Weaving A Home: This Woman’s Invention Can Help Millions of People Globally


Prototype Solar Tent designed by Abeer Seikaly

A sustainable tent that collects rainwater, folds up for easy transport and stores solar energy? Sounds visionary, right? This is the invention of Jordanian-Canadian architect, designer and artist Abeer Seikaly. Abeer Seikaly designed these amazing multipurpose tents with refugees in mind, people who have been displaced by global and civil war, climate change and more. Inspired by elements of nature such as snake skin and traditional cultural aspects such as weaving, nomadic life and tent dwellings, this weather proof, strong but lightweight and mobile fabric tent gives refugees shelter but also a chance to “weave their lives back together”. The flexible dual layer tent structure has the ability to close out the cold of winter and wet weather. It also opens up to allow cool air in and hot air out in summer. Rainwater is collected in the top of the tent and filters down the sides so the tent does not become flooded. The tent also has the ability to become a showering facility with water being stored in pockets on the side and drawn upwards via a thermosiphoning system providing basic sanitation. Solar energy hits the tent fabric and is stored in a battery for use at night […]

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Your Next United Flight Might Be Powered By Farm Waste

United Airlines Eco-Skies

Travelers from Los Angeles to San Francisco will have a lower carbon footprint this fall. Many other flights could soon follow. If you happen to get on a United flight from Los Angeles to San Francisco this fall, you might be traveling on leftovers from the farm. The airline will be the first in the country to start flying regular passenger flights on alternative jet fuel—in the case, made from a mix of non-edible oils and agricultural waste blended with traditional fuel. “We believe that one of our greatest opportunities to reduce the aviation industry’s environmental footprint is through sustainable alternative fuels,” says Angela Foster-Rice, United’s managing director for environmental affairs and sustainability. United flew the first biofuel test flight in the U.S. in 2009 (using algae), and the first commercial flight in 2011. The company signed an agreement with AltAir Fuels—the company supplying the new fuel to LAX—six years ago. But it’s only now that the biofuel industry is beginning to get to the point to supply regular flights. The challenges of scaling up have involved the cost alternative fuel feedstock and raising sufficient capital investments, Foster-Rice says. Over the next three years, United plans to buy 15 million […]

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What’s Killing the Babies of Vernal, Utah?

Every night, Donna Young goes to bed with her pistol, a .45 Taurus Judge with laser attachment. Last fall, she says, someone stole onto her ranch to poison her livestock, or tried to; happily, her son found the d-CON wrapper and dumped all the feed from the troughs. Strangers phoned the house to wish her dead or run out of town on a rail. Local nurses and doctors went them one better, she says, warning pregnant women that Young’s incompetence had killed babies and would surely kill theirs too, if given the chance.

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Avatar Director James Cameron has designed Solar Sun Flowers

James Cameron Solar Sunflowers

Director James Cameron has designed Solar Sun Flowers as a gift to his wife, which have been installed on campus at her MUSE School in California. Cameron had five flowers installed on the 22-acre Malibu Canyon campus and they generate roughly 300 kilowatt hours per day. The flowers are expected to offset the non-profit school’s power usage between 75-90%. Amazing! The patent-pending design will soon be an available, free and open-source, to encourage wider use of solar power. Now that’s what we call charitable!

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Women Of Green Partners with Women In Green Forum

Women In Green Forum 2015

Women Of Green is proud to be a media partner in the 6th Annual Women In Green Forum to be held August 26th in Los Angeles, California. Promoted as a unique conference experience set in the hills of Los Angeles, the Women In Green Forum has emerged as the premier conference series highlighting women’s impact on the environmental industry.

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Kenyan women powering their communities

Kenyan women set up solar power

This month we’re all about sharing stories of girls and women around the world who are beating inequality and empowering their communities along the way. Well, here’s one about a different sort of female empowerment—the kind that lights up the night, makes light bulbs shine bright, and literally powers communities. It also features donkeys lugging solar panels around the Kenyan savanna, which is not a sentence I get to write everyday.

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Women Of Green Founder Carolyn Parrs on PBS

Carolyn Parrs on PBS NM In Focus

Earth Day this year was officially Wednesday, April 22nd. Did you get your green on? Well, it’s not too late. I’ve seen in recent years Earth Day transform into Earth Week with green activities and events spread out over many days. Now if we can only get that kind of effort happening the remainder 51 weeks of the year, that would be progress!

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Avon meets solar energy. Here come the solar sisters!

“Solar is the most distributed energy source we have. The same sun shines down on everyone. And with advances in technology, it is available and affordable. Especially in sub-Saharan Africa, where only 5% of the rural population has access to electricity, solar is the perfect energy source as it takes advantage of their most abundant resource, the hot African sun,” says Katherine Lucey, Founder & CEO, Solar Sister.

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Fruit Juice, Collagen and Cigarettes (and Other Things Made from Pigs)

Christien Meindertsma like to expose the hidden processes and connections that make our world turn. Below she describes how many things can be made from pig parts, from concrete and beer, to china figurines, injectable collagen and renewable energy.

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From Rosie The Riveter to Green Irene: A Plan For Bringing Women Into The Green Revolution, by Shari Shapiro

While I was in New Orleans for the Green Matters Conference, I met the most extraordinary woman. Simone Bruni, better known in the Crescent City as the “Demo Diva,”  took her personal tragedy from Hurricane Katrina and turned it into a woman-owned and run demolition business, complete with hot pink front loader and giant dumpster. I have written and spoken extensively on the lack of women in green. There are many reasons for it, I suppose. Green, particularly Green Building, is really a version of construction, and women represent only 3-6% of the building trades as a whole. But the lesson from the Demo Diva is that there is nothing really stopping women from becoming involved, even in the male dominated fields like demolition and construction! On the softer side, there is certainly no reason that women cannot be green building lawyers, sustainable investment advisors or involved in the marketing and selling of green products. Given that the economy is in a fragile recovery, green and sustainable businesses are leading the areas of growth. There are many programs specifically designed to help women acquire these skills. (A listing is available here.) Green Business Women is a nice site with resources for women looking to turn […]

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