Category Archives: Other Stuff
There is no thinking twice indeed that the hospitality industry is moving towards the greener side of affairs and leading the way is the Hilton Worldwide organization. The hospitality company has managed to reduce its energy use by a whopping 12.2 percent and carbon output by 12.8 percent since the year 2009! This has resulted in the company saving nearly a quarter of a billion dollars from energy efficiency projects over the past 4 years, an amount that’s simply not ignorable!
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The jolly folks at Volvo have managed to stun the world with some jaw-dropping innovations quite often before and has done so again with this fantastic pavilion we spotted recently. Created by Los Angeles-based Synthesis Design + Architecture, this tensile pavilion sports solar panels and is foldable too! Once deployed, the pavilion’s solar panels soak in energy from the sun and use this to charge the car beneath, in this case being the new electric hybrid Volvo V60. The pavilion can then be folded completely and fitted inside trunk of the car!
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Going green doesn’t cost much and all it needs is the heart and mind in the right place! One low-income school in Hong Kong recently proved this by being titled as one of the Greenest Schools on Earth by the U.S. Green Building Council! So how did the Sing Yin Secondary School manage the incredible without blowing away its funding to smithereens? The school put to use a bunch of energy-efficient installations including solar panels, green roofs and wind turbines. All of these add to the Sing Yin Secondary School’s eco-efficiency.
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Let’s face it, coal mines aren’t the greenest business practices out there and these are known to be extremely polluting operations that threaten the environment, as human-kind continues to excavate and look for black gold. A recent report stated that two coal mines in the Australian state of Queensland could emit a whopping 125 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e) annually, more than the emissions from Vietnam, Uzbekistan or Iraq! As if this isn’t disturbing enough, 9 more coal mines are proposed for the Galilee Basin in central Queensland.
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The residents of Beijing were left surprised and utterly disgusted as the city was recently shut down as smog levels reached a record high. Transport routes including roads and airports came to a close to prevent accidents and people were encouraged to stay indoors, to protect their lungs, their eyes and their lives. In fact, the smog levels were so bad that they moved from the “hazardous” index up onto the “beyond index” reading!
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Gyms are great to give your body a fitter edge. However, given the fact that these spaces have air-conditioning and lighting installations running through the day, they aren’t really the most environment-friendly way to fitness. Well, that’s where CrossFit steps up! This extremely popular and effective way to a healthy life turns a workout into more than just a pampering session, using gyms that more often than not, have no air-conditioning at all!
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Ah! We love stuff with more than a single use, particularly if the stuff in discussion is an energy-efficient piece of brilliance. We’ve had the pleasure of spotting this fantastic bucket by designer Chia-Yuan Pai. Called the Solar Energy Bucket, this concept is exactly what its name suggests, a solar-energy generating bucket! The bucket functions as a regular one, allowing you to fill it up with liquids. Turn it upside down and the bucket sports solar panels on its bottom that can be used to soak in the sun!
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Living on top of a mountain peak isn’t really as easy as it seems, particular if the mountain peak is Europe’s highest. Visitors to the peak of Mount Blanc now have some respite and a shelter awaiting them, 3,835m above sea level. Designed by Swiss firm Group H, in collaboration with French firm Decalaage, this self-sufficient shelter looks more like a space-ship waiting to take off! Made from a wooden structure with metal cladding, the structure can accommodate up to 120 people and is designed across four levels.
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Without innovation, human life wouldn’t amount to much. Hell, we’d still be a bunch of nomadic tribes, desperately seeking ways to fulfill our most basic needs. Which is why, we consider innovation to be a gift, and which is also why we’ve fallen in love with this fantastic elevator concept we spotted riding up a tree recently. The elevator makes use of an old bicycle and to ride it, one simply needs to be seated on the bicycle’s seat and begin pedaling. The pulley system quickly begins to ascend the bicycle up to the tree-house that is nested about 30 feet off the ground.
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Soon, the world won’t have to send satellites to outer-space to aide communication. Titan Aerospace has recently developed two solar-powered UAVs capable of flying on solar energy and staying up in the sky for weeks. Called the Solara 50 and Solara 60, these two solar powered aircrafts are designed to fly up to 65,000ft and include a 50m wingspan and a single large battery-powered propeller. The battery is juiced by thousands of high-efficiency solar cells placed on just about every surface of the aircrafts.
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