Is tar sands really ethical oil?
If there’s one thing that makes any environmentalists blood boil, its got to be the practice of “greenwashing” where companies try to sell themselves as “green” when they are anything but. Then there’s “astroturfing” where a PR firm in the pay of a conglomerate creates a fake grass roots movement to further their own agenda (Countryside guardian an anti-wind farm group with links to the UK Nuclear industry is a classic example). But the promoters of the Canadian Tar Sands project have seriously pushed the boat out by attempting to label Tar sands oil as “ethical oil”. I realise that this is a bit of an old story, but I bring it up because it has got to count as the most cynical example of “greenwashing” I’ve every seen. I mean seriously their website should come with a health warning, as it has to be seen to be believed. They make “newspeak” in 1984 look like an episode of spin city!
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Dutch company Philips is probably best known for its signature electronics; the company has been quite successful when it comes to producing TVs, stereos, and Blu-Ray players. But now the electronics giant has shifted gears, recently announcing a number of green projects, among them is the Urban Beehive.
Home beekeeping isn’t something that gets a lot of commercial attention, but Philips has taken the leap by introducing a uniquely styled system that, through its cool design and very green purpose, may find appeal among more consumers. The Urban Beehive is precisely what its title suggests. Philips has created an innovative product that is both cool and practical. The device installs through a window, and outside, there’s a flower pot to attract the insects’ attention. There’s also an entrance through which bees can enter, and the other side leads to a honeycomb utopia bees should find very inviting.
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This week the International Energy Agency (IEA) released their yearly World Energy Outlook report. The energy report contained a very urgent call for action on climate. The IEA report warned that if our energy infrastructure is not rapidly changed the world will head towards irreversible climate change in five years. At the same time the US department of energy released new figures showing a “monster increase” in greenhouse gas emissions.
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Today a French court fined the largely state-owned energy giant EDF for €1,5 million for spying on Greenpeace campaigners. The French court found that EDF, which is hoping to build four nuclear reactors in the UK, had hired the security firm Kargus to spy on Greenpeace when they campaigned against new reactors in France in 2006. Besides the 1.5 million fine the court also sent two Kargus employees to jail and ordered EDF to pay €500,000 in damages to Greenpeace.
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In this opinion piece, published on Al Jazeera English, Chip Ward connects the Occupy movement which protests against social and economic inequality with today’s ecological crisis. Ward argues that the assault on the middle class and the assault on the environment are two sides of the same coin. “Mother Nature is among the disenfranchised, exploited and struggling”, Ward writes.
The whole text is definitely worth a read, so be sure to read it. Here are some key quotes:
“The 99 per cent pay for wealth disparity with lost jobs, foreclosed homes, weakening pensions and slashed services, but Nature pays, too. In the world the one-percenters have created, the needs of whole ecosystems are as easy to disregard as, say, the need the young have for debt-free educations and meaningful jobs.
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President Obama may face a considerable amount of opposition from supporters if he moves forward in green lighting a pipeline that would run from Alberta, Canada, to Texas. Obama’s approval ratings have recently been on the decline, and with his 2012 reelection campaign coming up, it seems strange that the president would even consider doing something so environmentally controversial.
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Image from the film "The Lorax".
In the past, films like “WALL-E” and “Avatar” have been released with a strong environmental message throughout the movies. These films are great because a large part of their target audience are kids, and these kids will be the ones passing legislation and making changes several decades from now.
A recently released environmental film, perhaps, is “The Lorax.” Originally by Dr. Seuss, The Lorax was first released as a book in 1971. Interestingly, the book met some controversy in 1988. A town heavily dependent on logging lashed out against the book when the book was put on the second-graders reading list.
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