Alexander Bauer's Blog – May 2012 Archive (7)

Due to demographic change every fifth person on earth will be over 60 years by the year 2050. In Japan, probably the oldest society in the world, people started an initiative, where you can get credits for time spent caring for elders in the community. Those elder-care units might serve as complimentary currency while doing the community a service.

Together with Urban Water Works, DaVinci Arts Middle School initiated a program which aims to educate students and citizens about storm water runoff and water quality. The DaVinci project reroutes storm water runoff from roofs and parking lots, into cisterns and a 7,200 square foot water garden, and was designed and built by the students, teachers and parents of this school. The system includes a system of cisterns, pond, constructed wetland, and bioremediation swale that collects, cleans…

Christmas 2020:

Waking up on christmas morning, I go to the bathroom and take a shower. Luckily, the rain water tank on the roof is pretty full, thanks to global warming, since snow is now rain. The entire household is running with rain water and I don't have to worry much about water prices. I put on my clothes, which are special as well, because they absorb every move I make and store the power. The floors in our house are sensitive to pressure and also work as a storage device. I…

For me, Fabio Rosa is a Power Player.

In 1992 he founded a private organization called Sistemas de Technologia Adequada Agroeletro (STA). His aim was to provide Brazil's rural areas with electricity, since approximately 25 million people lacked access. In a country bigger than Australia it is very hard to reach remote places and thus to install power lines. Consequently, many people had to resettle and move to the big cities, where they had to tackle poverty and wouldn't have been able…

There is no real food shortage in central Europe. On the contrary, we have an abundance of food supply. The sad thing about this abundance is that we become more and more dependent on huge enterprises and their food retailing. Our meanness to buy food for the best price in town exacerbates local businesses' chances to prevail incredibly. Today's consumers are so accustomed to having an immeasurable assortment to choose from that only few really wonder what actually happens to all the…

In 10 years from now, I imagine food prices to be at a historic high. Overfishing and wastefulness have taken their toll on every persons life. People come together in groups and communities, bringing with them the little food they have so it can be pooled and everyone can be sated.

Since the first day my parents have bought a home, they made a point growing their own food, as they were used to when they were children. Soon, there were vegetables, berries, fruits and herbs in such a vast variety that it surely was more than sufficient for one family. After giving away to friends and family, there were still leftovers, so I came up with the idea to donate whatever was left to a nationwide organization called Die Tafel. They collect food from supermarkets and other food…