First Solar Kiosk Opens In Ethiopia

Readily available electricity is a luxury many take for granted but for many in underdeveloped parts of the world, it's a dream they couldn't have imagined. Now a German company is trying to change that. They have opened the first ever solar kiosk near Lake Langano, Ethiopia. The kiosk has solar panels along the roof that take advantage of the arid countryside and a day of charging is enough to run a refrigerator, provide lighting, run cellphones, charge car batteries, and even run a computer. Most importantly, the kiosk sells power to the local community for whom kerosene has been the only option. Kerosene is expensive and often dangerous, giving off fumes and risking injury. The hope is that the kiosks will eventually serve as a community center where locals can come watch television, movies, or buy products that they normally wouldn't have access to.

For a lot of communities it would also be their only refrigerator and could hold perishable medical supplies.The kiosk is also a provider of employment and training to locals and employees would receive training in how to maintain and operate solar products as well as training on creating a sustainable business. With the first functional SolarKiosk operating in Ethiopia, the creators are now looking for business partners and NGO's who can help bring the kiosks to other parts of the world where they are most needed.

Illegal Logging In Mexico Butterfly Reserves Has All But Stopped

For 12 years, the Mexican authorities have struggled to stop illegal logging in the monarch butterfly reserves that were established in 2012. For many local farmers and familes, logging was the only income they knew and as many as 1,140 acres a year were being clear cut, leaving monarch butterflies with a smaller and smaller area to breed and rest during migration. The journey of the monarch is a tale of epic proportions with no one generation managing the entire round trip. The butterflies begin flying north in March, making their way all the way to Canada and returning to Mexico in the early weeks of November but the logging of their forests, coupled with harsh winters, had been causing a massive decline in their numbers.

This year marks the first time that no logging has been discernable from satallite photos, proving the efforts of the Mexican government, ecological groups, and private donors has helped. Many families that used to log have instead been shown how to start seedlings, replant trees, and build up tourism business based on the fascination people have with the butterfly migration. Authorities state that this change may not mean that all logging has stopped but the only operations still running at this time appear to be mostly individuals whose impact on the forest is much smaller.

Omar Vidal of the environmental group WWF Mexico states that more education and policing efforts will be needed to stop these last holdouts of the logging days. There is hope, however, that the butterflies will be able to recover in numbers once the forests are stable again.

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10 Yr Old Girl Convinces Smoothie Company To Stop Using Styrofoam Cups

It seems like it should be fairly obvious: a health food company that prides itself on being organic and good for the environment shouldn't be using styrofoam cups to serve its drinks. Stryofoam is horrible for the environment from the chemicals needed for its creation to the fact that it doesn't break down well once disposed of, but smoothie giant Jamba Juice in California was still serving its drinks using this harmful material. This didn't sit well with one 10 year old girl named Mia Hansen who decided to take matters into her own hands.

After buying a smoothie in June, she was greatly upset to find herself being handed a styrofoam cup. She headed right out and started a petition to ask Jamba Juice to change its ways. Within weeks, the petition went viral and gained over 130,000 signatures. Mia and her mother heard back after only three weeks. Jamba Juice had agreed to stop using styrofoam by the end of 2013. They will move to a much more ecologically friendly alternative and save thousands of cups from going to landfills where they would take many years to break down.