Here is a rather old, but good, documentary about Greenpeace’s famous Rainbow Warrior.
The documentary tells the story about the very first Rainbow Warrior who were sunk by the French foreign intelligence agency (DGSE) while docked in Auckland harbour, New Zealand, on 10 July 1985.
Video after the jump. (more…)
In December last year Italy decided to join Australia and Ireland to ban incandescent light bulbs. The Italian budget committee voted in favour of an incandescent light bulb ban from the Green MP Angello Bonelli. The ban will take place in 2011.
More European countries are planning on following Irelands and Italy’s “bright” decision in a, very, near future.
The European Lamp Companies Federation plans for a incandescent light bulb phase out by year 2019. This just shows that government guidelines and actions do make more difference than what the private sector could accomplish.
Image credit: So It’s Come To This. Image licensed under a
Creative-Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works license.
Do you remember, when Al Gore said he would do everything in his powers to influence the American people and politicians to value the climate issue much higher, placing it among the other top issues that would be heatedly discussed among the president candidates and the, hmm, two(!), political parties?
Well, I am no US political expert. Heck, I am not even an US citizen. But from what I’ve heard and seen so far the discussions and talks about the climate threat have gone pretty much un-noticed.
Ireland has decided to ban all energy wasting incandescent light bulbs by year 2009.
By switching over to Compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) Irelands carbon emissions will be reduced with about 700.000 tons every year. But this move is not only positive for the climate but also for the households in Ireland that is expected to save the impressive amount of €185 million in energy costs.
Ireland is also planning to tax all new and imported cars accordingly to how much they pollute. The more carbon emissions a car releases the higher it tax will be.
Image credit: Napalm filled tires. Image licensed under a
Creative-Commons Attribution-Share Alike license.
A new Australian Government under PM Rudd was sworn in on Monday 3 December, 2007 – Day 1 of Rudd Australia. PM Kevin Rudd has made it clear that he favors “measurement-based policy” and “evidence-based policy” and has further asked his colleagues to give him Report Cards on progress.
I applaud this approach as a senior scientist committed to rational risk management that successively involves (a) accurate data, (b) scientific analysis and (c) systemic change to minimize risk (for a detailed, expert exposition see Professor James Reason, “Human error: models and management”, British Medical Journal, vol. 320, 768-770, 2000: http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/320/7237/768 ). Indeed as a responsible pubIic service I have committed a lot of time and effort to informing governments, media and fellow citizens about important matters, of which Australia’s involvement in the ongoing Aboriginal Genocide, Iraqi Genocide, Afghan Genocide and Climate Genocide are the most critically important.
Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in Oslo, Norway:
Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Honorable members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Excellencies, Ladies and gentlemen.
I have a purpose here today. It is a purpose I have tried to serve for many years. I have prayed that God would show me a way to accomplish it.
Sometimes, without warning, the future knocks on our door with a precious and painful vision of what might be. One hundred and nineteen years ago, a wealthy inventor read his own obituary, mistakenly published years before his death. Wrongly believing the inventor had just died, a newspaper printed a harsh judgment of his life’s work, unfairly labeling him “The Merchant of Death” because of his invention – dynamite. Shaken by this condemnation, the inventor made a fateful choice to serve the cause of peace.
Nicholas Stern, a British economist and academic who is most known for the Stern Review, said during a public lecture in Manchester that climate change is the greatest market failure that the world has seen.
The problem of climate change involves a fundamental failure of markets: those who damage others by emitting greenhouse gases generally do not pay.
Climate change is a result of the greatest market failure the world has seen. The evidence on the seriousness of the risks from inaction or delayed action is now overwhelming. We risk damages on a scale larger than the two world wars of the last century. The problem is global and the response must be a collaboration on a global scale.
Via the Guardian
Decent, pro-Peace, pro-Environment and pro-Planet Australians were delighted with the result of the recent Australian Federal Election that terminated the incompetent, nearly 12 year rule of the climate criminal, climate change sceptic, Bush-ite Coalition and gave Labor under Kevin Rudd a “Rudd-slide” victory and a majority of about 2 dozen seats in the Australian House of Representatives. Further, many Labor seats were won with Australian Green “preferences” in Australia’s “preferential voting” system and the Greens may end up with about half a dozen seats in the Senate.
Rudd Labor is VASTLY better than its climate criminal predecessor, the utterly irresponsible, climate change sceptic, Kyoto non-signatory, Bush-ite Coalition. Rudd Labor will sign Kyoto and increase renewable energy supply from about 1% to 20% by 2020 – but it is still NOT GOOD ENOUGH in relation to constraining greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, as explained below.
3,5 million tones of domestic garbage are produced every year in a country of the size of Greece, Italy etc. This number does not include the thousand tones of industrial garbage! In Greece, from the total 5000 dumps, 70% are out of control, don’t meet the specifications but still receive one million tones of garbage per year. In Athens and other city centres 50% of the garbage is organic material ant thus ‘recyclable’ and 40% material from packing (paper, glass etc) also recyclable.
So, since theoretically 90% of the garbage can be recycled, recycling should have been a way of life. However this is not the case. European Union demands measures which shall reduce the amount of garbage, develop the alternative sources of energy and improve the dumps. In addition to this, industries are supposed to develop a system according to which producing more garbage shall mean paying bigger funds.
When shopping you should never ever waste money or the nature’s recourses on plastic or paper bags. Instead you should use an environmental friendly reusable bag.
This is where Flip & Tumble’s 24-7 reusable bags come in. Like other reusable bags it’s made of low-density and high strength nylon. But this bag is actually far more different than the ordinary ones. The bag is designed so that you can easily “transform” the bag to a little “ball” the size of a tennis ball. That way you can bring it with you at all time.
The price for one bag starts at $15 and you can choose from four different colours. Shipping starts from $4, if you are outside the USA shipping starts at $9.
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