To many people, our oceans are little more than a great blue expanse of water. To some, they are a source of beauty and enjoyment. And for millions of people around the globe, the oceans are sources of food and jobs in fishing or fish-farming industries. But the oceans are also the anchor for life on this planet. When it comes to global warming, the oceans may be our salvation.
The oceans do much more than provide us with food, employment, and enjoyment. They also absorb much of the excess carbon that humans have been pumping into the atmosphere during industrialization.
The world’s oceans have already absorbed a huge percentage of carbon that would contribute to global warming if it were released into the atmosphere, according to Blue Carbon: the Role of Healthy Oceans in Binding Carbon, a report by the UN Environment Programme, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO.
The IOC’s Patricio Bernal argues that “the ocean has already spared us from dangerous climate change.” He adds, though, that “each day we are essentially dumping 25 million tons of carbon into the ocean. As a consequence, the ocean is turning more acidic, posing a huge threat to organisms with calcareous structures.” (These organisms include corals, clams, shrimp, and many types of plankton.)
The report finds that protecting and restoring marine ecosystems such as estuaries and mangroves could contribute to offsetting up to seven per cent of current fossil fuel emissions at a much lower cost than technologies to capture and store carbon at power stations. What this means from a global warming perspective is that by simply protecting and restoring these ecosystems, we could achieve 10 per cent of the reductions required to keep the climate from warming by 2º C. These actions would also have numerous other benefits to marine wildlife and fisheries.
The damage we are inflicting on ocean ecosystems has numerous consequences for global warming. Ice at the North and South poles has kept our ocean temperatures relatively stable for millennia. Now, our oceans are absorbing so much additional energy that the ice is melting and the oceans are warming at an ever-increasing rate. If polar ice disappears, the warming trend will escalate because the albedo effect, the reflection of sunlight off bright surfaces like clouds and ice, will decrease. We can only guess how this will affect marine ecosystems and all life on our planet, but we are already noticing changes in the distribution and abundance of species throughout the world’s oceans.
The Blue Carbon report notes that of all living organisms that are able to capture carbon, those that live in the ocean capture more than 55 per cent. Coastal wetlands, marshes, mangroves, and estuaries play an important role in absorbing carbon from the atmosphere. Other life forms in the open ocean assimilate carbon through their diets, which is then stored in the sediments of the deep ocean when the life forms die and sink to the bottom. This carbon will be stored for millennia.
Protecting more of these valuable ocean ecosystems will help control climate change resulting from excess carbon in the atmosphere and will also help restore the capacity of these areas to support marine life, particularly fish. Given that over three billion people depend on marine fish for protein, we should do all we can to ensure abundant fisheries for the future.
Canada can play major role on this issue. We must protect the valuable ocean ecosystems within Canada’s jurisdiction and we must be a global advocate to set objectives for conserving and managing the Earth’s marine resources.
We have tremendous opportunities in Canada to do our share. The coastal estuaries and sea grasses on Canada’s West Coast and the great delta of the Mackenzie River are just two of many places where our government could do a lot more to ensure protection and recovery of these environments.
The need for additional conservation of our oceans is undeniable, the benefits of doing so are becoming more evident every day, and the opportunity is before us. All we need now is for governments to acknowledge the leading science, like that presented in the Blue Carbon report, and to get serious about investing in strategies that will put us on a more sustainable path.
Doors can allow cold air to enter a room, even when they're closed. The Daily Green reports that drafts waste five percent to thirty percent of your home's energy. Check out the Rusty Bobbin's tutorial to learn how to make your own "draft snake" with fabric scraps. If you're crafty, you might consider making extra draft snakes to give away as holiday presents. If sewing isn't your thing, a rolled towel placed at the base of the door is an easy option for stopping unwanted air flow.
Share your tips: How do you keep your home warm in winter?
Tip #2: Find Leaks
If a professional energy audit isn't in your budget, try this this trick for spotting air leaks: At night, walk around your dark house pointing a flashlight at the walls, doors, and windows. A partner standing outside should be able to see beams of light shining through any cracks or holes your home. To find more tips for spotting leaks, check out Sierra Club Green Home.
Share your tips: How do you find your home's leaks?
Tip #3: Insulate Windows
You can save up to $20 per window per winter in energy costs by fortifying panes with plastic window film. If installed properly, the inexpensive plastic should be nearly invisible. Heavy curtain are another option for beating the cold. If you're not concerned with aesthetics, you may want to try the bubble-wrap solution.
Share your tips: How do you winterize your windows?
Tip #4: Clean Furnace Filters
You can improve the efficiency of your furnace and improve indoor air quality bycleaning or replacing furnace filters. For best results, check your filter once a month during periods of high use. If your furnace is outdated, consider upgrading to a newer model. Consult the Energy Star Web site to find out if you're eligible for a federal tax credit.
In much of the Western world, the December festive season has become little more than a celebration of excess and conspicuous consumption. We run around in malls like maniacs as we count the “shopping days” till Christmas, searching for the perfect gifts for everyone we know. We stop briefly to gorge ourselves on turkey and pie, and on the day after Christmas, we rush back to the malls to see what kind of deals we can get.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with offering gifts to friends and family, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with celebrating those connections with wonderful feasts. Although I’m not a Christian, I love the rituals and family time that come with the holiday season. But it’s gotten out of hand. It may be good for the economy, but is it good for our mental health – and is it good for the environment?
What’s really important as we celebrate this time of year when longer nights give way to longer days? I had a chance to think about some of these things this month, as I prepared to give what has been called my “Legacy Lecture” in Vancouver and to accept a “Right Livelihood” award in Sweden.
In writing them, I reflected on the values I have learned during my 73 years on Earth. It reaffirmed my belief that our most important need as social animals is love. Everything else flows from this – our commitment to protect the environment so that our own lives and those of our children and grandchildren will be healthier; our recognition that we are all connected to each other and to the natural world through the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat; and our belief that all the world’s people have a right to justice and freedom.
Whether it’s for holy days or the winter solstice – or both – this time of year offers the chance to reflect and to be with people we love. For many people, the solstice symbolizes renewal and rebirth. We should take advantage of this by using the time wisely. And maybe the wisest use of our time is not to run around shopping and stressing, but rather just to spend time with our loved ones and to consider what we can do for this Earth that gives us so much.
To start, we can make the holiday season itself greener. Gift-giving is a tradition with tremendous symbolic value, but rather than giving each other gadgets and gewgaws that end up in the landfill in less than a year, we should put some thought into gifts that are meaningful, and that are preferably made locally and made to last – unless the gift is food or drink, of course, even though some of the Christmas cake I’ve seen seems like it could last forever! How about recycling something that we’ve already used, like a good book? You could also consider gifts offered by conservation groups or other nonprofit organizations that help advance worthy causes, or give a donation in the gift recipient’s name.
To me, one of our most important rituals is giving gifts to others who are not as well off as us, either at home or in poorer countries.
Gift wrap and cards also have an impact on the environment. If you must wrap your gifts, save a tree and use recycled paper, gift wrap from previous years, or even newspaper
Use cards that are made from post-consumer recycled paper – or send e-cards. You can also tear of the fronts of old cards to re-use them, or even forego an envelope and make them into postcards. The David Suzuki Foundation’s Queen of Green, Lindsay Coulter, suggests cutting old cards into cool holiday shapes to make excellent gift tags.
Speaking of trees, I’m often asked whether it’s better to use real or artificial Christmas trees. A life-cycle assessment study conducted by sustainability research firmCarbonsync organization will even rent you a potted tree that they will deliver and pick up after Christmas and plant, with some of the proceeds going to the Burns Bog Conservation Society.
I’m sure we can all think of ways to make this season a celebration not just of family and friends but of the wonderful Earth that is our home. Have a happy holiday.
The holiday season is the time to celebrate family and friends by exchanging gifts. This week's tips will help you reduce your environmental impact while honoring this holiday tradition.
Whether it's a hiking buddy, an eco-activist grandson, or a birdwatching aunt, chances are good that you know someone who cares about the environment. Donating to a nonprofit like the Sierra Club shows eco-minded friends and relatives that you share their priorities. So this holiday season, sponsor a national parkand help protect the places they love.
Share your tips: Which wild place would you like to protect?
Tip #3: Support Green Businesses
You can help fund green jobs this holiday season by purchasing goods or services from sustainable businesses. Gift certificates to local vegetarian restaurants, green spas, or nearby eco-hotels make thoughtful, low-impact presents. Need stocking stuffers? Check out Sierra magazine's gift guide to find a range of ecofriendly products.
Share your tips: Which local, green businesses will you be supporting this holiday season?
Tip #4: Encourage Healthy Habits
Help family and friends kick-start an invigorating new year by giving healthy, ecofriendly gifts. Consider giving Grandma a membership to a CSA so organic veggies will be delivered to her door, or surprise a friend with an adopted apple tree to inspire an apple-a-day habit. Give nieces and nephews access to outdoor recreation with an annual pass to the National Parks.
Share your tips: What are your suggestions for healthy gifts?
As Holiday season has just arrived and as you give thanks for the gifts in your life, you can also give to others and change their lives with safe water.
Safe water and sanitation facilities are in short supplies in India’s poorest slums. Water credit allows families to take out small loans to install water connections and toilets in their homes. Once the loans are repaid, the money is reused to help another family in need.
In the slums of India, up to 50 families share community water points. Some days, water flows a few hours, others not at all. Women gather early in the morning with their water vessels to make sure they have water for the day.
Manonmani is one of many others that live in the urban slums of Tiruchirapalli City in India. She lives with her husband and two children. Their main source of water used to come from a public standpost shared with other families. The water flow was never the same and more than often unpredictable. Manonmani and her family had access to the standpost only every four days. She could wait hours to collect water. They rarely had just enough of the resource to fulfill their needs.
Water.org is a U.S based nonprofit organization committed to providing safe drinking water and sanitation to people in developing countries. Water.org’s microloan program provides people faucet and toilet installations. The communities are starting to get educated about the crisis and are organizing sustainable solutions. The organization also has outgoing projects in Africa, South Asia, Latin America and soon in Haiti.
You can make the gift of water to someone in need for this Holiday season and help a family like Manonmani’s. Now she has clean water at home and her family’s health has improved. Their personal hygiene is better than ever. Manonmani has time to work and earn money to support the family income. Her children won’t have to miss on school to help her out to collect water. They will finally have a serious education.
There are 884 million of people still in need of clean water in the world. You can help by visiting water.org.
Rachel Zedeck thought a backpack could feed a Kenyan family for months. She made this thought reality through her Back Pack Farm program. As a life-long humanitarian dedicated to helping people, Rachel extended her commitment by settling in Africa and helping the native people of Kenya.
In 2009, Rachel launched The Back Pack Farm initiative not only as a way to change the way Kenyans handle food production, an effort to put food in their mouths instead of selling it, but also as a way to help farmers learn eco-friendly and sustainable methods that help protect regional ecosystems.
Rachel is a perfect example of how one person with a vision and a mission-- a true Change Agent who’s dedicated her life to a cause-- can make a significant impact on many lives and communities. She and a group of women are changing the way they live and eat.
Last week, Rachel received great news. Her second round of funding came through. She, and a group of farmers in the Mau Forest, successfully planted--using supplies from the eco-friendly backpack farming kits-- 12 Hectares using a new distributed production model.
The new pilot program proves the distributed production model that helps protect the environment is successful and her corporate sponsor is funding the second impact assessment. After the assessment is complete, they will be shopping around for new sponsors and donors.
The Back Pack Farm program gives individuals backpacks with all the supplies needed to start growing food. The program enhances bottom pyramid value chains targeting small landholder farmers’ production models by providing a simple canvas backpack filled with cutting edge agricultural inputs, assessment, training, and monitoring and market development. To counter the weak production rates of farmers, a partner Lachlan Kenya designed the “fusion farming” model, a combination of biological products, botanicals and reduced toxicity pesticides. The fusion system is complemented by a custom designed drip irrigation system.
It sounds complicated, but it’s easy enough to make it work. Learn more about Rachel’s story on Changents.com.
THE greatest invention of 2009: the Copenhagen Wheel !
Have you heard about the Copenhagen Wheel? THE greatest invention of 2009.
This new bike wheel will help Copenhagen become the first carbon neutral capital in the world by 2025.
THE COPENHAGEN WHEEL
The Copenhagen Wheel transforms the bike you already own, quickly and easily into
an electric bike with regeneration and real-time environmental sensing capabilities. The wheel captures all the energy you create while braking and cycling and stores it for when you need an extra push. At the same time, sensors in the wheel are collecting information about air and noise pollution, congestion and road conditions.
According to Ritt Bjerregaard, Lord Mayor of Copenhagen, "Our city's ambition is that 50% of the citizens will take their bike to work or school every day. So for us, this project is part of the answer to how can we make using a bike even more attractive."
The wheel is connected to the rider’s iPhone (that can be easily attached to the bike’s handlebars) and with its sensors it can monitor speed, direction and distance traveled and even the proximity of other rider’s friends.
THE PROJECT
The Copenhagen Wheel was unveiled on December 15 at the COP15 United Nations Climate Conference. The project was conceived and developed by the SENSEable City Lab for the Kobenhavns Kommune. The prototype bikes were realized with the help of our technical partner Ducati Energia and funding from the Ministry for the Environment. Progical Solutions LLC provided technical support for the iPhone control of the bikes.
The Negotiations Are Running Out of Steam Adaptation: Static on
the Line
One week of discussions at the COP15 in
Copenhagen has produced many numbers,
most of which geared towards greenhousegasses
mitigation. However, little progress is to
be seen when it comes to adaptation, despite it
being a crucial issue. The initial syndrome of
an approach favoring reduction is still clearly
visible. Although a provisional text (“draft
text”) seems now to have a consensus, one is
obliged to note that the implementation of
financing mechanisms and the supervision of
adaptation programs must still be clarified.
The Gist of the Text
Between “adaptation framework” or “action
program” for climate change, ideas are still
uncertain when it comes to which adaptation
measures to support in developing countries.
The priority must go to countries that are
already facing climate stress. First, investment
choices must be re-oriented, and access to
additional financial and technological
resources must be facilitated (infrastructure,
agriculture, etc.). This is far from being the
case.
The goal will also be to facilitate the collection
and pooling of information, and the exchange
of knowledge and experience. The aim here is
to create and/or improve the capacities—
including institutional capacities—of various
actors in developing countries.
Finally, the goal is to predict and develop all
capacities to anticipate, prevent and adapt to
future risks, and cover the costs involved in
damage due to the hazards of climate change.
In this spirit, the question of insurance and
social safety nets remains largely to be
considered.
The “additionality” of funds—that is to say,
the amounts to allocate in addition to the
promised ODA—is still widely under debate
and, at this stage, an unresolved stumbling
block between civil societies and the Parties.
Eco-friendly and ethical gifts Christmas is on its way and you’ve probably started to hear jingle bell songs while grocery shopping or see Christmas advertisements on television. You’ve most likely seen lights and decorations in the streets and you’re looking for the perfect present for your family and friends. Here are some eco-friendly gift ideas
Copenhagen climate summit is crucial
Every nation must do its part. And each country needs reassurance that others are also acting. We need a global agreement that is legally binding with rules clearly outlined. We have no time to waste. Copenhagen is our moment. Read full article.
To-Go Ware utensils for life on-the-go
To-Go Ware offers conscious choice products and solutions in order to stimulate green and positive practices for our planet. Their mission is to encourage participation of everyday people in the process of changing and improving the world we live in. Discover the new trend.
David Suzuki urges the prime minister to act for our planet!
David Suzuki mobilized Canadians for the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen. About 11, 000 citizens contacted the prime minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, and asked him to be fair and ambitious about climate change and environment for the years to come.
The airlines seem to be lagging in terms of going green. But you can still maintain responsible habits when you fly. This week’s tips tell you how.
Tip #4: Offset
This is the obvious tip for greening a plane flight. It's still controversial—some people view carbon offsetting as penance for an irrevocable sin already committed. But we think it's better than nothing. If you're going to fly anyway, what's the harm in also funding renewable-energy projects and trees being planted?
Tell us: What do you think about carbon offsets?
Thursday, December 10, 2009
green tip from the Sierra Club: Lighten Your Luggage
The airlines seem to be lagging in terms of going green. But you can still maintain responsible habits when you fly. This week’s tips tell you how.
Tip #3: Lighten Your Luggage
The equation is simple: Heavier luggage burns more fuel. So if everyone leaves a little more at home, we’ll save immense amounts of emissions. (Incidentally, this is a good reason to lose body weight too.) And remember to get those liquids, gels, and aerosols out of your carry-on if they weigh more than 3 ounces; otherwise, they’ll end up in the landfill before their time.
Tell us: What are your tips for traveling light?
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Sponsor a Lifelight for an orphaned family this holiday season!
As you may have seen in this recent Freeplay Foundation video, it gets dark at 6:00 pm in Rwanda all year round. Children are left no choice but to use dangerous kerosene and candles for light or with no light at all. Kerosene is extremely toxic, creates serious respiratory problems and is expensive.
Those lucky enough to attend school find it impossible to study at night by the weak flame of a candle.
There are also untold numbers who become ill or die each year from drinking paraffin after mistaking it for water.
Help the Freeplay Foundation to provide child families with a safe, clean, bright, high quality wind-up and solar powered LED flashlight this holiday season.
Your gift will immediately improve the quality of their life by extending children’s productive hours, enabling them to study, cook, play, see all dangers such as spiders and snakes and feel safe at night.
The lights will be delivered in time for Christmas, so giving Lifelights on behalf of someone special is a truly thoughtful gift!
The airlines seem to be lagging in terms of going green. But you can still maintain responsible habits when you fly. This week’s tips tell you how.
Tip #2: Ensure Recycling
Before giving your cup or can to the flight attendant collecting trash, ask if the plastic and aluminum will be recycled. If the answer is no (it usually is; see some amazing stats here), stash yours in your carry-on and dispose of it in the first recycling bin you see after you deplane. Later, call or write your airline’s customer-service department to urge them to implement a recycling program.
The airlines seem to be lagging in terms of going green. But you can still maintain responsible habits when you fly. This week’s tips tell you how.
Tip #1: Hand it Back
When your flight attendant hands you a napkin with your drink, politely decline it, explaining, if you like, that you'd prefer to save the paper.
Even better, write to the airlines to urge them to train flight attendants to offer napkins rather than giving them without asking; point out that this can save untold numbers of trees, plus some corporate cash. To find contact information for your airline, go to this link and click on "Airline Consumer Contacts."
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