Welcome to the 3rd world – where innovation and ingenuity are commonplace in solving problems of daily life. In the video below, residents of Manila in the Philippines have been struggling with getting light into their homes during the day. Amazingly, this problem has been solved by the introduction of ‘coke lights’. The coke lights are just 2 litre soda bottles filled with water and a dash of chlorine to produce a bright and brilliant energy-efficient source of light indoors. Watch the video, and be illuminated!!

This morning I came across a really incredible stop-animation video that was commissioned by a local Mexican restaurant chain named Chipotle, and their associated Chipotle Cultivate Foundation. The video was created by the London-based animator John Kelly and is set to a beautiful cover of the Coldplay song “The Scientist” by the infamous country star Willie Nelson.

Watch and enjoy!!

So, its Spring! Its blazing hot during the day already, but you’ll find no complaints here. The heat is a welcome respite from the inordinately cold winter that we’ve just had. And while that winter was slowly coming to an end, I was camping in the foothills of the Sneeuberg Mountains in the Klein Karoo – wwoofing. In one of the most picturesque settings in all of the South Africa (let alone the Western Cape), you would have found the team of Thinkgreen trudging up to work in mud-covered, 3 day old clothes and gumboots to partake in a day of building. While we were there, we assisted in the building of a new classroom hand made out of clay bricks and adobe wall plastering – seriously, some of the most productive fun you can have in a mudpit!! Besides the freezing cold mornings, waking up to frosted tents and the evenings after the sun went down, (it was a snowy winter after all!!) it was awesome, and we thoroughly enjoyed the ten days spent there.

Now, its almost time to head back. And thank Gaia, its getting gotten good and warm. In two weeks, we’ll be back at Berg-en-dal attending a Permaculture Design Course (PDC) and scheming to save the world thereafter. But you know, we’ll start small. One country at a time. The PDC is an intensive training course on the principles and ethics of conscious design systems that mimic natural patterns, giving one the knowledge to begin a life of self-sufficiency and lead others into doing the same. It is the most sensible way of surviving in community as a global people with nature, and especially, with ourselves.

We’ll be out of town until the last week of October, but I will be updating on the regular from now on.  So expect a daily (almost) catchup of what we’ve been up to and what we’ve learned. I think I’m going to need three brains to absorb everything I’m expecting to learn.

Knowledge is power.

Bless.

So, I have been doing quite a lot of reading and research on the internet lately (as well as those long forgotten printed texts – yeah, books), and I’m astounded by what I’ve picked up. Now, the reasons behind this “research” is to provide some rationale for my life and business dealings. Thinkgreen has always, in my mind, described a philosophy of life that we have somewhat missed out on. A self-sufficient, sustainable mindset that acts as a collective force for doing good.

Unfortunately, here in this paradise exist those greedy merchants of death, disease and misery who somehow are able to roll up their plate glass windows, pop on some darkly tinted shades and forget about the rest of the world, and their fellow inhabitants. There are many who fall into this categorisation, and who live to feed off of the tiresome, back-breaking labour of others – hogging mineral and water resources – and slowly, but devouring the hand that feeds, one calloused finger after the other.

So, while reading my daily source of blog news from around the globe, I came across a frightening article that I found on www.prisonplanet.com. Seriously tear-jerking stuff!! And, still I am trying quite hard to believe this could not be true. But, alas it is. This is no time for sticking my head in the sand, though. Ostriches have bald heads, but they used to fly too, ya know?

If you’re interested in understanding how precarious the global food shortage situation really is, please read the article I have linked to below. Really, the situation is absolutely dire – and not just for Africa – but for those both east and west of us too!! In my mind, the growth of organic independent food production is the mode we need to strive for. And this just so happens to be because the only ones who can really help people (and who have their best intentions at heart), are themselves.

An extract taken from the article mentioned above, Will 2012 Be The Year That We See Mass Starvation In Africa? 12 Signs That The World Is Running Out Of Food

The following are 12 signs that the world is running out of food….

#1 More than 3 billion people, close to half the world’s population, live on less than 2 dollar a day.

#2 Over the past year, the global price of food has risen by 37 percent.

#3 Just about every major agricultural commodity has been skyrocketing in price. Check out what a recent Bloomberg article had to say about what has been happening to many key agricultural commodities over the past year….

Corn futures advanced 77 percent in the past 12 months in Chicago trading, a global benchmark, rice gained 39 percent and sugar jumped 64 percent. There will be shortages in corn, wheat, soybeans, coffee and cocoa this year or next, according to Utrecht, Netherlands-based Rabobank Groep. Prices also rose after droughts and floods from Australia to Canada ruined crops last year. European farmers are now contending with their driest growing season in more than three decades.

#4 According to the World Bank, 44 million more people around the globe have been pushed into extreme poverty since last June because of rising food prices.

#5 Sadly, rising food prices is not a new trend. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the global price of food has gone up by 240% since 2004.

#6 To a large extent, this global food crisis has been brought on by the greed of the wealthy. A study by the World Institute for Development Economics Research discovered that the bottom half of the world population owns approximately 1 percent of all global wealth.

#7 The average income per person in the poorest countries on the continent of Africa has fallen by one-fourth over the past twenty years.

#8 It is estimated that over 80 percent of the world’s population lives in countries where the income gap between the rich and the poor is widening.

#9 Approximately 1 billion people throughout the world go to bed hungry every single night.

#10 Every 3.6 seconds someone starves to death and three-quarters of them are children under the age of 5.

#11 It is estimated that the entire continent of Africa only owns approximately 1 percent of the total wealth of the world.

#12 According to the most recent “Global Wealth Report” by Credit Suisse, the wealthiest 0.5% of the global population controls over 35% of all the wealth on the planet.

 Click the link to read the full article online. In the meanwhile, I’ll be slobbing less and doing more. Do the same.

Welcome to the homepage of Thinkgreen.

Thinkgreen is dedicated to providing an online resource for all matters related to the advancement of sustainable livelihoods. We will be drawing inspiration from our personal experiences in trying to lead a ‘greener’ lifestyle, including some homegrown projects for solar water heating and solar electrification. We’ll also be digging through the wide range of green products that are currently available – and whose aim is to reduce electricity consumption, and increase energy efficiency in the household.

We will be looking over and reviewing green inventions from all over the world, and linking you to great articles and news from the peeps we have been following over the years.