What do all those eco- words mean anyways? What exactly is a ‘carbon footprint’? Eco-Monkeys is on a hunt to gather all eco-related words, terms, and phrases so that you will always be in the know on the environmental front! Check back often and feel free to make suggestions!
BIOFUEL – A biofuel is a type of fuel made from recently living or living biological material.
CARBON FOOTPRINT – A person’s carbon footprint is a measure of how your activities have an impact on the environment. You can calculate yours HERE
CARBON SEQUESTRATION – Carbon sequestration is the act of capturing and storing carbon so that it does not get released into the atmosphere.
CONFLICT DIAMONDS – Conflict diamonds, also known as Blood Diamonds, result when a gemstone is mined and sold in order to fund a war or insurgency.
ECO – Simply put, ‘eco’ is commonly used as a prefix for anything related to the environment or to ecology.
ECOLOGY – The branch of science that deals with the environment in general and how creatures (like us!) interract with their specific environments.
ECO-VILLAGE – A group of people who live together in small groups and who try to provide everything they need to live for themselves and each other within the area in which they live. Eco-village residents also try to minimilize their impact on the environment as much as possible by sharing tools and equipment and by making purchasing choices that support their local economy.
ETHANOL – Ethanol is a fuel created from an alcohol formed by fermenting sugars or starches found in various plant materials. For you science types, here is the chemical formula: CH3-CH2-OH. Ethanol has been labeled a renewable fuel, which means that the materials that have been used to create it can be regrown at a relatively quick rate (as compared to fossil fuels).
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE – Fair treatment of all racial groups fairly when it comes to implementing environmental laws and regulations.
ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM – Racial discrimination that mainly occurs when polluting industries or landfills are placed near communities inhabited by minority groups.
FAIR TRADE- Fair Trade is the label for a movement that includes the following goals:
- To help marginalized workers get a higher price for their products so that they can become economically stable.
- To set standards of production for those products.
- To help those workers become more involved with the international sales of their products.
So basically, Fair Trade cuts out the middle man. It allows Fair Trade workers to get their products to the market more efficiently and therefore get a higher price paid directly to them.
FIRST GENERATION BIOFUELS – First Generation Biofuels are any fuels made from animal fats, starch, sugar, or vegetable oil. All of these come from renewable sources, although there is criticism that growing the products for these forms of biofuels divert farmland that could be used to grow food crops.
GEOCACHING – “Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online.” Taken from www.geocaching.com
GREENWASHING – Greenwashing occurs when companies falsely advertise their products or services as green or eco-friendly.
INTERNATIONAL DAY OF CLIMATE ACTION – The International Day of Climate Action is a grassroots movement to bring awareness to the issue of climate change due to increased percentages of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
PERMACULTURE – Permaculture is a combination of the words ‘permaculture’ and ‘agriculture’. This term was coined by Franklin Hiram King in 1911.
PLARN – A plastic yarn created by cutting up plastic bags and connecting the strips together. The resulting plarn can then be knitted or crotcheted.
SECOND GENERATION BIOFUELS – One of the goals of Second Generation Biofuels is to use the parts of the foodcrops that would generally be considered inedible, such as stems and leaves. For those of you who want to be fancy you can start using the word “Lingoncellulose” – this means the woody part of plants. If this method is perfected, it will allow us to use current crop materials without threatening anyone’s food supply or clearing new land.
THIRD GENERATION BIOFUELS – Third Generation Biofuels are fuels derived from algae. The oil extracted from algae is used to create variants of fuels: biodiesel, biobutanol, biogasoline, and methane.
