will need to feed 10 billion people. Globally, 820 million go hungry every day; 150 million children suffer from long-term hunger and nutritional deprivation. Conversely, 2 billion adults are overweight or obese; diet-related diabetes, heart diseases and and cancer are leading causes of death. How to balance the world’s food supply? Current levels and some choices of consumption (such as items popular in fast-food menus or backyard barbecues) are not sustainable. For example, the common hamburger: beef cattle use more grazing land, consume more water, and emit more methane, an environmentally damaging gas, than any other meat.

You don’t have to be a vegan to follow the PLANETARY HEALTH DIET. Red meat: one burger, per week. Chicken and fish: twice a week. Dairy: one glass of milk, per day. Nuts: 50g per day. Chickpeas, lentils, beans: 85g per day. Fruits and veggies: 250g per day.

According to nutritional and environmental scientists, this diet will improve everyone’s health and save the planet: 11 million people die each year from dietary causes. Meat and dairy use too much land: livestock emit 15% of greenhouse gases. Agriculture and food production consume 70% of global freshwater sources for irrigation. Find out more about the future of sustainable food: EAT-Lancet Commission’s Planetary Health Diet . How can cities support sustainable food? Should educational and medical dining facilities in schools and hospitals be among the first adopters of the menu of the future?

EAT-Lancet Commission on Food, Planet, Health. https://eatforum.org/eat-lancet-commission/

EAT-Lancet, “Brief for Cities.” https://eatforum.org/initiatives/the-eat-lancet-commission/brief-for-cities/

Gallagher, James. “A bit of meat, a lot of veg – the flexitarian diet to feed 10bn,” BBC News. 17 January 2019. https://www.bbc.com/news/health-46865204.

Willett, Walter et al. “Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT-Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food system.” 16 January 2019. The Lancet. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31788-4. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140.

Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported Lice

January 12, 2019
by buildingtheworld
0 comments

WATER: Labeling the Future

Should we label products for water, land, and environmental facts? Image: wikimedia

Look at the fine print. Many items on grocery store shelves commonly have labels revealing the amount of carbs, sodium, or sugar in the product. Is it time to label information about environmental, land, and water use? For example, dairy milk, one glass per day for a year, requires 7,000 square feet (650 sq. m) of land – that’s the same size as two tennis courts. That year’s worth of dairy milk also requires water use: 2,588 gallons (9,800 liters) of water – that’s the same amount as 150 bathing showers, each lasting a luxurious eight minutes. Switch to almond milk? It requires less water to produce than dairy, or soy, milk; but soy generates more greenhouse gases than almond.

Rome’s Trevi Fountain. Image: wikimedia.

There’s precedent for labeling environmental water sources. One of the features of water from the Roman Aqueducts was the taste and freshness of each particular spring flowing from the surrounding hills. Water surveyors used methods such as studying the health and complexions of village folk, determining water quality by such evidence. In the urbs, labeled and name-branded waters competed for consumer preference. Even today, there is a cafe in Rome advertising cappuccino made from the sweet, fresh waters of the Aqua Virgo.

The global food supply chain generates 13.7 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, or 26% of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, according to Poore and Nemecek. Agriculture covers 43% of arable land; 2/3rds of the freshwater withdrawals are for irrigation. The United Nations illustration, above, indicates systemic factors regarding water, energy, and food. Wonder what you’re consuming – in food and natural resources? Even if governments don’t require such labeling, could industry groups initiate the trend? The beverage and brewing industry recently agreed to display nutrition information on beer products, but most is in small-type or hidden at the bottom of a six-pack. Coors, Corona, Guinness, and Heineken complied, and now Bud Light will display more visible listings of the amounts of barely, hops, rice – and water. According to VP of Marketing for Bud Light, Andy Goeler, younger consumers want to know and are “really in tune to ingredients.”

Here’s a link to an environmental calculator for some commonly consumed foods.

Guibourg, Clara and Helen Briggs. Calculator design by Print Shah, development by Felix Stephenson and Becky Rush. “Climate change: Which are the best vegan milks?” 8 January 2019. BBC.com. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46654042/

Poore, Joseph and T. Nemecek. “Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers.” 1 June 2018. Science. doi: 10.1126/science.aaq0216.http://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/360/6392/987.full.pdf?ijkey=ffyeW1F0oSl6k&keytype=ref&siteid=sci

Spang, Edward J. “Food-Energy-Water Nexus.” 4 May 2017. IE GAC Presentation. https://ie.ucdavis.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/38/2017/05/Spang-03May17.pdf.

Spang, Edward J., William Moomaw, Kelly Sims Gallagher, Paul Kirshen, David H. Marks. “The water consumption of energy products: An international comparison.” October 2014. Environmental Research Letters. 9 (10): 105002 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266620784_The_water_consumption_of_energy_production_An_international_comparison

Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported Lice

December 24, 2018
by buildingtheworld
0 comments

Golden Anniversary, Golden Opportunity

Earthrise, December 24, 1968: “You don’t see . Image: wikimedia.

Fifty years ago, someone grabbed a camera and changed history. NASA Apollo 8’s crew was to orbit precisely 10 times while photographing the surface of the moon, as a field study for the Lunar Landing mission. It was 1968: before digital photography, a crew could carry only so much film – all of it was to be used for lunar surface documentation.

For hours, only the occasional click was heard as the spacecraft hovered above the lunar surface, snapping photos of the topography of the moon. There was not much to look at: gray gravely surface cloaked by a dark sky. Then, suddenly, as Apollo 8 completed the first circle of the moon, an orb of blue and green surrounded by swirling clouds appeared in the module window. It was Earth.

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

T.S. Eliot, “Little Gidding,” Four Quartets.

When Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders looked out the spaceship module’s window, three voices whispered astonishment in unison. Anders grabbed the camera. “Hey, that’s not our authorized mission; we’ve only carried designated film,” said the commander. The three stared at each other in a wild surmise. Then, all three nodded in assent. Anders, mission’s official photographer, captured the first view that humanity ever saw of our own Earth.

To call it a selfie would be to trivialize it. Earthrise, as the photo came to be called, snapped history into a new era. “It was credited with awakening the modern version of the environmental movement,” according to former American Vice President and environmental leader Al Gore; author of An Inconvenient Truth. “You don’t see cities, you don’t see boundaries, you don’t see countries,” stated mission commander Frank Borman. The first Earth Day followed. World water laws developed further; in the United States, the Colorado River Compact updated environmental provisions; new policies like the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act set new standards.

But where are we now, fifty years later? Hope for our planet’s blue and green miracle is narrow but not impossible. Many governments are setting new goals to save the climate before it is too late, bringing the Paris Agreement COP21 to shared measurement standards at COP24. Cities and states are taking matters into their own hands. Businesses and industries, including aerospace, shipping, and fashion, are setting global supply chain standards to reduce emissions. In response to changing markets, innovations are developing at a pace that some find encouraging. Clean energy jobs are growing faster, and more profitably. There could be trouble, but there is a narrow window of success possible. If we too see the vision in the photo, words of Borman and Anders might ring true: “Got it?” “Yep.”

Watch the video. Apollo 8 took the Earthrise photo on December 24, a half century ago. So, today is a kind of Golden Anniversary. Is it time to renew our vows?

“Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Act,” 1974. http://usbr.gov/lc/region/pao/pdfiles.crbsalct.pdf

NASA.”Earthrise.” https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap181224.html.

Vaughan-Lee, Emmanuel, director, and Adam Loften, producer: “Earthrise.” Go Project Films. http://goprojectfilms.com

Wall, Mike. “This New ‘Earthrise’ Photo from NASA Is Simply Breathtaking.” 21 December 2015. Space.com. https:///www.space.com/31422-earthrise-photo-nasa-moon-probe.html/

Wright, Ernie. “Earthrise” – visualizations created for the 45th anniversary, released on 20 December, 2013. Includes extensive downloadable videos showing the actual cloud pattern on Earth at the moment. There is link to Wright’s presentation at SIGGRAPH Vancouver. NASA, Scientific Visualization Studio. http://www.nasa.gov/content/nasa-releases-new-earthrise-simulation-video/.

Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported Lice

December 17, 2018
by buildingtheworld
0 comments

Scale to Weigh In on Climate

Vernier scale. Image: wikimedia.

In Katowice, Poland, at COP24, almost 200 nations of the world, represented by 28,000 participants, set common standards to measure climate change. This is one of very few such achievements in history. When transcontinental rail systems were first built, Canadian Pacific Railway surveying engineer Sandford Fleming proposed a set of world standards for time zones; the International Meridian Conference (1884) in Washington, DC set global standards to measure longitude, establishing the Greenwich Meridian. That’s why your phone can tell you what time it is in Boston, even when you’re in Bangkok. Fleming would agree that getting the whole world on one shared measurement system is no small feat; we haven’t even yet transitioned to a global metric system.

Katowice will be remembered for establishing a scale to weigh in on climate. According to Climate Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete: “We have a system of transparency, we have a system of reporting, we have rules to measure our emissions, we have a system to measure the impacts of our policies compared to what science recommends.” (McGrath, 2018)

At COP24, many things were agreed; some still to be fully realized. On the present emissions course, the world will warm to 3C triggering disastrous change. By 2020, we have to get on track. There are those who wanted a touchdown in Poland but had to take a field goal, until the next meeting in Chile November 2019 (with a pre-COP25 meeting in Costa Rica). Until then, Katowice made history. If you’ve ever been on a diet, you know the importance of the weigh-in; only consistent measurement can determine the biggest loser. The world just got a scale.

Sources:

Katowice Agreement COP24: https://unfcc.int/sites/default/files/resource/Katowice%20text%2C%2014%20Dec2018_1015AM.pdf

McGrath, M. “Climate change: Five things – COP24.” 16 December 2018. BBC Environment.

United Nations. “I.3. (c) “Modalities, work programme and functions under the Paris Agreement of the forum on the impact of the implementation of response measures (L-document), Katowice Texts, 2018.

Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported Lice

December 3, 2018
by buildingtheworld
0 comments

Sending the Signal

Tom Brady, New England Patriots. Image: wikimedia.

Landmark program of the National Football League (NFL). “My Cause, My Cleats” features football athletes sending a signal. Players declare their cause and customize their shoes to put the cause into action. For the New England Patriots, messages include Tom Brady: Best Buddies; Sony Michel: Haitian Earthquake Disaster Rebuilding; Matthew Slater: International Justice Mission.

Michael Jordan may have started the trend of sending a message through athletic footwear. Image: wikimedia.

Could the idea mobilize the future of climate change? This week, world leaders meet in Katowice, Poland for COP24: three years since COP21, and the Paris Agreement, it’s time to take the climate’s pulse. In light of the IPCC data showing deteriorating climate and nations are not on target, compounded by the recent report on climate and economy in the United States, one of the questions to be debated in Poland may be how to communicate the urgency. Climate scientists have commented that finding the right message and image is challenging. Polar bears didn’t work; plastic in fish led to some awareness but did not solve the problem. What could?

The power of an image and a slogan. Image: Social welfare library, Virginia Commonwealth University.

Some of the greatest successful macro initiatives in history came to life with a coined word, a slogan, an image. The Channel Tunnel had been in some form of planning since Napoleon, but it took a newly coined word, “Chunnel,” (by Frank Davidson) to make the idea of a rail tunnel across the channel linking England and France popular enough to get built. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) “sold” the idea of electricity with a slogan “Electricity for ALL” emblazoned on one of the first logos in history: a fist clutching a lightning bolt, reminiscent of Prometheus.

Poland could recommend sports stars and teams adopt one of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) for example. Another image? #1.5, slogan displayed on the Eiffel Tower in Paris in 2015, and the subject of the world’s largest postcard collaged on a glacier in Switzerland. “My Cause, My Cleats” might help to mobilize change. Making climate action fashionable can be even more exciting when profitable. The NFL invites fans to bid in an online auction to buy the cleats, assured that 100% of the proceeds will go the player’s charitable cause.

Tokyo 2020 – my cause, my cleats goes global? Image: wikimedia

COP24 could, among its recommendations on climate action, send a global message of peace and sustainability through the 2020 Olympics. When Tokyo hosted the games half a century ago, Japan launched a new era in efficient-energy speed-rail transport: Shinkansen. Will the Olympics of 2020 send the message of climate action in sartorial splendor?

Bobin, Jean-Louis. Les Déconvenues De Prométhée: La longue marche vers l’énergie thermonucléaire. Atlantis Sciences/Atlantica 2001. ISBN: 2843943264.

Center for Rebuilding Sustainable Communities After Disasters. “Haiti: After the Cameras Have Gone.” 2010. University of Massachusetts Boston.

Davenport, Coral and Kendra Pierre-Louis. “U.S. Climate Report Warns of Damaged Environment and Shrinking Economy.” 23 November 2018. The New York Times.

NFL . “My Cause My Cleats” NFL Auction.

SDG Knowledge Hub. “Katowice Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC COP24) 2-14 December 2019. Katowice, Slaskie, Poland. http://sdg.iisd.org/events/unfccc-cop-24/

Sullivan, Tyler. “Patriots players reveal their My Cause, My Cleats.” 30 November 2018. 247sports.com.

UNFCCC. “Katowice Climate Change Conference – December 2018.” United Nations Climate Change. https://unfccc.int/katowice.

United Nations. “Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals Through Climate Action.” https://unfccc.int/achieving-the-sustainable-development-goals-through-climate-action

Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported Lice

November 17, 2018
by buildingtheworld
0 comments

Signs of the Times

Mont Blanc, highest peak of the Alps. Will the name change with the climate? Image: wikimedia.

Switzerland sent the world a postcard. A collage of 125,000 drawings by children across the world, assembled for aerial display on Switzerland’s Aletsch glacier, receding at 12 meters (13 yards) per year. Organized by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, the campaign is part publicity stunt to establish a Guinness world record, and part educational campaign to engage the next generation in climate action. While individual children’s messages on the segments include pledges and pleas (Save the Future for Us), the aerial overview spells out the message “#1.5C” reminding the world of the Paris Agreement where 195 nations pledged to reduce emissions, holding global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

“1 Heart 1 Tree” by Naziha Mestaoui. image on Eiffel Tower, 2015, by Yann Caradoc. Wikimedia commons.

France’s Eiffel Tower turned into a banner proclaiming the message to stop climate change in 2015. Artist Naziha Mestaoui designed “1 Heart 1 Tree” for people to add, via a mobile app, a virtual tree to a green installation on the Tower while actual trees were planted in Australia, Brazil, India, Kenya, Peru, and Senegal. Mestaoui was inspired by the “trees of peace” program in Kenya, designed by Nobel Peace laureate Wangari Maathai.

Many cities around the world have iconic monuments: Sydney’s Opera House, New York’s Empire State Building, Dubai’s Burj Khalifa are among the possible “billboards” that may invite us to look up into a better future.

Keaton, Jamey. “Kids’ postcards blanket Alpine glacier in eco-friendly stunt.” 16 November 2018. AP News. https://www.apnews.com/97e0023d66754fcc8e6b5832d463a10b.

Paris Agreement complete text: https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/english_paris_agreemet.pdf.

Peltier, Elian. “Eiffel Tower Goes Green for Climate Talks.” 29 November 2015, The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/climate/2015-paris-climate-talks/eiffel-tower-goes-green-for-climate-talks.

Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported Licen

November 9, 2018
by buildingtheworld
0 comments

Decade of Decision

Biodiversity: the decade of decision. “Mushrooms and diverse fungi of Saskatchewan.” Image: wikimedia.

Decisions made in the next decade may shape the future. In 2020, the United States will hold an important election; Japan will host the Olympics. All eyes on the future. Species, both animal and plant, are disappearing 1,000 times faster than before humans appeared. Earth is threatened by climate change; water is becoming more scarce; and, as Hansjorg Wyss states: “extractive industries chew further into the wild.” Wyss believes there may be an answer: conserve remaining wild lands as public reserves. The world’s first national park (Yellowstone in 1872) opened a new idea of preservation: now, 15% of earth’s land and 7% of the oceans is protected. Wilderness tamed and framed like the National Trails System; greenways like that on Boston’s Central Artery as nature ribboning through cities; rivers granted personhood rights are among the regulatory and legal measures of protection. Edward O Wilson, founder of Half-Earth Day, warns we must preserve half the earth to save the whole. Timing may be urgent: 77% of land on earth has been modified by humans. Wyss pledged $1 billion over the next decade with the goal of protecting 30% of the planet by 2030.When the United Nations Biodiversity Conference convenes in land of the Suez Canal on November 13, 190 countries will seek agreement to preserve the natural systems that support the earth. Here’s a link to include your voice.

Albeck-Ripka, Livia. “Scientists Warn That World’s Wilderness Areas Are Disappearing: ‘Wild areas provide a lot of life support systems for the planet,’ said the author of a study that found 77 percent of earth’s land had been modified by humans.”31 October 2018, The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/31/world/australia-wilderness-environment-gone.html.

Half-Earth Project. https://www.half-earthproject.org

Jackson, Michael, Lionel Richie, Quincy Jones, and USA for Africa Chorus: “We Are the World.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9BNoNFKCBI

Watson, James E.M., Oscar Venter, Jasmine Lee, Kendall R. Jones, John G. Robinson, Hugh P. Possingham, James R. Allen. “Protect the last of the wild.” 31 October 2018, Nature. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07183-6

Wilson, Edward O. Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life. 2016. ISBN: 9781631490828.

Wyss, Hansjorg. “We Have to Save the Planet. So I’m Donating $1 Billion.” 31 October 2018. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/31/opinion/earth-biodiversity-conservation-billion-dollars.html.

Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported Licen

October 20, 2018
by buildingtheworld
0 comments

Building the Vegetable Kingdom

“Carrots of many colors” Image: USDA, Agricultural Research Service, IDK11611-1. Wikimedia commons.

Building a better world – with carrots. That crunchy veggie could be used to strengthen concrete, improving construction techniques, and the environment. Blending carrots into building products makes those materials as much as 80% stronger, according to Mohamed Saafi, Professor and Chair in Structural Integrity and Materials at Lancaster University. Not only stronger, carrot-fortified concrete also develops fewer cracks – the carrots seem to act like superglue – so less cement is required, resulting in a lower carbon output. Could it make a difference in our world? Yes. Cement is the source of 7% of global carbon dioxide emissions.

Roman Bridge at Cangas. Image: wikimedia commons.

Ancient Rome built superior roads and bridges by using materials strengthened by a mix-in of volcanic ash. The Great Wall of China was initially built by compacting reeds and mud, a combination that proved stronger and easily scalable, since the materials were available onsite, important when building a 13,000 mile wall. Bridges on the Grand Canal are another example. Mix-ins have long strengthened building materials.

Meanwhile, the next time you munch on a carrot, consider what Christian Kemp-Griffin, CEO of CelluComp, explained: “Those fibers have strength characteristics in them. It’s the building blocks of the strength of a vegetable.” Because carrots contain so much water, only a very small amount of cellulose of a carrot will alter the property of cement, because water changes as cement hardens. Kemp-Griffin continued: “It’s not the physical fiber that’s causing the strength. It’s the way it holds water. There’s a chemical reaction happening between the fibers and the cement.”

“The Iconic Ohakune Carrot,” photographer: Jane Treadwell-Hoye, 2014. Ohakuna is New Zealand’s carrot capital. Image: wikimedia.

Finally, it’s free, or almost free. CelluComp uses industrial leftovers: carrot peels from those machines that give you pre-cut carrots. Beets are next; there’s a lot of beet pulp after sugar production; 20% of the world’s sugar is made from beets. Brazil leads in sugar production (mainly cane sugar, the other 80%); but building markets may take note of Russia, France, USA, Germany, and Turkey, largest producers of sugar beets. Or, building big with carrots may happen in New Zealand, home to Ohakune, and the big carrot pictured above.

CelluComp. “We develop micro fibrillated cellulose based on waste streams of root vegetables.” https://www.cellucomp.com/

CommodityBasis. “Sugar Prices and Producers.” https://www.commoditybasis.com/sugar_prices.

Drury, Jim. “Carrots could be key to making greener buildings, say researchers.” 19 October 2018. Reuters. (Includes video.)https://www.reuters.com/article/us-environment-concrete-carrot/carrots-could-be-key-to-making-greener-buildings-say-researchers-idUSKCN1MT1VA.

Economist. “Making buildings, cars, and planes from materials based on plant fibres.” 14 June 2018. https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2018/06/14/making-buildings-cars-and-planes-from-materials-based-on-plant-fibres/

Saadi, Mohamed. Research Portal. http://www.research.lancs.ac.uk/portal/en/people/mohamed-saafi(355a81a6-210e-4f37-a495-a387b16506c1.html.

Statista. “Leading sugar beet producers worldwide in 2016, based on production volume.” https://www.statista.com/statistics/264670/top-sugar-beet-producers-worldwide-by-volume/.

Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported Licen