I have pledged to myself to be only funny for the next week. This energy efficiency stuff can get pretty grime, what with the US, China and India sucking the planet dry.
http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article1949645.ece
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what the heck…its enviro humor. we all need to laugh about our obvious situation.
http://www.grinningplanet.com/5005/environmental-jokes-cartoons.htm
WHERE AIR POLLUTANTS
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Sulfur dioxide From too many people Lead From overly burdensome Methane From the butts of |
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Mercury From a series of secret space |
Carbon Dioxide From living, green plants, of |
As always the rape of the environment goes hand in hand with the rape of the poor.
http://www.newsdesk.org/archives/004450.html
Africa’s struggle with mineral wealth and regional poverty has a new poster child, as Tuareg nomads in Niger take up arms for a greater share of the booming uranium trade there.
Niger is not only the continent’s leading uranium exporter, it is also one of the most impoverished — a situation exacerbated by progressively severe drought.
According to ISN Security Watch in Switzerland, a nascent rebellion by Tuareg rebels has claimed the lives of 50 soldiers, although the government claims the attacks were by drug smugglers and robbers, and has deployed “thousands” of troops to the region.
The situation is further complicated by the presence of foreign mining companies, which have been the target of rebel attacks — but are also blamed for exacerbating the violence.
In particular, the government blames Areva, a French company, which until recently had a monopoly on the uranium trade there, of exhorting rebels to attack its competitors.
The rebels, meanwhile, say they are victims of racism and political neglect, claim that China has offered military aid to Niger in return for favorable mining contracts, and also blame Areva for helping fund government oppression through uranium sales.
Libya, at the country’s northern border, has also been blamed for backing the rebels as it seeks greater access to the radioactive mineral.
The conflict is taking its toll on civil society in Niger.
According to the Media Foundation of West Africa, a government regulatory agency has suspended operations at several radio stations and newspapers since the Tuareg conflict began.
>This man is amazing and if there is a heaven…he has a place.
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Ped DispenserJohn Francis, a 'planetwalker'who lived car-free and silent for17 years, chats with Grist
10 May 2005 Tools: print | email | discuss | write to the editor | subscribe | RSS | share/bookmark Bookmark: del.icio.us | google | yahoo How long could you survive without your car? For the many Americans who think nothing of driving 10 blocks to buy a gallon of milk, the answer is obvious. But before any of you dedicated pedestrians and die-hard cyclists start feeling smug, try this question: How long could you survive without talking?
John Francis. Photo: Courtesy of Planetwalk. Chances are, nowhere near as long as John Francis did. After a massive oil spill polluted San Francisco Bay in 1971, Francis gave up all motorized transportation. For 22 years, he walked everywhere he went -- including treks across the entire United States and much of South America -- hoping to inspire others to drop out of the petroleum economy. Soon after he stopped riding in cars, Francis, the son of working-class, African-American parents in Philadelphia, also stopped speaking. For 17 years, he communicated only through improvised sign language, notes, and his ever-present banjo. The environmental pilgrim says he took his vow of silence as a gift to his community "because, man, I just argued all the time." But it may have been Francis who benefited most of all. For the first time, he found he was able to truly listen to other people and the larger world around him, transforming his approach to both personal communication and environmental activism. Francis started speaking again on Earth Day 1990. The very next day, he was struck by a car. He refused to ride in the ambulance, insisting on walking to the hospital instead. With a Ph.D. in land resources (earned during his silence), he was later recruited by the U.S. Coast Guard to write oil-spill regulations and by the United Nations Environment Program to serve as a goodwill ambassador. Francis, the author of Planetwalker: How to Change Your World One Step at a Time, is now preparing for a second environmental walk across America. He spoke with writer Mark Hertsgaard about how social change happens, the decency he encountered among red-state Americans, and the importance of bridging the chasm between white and black environmentalists. |
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One of the most amazing sugestions that a group of activists (of which he is one) have advocated for is “green” job training programs for disadvantaged youth and high-school drop outs. They would be trained to retrofit buildings to be off the carbon economy. Jobs that can not be exported abroad. As is my custom this is a total lift from this 2005 blog.
http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2005/05/10/hertsgaard-francis/
Q? Why did you stop riding in motorized vehicles?
A. This was the first time I had ever been exposed to an environmental insult of such magnitude — 400,000 gallons of oil spilling into San Francisco Bay. And I couldn’t get away from it. You could close your eyes, you could turn around, but you just couldn’t get away from the impact of it. The smell was overpowering. I decided I wanted to do something, but I didn’t know exactly what. I mentioned to a friend that I wanted to stop riding in cars, and she laughed at me and I laughed at myself and that was the end of it.
It wasn’t until a neighbor died the next year that I … He had a good job as a deputy sheriff, he had a wonderful wife, lovely kids, he just had everything. And from one day to the next, he was gone. So I realized there weren’t any promises. If I was going to do anything, I had better do it now. Because now is the only time we have to do what we need to do.
Q? But one could have that feeling and say, “OK, I’m going to join the Sierra Club. I’m going to write my senator. I’m going to carry a picket sign outside the oil companies.” Not many people would say, “I’m going to stop riding in motorized vehicles.” Did it strike you as extreme?
A. It did. But it struck me as the most appropriate thing I could do. I could join the Sierra Club, I could carry picket signs, and people have been doing those things. But in my life, what could I do? And that was: not ride in cars. And I thought everyone would follow. (Laughter.)
Q? You write about this in your book, that you had an inflated sense of yourself at that time. Not long after, you took a very radical step to confront that.
A. As I walked along the road, people would stop and talk about what I was doing and I would argue with them. And I realized that, you know, maybe I didn’t want to do that. So, on my [27th] birthday, I decided I was going to give my community some silence because, man, I just argued all the time. I decided for one day, let’s not speak and see what happens.
Q? I’m going to read a passage from your book about your decision to stop speaking: “Most of my adult life I have not been listening fully. I only listened long enough to determine whether the speaker’s ideas matched my own. If they didn’t, I would stop listening, and my mind would race ahead to compose an argument against what I believed the speaker’s idea or position to be.”
A. That was one of the tearful lessons for me. Because when I realized that I hadn’t been listening, it was as if I had locked away half of my life. I just hadn’t been living half of my life. Silence is not just not talking. It’s a void. It’s a place where all things come from. All voices, all creation comes out of this silence. So when you’re standing on the edge of silence, you hear things you’ve never heard before, and you hear things in ways you’ve never heard them before. And what I would disagree with one time, I might now agree with in another way, with another understanding.
Q? Some people reading this interview might say, “That sounds awfully passive if all you do is listen when ExxonMobil says there’s no global warming or when the Bush administration says we can have healthy forests by cutting them down.” Is there a danger that the philosophy you’re expounding is too passive in the face of environmental destruction?
A. There’s always a danger for anything to become not appropriate. But at the same time that I was listening, I was also walking. I was making a statement for other people to see, and perhaps to inspire them. The most you can do is be who you are and do what you do. You’re the only person you really have a moral obligation to change. What everyone else does, you don’t have any control over that.
Q? You began walking in the 1970s here in Northern California. Your first long walk was to Sacramento, the state capitol, to testify before a Senate committee. Then you took a longer walk up the coast to the Pacific Northwest. Eventually you walked across the entire country. You were an African-American man, with a banjo and a backpack, and you were silent. Did people treat you as an oddity?
A. Well, you know, I did look different.
John Francis in 1984.
Photo: Courtesy of Planetwalk.
Even for the 1970s!
A. Even for the 1970s. (Laughter.) I realized early on that I was gonna have to not worry about how I looked. It was really good for me to let my image go, the image I had before — that I had to wear the right clothes, drive the right car, use the right cologne. All those things went out the door, and I allowed myself to be a clown.
Q? Nowadays, many of us think about America as split between red states and blue states. Was that your experience while walking across the country?
A. Well, I walked across a lot of red states, and the people in those states were just as generous, or even more so, as the people in blue states. In fact, when I walked across the country, there were no red states, there were no blue states; it was just America. People you might think would not bring me into their home brought me into their home and put me down at the table with their family, with their children, and invited me to stay.
Q? In your book you argue that the environmental crisis is really a crisis of the human spirit. Does that mean we have to wait for humans to become better people before we can solve the environmental problem?
A. I’m not sure I would say that humans are going to become better people, but I think humans are going to become who we are. Frankly, I look at my life and I go, “God, I have great hope for everybody!” Because I look at where I came from, and I could never have seen me walking across the country, silently going to school, and 20 years later I’m in Washington, D.C., writing federal oil-pollution regulations. Looking at my journey, which is part of all of our journeys, I have great hope.
Q? As an environmentalist who is black, do you think the chasm between white environmentalists and non-whites will ever be bridged?
A. It has to be. How we relate to one another is essential to environmentalism. If you’re not talking about human rights, economic equity, mutual respect, you’re not really dealing with the environment. Trees are wonderful. Birds and flowers are wonderful. They’re all part of the environment. But we’re part of the environment too and how we treat each other is fundamental.
Q? The day after you began to speak again, you were hit by a car on the streets of Washington, D.C. I can imagine some people saying, “The universe was sending a message there.”
A. I was thinking, “The universe is sending a message.” I’m lying there, and the ambulance comes and they’re strapping me down and I said, “Where are we going?” And the ambulance person says, “We’re taking you to the hospital, you’ve been hit by a car.” And I said, “You know, I think I can walk.” They stop and look at me and say, “Walk? You can’t walk. You’ve been in an accident.” And I said, “Well, I don’t ride in automobiles. I haven’t ridden in an automobile for 17 years. In fact, I didn’t speak for 17 years. I just started speaking yesterday.” And that’s when I see ’em start thinking, “We’re taking him to St. Elizabeth’s [psychiatric hospital] for observation.”
Finally one of the women said, “Why are you afraid of riding in cars? Is it a religious thing?” And I said, “No, it’s not religious.” “Is it a spiritual practice or something?” I said, “No.” She says, “Well, it’s principles, huh?” And I grab onto that: “Principles! Yes, it’s principles!” And she tells me, “Honey, if you can suspend your principles for five minutes, we can drive your butt to the hospital.” And I think about it and all I come up with is, “I don’t think principles work that way. You can’t just suspend them for five minutes.” Eventually, they let me walk.
Q? In 1994, after 22 years, you decided to ride in vehicles again. Why?
A. Walking had become a prison for me. While it was appropriate to stop walking when I did, over the years it had calcified, because I never revisited my decision not to ride in cars. [One day,] as I was walking, I thought about the fact that I had worked at the Coast Guard, I had worked on the Exxon oil spill. And if they had said to me, “John, we could hire you, but you have to ride in a car and fly a plane,” I would have said, “I’m sorry, I guess I can’t work for you then.” And that would have been the wrong answer. So I decided I needed to break out of the prison.
Q? You were on the Venezuela/Brazil border when you stopped walking. How did it feel?
A. There were two women from the Netherlands who were walking with me. And when I got into the bus [on the border], they looked at me like, “Oh God, something’s going to happen to him. He’s gonna start crying or whatever.” But I didn’t. I just got in and I realized that I was in a VW now and I could feel the industry of transportation. I could feel the cogs of transportation. You know, the asphalt road, the gears turning, the fire, the pistons banging, and the fuel exploding — I could feel all that. It was a very interesting moment for me.
Q? No guilt?
A. No guilt at all. This was the decision I was going to make.
Q? You’re about to start another long walk, and obviously you’re a little older now and you have a family. You’ve talked a little bit about how you hope walking will affect the world around you. How about the world inside you? How will this time be different?
A. I don’t know how I’m going to change. I don’t know how it will change me. That’s part of the mystery of walking, is that the destination is inside us and we really don’t know when we arrive until we arrive. One of the biggest epiphanies that I’ve had was that, you know, environmentalists like to look at the industrialists or at the developers and say, “They gotta change. If they would change, everything would be all right.” But really, we all have to do that. We all need to look at ourselves. We need to re-imagine ourselves.
Tools: print | email | discuss | write to the editor | subscribe | RSS | share/bookmark
Bookmark: del.icio.us | google | yahoo
| Mark Hertsgaard, a fellow of The Nation Institute, is the author of Earth Odyssey: Around the World in Search of Our Environmental Future and four other books that have been translated into 15 languages. |
>So this is probably more of a sad bird Friday because their 1rst meeting was in 2003 and if you go to their website you will see a blue box that says the 2nd gathering was cancelled.
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>www.strangebirds.org/
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It is a very interesting site however.
Sorry about the look of the blog. My scanner did not do a very good job and I tossed
the piece before I put this up. The point is that if we had not wasted the last 7 years on
two of the worst leaders we have ever elected at the worst time we could do it. George
Bush and Dick Cheney could be remembered as the Americans that killed the Planet.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER
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CLEANUP in EUROPE Cities act to prevent more climate
damage |
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By KARL HITTER |
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
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AXJO, Sweden—When this quiet city in southern Sweden decided in 1996 to wean itself off
fossil fuels, most people doubted the ambitious goal would have any impact beyond the
town limits.
A few melting glaciers later, Vaxjo is attracting a green pilgrimage of politicians, scientists and
business leaders from as far afield as the U.S. and North Korea seeking inspiration from a city
program that has allowed it to cut CO2 emissions 30 percent since 1993.
Vaxjo is a pioneer in a growing movement in dozens of European cities, large and small,
that aren’t waiting for national or international measures to curb global warming.
From London’s congestion charge to Paris’ city bike program and Barcelona’s solar power
campaign
, initiatives taken at the local level are being introduced across the continent — often influencing
national policies instead of the other way around.
“People used to ask: Isn’t it better to do this at a national or international level?” said Henrik
Johansson,
environmental controller in Vaxjo, a city of 78,000 on the shores of Lake Helga, surrounded
by thick
pine forest in the heart of Smaland province. “We want to show everyone else that you can
accomplish a lot at the local level.”
The European Union, mindful that many member states are failing to meet mandated emissions
cuts under the Kyoto climate treaty, has taken notice of the trend and is encouraging cities to
adopt their own emissions targets. The bloc awarded one of its inaugural Sustainable Energy
Europe
awards this year to Vaxjo, which aims to have cut emissions by 50 percent by 2010 and
70 percent by 2025.
Stepping up for a cleaner Europe
There is a growing green movement afoot in European cities to curb global- warming
without waiting for national or international programs.
Cities controlling carbon dioxide emissions
Vaxjo, Sweden stoppedusing fossil fuels in
1996; wood chips from sawmills replaced oil at
power plants
Barcelona, Spain required new buildings in 2006 to install solar
panelsto generate 100 percent of energy for hot water.
Copenhagen, Denmarkintroduced apublic bike service
in 1995, allowing fine pick up and return of bikes at
dozens of stations
Stockholm, Copenhagen and London have set targets to cut CO2
emissions by 60 percent by 2025
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AP |
SOURCES: City of Vaxjo; AP reporting
Bogota, the capital of Colombia, has reduced emissions with the Trans-Mileni
municipal bus system and an extensive network of bicycle paths.
In Vaxjo, (pronounced VECK-shur), the vast majority of emissions cuts
have been achieved at the heating and power plant, which replaced oil with
wood chips from local sawmills as its main source of fuel. Ashes from the
furnace are returned to the forest as nutrients.
Without stronger national policies promoting biofuels over gasoline, Vaxjo,
for one, will never reach its long-term target of becoming free of fossil fuels.
But it’s doing what it can locally. So-called “green cars” running on biofuels
park free anywhere in the city. About one-fifth of the city’s fleet runs on biogas
produced at the sewage treatment plant.
Using biofuels instead of gasoline in cars is generally considered to
cut C02 emissions, although some scientists say greenhouse gases
released during the production of biofuel crops can offset those gains.
Vaxjo has also invested in energy efficiency, from the light bulbs used
in street lights to a new residential area with Europe’s tallest all-wood
apartment buildings. Wood requires less energy to produce than steel or
concrete. Although Vaxjo is tiny by comparison, the C40 group, including major
metropolitan centers such as New York, Mexico City and Tokyo, has been impressed
by the city’s progress and uses it as an example of “best practices” around the world.
“They’re a small town,” Reddy said. “Apply that to 7 million? It’s doable but its going
to take a lot longer.”
“We are convinced that the cities are a key element to change behavior and get results,”
said Pedro Ballesteros Torres, manager of the Sustainable Energy Europe campaign.
“Climate change is a global problem but the origin of the problem is very local.”
So far only a handful of European capitals have set emissions targets, including Stockholm,
Copenhagen and London. Torres said he hopes to convince about 30 European cities to
commit to targets next year.
While such goals are welcome, they may not always be the best way forward, said
Simon Reddy, who manages the C40 project, a global network of major cities exchanging i
deas on tackling climate change.
“At the moment a lot of cities don’t know what they’re emitting so it’s very difficult to set
targets,” Reddy said.
More important than emissions targets, he said, is that cities draft action plans, outlining
specific goals needed to reduce emissions, like switching a certain percentage of the public
transit system to alternative fuels.
London Mayor Ken Livingstone’s Climate Action Plan calls for cutting the city’s C02
emissions by 60 percent in 2025, compared to 1990 levels. However, planners acknowledge
the cuts are not realistic unless the government introduces a system of carbon pricing.
Barcelona, Spain’s second biggest city, has since 2006 required all new and renovated
buildings to install solar panels to supply at least 60 percent of the energy needed to heat
water. It’s not only in Europe that cities are taking action o
n climate change.
Several U.S. cities including Austin, Texas; Portland, Ore.; and Seattle
have launched programs to emulate Europe.
We run on local resources said plant manager Ulf Johnsson, scooping up a fistful of wood
chips from a giant heap outside the factory.
He had just led Michael Wood, the U.S. Ambassador to Sweden, on a guided tour of
the facility, which is considered state of the art. Not only does it generate electricity,
but the water that warms up as it cools the plant is used to heating homes and offices
in Vaxjo.
Every week, foreign visitors arrive to see Vaxjo’s environmental campaign. Last year,
even a delegation of 10 energy officials from reclusive North Korea got a tour.
A similar but much larger system is in place in Copenhagen, Denmark’s capital, where
waste heat from incineration and combined heat and power plants is pumped through a
purpose-built 800-mile network of pipes to 97 percent of the city.
Copenhagen is often cited as a climate pioneer among European cities. It cut (f02 emissions
by 187,600 tons annually in the late ’90s by switching from coal to natural gas and friofuels
at its energy plants. Its goal is to reduce emissions by 35 percent by 2010, compared to
1990 levels, even more ambitious than Denmark’s national target of 21 percent cuts under
the Kyoto accord.
In 1995, the city became one of the first European capitals to introduce a public bicycle service that lets people pick up and return bikes at dozens of stations city-wide for a small fee. Similar initiatives have since taken root in Paris and several other European cities.
Next, Copenhagen plans to spend about $38 million on various initiatives to get more residents to use bicycles instead of cars.
Transport is one of the hardest areas for local leaders to control since traffic is not confined to a single area.
I tried to get back into the previous posts to correct some grievous errors, the last half of the article does not fit on the page and the link does not WORK! ARRRRRRg
Sorry to anybody that reads it.
OK so I am sorry about ripping off Nat. Geo. and especially their brilliant photogrphy. Plus the hours that it takes could be better used. Please click the link below and see the photos for themselves.
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Dream On |
Joining the mainstream never really interested Frank and Lisa Mauceri. Both proud dreamers even before they met at a Los Lobos concert back in college 20 years ago, the Mauceris use outside-the-box thinking as a creative technique to nurture their eco-friendly life. By merging their record company ambitions and their love of the environment they have created an environmentally inspiring live/work space they hope will ignite the imaginations of their Chicago community and colleagues in the recording industry. Their newly renovated building, a former old corner store and bar located in Chicago’s artistic Bucktown neighborhood, is the United States’ first and only residence that is LEED certified—a green-building rating system designed by the U.S. Green Building Council—generating its own electricity through the use of solar panels and wind turbines, and using geothermal heating and cooling.
Although the couple was on a traditional corporate track—Frank worked as an attorney and Lisa worked in finance—they dreamed of ditching the 60-hour work weeks that were feeling increasingly pointless. As devoted rock-and-rollers, they wanted to dive headfirst into their musical passions. After stints in Cleveland and Reno, the pair decided to reinvent their life in Chicago. “Chicago stood out to us,” says Frank. “The Windy City has one of the strongest green initiatives in the country and is striving to be the greenest metropolitan area in America.”
Photography made possible by National Geographic Image Collection; Dawn Kish, photographer.
With the help of a green-savvy architect, they en a building plan that includes two wind turbines, electric panels, geothermal heating and cooling 1,900-square-foot green roof that serves as the yard. “The wind turbines in combination with th< panels should create at least 40 percent of a electricity we need. Under ideal conditions it will 100 percent,” says Frank. And there’s even a d that the Mauceris’ system might produce more than is needed for their home, in which case trn electricity is distributed back to the city’s energj and they receive a credit on their electric bill. 1
As with any construction project, there were stm blocks. Despite Chicago’s green reputation, the residential height restrictions prohibited buildinj wind turbines. But by working with the city, the c helped Chicago create new ordinances which i exempt wind turbines from the height restriction
“Our neighbors are really fascinated by what’s hap on the roof,” says Lisa. “We had to get the okay them to do the wind turbines, and they were like go for it.’ They had no problems at all.” One of couple’s favorite design features is the use of o record bits in the flooring material, which they hi to create. Frank smashed the records with a ha and then Lisa ground the bits with a blender. *l really personal way to recycle and it really sere ‘us,'” says Lisa.
“I felt, and still feel, that the more people I tell i this way of living, the bigger positive impact I’ll I and the less negative impact we will all have on environment,” adds Frank.
Plan for the Future
ture
The 5,600-square-foot structure offers plenty of room for their record company, Smog Veil Records.
Frustrated by the amount of waste in the music business the Mauceris are running Smog Veil under strict green guidelines. One first
step is starting to release in MP3 format instead of as CDs. “We’re are eliminating the use of jewel cases and using Cardboard packaging instead
, replacing paper press kits with PDF’s. offering downloadable digital booklets from our website instead of CD inserts, and taking the
message of greening the music industry to others in the hopes that they will implement those practices within their business,” says Frank.
In addition to these moves, the Mauceris say they practice the everyday acts that anyone can do: being careful about the amount of energy
they use in the office, recycling paper, and composting. “We’d also like to replace our inefficient delivery truck with a waste-vegetable-oil,
biodiesel, or electric model,” says Lisa. Measuring their efforts is an important part of the Mauceris’ plan.
“It’s important for us to be able to track what our efforts do,” he says. “We’re taking special care to measure how much
paper we’ve used in the past in our business and how much we’ll be using once our
green agenda is fully implemented. “In the music industry, the one thing that’s going to make a difference is showing
that the implementation of green practices within your business reduces your overhead and increases your net profits.
” Like so many people who crave an epic life they can be proud of, the Mauceris kept their eye on the future and harnessed
their dreams. “Now I feel like I can go sleep at night under this very green roof and feel good about. myself, my house, and
the way we choose is Lisa. “If I can make a difference, even if its avery small personal difference, I’m glad to do it.s our
dream come true.”
When asked if she and Frank view themselves as dreamers, Lisa responds with an affirmative
yes: “Absolutely. It’s always important to be optimistic about life and what you’re doing so you’re not stuck in a bubble.
I think you see limitless possibilities when you’re dreaming, and then it gives you excitement
and the vision to keep going forward.”
