The Next Eco-Warriors (20 page)

The good news is that more and more places in Canada and around the world are going pesticide free. People with chemical sensitivities are reporting being able to breathe easier in those places. I hope it's only a matter of time before it comes to my city.

The change of policy has been achingly slow. I am deeply frustrated and angry about the slow pace of change. Winnipeg is a very conservative city. Even after all we've been through, people still seem to want their chemicals. But there are a group of us who continue to fight and as long as we are alive, there is always a fighting chance for that thing called change.

_________

David Nickarz continues to oppose pesticide use in his home city of Winnipeg. When not working against toxins, he's campaigning against logging and animal rights or teaches direct action to new activists. His health has returned to normal after his bout with cancer and he has recently celebrated five years cancer free
.

Twenty-six
United States
Energy Innovator

PHOTO BY MATT TYSON

I SCOURED THE AISLES OF A SECONDHAND STORE on a mission for any pair of sneakers I could find from the late ’90s. The smell of disinfectant flooded my nostrils, and I was overcome with a feeling of panic.
I mean, how hard could it be to find a pair of shoes that lit up when someone walked in them?
I asked myself ironically. While I poured over bins of discarded clothes and household items, I reflected on the academic project I had taken on during my final year at the University of Michigan.

On the first day of school, I had gone to my mentors and informed them that I wanted to create the next form of alternative energy. I tingled with excitement as I told them my idea—I was going to design systems that generated electricity from human kinetic energy. But I was only met with dumbfounded looks on my professors' faces. My heart sank as they gently reminded me, “This is fantastic, but you are a designer and artist—not an engineer.”

Just then a dirty white and red sneaker caught my eye. At last! I picked it up and whacked it against my hand, sending the light at the bottom rocketing into bright, perfectly timed flashes. Relief washed over me. This was exactly the type of energy I wanted to harness, only on a much larger scale.

I had been working my way through a physics class and meetings with brilliant minds in university when I stumbled upon the idea of piezoelectricity, a type of kinetic energy that sparks an electric charge through applied
physical strain. It's a naturally occurring phenomenon present in materials like sand, ceramics, and quartz. If you ever dragged your feet on the beach on a hot, dry day and heard a squeaking noise, that was the piezoelectric effect. I knew how to generate electricity with big clunky motors that need to rotate and move back and forth, but I was searching for a way to generate electricity on an entirely new scale: a nano- or at least microscale. I needed to harvest vibrations, rather than movement.

That is much easier said than done. But I am not a woman that shies away from hard work, the value of which was made clear to me at the tender age of three when I learned how to ride a two-wheeled bike. My family lived out in the country on a dirt road, and anyone who has ever tried to ride with training wheels on gravel would understand why I wanted them taken off—the gravel makes it nearly impossible to balance. One day, my dad brought home a beautiful brass bicycle horn and told me it would be mine when I learned how to ride on a two-wheel bike. The horn was the first thing I remember receiving that I didn't really
need
and that wasn't a hand-me-down. I was honored and determined.

Every night when my dad got home from work, we went outside and practiced long after it got dark. At the end of our lessons, I got to honk my horn just once to remind me what I was working toward. I was intoxicated with motivation and a desire for graduation. After a few tirelessly long weeks, I finally rode all the way across the twenty-foot (6.1-meter) concrete landing to the other side, up and down ten times on my two wheels. I was a cyclist! I don't remember honking the horn much after we actually installed it on my bike, but it did continue to play an iconic role in my life as I grew up. I transplanted the horn from bike to bike as I outgrew old ones. It has become
a symbolic part of my life. It proved that with a little determination, I could accomplish what I set out to do.

But despite my I-can-do-anything-I-put-my-mind-to ambition, I was beginning to think that I was in over my head with this project. You see, I had set out to accomplish something that had never been proven by anyone in the world while only taking junior-level physics. My task at hand included finding piezoelectric components, identifying the correct wattage output, the certain impedance match to the electronics, and so on. I was beginning to let my doubt lead me into pits of discouragement. It was then that my mentor came to me and said, “Remember those light-up sneakers kids wore some years back?” He told me there were piezoelectric generators in them that were used to activate the circuit of lights. With those words, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck raise with excitement.
How do I find out?
I asked myself.
Go find yourself a pair and take them apart!
I left my studio desk and drove straight to the Salvation Army resale.

I left the store with three pairs of light-up shoes. Once back at the studio, what I discovered was a little piezoceramic sheet that, when stimulated, created a charge. The charge was great enough to send a signal to the circuit board, which told the lights to dance in the shoes. Ah, ha! It worked! Inspired, I rigged the shoe circuits up in a set of small glass and concrete tiles that I had cast in a ceramic studio. When one stepped on the tile, the glass moved down to stimulate the circuit and send the lights into action. Four tiles lined up in a strip; a walk across it would create energy with endless uses. I knew that the mock-up I was constructing may seem unimpressive. It was only, after all, six pairs of L.A. Gear light-up shoes from the Salvation Army, cast concrete from Home Depot, and cuts of glass from an artist friend. The mock-up to most probably looked whipped together like any old art school project, but to me, it held the key to a world of possibility.

That next week, I organized a little installation at a gallery opening in town to test the mock-up against a little foot traffic. My excitement regarding the technological progress I had made was quickly replaced by anxiety. Would people understand it? Would they share my vision? My goal was to see if my newfound gadget could handle the heavy traffic and how people
would react to the idea of generating their own electricity. The morning of the event, I braced myself for the feedback I would receive, skipping breakfast while coping with waves of anxiety. There was no turning back now ... all I could do was step aside and watch as the technology was utilized by my unknowing test subjects.

I watched as people took tentative steps across the tiles, creating tiny flashes of lights as they shuffled. One by one, each person registered a look of shock and awe as they realized that they had harnessed their own energy, marveling at the possibilities.

We began to party.

The exhibition was a huge success. At first, I could barely stand to look at the people in the art gallery, in fear that they couldn't “get it” or would think the whole idea was stupid. Once I felt brave enough to open my eyes to the joyous wonder of the group's reaction, I noticed the very evident truth that people were sharing my vision. They were dancing, jumping, walking, running, and even doing handstands on my mock-up.

That day was only the beginning. The nagging fear and doubt was cast aside, and intuitively, I knew I was about to create something that could change the world. The success of my innovation had resulted in a prestigious undergraduate award, which I quickly put to use to pay for the incredibly expensive materials for my final thesis prototype.

But I was hooked. The high from my exhibition fueled my passion for the project. I knew I needed to go forward; burning out was not an option, but burned out I was. The last year had been a whirlwind of activity, and I was emotionally and financially exhausted. Sick and tired of being broke, I took a job working for my sister, Sara Snow, as an assistant on her TV show
Get Fresh with Sara Snow
. My days were filled with research, content consulting, and contacting guests for the show. My sister and I referred to this time as “the apprenticeship program.” While I wasn't sure what my next step was in life, I knew that I was anxious to discover it.

It was a day off, and I was taking the afternoon to get caught up on some magazine reading. When I was a student, I enjoyed perusing design magazines, but working full time had left little time for leisure reading. I lay across
my bed with a hot cup of tea and leafed through
Metropolis Magazine
until I came across a page with these words in big, bold letters: N
EXT
G
ENERATION
D
ESIGN
C
OMPETITION.
I nearly choked on my tea as I read the theme for the 2007 competition: Energy. The call for entries was practically begging for my thesis work. My break was over. It was time to get back to my own work and inspire the next wave of energy innovation.

I went to work putting together my submission. The process went smooth, and I had a strong feeling that I was meant to do this. I labeled the application “Project Power Struggle” and mailed it to the magazine. I occupied myself in my work for my sister, anxiously waiting to hear back. While it was exciting to think about what it might be like to win, and I had high hopes, I knew I might not. This was an international competition, and while my work had been well received by the experts at the art exhibit, I had no idea how it would fare after being judged by leading experts in the field. They would love it or hate it, I suppose. Either way, it was worth trying.