Air conditioners and central air systems are energy wasting mechanisms that come with a high price tag each month during the summer season. Thankfully, there is an interesting alternative to cool your house naturally: the Cold Pot, a low-tech device that takes the simple occurrence of evaporation and makes it that much more significant.

Clay, a natural substance so menial to most, probably never thought of much, actually has some cool tricks up its sleeve. It’s been around long before the dinosaurs were roaming freely about and embodies an abundance of common (and uncommon) uses. From beauty remedies and products to external and internal medicinal treatments down to pet litter, clay plays an exceptional and health conscious role. Now, in a most unusual portrayal, clay is actually wonderfully useful in altering the warm temps in your home.

How exactly can clay cool your house naturally you ask? French-born designer, Thibault Faverie, has given us the answer with his terracotta Cold Pot invention that utilizes the organic process of evaporation to our benefit. Clay is extremely absorbent so that was the obvious main component used in the design. Cold Pot resembles what most would compare to a flowerpot. It does indeed appear that way, very sleek, simple, and compact in size and shape. But inside is where the magic happens.

Behind the clay exterior lays aluminum cooling slices, connectors, an aluminum pipe, and a fan. The outer pot converts heat through a wide opening at the bottom of the pot while absorbing the water on the inside as the fan propels, releasing it up through the cooling slices and pipe to the outer surface. Once water and air meet, evaporation occurs and a cooler temperature is dispensed. The contraption is so low maintenance it only requires 2 liters of water!

It hasn’t yet been specified how large or small of a room it can cool off, but if the Cold Pot actually ever goes into production, it would make a great little investment. It’s incredibly energy efficient, so no refrigerating gas needed which means as friendly as it is to our environment it also keeps our wallets in mind.

There’s also a major health benefit to the Cold Pot! The air you’d be breathing in would be renewed air, not re-circulated! Re-circulated air is the culprit of many airborne illnesses and germs as well as the lack of moisture, resulting in dry air. Dry air equals possible nosebleeds and sore throats. Renewed air gives you fresh, moist air helping to eliminate the issues mentioned above. Who would’ve ever thought a simple terracotta pot and the age-old philosophy of evaporation could sequentially help cool your house naturally? That’s some pretty awesome, progressive stuff!

Related on EcoSalon:

Win for the Clean Air Act: Court Decides EPA Can Regulate Mercury Emissions

10 Infographics On Energy

Common Houseplants Let Us Grow Our Own Clean Air

Image by thibault-faverie.com

The post Cool Your House Naturally with Bio Air Conditioning Inspired Cold Pot appeared first on EcoSalon.

I’m no chemist. In fact, I get a little jittery around (and refuse to make eye contact with) the Periodic Table on my son’s closet door. But, given the subject matter here, I must do my best to understand the basic causes surrounding greenhouse gas emissions and their impact on global warming. At times, the concepts seem simple to me (I “get” the greenhouse metaphor) and other times my eyes tragically glaze over when well-meaning scientists try to explain exactly what’s happening here that’s threatening the lives and future of my children. But mental gymnastics aside (sorry folks, some of it is hardcore science), I just read something that I can get my wee right brain around: the air is sooty and we should clean it up.

“A massive simulation of soot’s climate effects finds that basic pollution controls could put a brake on global warming, erasing in a decade most of the last century’s temperature change,” says a Wired Science post. What they’re getting at is that greenhouse gas emissions aside, which are a huge problem and require long-term solutions (“new energy technology and profound changes in lifestyle”), our habit of pumping good ol’ soot into the atmosphere (wood and dung burning, diesel exhaust, small boilers, residential coal use) is something that 1) is a huge part of the problem of global temperature change, and 2) we should be able to get a handle on for immediate impact using simple tools that already exist, like exhaust filters and clean-burning stoves.

The article is based in part on the work of Stanford University climate scientist Mark Jacobson, who conducted the simulation. He found that soot, or black carbon, plays a critical role in global warming, a fact apparently uncovered by prior studies, as well, including work done by NASA back in 2003. But Jacobson’s work takes the simulation a step further, looking into the immediate effects of decreasing the emissions of said soot. The good news, he reports, is that soot has a lifetime in the atmosphere of just a few weeks, while carbon dioxide, for example, has a lifetime of 30 to 50 years. So getting our black carbon problem under control could have a quick and significant effect on global temperatures.

“If you totally stop CO2 emissions today, the Arctic will still be totally melted,” says Jacobson. If we pull in the reins on soot, “the reductions start to occur pretty much right away. Within months, you’ll start seeing temperature differences.”

Explains the article’s author, Brandon Keim: “Soot comes from the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels, and also from the burning of wood or dung for fuel. Crop residue and forest-burning are another major source.”

The 2003 NASA simulation said soot was responsible for one quarter of all global warming in the 20th century. And soot has been identified a key contributor to crises ranging from to glacier melts to abnormal monsoon activity. The United Nations, says Keim, “puts the soot-related death toll at 1.5 million people annually.”

If stopped tomorrow, the disappearance of soot would could drop average world temps by about a degree Fahrenheit. “That’s about half the net warming – total global warming, minus cooling from sun-reflecting aerosols – experienced since the beginning of the industrial age,” says Keim. “The effect would be even larger in the Arctic, where sea ice and tundra could rapidly refreeze.”

The big picture impact of a wide-scale soot reduction effort could buy time and delay “tipping points” in climate change as greenhouse gases continue to take their toll. While the last year’s draft climate treaty generated in Copenhagen last year doesn’t say anything “soot-specific,” the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) will be discussing soot problems next year. Meanwhile, here in the States, the EPA will soon begin its own black carbon study. In the meantime, it’s nice to know that there may be some immediate answers out there if we just listen up and put a lid – or a filter – on it.

Image: stoixeia

The post The Air Is Sooty. We Should Clean It Up. appeared first on EcoSalon.

I feel a bit guilty writing about oppressive heat in the fog-swaddled San Francisco Bay Area while my friends back east and in Europe are wilting under record-high temperatures. But as someone who spent a recent Parisian summer sweltering in an attic level apartment, I feel I’ve earned my heat wave street cred. For unlike my east coast cronies who groan about triple digit days before retreating to refrigerated offices, I have had to face the heat European-style. For those of you who don’t know what this means, I’m talking about sans air-conditioning.

I should point out that I have a strong aversion to hot weather. As the mercury rises, I become dizzy, tomato-red and weak. It is not pretty. Actually, it is a little scary. And while I am well aware of the environmental damage an air-conditioning unit can pump out, sometimes comfort trumps conscience and I flip that switch.

In France, forget it. Air conditioning is not only rare, but is openly frowned upon. So when Paris was suffering through a particularly brutal heat wave one July, I took to French coping mechanisms to ride out the canicule. I survived. In one piece. And lived to appreciate the lesson, if not the heat itself.

For starters, there is nothing an oven-like apartment to get you out and about. As a writer, long days spent working at home are often par for the course. Add deadlines or engrossing research to the mix, and lunch out or a leisurely afternoon walk can easily fall by the wayside. Facing 95-degree temperatures in a seventh-floor walkup has a way of rearranging priorities. I enjoyed picnics in the city’s parks, afternoons relaxing in cafes and a late-night walk with a friend that spanned several miles and introduced me to new neighborhoods. And you know what? This new relaxed pace reduced my stress level, helping me to be more productive in the long run.

I also saw more of my neighbors and by that, I mean much more than I needed to. Parisians are generally reserved, but all modesty quite literally flies out the window during stifling evenings when fellow apartment dwellers lounge around bright rooms in various states of undress. What initially seemed like a large-scale homage to voyeurism, soon gave way to collective empathy as many people shed attitude along with articles of clothing. We were all in this together, and a friendly wave from a window across the courtyard was a welcome reminder that I was not the only one roasting in a veritable sauna.

In my bid to escape the torment I began to revel in small pleasures. Cold towels dabbed with essential oil became cherished mini spa experiences, further relaxing me.  Besides heat relief, there is something oddly sensual about lying naked across a futon at 2:00 am draped in wet, lavender-scented cotton. Pastis and absinthe daiquiris also had a surprisingly cooling, soothing effect, putting to rest a long-held wariness of licorice-flavored concoctions. Or perhaps polishing off two drinks after lunch makes you less inclined to care how hot it is.

What sticks with me the most, however, is the refrain from friends and colleagues that such heat spells, though previously rare, are becoming increasingly common. Climate experts say that a combination of global warming and urbanization will result in hotter summers in the coming decade.

My French heat wave was a reminder of this urgency. Unlike sizzling summers past when I basked in frigid blasts and quickly forgot a record heat spell, soaring temperatures are hard to ignore when your apartment has morphed into a steam room and a unit across from yours appears to have been taken over by nudists. And if my next July in Paris is anything like my last, I very well may join the party. With my lavender-scented towel, of course.

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Erin Zaleski.

Image: Al lanni

The post Voyeurism, Nudity and Absinthe Daiquiris: Surviving a Heat Wave Euro-Style appeared first on EcoSalon.