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August 24, 2007 by admin

KITEBOARDING | AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2007

The Desert Downwinder Download PDF

A Brazilian surf champ, a former New York internet marketing exec and a wave rookie from Colorado make the trip of a lifetime along 200 Miles of Brazilian coastline.

I just stepped off a red-eye flight from Miami to Fortaleza, Brazil’s fourth largest city, and I need to crash hard. But my guides, Dave and Jessie Hassell—an American couple who ditched their Manhattan cubicles to become kiteboarding outfitters in Brazil—are determined to get me on the water. “This is the hammock capital of the country,” Jessie, 27, informs me as I haul my gear onto the beach in Cumbuco, a dusty burg 30 minutes from the airport and 1,700 miles from the throngs of Rio de Janeiro. “They call them rede, pronounced ‘hedgy.’” “I could really use a hedgy,” I confess, about to wimp out in favor of a nap when a flash of red and blue whooshes past. It’s a kiteboarder racing downwind. Watching him shred through the South Atlantic surf gets me fired up to ride. I live in Colorado, where my riding is confined to reservoirs and where, as you might guess, we don’t get many waves. Ever since I started kiteboarding four years ago, I’ve fantasized about riding real, ass-kicking ocean waves, as opposed to the puny speed bumps spit out the back of a ski boat. Continue reading →

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April 24, 2007 by admin

Women’s Health | April 2007

Global Warming Special Report Download PDF

Keep Your Cool  It’s pretty freakin’ impossible to ignore the fact that our climate is changing more dramatically than the co-host lineup on The View. Whether we have Al Gore to thank or the bazillion scientists and researchers who pelt us with warnings about melting glaciers and confused polar bears, global warming is no longer just a theory. Earth has a fever: It’s heating up because carbon dioxide (CO2)—a gas we produce when we bum fossil fuels like petroleum or coal to make the electricity that powers our high-wattage lives—is trapping heat from the sun that would normally bounce away into space. The CO2 acts like a layer of Saran Wrap around the planet, and like a bug in a roach motel, heat gets in but can’t get out. It’s what we call the greenhouse effect.

So what’s a little extra warmth? Is your life going to change that much? Well, it could—but not if you start doing some simple things now that’ll make a major difference later. We read dozens of reports, interviewed experts from climatologists to sustainable farmers to women just like you who are working (literally) to save the earth, and came up with 31 no-sweat fixes—none of which involve getting rid of your car and moving to a cabin in the woods._ Even if you tackle just a few of these, you’ll help preserve the planet so you can enjoy a healthy life for years to come. It may be getting hot in here, but that doesn’t mean you have to sweat it out. Continue reading →

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March 24, 2007 by admin

Popular Science | March 2007

The Prophet of Garbage Download PDF

Joseph Longo has invented a machine that turns our most vile trash into clean energy—and promises to make a relic of the landfill.  

It sounds as if someone just dropped a tricycle into a meat grinder. I’m sitting inside a narrow conference room at a research facility in Bristol, Connecticut, chatting with Joseph Longo, the founder and CEO of Startech Environmental Corporation. As we munch on takeout Subway sandwiches, a plate-glass window is the only thing separating us from the adjacent lab, which contains a glowing caldera of “plasma” three times as hot as the surface of the sun. Every few minutes there’s a horrific clanking noise—grinding followed by a thunderous voomp, like the sound a gas barbecue makes when it first ignites.

“Is it supposed to do that?” I ask Longo nervously. “Yup,” he says. “That’s normal.” Continue reading →

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February 11, 2007 by admin

Wired | February 2007

Reservoir Logs Download PDF

A submersible robot called the Sawfish can harvest healthy timber from long-forgotten underwater forests. Clear-cutting never looked so green.

I’m standing on a steel barge in the center of Ootsa Lake, a 154-square-mile reservoir in northwestern British Columbia. A chafing wind blows from the west, where the snowy, nearly treeless slopes of the Kitimat Range vanish into overcast skies. I jump as a voice booms over the outdoor PA system: “Clear to cut!” A few seconds later, a massive spruce tree erupts from the murky water.

Two hundred feet below, a remotely operated vehicle dubbed the Sawfish is wielding a 54-inch-long chain saw. On the deck of the barge, an operator sits inside a cramped, dimly lit control room made from a shipping container. He’s maneuvering the Sawfish with a joystick, and his eyes are locked on a video feed of footage from eight underwater cameras embedded in the contraption. A generator delivers power to the sub through a 720-foot-long high-voltage cable that also encloses a set of fiber-optic lines to transmit guidance commands from the pilot. Continue reading →