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July 31, 2007Cheat Neutral is a brilliant sendup of carbon offsetting schemes which proposes capping global infidelity levels by allowing people having affairs to pay others to be faithful. I laughed when I saw the site, but the video nearly made me fall out of my chair:
Treehugger, Popular Science Magazine and Instructables.com website have come together to make a competition for "how to" tutorials about green inventions and designs made from found items, used items, or just stuff that's eco-friendly. The competition rules include helpful links to get you started making a tutorial with photos, illustrations or video.
I love reading sites like instructables.com, makezine.com, and lifehacker.com where people discuss ways to get more from technology that's already available. It's a very common sense approach to creation and design, but its still exciting!
Let us know if you submit any project ideas to the instructables.com "GO GREEN" competition (comment below, or email). And good luck!
Hurricanes are fueled by warm ocean water and warm moist air, so it's predicted that global warming will mean more, and stronger tropical storms. It's tricky testing this against observations though because there's no data about storms out at sea until relatively recently. Plane observations started in 1944 and satellites in 1970.
But the scientists behind a new study are confident they've shown a connection. From Scientific American:
The number of Atlantic hurricanes in an average season has doubled in the last century due in part to warmer seas and changing wind patterns caused by global warming, according to a study released on Sunday.
Just a quick insight in to the creative process behind the scenes here in the office. On Thursday I had mostly finished an article on companies advertising around Live Earth to burnish their climate friendliness but continuing climate-changing business as usual, in other words classic greenwashing. But as well as being stumpted for a title I was really stuck for a good image for the story. A quick image search turned up this and my favourite:
While BP is often rightly held up the number one greenwash example, neither was really suitable. We obviously needed to whip up a new graphic.
The President of France wants to supply Libya with a nuclear reactor. From the Telegraph:
During a meeting with Col Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, Mr Sarkozy agreed to help the country with a nuclear-powered project to desalinate seawater. France has Europe's largest civil nuclear power industry and a vital commercial interest in exporting reactors and technology.Any Libyan reactor could be supplied by Areva, France's leading nuclear energy company. Until he invited international inspectors into Libya in 2003, Col Gaddafi had a covert nuclear weapons programme.
I guess 2003 is ancient history. Oh, wait, no its not. It's only four years ago.
To spell it out. Civilian nuke proliferation leads to military proliferation. And that's not something I want to see any more of. But don't get me wrong. I'm not picking on Libya. I don't trust France with nuclear power either. Or Japan (which has tens of thousands of kilograms of plutonium stockpiled). Or the USA. None of them, for that matter.
The big news here in the UK this morning is that the owner of Heathrow airport (BAA) is taking five million people - including a lot of its own staff - to court.
It's a little mind-boggling (so mind-boggling in fact that, when we heard the news, we thought it was a mistake) but BAA is applying for an injunction to ban all five million people from the airport, stretches of two motorways, part of the national rail network and an entire London Underground line - all to prevent a peaceful protest about aviation's role in climate change planned for next month.
Vast stretches of southwest England are flooded. Prime Minister Gordon Brown is blaming climate change, and it looks like he's on pretty solid scientific footing. While it's still not possible to link any specific weather event to climate change, it's now been shown that we're changing global precipitation patterns.
From the Times:
While it has long been suspected that climate change is contributing to increased precipitation over midlatitude countries such as Britain, research has now conclusively linked greenhouse gases to heavier downpours.
I've posted a feature about it on our website. For the view from soggy London, check out this update from Greenpeace UK.
Meanwhile, in sunny Greece, and other parts of Southern Europe, they're finding things dangerously warm. This BBC story has some good maps showing how the UK's misfortune is linked to Greece's, um, misfortune. And it's all likely tied up with human induced global warming.
Aerial view in the rainforest, Para State, Amazon. The forest is being burned by the US based Cargill corporation to clear land for soya plantations.One year ago yesterday the Amazon was thrown a much needed lifeline. A deal to halt deforestation from the planting of soya was agreed by soya traders in the Amazon after pressure from Greenpeace and food retailers, most notably McDonald's.
Our 'Eating up the Amazon' report which showed the devastating effect of soya expansion in the Amazon was the catalyst for action by McDonald's. The report made sombre reading with not only the forest being devastated but local communities being forced off their land and some people even forced into slavery.
We sent a team to help Greenpeace Japan check the safety of the area around the (world's largest) nuke plant. The good news is that they didn't turn up anything new and alarming. The bad news is that the Kashiwazaki plant is still sitting on a fault line, and the government is probably thinking about starting it back up at some point.
The team's just made it home, and sent me this account of their work at the scene.
Very strong editorial in yesterday's LA Times, saying:
The enormous cost of building nuclear plants, the reluctance of investors to fund them, community opposition and an endless controversy over what to do with the waste ensure that ramping up the nuclear infrastructure will be a slow process — far too slow to make a difference on global warming. That's just as well, because nuclear power is extremely risky. What's more, there are cleaner, cheaper, faster alternatives that come with none of the risks.
Later in the editorial they also point out that, "Nevertheless, the U.S. government spends more on nuclear power than it does on renewables and efficiency." Insane.
From today's Moscow Times:
Masked attackers armed with metal rods and baseball bats raided a camp of environmental protesters near an east Siberian uranium enrichment plant over the weekend, beating one person to death and injuring several others.
[Photo from Indymedia.]
As art, we hasten to add, in Switzerland.
From Reuters:
Greenpeace is seeking hundreds of volunteers willing to strip naked on a shrinking Swiss glacier next month for a photo shoot meant to raise alarm about global warming.The environmental group said it hoped to attract as many people as possible to pose for U.S. photographic artist Spencer Tunick, who has previously staged mass nude photo shots in Mexico, Germany and Spain.
I don't mind sharing (just between you and I) that a few of the less inhibited folks from here at the International office are planing to go. No, no, don't be shocked. They'll take the train of course! Low CO2 footprint.
Been doing my reading about earthquakes. Apparently there's two basic ways to measure them: intensity and magnitude. Mostly people talk about magnitude, and almost always it's described using the Richter scale - also known as the local magnitude scale (ML) by those of you who are seismologists and know how to make that little "L".
The important thing to know about the Richter scale is that it's logarithmic. A 6.0 magnitude quake can be compared to a 1 megaton TNT boom, while a 7.0 earthquake is about a 50 megaton boom.
From the Japan Times:
In 2005, the Tokyo High Court rejected a lawsuit by local residents seeking to revoke a state permit on the installation of the No. 1 reactor at the seven-reactor power station.The court rejected the plaintiffs' argument that an active fault exists near the station, saying that what they claimed to be an active fault did not even amount to a fault and could not cause a quake.
"It is true that electric power companies don't want to spend much money for earthquake-proof construction," [associate professor at Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute] Imanaka said.
A Tepco public relations official said, "We did not assume an earthquake of this magnitude at the time of designing the nuclear power plant. After looking at aftershock location data, we have come to realize a fault lies right below the plant."
Should have listened to the locals.
America's Finest (Parody) News Source gave me a chuckle with this faux vox pop quotation about the Japanese nuclear reactor fire this week: "What a shame. In every other respect, that earthquake zone was the perfect place to build a nuclear reactor."
Got any funny one-liners to share - leave them in the comments below!
Very cool video about the e-waste problem and it's made by someone else, damn! We campaign to green the electronics industry and reducing e-waste but this is one of the best short videos on the issue I have seen. Brought to you by the, er, good folks at goodmagazine.com who have a impressive collection of youtube vids on different subjects "for people who give a damn".
It's now being reported that the scale of the water leak is larger than was first said, and that some drums of nuclear waste also spilled. Somehow I am not reassured by repeated protestations from company spokespeople that there has been "no harm" from the leaks.
Today's Wall Street Journal:
While the quake had triggered a leak of water with radioactive material Monday at world's largest nuclear power plant at Kashiwazaki city, near the epicenter, officials said it caused no harm to the environment. On Tuesday, however, officials were investigating a possible second leak, saying about 100 drums containing low-level nuclear waste fell at the plant during the quake and were found a day later, some of the lids open, said Masahide Ichikawa, an official with the local government in Niigata prefecture.A spokesman at Tokyo Electric Power Co., which runs the plant, said the company was still trying to determine whether any hazardous material had spilled but said there was no effect outside the plant. "We have no information at this time that there is any effect on the outside environment," Tepco spokesman Manabu Takeyama said.
Another leak at the Kashiwazaki power plant would sow further doubts about the safety of Japan's nuclear power plants, which have suffered a string of accidents and coverups amid deep concerns they are vulnerable in earthquakes. Monday's quake initially triggered a small fire at an electrical transformer in the sprawling plant. But it was announced only 12 hours later that the temblor also caused a leak of water containing radioactive material.
Officials said the water leak was harmless and well below safety standards, but the delay in notifying the public spurred concern among antinuclear activists and triggered criticism from top officials.
"They raised the alert too late. I have sent stern instructions that such alerts must be raised seriously and swiftly," Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters in Tokyo. "Those involved should repent their actions."
Simple lang means "simple act", and it is what the Greenpeace Philippines office is calling its version of the 7 steps. This movie makes it really... simple. Easy to understand.
If you want to be part of something simple (and effective) try out the international version of the 7 steps.
Straight from the Guardian:
A strong earthquake struck northwestern Japan on Monday, causing a fire and radioactive water leak at one of the world's most powerful nuclear plants and turning buildings into piles of lumber. At least seven people were killed and hundreds injured.Flames and billows of black smoke poured from the Kashiwazaki nuclear plant - the world's largest in terms of power output capacity. It took two hours to extinguish the fire, at an electrical transformer, said Motoyasu Tamaki, a Tokyo Electric Power Co. official.
Reports are saying that there was also a radioactive leak - a small one according to Tokyo Electric. Read our statement on the Kashiwazaki nuclear plant fire and leak. Last week we also ran a story about a fire at a German nuclear plant.
UPDATE: Tokyo Electric is now saying that the plant leaked 356 gallons of water containing radioactive material. That's considerably more than the 1.5 gallons they said earlier. Latest from the Guardian:
The plant leaked about 315 gallons of water, said Katsuya Uchino, another Tokyo Electric official. Uchino said the water contained a tiny amount of radioactive material - a billionth of the guideline under Japanese law - and is believed to have flushed into the Sea of Japan.
Greenpeace China has released a (bi-lingual) version of our "How to save the climate" brochure specifically for Hong Kong. One thing I enjoy about working for an international organization is seeing how the different national offices adapt things for people in their country. The original brochure was done by a designer in Germany, with a German campaigner as the client, so culturally very "German" I would say.
The HK version uses some of the same graphics, but overall has a very different look and feel. More green than orange for one thing, and changed the little dude. Gave him a haircut.
Let me know in the comments which you like best (and where you're from).
Guess what: According to the EU's Join Research Centre, Europeans could be saving 20% on household electricity consumption and CO2 emissions right now, using only common sense and currently available technologies. And phasing-out the incandescent lightbulb.
"The average consumption for a single household in the EU-25 was 4098 kWh in 2004. This could be reduced by 800 kWh per house per year, or about 20% less electricity consumption in each household, if replacement of existing appliances and equipment and a full phase out of incandescent lighting were to be actively promoted in all EU Member States." That's the good news. The bad news is that electricity consumption in the EU is growing -- i.e. We're heading the wrong way and we know it.
So who's selling all the energy wasting products in our homes? Why doesn't somebody stop them before they get into the shops, and into our kitchens and sitting rooms? Don't politicians and corporations who talk about "voluntary targets" know that we're facing a climate emergency here?!
The Greenpeace 7 steps campaign is all about tackling this issue from the ground up. Click here to join the campaign.
Here's a story that someone sent me today, and I've since been piecing together from various websites. William Kamkwamba (who lives in Malawi) left school at age 14 because his parents couldn't afford the fees. Instead, he learned about electricity and windmills from books in a nearby library (mainly "Using Energy" and "How it Works").
The first windmill he built, mostly from scraps, only provided enough electricity to light his dorm room. To my mind it was like a proof of concept. He soon went on to build a bigger one for his parents house.
I'll admit it. I'm suffering a bit of post Live Earth depression. It's a bit like "post holiday depression", which is a well known medical phenomona that I am not making up. According to Mental Health America, "Many factors can cause the 'holiday blues': stress, fatigue, unrealistic expectations, over-commercialization, financial constraints..." Hmm, yes, that seems about right.
Not to say I didn't enjoy Live Earth. I liked it. I am glad it happened. It helped the cause.
But I guess in the back of my mind I was hoping that I'd come to work today and find the climate saved. Yes, pretty silly. But I think we all tend to have exaggerated expectations about these things.
And since I'm on the subject, I'm going to pause to take a swipe at some of more stupid backlash...
Another update from straight talking policy adviser Daniel:
Last week was not a good one to be a tourist in Geneva. It was raining cats and dogs and as a private individual you could not get a tour of the United Nations headquarters. This beautiful building was open only for business leaders as the Second Global Compact Leaders Summit was bringing the UN Secretary General and several hundred CEOs to town. So much for openness and transparency.
The Global Compact sounds like a good idea. Its principles are worthy. They are about human rights and environmental protection and fighting corruption. The trouble is: The Compact does not enforce these principles at all. Global Compact Principle 7, for example, calls for a "precautionary approach to environmental challenges". That sounds good. Greenpeace likes precaution - which basically means that if you are not certain if something is safe or not, well, you don’t do it. Yet companies that ignore precaution by producing genetically modified organisms, such as Novartis, are members of the Compact. Areva, which produces dangerous nuclear power are allowed to be members of the Pact. The UN is endangering a very high value good, it's reputation, by associating its name with such activities through the Global Compact. It's called "bluewash" - looking good by associating yourself with the UN.
For the past couple of days, a group of Greenpeace climbers have been perched on top of a set of cranes in the port of La Rochelle on the French Atlantic coast. As well as admiring a no-doubt magnificent view, they're also preventing a ship unloading its cargo of timber which has come from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The company logging the timber, Lebanese-owned Trans-M (another snappy corporate name!), has been given titles spanning 746,000 hectares of the DRC forest but this is in breach of the logging moratorium set up in 2002. Supposedly, no new contracts are to be issued and existing ones aren't to be renewed or extended, but somehow Trans-M have managed to set up shop and ship rainforest timber back to Europe.
This blockade is only the latest action our continental offices have taken to prevent Congolese timber coming into the EU. Over the past few weeks, imports of DRC timber were stopped in by volunteers in both Antwerp in Belgium (the link isn't in English, but there is a subtitled video and a great slideshow) and Salerno in Italy - it's demand for tropical timber in Europe and around the world drive the destruction of the forest in Africa.
As for those climbers, they managed 45 hours on top of the crane before being forced down. I'm not sure if it's a record, but it's a pretty impressive stint.
This is a big week for the climate. According to the Live Earth website, 2 billion people are going to watch their concerts. That's awe inspiring. After the show, millions, even hundreds of millions, are going to be wondering, "what more can I do?"
In response, we're giving people the chance to take 7 steps towards saving energy - starting with changing their lightbulbs.
Yeah, sounds familiar, lots of people asking you to change your lightbulbs these days. But the 7 steps is different. We don't want you to just change your lightbulbs. We want your help to outlaw energy wasting lightbulbs.
With our planet facing a climate emergency is it right to still sell lightbulbs that waste over 90 percent of the energy they use as heat? I don't think so. Energy saving CFLs have been around for decades. They are up to five times more efficient than incandescent bulbs. CFLs have lovely light these days and start up at the flick of a switch. This is an easy one. Let's get it done and dusted.
So please, sign up to the 7 steps. Step 1 is about your lightbulbs, step 2 is about involving friends, step 3 is about your local community, step 4 is about challenging lightbulb manufactures, step 5 is about talking to retailers, step 6 is about demanding action from governments, step 7... Step 7 is a surprise - so I have to keep it secret for now. : )
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