Al Gore first brought us An Inconvenient Truth, now he and the Alliance for Climate Protection bring us environmental optimism with We Can Solve It. Personally, I need to feel like there is hope to alter climate change, and the We campaign does this by "igniting public action to help solve the climate crisis." Only together, can we solve this global problem. Oh, Mr. Gore, I wish you were president.
Saturday, March 22, 2008 was World Water Day, and in honor of the event, restaurants all over the country joined UNICEF's Tap Project. As part of the Tap Project, customers donated a dollar for each glass of tap water they were served for free. Just one dollar provides a child in need with 40 days of clean water.
One aspect that should be considered when shopping responsibly for really natural products is product stewardship. Product stewardship involves looking at the lifecycle of a product, from manufacturing to disposal. The Environmental News Network offers eight tips for practicing product stewardship:
Stay Informed-find out what companies are doing to reduce their carbon footprints and reduce their use of harmful chemicals.
Spend Some Dough-sustainably produced products cost more money.
Locate Your Products-shop locally, such as at a farmers' market, to avoid buying goods that have been transported thousands of miles.
Check the ingredients-read the labels! Remember, natural and organic are marketing terms without clear definitions on the US, especially for beauty products.
Reduce Your Packaging-Look for products with less packaging and use canvas shopping bags at every store you shop, not just the grocery store.
Recycle
Take Advantage of Take Backs-Many companies offer to dispose of old products for you, especially electronics.
Close the Loop-purchase product with high percentages of post-consumer recycled content.
A 53-year-old man in San Carlos, California has done what all of wish we could do: create zero waste, so that he no longer needs municipal trash service. Eddie House explains, "It's just me and my dog, so I don't have a whole lot of garbage to begin with and I recycle everything." When Eddie canceled his trash service, the city of San Carlos served him with a lawsuit. According to the Examiner,
The lawsuit claims House broke the city's municipal code requiring all residential, commercial and industrial properties to contract with Allied Waste for pickup at least once a week -- a standard requirement in most cities, San Carlos Deputy City Manager Brian Moura said.
Everything's Cool, billed as a "real-life disaster movie" is a film about Americans' growing awareness of global warming in the wake of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth and Hurricane Katrina. It's also an incredible time capsule for our mass awakening to climate change as an issue that will shape our lives, with parallels to other political issues and the way they are framed by industry representatives and an easily-manipulated media.
The film follows a groups of "global warming messengers" through three years -- 2003 through the beginning of 2007 -- and looks at how the country came to realize what scientists had long recognized -- that global warming is happening and that something needs to be done about it.
Where an Inconvenient Truth focused on the science of global climate change, Everything's Cool looks at the political debate around the issue -- how a small group of energy-industry-funded think tanks created a debate when scientific consensus existed, and how the media's desire to present both sides of a story can move political dialogue way off course.
Here's a case of mistaken identity. EcoSeek bills itself as "the Search Engine for All Things Green." Unfortunately, it's not a search engine at all. Which leads to pretty bad reviews for a site that's actually not bad at all.
EcoSeek claims to be an eco-friendly search engine. The front page is a real mess, and the first random search I tried -‘wood burning stove’ - returned zero hits. It’s clearly such a green engine that it’s saving power by…uh…not delivering any results at all. Riiight!
Turns out the site is actually just a directory of green products. Search, or browse by category to see products that merchants have listed.
EcoSeek says it has over 7100 products from 335 merchants. A quick look shows most of the categories looking pretty thin, but when it's populated with more content, it may be a useful yellow pages for eco-friendly products.
7 Tips to Reduce Carbon Footprint: Grist Founder on Today
And speaking of Grist, founder Chip Giller (a former classmate of mine!) was interviewed on Today earlier this week and offered viewers seven tips to reduce their carbon emissions by 10% in one week. Among the tips:
- Wash your clothes in cold water
- Eat no meat one day a week
- Lower the heat in your house by two degrees
- Unplug appliances when they're not in use.
Chip took some flack on the Grist message boards for focusing on baby steps instead of recommending radical changes to our culture of consumption. Personally, though, I think he'll catch more flies with honey, and that the impact created by these small changes would be pretty significant if they were implemented by a big enough audience.
A belated shout out to former Vice President Al Gore for winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Gore has brought much needed attention to the issue of global warming. We're glad he and, more importantly, the environment are finally getting the attention they deserve.
Nearly 200 governments have agreed a faster timetable for phasing out chemicals that deplete the ozone layer and contribute to global warming. The schedule for eliminating hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) comes forward by 10 years under the agreement signed at a UN meeting in Montreal.
We think this is a very very very good thing. Speed it up and perhaps we can save those pesky polar bears.
If you’re unfamiliar with the concept behind Park(ing) Day, it’s a national one-day global event, centered in the city of San Francisco, calling all artists, activist, and citizens together to temporarily take over parking spots, turning them into “Park(ing)” spaces, or temporary public parks. But, what started as a few grassy plots of sod occupying metered parking spots in San Francisco has blossomed into a world-wide event scheduled to take place September 21st, 2007. So get out and occupy a Park(ing) space and save the planet.
Apparently, flying saucers are the future of eco-friendly vehicles because of their very efficient shape. Right now air travel accounts for 3% of carbon emissions worldwide, but that figure stands to rise to 5%. Apparently, ditching the wings and throwing flying saucers into the air will help do that just from the redesign and consideration of new materials that would use less weight. Read the entire article at LiveScience.
To illustrate "The Greening of Geopolitics", Thomas Friedman's cover story for this past Sunday's New York Times Magazine, the Times commissioned 10 artists to design "green flags." Among the artists whose works are featured: Kiki Smith, Robert L. Lang, Carin Goldberg, and Casey Reas. Here are pictures of some of our favorites:
Environmental Optimism: We Can Solve It!
![Chip-on-Today_h240[1].jpg](http://www.reallynatural.com/archives/Chip-on-Today_h240%5B1%5D.jpg)
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