WoodMarvels Blog

One of the items Zhi Wen bought "online" from WoodMarvels.com in the year 2140

Here is how I would see the typical Chinese citizen living their life in the year 2140. Why Chinese? Because China WILL lead the environmental crusade through this century. They have the brain power (population x education x competition), the will and importantly, don’t live in a democratic country… these billions of people will be pushed into changing their lifestyle fundamentally with little choice but to comply or face severe consequences.

7am: Zhi Wen wakes-up to a flowing symphony of environmental beauty

Paper-like screens cover ALL walls in her home, including doors and windows so she can remodel her place at her whim, no more paint, no more drywall nor wallpaper. The floor is covered with kinetic capture devices that produce energy as people walk around their home due to shifts in body weight.

8am: She gets the kids out of bed

Beds all fold-away into the wall or floor, meaning each room has many different uses depending on time or mood so you can live in a smaller place. People live in ONE large room, reducing the amount of materials required to build a typical dwelling and what is used, comes from natural, fully recycled materials.

9am: She and the kids eat breakfast and take a shower while brushing their teeth

Brushing your teeth in the shower saves energy, there is no need for toothpaste as lasers are used instead of bristles. Shower”water” actually is pressured water droplets which come from recycled water used throughout the house so no shampoo is needed as all the bodies natural odors are water soluble. Breakfast comes from genetically modified plants grown in their own greenhouse that filter the air while growing back a few hours later.

10am: After dropping the kids off at school, Zhi Wen goes to work

All schools are solar powered and for temperature, use geothermal recycling and located no more than a few kilometers from where people live. Communities are built around schools to reduce public transit use or the need for personal transportation. Zhi Wen works at home and telecommutes so no need for office buildings, people use holographic avatars to interact in virtual words to work together.

11am: Time for some shopping!

Zhi Wen got out of work early today because she did a good job so she decides to go shopping, she goes “online” to WoodMarvels.com using her holographic avatar and orders a few items which get manufactured on-demand by the school her children attend which she can pick-up with the kids. People in 2040 have their own small desktop manufacturing machines for small items but larger ones that can build cars and other large items are centrally located in schools. Kids learn about manufacturing and technology at an early age, exposing them to the entire process is essential!

Noon: Time for Lunch!

On today’s menu, fresh algae with a few grasshoppers and meal worms, algae is incredibly nutritious, as are insects and can live off general household waste, algae needs sun and fertilizer provided by the bathroom while insects feed on the kitchen scraps. Plates and cutlery are made of bamboo which is durable, easy to clean and recycled.

1pm: Boss calls, need some quick work done

Zhi Wen is technically off-work but her boss needs a few things urgently, so she just puts back onto her head a visor and works for the next few hours using her hollographic avatar in a virtual business to finish her job. Keyboards and computers are a thing of the past, the entire processes of creation occur directly in the mind. All is powered by a mix of solar power and kinetic energy while going through the movements. You don’t just “sit” and think of working, you are actively moving as you would in real life but in a virtual environment which your room transforms into.

5pm: Boyfriend comes back home

People learn to think for themselves so they no need for religion nor marriage for that matter, ghosts and the supernatural are told as stories, not taken as facts. Her boyfriend finished upgrading the solar panels on their exterior walls which helps to power items within their home. People live in huge mega-complexes which are made-up of up to 20 000 units per building). There are no cities but mega-communities lined-up one next to the other, separated by natural forests and farmland.

6pm: Super time!

Zhi Wen and her boyfriend Yan Lee prepared some delicious fish and chicken, grown in the communal buildings aquariums and hatcheries, everything is recycled and almost nothing is thrown away. For desert, meal worms with a little fruit grown from the communal rooftop gardens.

7:30pm: Entertainment and family time

People can change their scenery at a whim, so their “kitchen” is also their “bedroom”, “living-room” and so on. In this case, they decide to go on a trip to “Washington” to see what use to be one of the world’s leading super powers that has since dwindled due into obscurity due to multiple defaults on foreign loans. People might be living in a communist country but they are free to do as they please, the government isn’t overly intrusive when it comes to education, only relating to wasteful and environmentally unfriedly practices. You can have as many children as you want as food is plenty and energy is essentially free due to kinetic, wind, water and solar power to name but a few. Nuclear power was phased-out 50 years ago after all the coal burning power plants where shut-down. Everything from “cars” to planes, watches to washing machines are now powerd by naturally occuring processes.

10pm: Time for bed!

In this future, people go to bed early because they can’t wait to wake-up in the morning to continue their environmentally friendly lifestyle, 9 hours of sleep is optimal.

Apparently, Google Video is really scared of wooden clocks and desktop organizers! I got two letters (so far) from Google stating the following:

——————
Hi,
Your video “Build your own wooden Desktop Organizer!” (and “Build
your own wooden Teaching Clock!” in another message) was rejected
because it didn’t comply with our policies.

Videos submitted to our program are subject to an initial review
to ensure that they comply with our guidelines. When videos do not
meet our standards, we disapprove them. The following explains our
content policies for uploading videos:

* You must have all necessary legal rights to the content.
* The video must not contain pornographic, nude, or obscene
material.
* The subject matter in the video must not be illegal.
* The video cannot contain invasions of personal privacy.
* The video cannot contain promotions of hate or incitement
of violence.
* The video cannot contain graphic violence or other acts
resulting in serious injury or death.

For more information regarding Google Video policies, please visit:
http://video.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=27737&topic=1490&hl=en

Please make sure that your video complies with our policies /
listed above. If certain parts of your video don’t comply with our /
policies, please edit your footage and resubmit it for review.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Sincerely,

The Google Video Team
http://video.google.com/

———————————–

This isn’t an isolated incident!

What I find odd is that I get the same types of rejection letters from quite a few other video services which I use to promote WoodMarvels.com. I don’t know if it’s the graphic nature of naked wood assembling into a carbon neutral item that will last longer than their companies that is the problem or people so use to illegal and pirate content that can’t wrap their heads around a product that isn’t conducive to these activities… I don’t get it.

Cover your eyes!

Now, please tell your children to go to bed and cover your monitor because I will, incredibly, present to you these incredibly graphic, offensive, illegal and hate filled woodcrafting videos to you!

One that I was expecting to cause some problems

I realize not everybody out there likes Halloween so I thought for sure, some video reviewer out there would surely post an objection to the 3D animation showcasing the assembly of a guillotine but that was accepted without a hitch. My guess is they had no clue what this contraption was. Who knows what these guys are thinking (if at all). You can find this and many other models of course, in the form of pre-cut kits or blueprints on our main site WoodMarvels.com.

The Bottom Line

Free, community based video reviewing systems aren’t worth a damn. (This post is full of sarcasm)

For those who are interested, I have reviewed my experiences with Ponoko.com so far. They are the company I am using to develop the on-demand-manufacturing aspect of WoodMarvels.com.

http://blog.buzvia.com/site-review-ponoko

If you live in North America or Europe, odds are that you have a real Christmas tree in your house as part of the Christmas festivities. Here is how you get the most Christmas tree enjoyment during that time.

November Forestry

Most Christmas trees are grown on commercial farms and are harvested in November before the winter season has a profound effect on the trees survival mechanisms. For instance, a decrease in light leads to the tree sending much more water fluids into the root system, this may cause some dehydration if it isn’t cut before this process begins. So ask when the tree was cut, if it’s a fresh Christmas Tree, odds are, the needles will begin falling soon after it enters your home.

Home Maintenance

Once the Christmas tree enters your house, be sure to cut half an inch off the base and place the tree trunk inside of a bowl containing plenty of water and a little sugar. It’s important that you have as clean a cut as possible as this will lead to an efficient fluid delivery system for the tree as it becomes part of your living room. Remember, a dehydrated tree looses it’s needles at an increasing rate, so always make sure the bowl has plenty of water in it.

After Christmas

After Christmas, what do you do with the Christmas Tree? Well, you can mulch it, bring it into a local forest for nature to take its course or even better, keep it in your yard. A Christmas tree is a wonderful resource for the local wildlife population, the needles are used by birds for their home construction, insects use the tree structure for their home and allowing it to naturally decompose is a nice reminder that nature wastes nothing.

The Bottom Line

Christmas trees need to be taken care of both before and after their use.

Buzvia: Somerville Nurseries Inc.

Walking down the aisles of the local lumber yard, you can easily be forgiven if you forgot that what you are actually looking at was once living in a vast forest that critters of all types once used for shelter, food or just a perch.

Tree Selection

The first step towards the assembly line would be the growth of the forest to begin with, without going through billions of years of evolution, let’s just take it for granted that a healthy tree stand now sits on what use to be bare, sterile rock. Most forests are second or third generation in North America where we cut down virgin old growth forests centuries ago and are mostly located on government crowd land. After several applications to various government agencies along with environmental assessments along with business plans, an area of trees is agreed to be felled.

Cut them down!

Second step, once the areas to be cut are decided upon, the process of cutting them down begins. There are various methods of accomplishing this, some more environmentally sound then others and they include:

Single-Tree Selection

The biggest (usually oldest), most profitable trees are cut and taken away for processing. This gives smaller trees an opportunity to grow as the canopy is opened up and although slow, gives the forest the biggest opportunity to recover as this mimics the natural process of larger trees dying off.

Group Selection

This method is similar to that of single-tree selection except a profile of trees of various sizes (ages) and profitability are taken out. This also helps minimize impact as the variety in the forest is maintained, thus improving recovery after harvesting has ceased.

Shelterwood Method

This method is simply a clear-cutting of the forest while leaving 15-20 trees per acre to help re-populate the forest. This has as devastating an impact as clear cutting but at leaves a little, though not much, to allow a forest to recover. The recovery period is dramatically longer if it’s followed by a fire, as most clear cuts are but this can be helped by a healthy replanting program. The forest’s wildlife are heavily impacted as well as every aspect of the ecosystem is changed.

Seed-Tree Method

This method is similar to the shelterwood method except that the trees, after they have spread their seeds to “repopulate the forest” are then cut down as well. This is more economically expensive then the shelterwood as the lumbermen need to re-enter the “forest” to finish their initial tree harvesting.

Clear-cutting Method

Essentially the wholesale cutting of a forest, the environmental impact is detrimental as this harvesting method promotes soil erosion and the loss of the original forest biodiversity that once inhabited the forest. I have been told through various representations at how this actually is beneficial for the forest as it mimics a forest fire but I don’t believe it. A forest leaves the biomass intact, this removes the biomass THEN burns, big difference. Unless swiftly followed by an aggressive soil erosion mitigation and replanting program, the forest will take a long time to recover.

Cutting a tree into planks

Once a tree is harvested, no matter the method, it usually goes one of three ways. The first is being cut at saw mills into 2×4, 4×4 and other forestry products such as particle board and chip-wood. The second is pulp and paper mills which turn the wood fibers into paper products. The third ranges from firewood to log home construction and everything in between.

The Bottom Line

Forests are important to all of us both economically and physically, they should be properly managed with the respect they deserve.

Buzvia:  North Carolina Forestry Association

There isn’t a day in the past few months where lead or other toxic ingredients have found their way in consumer related products originating from China. But you have to ask yourself… what exactly are you surprised about?

Why are Chinese products so cheap?

Let’s backup for a moment, the reason why production of all sorts has moved from (name your country) to mostly China is due to cost. Well, you don’t get anything for nothing, these costs come at the expense of the environment, it’s citizens and most importantly to ourselves. Let me explain:

Environmental Costs

When you have very lax or non-existent environmental laws, there are some major savings to be granted to factories. No need for that sewage treatment plant, no need for the heavy metal recovery system and water is plentiful. Got a few extra cartons of materials or some garbage to dispose of, well, just burn it in the backyard. I saw this first hand when I was in Malaysia, people in smaller cities would bring their days garbage into the middle of the street and burn it, there where bond fires EVERYWHERE at night. What I found funny at the time was even after people where finished cutting their grass, instead of picking up the lawn clippings, they would get the blow torch… I kid you not! Now, this says nothing about the added pollution from bad coal firing plants, transportation costs and the list goes on.

Slavery

Let’s call it what it is, the communist party, companies and a few select individuals are profiting from a large population of uneducated slaves coming from the countryside. I have heard second hand stories from quite a few company owners that did plant visits in factories to find out that hearing protection, eye protection, the basics in any factory setting where not even available! This says nothing about workers compensation, “living” at the factory in huge communes with this money being deducted form their pay and the list goes on. Are you willing to work 6 days a week, 16 hours a day for months on end? What is going on in China in factories across the country is nothing more then organized slavery that puts the European practice a few centuries ago to shame.

Local Economic Costs

With relatively high paying jobs being outsourced to the third world, local economies experience a fundamental shift. Costs go down, yes, but so do salaries and working standards for those who wish to keep their jobs. There is no surprise that big box retailers are making a fortune selling cheap “made in China” products but if people really knew the true cost of what those items cost, I am sure they would be repulsed.

It isn’t only China nor is it their fault

Now, this is definitely not an anti-China tirade, there is some very good businesses and entrepreneurs in China that do care about their production facilities, employees and so forth. These poor working conditions and environmental standards can be found around the globe, from the sweatshops of India and Bangladesh to the gold mines in South Africa. In an era where the cheapest production facility globally gets the business, China is the most diversified and hard working among them. For all of China’s faults, there are some positives as well, their society is quickly being transformed into a more educated populous. Their influence is rapidly expanding and best of all, they are forcing businesses around the world, especially in Italy, to become more efficient in the light of some heavy competition. To be honest, there are some very bad businesses even in the developed world, it just happens that China has a larger proportion due to their closed society and population size.

Solution

I have a very easy solution to all these problems, instead of using plastic to buy plastic at the local mega store, just buy yourself a few wood scraps, a jig saw with some sand paper and build your very own stuff! The cost will be cheaper then what even China can produce, the environmental effect will be relatively carbon neutral and best of all, you will have a wood marvel to pass on for generations to come. Woodcrafts are really not a difficult hobby to jump into, you can even use hand tools if you really want a challenge!

The Bottom Line

Learning woodcrafts is within everyones ability, environmentalism starts at home!

Forests are both a resource for recreation and profit and finally, the world is beginning to wakeup to the fact that one isn’t mutually exclusive to the other.

What is a sustainable forest?

A sustainable forest is one that is capable of maintaining itself without degeneration of the soil and biodiversity. Humans have done this for hundreds of thousands of years but in recent times, with trees being seen more for their economic value then their spiritual or ecological one… we seem to have collectively forgotten this at our own peril.

What is Sustainable Forestry Management?

The days of clear cutting large swaths of land followed by burning are, luckily for both our planet and our very own survival, slowly going away. Replaced is a more selective approach towards managing our most precious of resources, our forests! Sustainable Forestry Management involves a number of approaches towards getting maximum profit with minimal impact to the forest biomes around the world. This is done by selectively logging and intensive replanting initiatives to leaving ecologically sensitive areas alone while doing ongoing forestry research.

Why do we all benefit from sustainable forestry practices?

First, the very oxygen we breath is dependent on the health of our forests, they are an enormous carbon sink that suck up carbon dioxide while releasing oxygen. They are also a vast genetic bank that is of importance not only to all species on this planet but for pharmaceutical companies as well. If you go far back enough through evolution, you will soon discover that trees and humans share the SAME beginning, we all come from bacteria! Aside from that, sustainable forests mean jobs for local economies that can be spread over generations as old growth gets cut and replanted with new growth.

What else can we do to save our forests?

Recycling is a great way to help our forests, reading your news online instead of purchasing newspapers, not wasting wood when building projects seen on WoodMarvels.com and donating money towards helping advance sustainable activities in forests around the world is a great start. Remember the Amazon rain forest? Well, the way that is being cut down, it may become just a memory.

The Bottom Line

Forests are essential arcs of biodiversity which should be managed or left alone.

Buzvia: Sustainable Forestry Initiative