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AiREAS: Air quality curiosity and BBQs
Our civilian sustainocratic initiative AiREAS designed its own low cost real time city measurement network for registering and displaying air quality in near real time. We use state of the art technology, scientific modelling insights, etc. and measure ultrafine particles (UFP or PM0.1) that are smaller than a virus, PM1, PM2.5, PM10, ozon, temperature, SO2, etc. Our network was installed and calibrated in December 2013. Since then we collect and store valuable data.
Making the invisible visible from an air quality point of view is necessary in our multidisciplinary attempt to co-create a healthy city. Having the data is one, interpreting them is a totally different story as this unexpected event will show.
Unexpected peak
One of our partners, Imtech, in charge of data storage and ICT, is experimenting with data display on mobile telephones. I have the test app now on my phone to do some early fieldtesting. Another partner, ECN, in charge of the equipment development, has an internal display tool for testing and benchmarking purposes. This tool I use too to compare app and network data when necessary.
Every day I look at the status of the city. On the app I generally see the network as a bunch of green balls. They change color when the norm is reached (orange) or passed (red). On the computerbased tool I can see more detail and summary over time. There I often detect sudden peaks that come and go fast.
On the monday morning of Juli 21st I looked again on my app. The traditional boring green balls were all flashing red and orange. Here I display what I saw that morning:
It immediately triggered my interest. What could cause such sudden city pollution, particularly in the field of PM2.5? The other measurements did not show the same peaks.
I contacted ECN and they not only confirmed what I saw, they added that the peak had been gradually building up from midnight onwards! That was strange. We expect traffic related peaks but not a nighttime buildup when the city is expected to be at rest. Was there a fire somewhere? Quick research revealed that no special events were reported.
The sunday before had been a nice, warm summer day. The evening was warm, humid and windstill. Many people were still in town as their holidays would begin a week later. Reports from our civilian network spread over town added two issues to be considered:
* many people had been barbequeing that evening
* lots of people had complained of respiratory difficulties and a sleepless night
That night a fog had been building up over town from midnight onwards and slowly disappeared around 10 am that monday morning. The pollution peak had coincided with the fog, not the human BBQ activities. We were puzzled.
Someone suggested that our network was measuring water droplets as if it were finedust. That plausible idea could be eliminated because we use drying techniques before counting the particles and other foggy days had never shown such peaks. And water does not necessarily produce respiratory discomfort.
The local hospital also entered the debate. The hospital has operation chambres where also meat is burned, for instance to close wounds. CO2 concentrations in the OCs at one time had been high causing people to loose concentration and complain of fatigue. There is a natural relationship between healthy air and the number of ions in it. Ionizing the space helped overcome this problem. Then a new problem occured. Personnel had complained of nausea after closing wounds with burning techniques. Research showed that a specific combination of air moisture, ions and gases from burned meat caused chemical reactions that produced the sickness.
The question now arose if this could have occurred in the public space? The theory now is that on that sunday evening people massively BBQed in Eindhoven. The city is geographically located in a shallow dip. The bbq fumes accumulated in the city and were not dispersed due to the lack of wind. The high humidity caused fog to develop from midnight onwards. The water condenses on the finedust producing chemical reactions with the gases from the burned meat. Sensitive people who inhaled this experienced breathing problems, sickness and a sleepless night. At 10 am the problem disappeared as the fog lifted.
Conclusion
The explanation seems plausible as it could be contrasted with the experiences in the hospital that had been researched. Some AiREAS partners have promised to try to simulate the event in a lab environment to confirm the analysis or offer new insight. From a healthy city point of view we feel motivated to introduce bbq alternatives and innovations in town. We also have a new impuls to see if in wintertime similar situations occur when burning wood in stoves for heating. What does this do during foggy days?
All people involved were impressed with the multidisciplinary interaction to come to a plausible explanation. Many people were triggered positively to participate in the debate. It has not ended yet of course but the curiosity has pinpointed us to an issues that we can solve ourselves as citizens through awareness and innovative response.
AiREAS is creating Local AiREAS initiatives throughout Europe now. Maybe we can share experiences both in the field of public space as special environments s.a. hospitals.
Jean-Paul Close
Co founder of AiREAS
Made of God
When I wrote the series of blogs about the secretes of life I introduced an issue that can be seen as one of the major turningpoints in human history. There are many more which I will publish in my forthcoming book yet understanding God takes a lot of old spines out of our systems. No need to wait for a publication.
Appearance of human beings on Earth
The appearance of the human species on planet Earth is filled with mystery, beliefs, intrigues, speculation and suggestions. One says that we come from outer space as some extraterrestrial that hit upon planet Earth. Reason for such science fiction is the belief that humans are far too different from all other lifeforms, including the apes, on Earth.
Others say that we did actually evolve from our apelike ancestors, separating us by developing certain unique abilities that made us “different”. Modern evolution theory foresees also in effects of genetic disorder, s.a. produced by a virus, to produce an evolutionary leap.
Another popular belief is that we were created by a superior being, God, who designed us in His resemblance. Religions are based on these external powers. Many thousand or even millions of years Gods were representing just about anything that produced human doubts or fear. Only fairly recently we were asked to believe in one single God responsible for everything.
The different beliefs about the origin of humankind still cause wars, confrontations, murders, disorder, etc. But what if they are all true? That they all reflect a part of the truth and get confrontational out of lack of acceptance of the bigger picture in which every theory fits perfectly. Here I sum up my own evidence:
1. Harmonic relations are governing the universe through frequencies that have musical accords.
2. The energetic harmonic vibrations on molecular level can, in extreemly rare situations, coincide to create LIFE forms through the bondage between elements. This “missing link” between Energy x Matter (E x M) to produce Life can be referred to as God. In essence God = Life, a harmonic frequency that evolves into a hugely sensitive spiritual complexity when it reaches the state of self awareness of human beings
Life = E x M x G.
In essence this means Life, including human beings, is made OF God, not BY God. The harmonic bondage determines the diversity and steps. So in a way we are made in Gods resemlance, not just physically but harmonically. But so are all living species. “Creatures of God” gets now a totally different meaning.
3. Some necessary physical elements for life’s bondage were absent on Earth in the first few billions of years. These were added through impacts from space. We can say that we (elements for life) come from space. The harmonic vibrations for life are already standard part of the entire universe. It is as if the universe is programmed for Life. This we call “God”.
4. Life’s standard characteristic (once formed) is to grow, compete, collapse or change and finally, all together in diversification, seek harmonic symbiose. The entire complexity of life’s evolution is coded in DNA which is assembled through harmonic frequencies. The (human) DNA contains the entire human part of evolution and every new birth follows de billions of evolutionary years in clear steps, in the record time of 9 months for birth and all phases to adulthood. All life forms together form a symbiotic symphony that resembles a bigger plan for the learning self reflection. It is simply “THE plan”.
5. At one evolutionary moment we changed from one species into another, partly by chance, partly by usage of our differences. Humans became both evolutionary, with building blocks from space and made OF God. The goddly musical ingredient is part of the living complexity of our own AND our living surroundings. We coexist because of each other. One single human being is even a living symbiotic universe of billions of living creature without which we would not survive.
6. Our evolutionary complexity gave rise to self awareness, reflection and tooling. We became aware of our choices, our self interest and the consequences. As a social species (humans were never primary preditors but collectors) we developed the duality of self protection and progress. Self awareness has been confusing us ever we since we started to learn about who and what we are? This gives rise of the seamingly conflicting, and all the known, theories. The deadly encounters are part of the chaos theory that includes competition, not cocreation.
7. We have reached a point that we understand what we are, and what not, with the complexity of life in which we have long been a confused self reflective part. We understand now that life is all about harmonic frequencies in which growth, collapse and change are essential parts, not leading. We loose our confusion into understanding just to arrive at an adult phase of our collective and historic existence. We break through into the levels of awareness beyond self reflection. We are capable to oversee the Whole and organize ourselves accordingly. A new era unfolds itself…..
And?
Arriving at point 7 we let go of the destructive consumer economics of growth and adjust to seeking value driven harmony between our species and our surroundings out of self preservation and sustainable human progress. Sustainocracy is an early example of such new system’s complexity ready to grow with harmony as driver, not power, control or growth itself.
STIR Lustrum 3 – making it real
3rd and last lustrum blog…..
“What’s in it for me?”
This is a logical question when you ask people to work together on a co-creation project. With AiREAS we got the very big players together to address the issue of health and air quality. They each had their own reasons to participate. But “air quality” is too abstract for the many people who live their daily routines in auto-mode. STIR Academy offers reassurance to people who are already in the process of pain, chaos or awareness. It shows best practice of other people but those who get inspired have a whole process ahead still to get going. FRE2SH makes it real.
“What’s in it for me” in a money driven world is always translated into some kind of financial benefit. In FRE2SH however we show that money cannot be eaten, drunk or inhaled. We show people to make a difference for themselves by getting involved into self sufficiency, enjoying the results directly through real benefits and reciprocity. FRE2SH is a cooperative because we cannot do everything alone and need to work together. Through the creative input of everyone we co-create society and can go as far as developing and building our own houses and infrastructures. In most places that is too far fetched due to the dominance of old society system’s so we start very small, working on true tangible things that inspire, awaken and connect people:
- Food & Water
- Recreation
- Energy
- Education
- Self sufficiency
- Health
Our value driven cooperations and all people involved wish you a “natural” and sustainable 2014
Many people in the world already deploy initiatives out of their own motivation and awareness building. They did not need triggers like the STIR Academy or AiREAS or FRE2SH. What they do need is the re-assurance and praise that their activities are recognized and valued positively by others. Maybe they could benefit by connecting to other local initiatives and prosper together.
“What’s in it for me” translates then into recognition, shared values, food, energy, health, positive relationships, new knowledge, joy, pleasure, labor, activity, social cohesion, etc. “Everything you can create you do not have to buy. The money you save can be spend on other things.”
To develop this practical progression while respecting the initiatives of pioneers, helping them to connect with a growing bigger picture we defined “FRE2SH”. FRE2SH has to make change visible when it is created and co-created…..expanding it into true regional self sufficiency using applied science, technology and open policies.
FRE2SH (VE2RS in Dutch) makes change visible
New value systems
When new age entrepreneurs connect they do so in exchange of goods, knowledge and best practice. No money is involved. Direct labor is compensated with sharing the local benefits. In many cases FRE2SH introduces new value systems that keep values local inside a circular economy. Within the STIR Foundation we apply already two different value systems, strictly for local for local economic developments.
- Buddy: this is an value exchange system between local for local participants. It is similar to money as it values time and real values against local exchange criteria of shortages, abundance, quality and demand. The difference is that the speculation is not done by the Buddy but by the values and the users. The Buddy is just a local multiply-able standard without interest rates.
- AiREAS: this is a value system to stimulate behavioral changes. Eg. People who take the bike instead of car for work (good for health and air quality) can get local AiREAS that offer local benefits or access to specials.
1 AiREAS
Competition
FRE2SH does not compete with the power positions of large global energy or food supplies. It just stimulates self sufficiency and self awareness inviting the large organizations to participate and adjust their market approach accordingly. The local for local trend cannot be stopped and will eventually affect all structures, large and small. Self sufficiency in basic needs is only possible when we apply high tech innovations, scientific insights and social innovation. For big structures it is best to become early adapter too by joining FRE2SH and get inspired or even active rather than trying to fight it. Totally new markets emerge with great potential. The new world develops and we do it or make it visible.
What you can make out of trash
FRE2SH communities in Eindhoven
Showing kids the benefits of clean plain water instead of sweetened juices
Co-creating the eatable city by planting 100’s of fruit trees in the public space with school kids
Showing the new year pollution peak to which we expose our kids with fireworks
City farming needs to be preceded by soil tests on ancient pollution patterns
Regional development and STIR Self sufficiency university
Proactive citizenship
Learning to help each other
A city should be eatable
FRE2SH in action
FRE2SH is a global cooperative (local 4 local 4 global) movement. It does not cost anything to start. Important is to connect and use the same Sustainocratic framework so that we can share experiences through STIR Academy and get the large players to facilitate.
