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February 29, 2008Just a spot of shameless backslapping - our very own Greenpeace Blog got a mention in the UK Newspaper TimesOnline Top 50 Eco Blogs. There's a few good ones new to me in their list, but of the one's I know there De Smog Blog is always a great read on the PR pollution surrounding climate change.
Next week is the latest big event in the IT industry calendar – the CeBIT trade fair in Hanover, Germany. Green seems to be the fashionable IT buzzword right now and certainly the Consumer Electronics Show made a big deal about being greener.
But how much of this is just talk and PR puff. Are electronics products really becoming greener? Should claiming to be "green" mean more than just cutting power use? Are companies really addressing short life spans and miniscule recycling rates for their products? Which products contain the least harmful chemicals? Will CeBIT's Green IT village be showcasing real environmental innovations with wide applications?
To discover the answers to some of these and other relevant questions we'll be at CeBIT to cut through the corporate green speak and see which companies and products are on the cutting edge of environmental innovation. Our experts will be investigating the facts behind the hype and highlighting the leaders and showing up any superficial green claims.
Great action and great pics from the folks at Plane Stupid who scaled the House of Parliament to lower a banner saying "BAA HQ". The consultation on Heathrow expansion ends today and BAA (who run 7 UK airports) actually wrote parts of the government consultation. Nothing like a 'consultation' where the result is already stitched up with big business.
This was a nice touch:
The protesters are making paper aeroplanes out of confidential Whitehall documents that reveal the process is fixed, and gliding the planes into the MPs' car park below.
Good article today in the International Herald Tribune about a genetically engineered potato designed to, "yield large quantities of starch suitable for making glossy paper products and for feeding animals". That is important stuff, of course. We don't want animals going hungry, and I'm sure we all know the importance of glossy paper products.
But some scientists are worried that the gene-altered potatoes pose a risk to humans...
It also has aroused concerns that sick people and the elderly could become more vulnerable to disease because there are fears that the potato could trigger resistance to certain antibiotics in humans."The biotechnology industry threatens to set an extremely worrying example if it wins approval for this potato," said Patrice Courvalin, the head of the Antibacterial Agents Unit at the medical research center Institut Pasteur in Paris. "We should keep trying to prevent dissemination of antibiotic resistance rather than to allow products into the food chain that could potentially make a bad situation even worse."
Why should we be concerned about antibiotic resistant genes in potatoes? Troublemakers at the Union of Concerned Scientists explain.
We're calling for governments around the world to ban the bulb, but we're not waiting for them. Here's Greenpeace Italy local group activists changing bulbs all over town.
Reminds me a little of this fantastic video.
In a related story....
Peering into the murky depths, Jane Lubchenco searched for sea life, but all she saw were signs of death.Video images scanned from the seafloor revealed a boneyard of crab skeletons, dead fish and other marine life smothered under a white mat of bacteria. At times, the camera's unblinking eye revealed nothing at all -- a barren undersea desert in waters renowned for their bounty of Dungeness crabs and fat rockfish.
"We couldn't believe our eyes," Lubchenco said, recalling her initial impression of the carnage brought about by oxygen-starved waters. "It was so overwhelming and depressing. It appeared that everything that couldn't swim or scuttle away had died."
Upon further study, Lubchenco and other marine ecologists at Oregon State University concluded that that the undersea plague appears to be a symptom of global warming.
That's from today's LA times. Also a good story on it in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Maps of the world usually have lots of lovely blue to show where the oceans are. This map, showing damage to our oceans, is all yellow, oranges and reds with only small bits of pristine blue. It's hardly the first warning from scientists about the state of the oceans, but it's the most thorough and graphical. From the Baltimore Sun:
In one of the most comprehensive looks yet at the oceans, researchers say that humans have "strongly" fouled 41 percent of the high seas with everything from storm water runoff to shipping waste and that only small polar regions are still untouched."Almost half of the oceans are in a fairly degraded state, based on what we found," said Benjamin Halpern, the report's lead author and a marine biologist at the California-based National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis. "There isn't a spot on the planet that hasn't been touched by humans."
The report was published today in Science Magazine (subscription). There's a Google Earth layer for the map (and an animated flyover) here, and another animated flyover on NPR's website. See Science Daily for more info.
And as Benjamin Halpern, the report's lead author, says, "There are things people can do". Ask questions about where the fish you eat comes from, avoid fertilizers and pesticides (buy organic), cut down on your carbon footprint and sign our marine reserves petition.
Article in yesterday's business section of the Sydney Morning Herald about doubts that nuclear energy a good solution to climate change:
Nuclear power's claim to be the answer to global warming is being questioned by reports suggesting mining and processing of uranium is carbon intensive.While nuclear power produces only one 50th of the carbon produced by many fossil fuels, its carbon footprint is rising, making wind power and other renewable energies increasingly attractive, according to environmental groups and some official reports.
Just another reason why nuclear is a bad investment.
Prince Charles has joined those calling for a revolution in the way we use Energy. The Guardian reports that
"Prince Charles highlighted the rapid melting of the north polar ice cap as a wake-up call "as we sleepwalk our way towards the edge of catastrophe" and called for a "courageous and revolutionary" approach to tackling global warming."
Hat tip to Daily Kos
Here's an extremely interesting special report on whaling, from a Japanese business magazine. The translation is a bit patchy, but it's a fascinating glimpse -- and confirmation that, unlike the picture you get if you read the propoganda at the Institute for Cetacean Research website, there is in fact a domestic debate about whaling in Japan, and a growing tension between the Foreign Affairs department, which is constantly having to patch up relations with allies over a distraction, and the Fisheries Agency, which keeps a few bureaucrats fat and happy by shrilly pushing Japan's whaling programme down the throats of all opposition -- whether its us oceanic hippies or their own government colleagues.
If you don't make it to the end, here's the most important part:
" Some connected with whaling say that huge enterprises that are far outside the framework of realistic choices could be interested. Being one of the few issues on which Japan has made a stand against the United States and European countries, the stance of whaling hardliners could also be a vent for narrow-minded nationalism. In the end, that could easily be detrimental to national interests. Perhaps the Japanese people need to take this opportunity to reexamine the whaling issue for themselves."
Here's a very cool guerilla campaign tactic - a new style of 'clean' graffiti, where a steam cleaner is used to write a message in street grime, one thing any city has a lot of! A great way to get the message out that airport expansion should be stopped.
First the source of the problem - cheap flights
If a picture speaks a thousand words, a multimedia-packed, animation-filled interactive town must speak a million. Which is why on the Greenpeace UK website we've launched EfficienCity (like Sim City, but greener) to explain exactly what decentralised energy is and how it works in practice (which can otherwise be a wordy business).
If you believe our government, you'd think we need nuclear power and coal to stop climate change, but come and pay a visit to EfficienCity, which shows how pioneering, real world communities around the UK are using decentralised energy. As a result, they're enjoying lower greenhouse gas emissions, a more secure energy supply, cheaper electricity and heating bills and a whole new attitude towards energy.
We've been working with the incredible team at Biro Creative to build the town and we're pretty chuffed with the result. It's full of video case studies, animations and slideshows that explain exactly how a genuinely clean and efficient energy system works - from wave and tidal power to micro-hydro and anaerobic digestion.
And, most importantly, UK residents can find out how to make their own town climate friendly.
Anyway, enough of the words - just go and visit EfficienCity to discover a cleaner, greener energy future. Enjoy.
We have just been informed that our ship the Rainbow Warrior II has been seriously damaged by a whale that reportedly fell from the sky. A police spokesperson said that they have reason to believe the Hollywood actor Will Smith was involved in the incident. However, he could not be questioned at the scene due to severe intoxication. All of the ship's crew have survived unharmed but sadly, Walter the grey whale was pronounced dead on arrival.
The following video has been sent to us by a member of the public who was at the scene.
My quote of the week, both because of who said it and how he said it. Mark Moody-Stuart, the ex-chairmen of Shell illustrated his point that the EU should ban gas guzzling luxury cars:
"It is a social thing. We don't say the wealthy can avoid doing what is needed by society."
"When we eliminated coal fires in London we didn't say to people in Chelsea you can pay a bit more and toast your crumpets in front of an open fire - we said nobody, but nobody, could have an open fire."
Here's the full story from the BBC and a little wider context from our UK site.
Queue multiple car industry responses (excuses) basically along the lines of "no, we need flexible (lax) regulation (if we must) and gas guzzlers owners (=big profits for us) are allowed to pollute because they pay a fraction of extra tax and a few cents extra when they fill up (see no problem, no need for pesky regulation)".
A recent article in the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun has reported that the financial status of the Japanese whaling industry is looking pretty bleak right now. The Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR), which is responsible for "research" whaling, has failed to pay back 1 billion yen ($9.4 million US) out of a 3.6 billion yen national loan in 2006. The ICR borrowed the money from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and was supposed to pay it back at the end of the fiscal year but reported financial difficulties and requested to pay the interest-free loan back over 4 years instead.
The cost of whaling has been rising because the ICR has increased their quota despite the fact that the value of whale meat continues to drop due to decreasing demand. In 2006 he whale meat supply increasing by 30% and the price being cut by an average of 20%, there was a 6% decrease in the sale of whale meat (in 2006) compared to the previous year. Meanwhile, the cost of whaling rose by 10% because the number of vessels in the fleet increased from 5 to 6 and the hunting season was extended.
The Japanese public must be wondering how long their government will continue to throw public money at this failing attempt to revive commercial whaling. Surely it is clear that the only way out of this mess is to stop sending a fleet of ships to the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary!
It's frustrating that in spite of heavy international opposition to whaling in these waters, the Government of Japan continues their annual hunt. But we're glad that scandals like this are being exposed in the mainstream Japanese news and the folks at Greenpeace Japan are hopeful that continuing domestic pressure will force the Government to retire the whaling fleet.
Help us increase the pressure in Japan to end whaling in the Southern Ocean Write to Mr. Mitarai, the CEO of Canon and head of the Japanese Business Federation and ask him to defend the whales.
Our volunteers in the UK have been busy this morning. Coal industry bigwigs are holding their annual jamboree at Lord's Cricket Ground in London, where energy minister Malcolm Wicks was to give the opening speech earlier today. But greeting him and other fossil fuel fans were two-metre high fences barricading the entrance with attendant volunteers protesting about the ongoing collusion between government and industry.
With the news is dominated today by 'Super Tuesday' in the US I saw this interesting graphic yesterday on which candidate gets the most money from oil companies. Who do you think, for instance, gets the most cash from climate trashing Exxon? Barack Obama.
The graphic from OilChange International definitely looks like it was inspired by our own Exxon Secrets website.
The oil info is interesting but after looking again at Grist's candidates comparison on climate, (notice how they all support dirty coal) it would be interesting to see which one the coal industry or coal dependant energy utilities are funding. Know a good source of this info? Post it in the comments.
Via New Scientist science blog
The Nuclear Installations Inspectorate visited the UK reprocessing plant at Sellafield and found evidence of an organisation with the kind of safety standards you'd expect from a state run enterprise in one of the world's richest countries handling enormously dangerous material.
" Two of the three evaporators have been shut due to safety problems, and there are continuing "difficulties" with vitrification. But the most alarming issue is the failure of equipment needed to cool the waste, which could, at worst, lead to an explosion, scattering radioactivity across much of the country. Studies suggest that for every tank that exploded 210,000 people would die from cancer "
See, completely safe. Read the full article here.
February 2, is World Wetlands Day, marking the date of the Convention on Wetlands in Ramsar, Iran, in 1971. People from environment groups and conservation agencies working on wetlands protection and education are celebrating today under this year's banner: "Healthy Wetlands, Healthy People".
Maybe there's a Ramsar site near you -- they're all over the world.
The Ramsar Secretariat would love to hear from people (email link) who've done something today for World Wetlands Day -- photos from a group outing, or some crafts or art made with materials from your local wetland.
Want to make a cut-out marine or freshwater turtle? Download one of these beautiful print-and-make turtles from the Ramsar website.
UPDATE: Environmental News Service reports that to mark World Wetlands Day the Republic of Congo designated four new Wetlands of International Importance, including one that is the second largest in the world.
Yesterday, one of our activists was arrested outside the the US Department of Interior after a protest involving a polar bear suit and a paddle boat. Greenpeace US (along with other enviro groups) is pushing the Bush administration to face up to the fact that polar bears are endangered by climate change. Read the full story and watch the video.
I'm just trying to imagine the dialog, "You in the polar bear suit: We have you surrounded. Do not attempt to paddle away." But don't get me wrong. Those hip waders were a smart move. Pond water is mighty cold in Washington, DC this time of year. (larger photo)
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