EcoWorldly

The most recent scientific research suggests that unless we can reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million, we will cause huge and irreversible damage to the earth. Realizing the urgency to spread this message and to take the word across to each continent and to each country, 350.org took shape as a movement that is now working to spread this most important number on the planet by building a global grassroots climate movement united by a common call to action.

350 is the most important number on the Planet. This number is a safe line for our global climate and a start line for a global movement is how 350.org begins to explain the importance of 350.

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100 Million Trees Are Cut Each Year to Generate Junk Mail
A report by ForestEthics, the nonprofit environmental organization whose mission is to protect endangered forests, has made a very startling revelation: that there are 100 million green reasons why junk mail are an annoying intrusion.

Not that the 100 billion pieces of junk mail Americans receive each year are irksome enough or that the emissions of junk mail are equal to those of over nine million cars or 51 million tons of greenhouse gases.

The group estimates that every year, more than 100 million trees are cut down to make junk mail - the equivalent of clear-cutting all of Rocky Mountain National Park every 4 months!

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The New York Times’ Thomas L. Friedman sent a postcard from Copanhagen recently.

In an Aug. 9 op-ed column titled “Flush with Energy,” Friedman drew a stark contrast between America’s energy policy and that of Denmark.

That the United States – the all-powerful, lone (for now) superpower –  can so easily be trumped by little Denmark is shameful.

It only adds salt to the wound that so many foolish, ignorant and willfully oblivious Americans still insist that they live in the “Greatest Nation on Earth” despite so many shortcomings, such as displayed by this stay-the-course mentality that leaves us in the energy policy dust of forward-thinking nation’s like Denmark. Read the rest of this entry »

In May of 2006, I had the chance to attend the China-US Climate Change Forum hosted by the University of California at Berkeley. To an eco-geek, the list of speakers was star-studded with Nobel laureates, professors from top universities, famous innovators, and leaders from the business communities in China and the United States. The conference opened with the premier of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, just before it hit theaters. Before a university worker’s strike altered plans, Al Gore himself was slated to join the stage.

But it was a random guy in the audience who stole the show with a single insightful comment in the closing moments.

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Of nearly 2,000 Americans responding to a survey by The Regional Economist magazine of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis zero percent say they favor lifting import tariffs on ethanol. That opinion bodes badly for lifting the $0.54 a gallon tariff on Brazilian ethanol made from sugar cane. This view reflects America’s new dream of energy independence. But is it wise or even ethical for America to shut its doors to Brazil’s hottest new fuel?

Without Brazil, Can America Reduce Gas Consumption 20% Over Ten Years?

This ambitious “twenty-in-ten” gasoline reduction is the Bush administration’s goal. But without Brazil’s ethanol it may be an uphill battle. With US corn setting record prices this year, it’s no surprise ethanol made from US corn is $2.90 a gallon while ethanol from Brazilian sugar cane is less than half the price at $1.40 a gallon. Even after the tariff, Brazil’s ethanol would be almost a dollar a gallon cheaper than ethanol produced domestically from corn.

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Scientists in South Africa are testing a genetically engineered tobacco plant which detects the presence of nitrogen-dioxide, a marker for landmines, to turn red, in the hope that it may eventually be used to clear mine fields in post-conflict zones around the globe.

The team is part of a joint initiative of University of Stellenbosch and the Danish biotechnology firm, Aresa, which has developed the “RedDetect” bio-sensor technology in a weed called Thales Cress.

The weed changes color from green to autumnal red when it detects nitrogen dioxide leaching from mines buried in the soil.

Because the weed is too small to be seen from a safe distance, the scientists went looking for a more viable alternative, and landed on the tobacco plant, which grows easily in most parts of the world, with a little help from genetic engineering.

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The British Media regulator, Office of Communications or Ofcom has affirmed that a documentary on UK’s Channel 4 last year debunking Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth and the theory about human influence on climate change was out of touch with reality.

The watchdog this week ruled The Great Global Warming Swindle unfairly portrays several scientists and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and that it broke rules in the Broadcasting Code.

Ofcom’s investigation found that the IPCC, the former government chief scientist, Sir David King, and Professor Carl Wunsch, were treated unfairly in the documentary that attempted to use a cast of the world’s top scientists to debunk the global warming theory.

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Pett Corby, the author of e-book, ‘How to Avoid Unplanned Pregnancy Every Time You Have Sex - WITHOUT Using Contraceptive Drugs’ has recently launched a web based awareness campaign on the subject.

Contraceptives Are Likely to Endanger the Health of Early Users

Reproductive health is recognized as a human right. According to the United Nations, it is part of an individual’s right to health. However, according to Pett Corby, hardly anyone knows to avoid unplanned pregnancy by using natural methods. Young women who fall pregnant routinely undergo abortions and resort to the use of contraceptive drugs with dangerous side-effects. According to a study of early contraceptive use conducted Sweden in 1991, the risk of developing breast cancer was 820% higher in women who started using the pill before the age of 20, than for healthy non-users of the same age. Early use of the contraceptive pill is also associated with a increased risk for cervical cancer.
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It is official, and the pronouncement was made by none other than the head of state himself: albinos in Tanzania are an endangered species and must be protected!

President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete recently ordered a massive police crackdown on witchdoctors who lure and kill albino people for body parts to be used in ritualistic healing sessions with their clients as a talisman for good luck.

Woe unto you if you are an albino in this poor east Africa nation of 39 million people. The government says 19 have been murdered in 2008, but activists claim the figure could be as high as 60, in a country where more than 160,000 are said to suffer the genetic condition in which the person lacks pigmentation in the eyes, skin and hair.

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US Presidential Candidate Barack Obama made it clear again this week that he would not have attended the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing because of concern over China’s policies in Tibet and Sudan. His statements came in response to President Bush’s contrasting decision to attend the opening ceremonies.

However, in recent months, Senator Obama has also expressed some mixed feelings about boycotting the Olympics.

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