The Sustainable Glossary

Organic Food and Farming

Organic farming is a form of agriculture which excludes the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, plant growth regulators, livestock feed additives, and genetically modified organisms.
[From Wikipedia. See also Biodynamic Food and Farming]

Biodynamic Food and Farming

Biodynamic agriculture is a method of organic farming that treats farms as unified and individual organisms, emphasizing balancing the holistic development and interrelationship of the soil, plants, animals as a closed, self-nourishing system.
[From Wikipedia. See also Organic Food and Farming]

Greenwash

The practice of giving a false green or a false sustainable image.
If a company has a mix of sustainable and unsustainable products and services:

• take the good,
• avoid the bad,
• ask them to do better.

Greenhouse Mafia

The collection of industries that had the ear and sympathy of the Australian Federal Government and the Prime Minister, John Howard. It is expected that they are still attempting to influence the current Federal Government. The membership stems from the following industries: Coal mining, Oil and Gas production, Aluminium and Steel manufacture, Power Generators.

Embodied Energy

The energy required to manufacture a product. May include the extraction and processing of the raw materials and transport of the materials and products. For sustainable living, it is an important factor to consider when the embodied energy is sourced from burning carbon. If all our energy came from sustainable zero carbon sources, the level of embodied energy would not be a concern.

Food Miles

The distance a food product travels from farm to table. Calculating total food miles of any manufactured or processed foods must include the food miles of each food component.

Land Clearing

Removal of native trees and vegetation.

Vehicle To Grid - V2G

An electric car battery management system that enables the car battery to be charged by the grid and the grid to take back power from the battery. As most vehicles spend most of their time stationary, if a number of electric vehicles are connected to the grid, power utilities can take advantage of this to store excess generated power. The concept works well with renewable power generation as the time of cheap power generation and power demand can vary. The concept is being tested with the Toyota Prius in a rural community in Oklahoma.
[More: Plug In Hybrids - Sherry Boschert;
George Monbiot calls for Zero emissions by 2030]

Anthropogenic

Caused by human activity.

Global Oceanic Anoxic Events

Global Oceanic Anoxic Events occur when the Earth's oceans become completely depleted of oxygen (O2) below the surface levels. Although anoxic events have not happened for millions of years, the geological record shows that they happened many times in the past, and may have caused mass extinctions-including some of those which geobiologists employ to serve as a time marker in biostratigraphic dating. It is believed oceanic anoxic events are strongly linked to lapses in key oceanic current circulations, to climate warming and greenhouse gases.
[From Wikipedia. Anoxic Event]

Thermohaline Circulation - Ocean Conveyor Belt

The thermohaline circulation is sometimes called the ocean conveyor belt, the great ocean conveyor, or the global conveyor belt.

The term thermohaline circulation (THC) refers to the part of the large-scale ocean circulation that is thought to be driven by global density gradients created by surface heat and freshwater fluxes. The adjective thermohaline derives from thermo- referring to temperature and -haline referring to salt content, factors which together determine the density of sea water. Wind-driven surface currents (such as the Gulf Stream) head polewards from the equatorial Atlantic Ocean, cooling all the while and eventually sinking at high latitudes (forming North Atlantic Deep Water). This dense water then flows into the ocean basins. While the bulk of it upwells in the Southern Ocean, the oldest waters (with a transit time of around 1600 years) upwell in the North Pacific (Primeau, 2005). Extensive mixing therefore takes place between the ocean basins, reducing differences between them and making the Earth's ocean a global system. On their journey, the water masses transport both energy (in the form of heat) and matter (solids, dissolved substances and gases) around the globe. As such, the state of the circulation has a large impact on the climate of the Earth.
[From Wikipedia. Thermohaline Circulation]

Biochar

Agrichar ™

Biochar is a charcoal produced from biomass that can store carbon.
It is of increasing interest because of concerns about global warming caused by emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. In some cases, the term is used specifically to mean biomass charcoal produced via pyrolysis. Biochar may be an immediate solution to reducing the global impact of farming (and in reducing the impact from all agricultural waste).

The burning and decomposition of trees and agricultural matter contributes a large amount of CO2 to the atmosphere. Biochar can store this CO2 in the ground and the presence of the biochar in the earth increases soil productivity, which will allow farmers to stop encroaching on rainforests as a source of more fertile farmland.
[From Wikipedia. Biochar. See also Terra preta]

Pyrolysis

Heating of biological matter in the absence of oxygen.

Heating material in a controlled atmosphere in which there is not enough oxygen to initiate burning. The process produces gases that can be used as fuel.

A technology related to incineration where waste is heated in the absence of air to produce gas and liquid fuel plus solid waste. This phenomenon commonly occurs whenever solid organic material is heated strongly in absence of oxygen, e.g., when frying, roasting, baking, toasting. Even though such processes are carried out in a normal atmosphere, the outer layers of the material keep its interior oxygen-free (which is why the outer layer oxidizes (burns), but the inside does not).

Charcoal is produced by the anhydrous (without water) pyrolysis of wood.
[Various definitions found on the Web]