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Located in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu, a few kilometres inland from the Coromandel Coast, Auroville is an ideal township devoted to an experiment in human unity - a universal township in the making; for a population of up to 50,000 people from around the world. Auroville is recognised as the first and only internationally endorsed ongoing experiment in human unity and and in situ research on sustainable living and fulfilling all cultural, environmental, social and spiritual needs of mankind.

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The following ten stories, organized by region, made international headlines from April 27 to May 4 for their impact on the environment and society. For more stories that changed the world, see our archive, here.

North American Environmental News

CANADA — Ontario Bans Lawn and Garden Pesticides

Canada has proven once again that it is way ahead of the rest of world with its progressive government. Ontario has banned the use and sale of lawn and garden pesticides for homeowners. Quebec instituted a similar ban on 20 some pesticide products back in 2006.

The new ban is set to take effect by spring of 2009. Home Depot has already agreed to stop selling the pesticides by the end of 2008! This is a huge victory for anti-toxic supporters all over the continent. If only someone in the United States government could take such affirmative action we could all be spared. Ontario will basically phase out some 80 different chemicals and over 300 products that contain them.

Continue reading this article at the Environmental Blog. Join the discussion about this article at Care2.

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…or so the media has us all believe.

About two weeks ago, the Government of Delhi, India unveiled the much hyped Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), previously popular here as the High Capacity Bus Corridor (HCBS) and the construction for which had been on for the last few months. The little under 6 Km BRT stretch that is now completed and is being trial run came at the cost of some lives (accidental deaths) and at the reported cost of about 3,000 heritage trees of Delhi. The dedicated bus lanes invited mixed reaction from the public; with the car users complaining about having to spend more time on the road now than before and the bus riders being annoyed with the bus-stands being displaced to the middle of the road. Poor design and lack of coordination between different stake holders further worsened the situation. And as if all of that wasn’t enough, the media has taken on itself to narrate the “failure of BRT story” with much fervour. Read the rest of this entry »

Spurred by shrinking freshwater supplies, U.S. states could begin “water wars” in the next years to claim rights to Great Lakes water, warned American and Canadian scientists at a water conference in Toronto last week.

Nations around the world, such as India and Australia, are already experiencing drought and its effects on access to clean water and increases in food prices–and states in the American South and West are bracing themselves for a time in the near future when water resources will be more scarce.

Scientist Milton Clark, a senior health and science adviser for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, was quoted as saying at the conference, “We will in fact get into major water wars. You will see water wars coming in every way, shape or form.”

To prevent states from fighting over–or selling–water, the Great Lakes Compact was created in 2001 among the eight Great Lakes states, Ontario and Quebec.

Ontario and Quebec have signed the agreement, which bans long-distance water diversions to states not bordering the Great Lakes. Minnesota, New York, Indiana and Illinois have also signed the agreement, and Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania have not.

As one of the world’s largest reservoirs of drinking water, the five Great Lakes contain 18 percent of all fresh surface water on the planet. Conservationists continue to lobby to protect the lakes’ waters from mismanagement and environmental degradation.

Photo: NASA

A year after having first noticed the green ‘cyber’wave, months after informing the world about Global Internet giants going green and weeks after being appointed as the new Moderator of the Delhi Freecycle Network(TM) group, the green ‘cyber’wave just got stronger. And Yahoo! has taken the lead. Starting Earth Day, it is not just spreading the message, “Free is good - Give stuff, get stuff. Do good for the environment” through its green pages, but is also working to achieve the same.

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As part of the ‘International Earth Day’ week being celebrated here at EcoWorldly, there were a lot of E-Day events and happenings from Delhi, India that I wanted to share with the readers. I wanted to talk about the screening of the documentary ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ at the American Center here in Delhi followed by a dicussion that shifted from Clean Development Mechanism (and the lack thereof) to the pollution in the city and/or the various tree plantation drives that took place in large number of schools here. More than that, I wanted to vividly illustrate the real time ‘eco’tourism being carried out at the Mandakini Magpie Bird Watcher’s Camp in the Himalayas as an excellent tool for biodiversity conservation. But then, there was something that caught my eye this afternoon.

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3TIER: one of the largest independent providers of wind, solar and hydro energy assessment and power forecasting worldwide announced the opening of an office in Bangalore, India today. It should be noted here that India is one of the top four wind-power markets in the world and also, the most developed market in Asia.

According to Kenneth Westrick, fonder and CEO of 3TIER, “India has the elements needed to prove that it is possible to leapfrog fossil fuels and fully integrate renewable energy projects into a country’s energy portfolio. He further elaborated on his statement by informing that India has good wind resources in its southern and western states, tremendous potential to tap into solar and hydropower, a government commitment to explore renewable energy sources and a market of more than 1 billion people – including 420 million people with no access to electricity.

Of the total number of villages in India with no access to electricity, it can said with absolute certainty that close to 40% of these cannot be electrified using fossil fuels. Thus, renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and hydropower can play an even greater role by electrifying remote parts of the country. “As the most densely populated country in the world with many villages that have no electricity, there is strong demand to augment the power grid in India,” said Steven Cashen, 3TIER’s Director of International Marketing Development. “3TIER will work closely with developers to assess and forecast potential wind, solar and hydro energy projects.” explained Cashen. Read the rest of this entry »

Led by Nobel laureate Al Gore, The Climate Project (TCP) – a US based non-profit organization — took the lead on March 15th, 2008 in launching its India chapter by training over a hundred enthusiastic representatives of business, politics and civic society. Dr. R.K. Pachauri, chairman of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the other half of the Nobel Peace Prize 2007 was also present at this Climate Change leadership Program.

Declaring the emerging economy of India to be the future of the world, Mr. Gore asked for greater participation by all Indians in the efforts to combat climate change and secure a safer tomorrow. He also called for raising global consciousness to a higher level to address several of the so-called political challenges being faced in different parts of the world today. Developing the capacity for a vision and building a moral authority are essential to taking action together as a civilization. That according to Mr. Gore, is also the need of the hour.

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In a press conference on Thursday, Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, shared his concern that greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere will lead to grain and water shortages in India and China as well as rising grain prices in the United States.

“The world has never faced such a massively predictable potential reduction in grain harvest as we are now looking at with the melting of the glaciers in the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau,” said Mr. Brown. “Keep in mind, this is not based off of a climate model with somewhat theoretical projections. This analysis is based on what is already happening–on a trend that’s very well established in both India and in China.”

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“If you have come to help me you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound with mine, then let us work together.” This phrase, from an activist Aboriginal group in Queensland, Australia, seems to sum up perfectly a solar energy movement led by women a world away from Queensland.

Barefoot College, in India, is training middle-aged women from rural villages in Bolivia, Afghanistan, Gambia, Ethiopia, Mali, Cameroon, and Sierra Lione to be solar engineers. After training, the women return to their homes to install solar electricity units with the support of the communities.

Via: Green Girls Global