Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Newsletter: G8 Summit: What we’ll remember + Greener veggies & Grilling tips
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G8 Summit in L’Aquila: Best stunts
The 2009 G8 Summit in L’Aquila, Italy is now over. Our leaders ended up promising to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions of 80% by 2050. But what we will remember the most of this reunion are the brilliant stunts performed by environmentalists, justice and poverty fighters.
See the best G8 stunts |
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Are your vegetables green enough?
We’ve become accustomed to blemish-free produce. But what’s wrong with a few spots on our apples? Well, according to the executives at two of the world’s largest agricultural companies, our kids may be right: there is something wrong with spots.
Read David Suzuki's article
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Greening your Grill Tips
Nothing is more indicative of summertime than the smell of sizzling barbecuing and the taste of hot-off-the-grill food. But how can we enjoy this favorite summer past time while reducing our impact on the environment?
Tips to Green your grill |
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Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Green Speed Dating!
Looking for something different to do on a Saturday night, why don't you try Green Speed Dating?
What is it?
Green Speed Dating (or "carbon neutral love") brings together single people, living in the same area, who care about the environment, believe in sustainability, and would like to meet others who feel the same way.
At a Green Speed Dating event, you'll meet 10-20 people of the opposite sex in your age range and will get to talk to each person for 3 minutes. When the 3 minutes is up, the organizer rings a bell and you rotate to the next person. After you've talked to each person, you let us know who you would like to get to know better, we send you each other's contact information and you take it from there! Green Speed Dating is a fun way to meet new friends, network, have a great time, and possibly even find your match.
Why GREEN speed dating?
For most people who value living a green lifestyle, finding someone with similar values is important. Many dating web sites and events match you up with someone based on age and geographic location, but don't do a good job ensuring you find someone who believes in the same things you do. Green Speed Dating ensures you will meet a number of eco-conscious people all at once in a fun and relaxed way, increasing your chances of finding "the one".
For event dates visit
GreenSpeedDating.com
Monday, July 13, 2009
G8 Summit in L’Aquila: Best stunts
The 2009 G8 Summit in L’Aquila, Italy is now over. Our leaders ended up promising to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions of 80% by 2050, and to work towards keeping temperature levels from rising 2 degrees Celsius, but what we will remember the most of this reunion are the brilliant stunts performed by environmentalists, justice and poverty fighters.
Here are the
best stunts encountered last week during the G8 meeting in Italy:
GCAP
The GCAP, Global Call to Action against Poverty, stunt of July 7th was pacific, but straight to the point. 30 activists putting pressure on huge inflatable pools with the 'press the 8' campaign printed on it, the message could not be more obvious!
GCAP? Is a growing alliance of trade unions, community groups, faith groups, women and youth organizations, NGOs and other campaigners working together across more than 100 national platforms. GCAP is calling for action from the world’s leaders to meet their promises to end poverty and inequality.
Aquila’s earthquake victims
L’Aquila’s population, touched by a deadly earthquake last April, welcomed with hate the leaders of this world during the G8 summit. Some 24 000 inhabitants of the region are still without a roof, living in tents after 4 months. To protest against the poor crisis management, some « homeless » showed their discontent with a touch of humor by displaying enormous white letters on a hill nearby Aquila.
“Yes We Camp!” was the slogan they used to refer to Barack Obama’s « Yes We Can» motto, and also to laugh at the comment Silvio Berlusconi made not long after the disaster, suggesting to the refugees to “take it as a weekend camping trip”. That «trip» has been going on for way too long!
Greenpeace
The
most adventurous stunt was surely made by none other than Greenpeace. On July 8, Greenpeace climbers rappel down the face of Mount Rushmore National Memorial in Keystone, South Dakota, to unfurl a banner that challenges President Obama to show leadership on global warming.
Oxfam
#1 Circus Maximus
The
Award for the best executed stunt has to go to Oxfam, a group of non-governmental organizations from three continents working worldwide to fight poverty and injustice. The group staged various stunt photos during G8 meeting, like this one of the Circus Maximus in which the eight world leaders ‘fiddle while Rome burns’, ignoring the world crisis around them.
#2 G8 Feast
On Thursday July 9th Oxfam/UCODEP did another Big Head stunt, to let the G8 know that while they are feasting,
1 out of 6 people in the world go hungry.
#3 Cooking up the planet
My favorite stunt was this one, 8 leaders boiling the planet in a pot while spicing it up with Co2.
On the final day of the G8, here is what
Farida Bena, Head of Oxfam International & Ucodep Campaign office Italy had to say about the awaited reunion:
«[...]after almost 2 years of working, sweating, worrying about the G8 there’s nothing more I can do to squeeze out positive results out of this summit for the world’s poor. What I see instead is yet another series of big announcements, good intentions and no action. The only concrete results have that the G8 now recommends to keep global warming below the ceiling of 2° degrees Celsius and that there seems to be new money on food and agriculture. ‘Seems’ because we still don’t know how much money of the $20 billion pledged is actually new. It might be just another way of re packaging old money pledged in the past. Meanwhile, though,
the number of people who go hungry every day on this planet has gone up to 1 billion…»
Sources & Photo Credits:
www.whiteband.org
Chair Summary of this summit reunion
www.lepoint.fr
Oxfam.org
Today’s Green Tip from the Sierra Club: Support Green Musicians
Today's Green Tip from the
Sierra Club !
Whether you're grooving at an outdoor concert or listening to tunes on your iPod, our tips this week will help you express your environmentalism through music.
Tip #2: Support Green Musicians
Singer-songwriter
Jack Johnson is known for his efforts to reduce the environmental impact of his tours by traveling in biofuel buses, purchasing carbon offsets, selling ecofriendly merchandise, and using his celebrity status to promote green causes. Johnson isn't the only musician looking out for the earth: Check out Sierra magazine to find a
list of new musicians with eco-cred. Visit Climate Crossroads to get
get free downloads from Missy Higgins, The Giving Tree Band, and Minus Ted.
Share your tips: What songs are in your
ecoTunes playlist?
Thursday, July 09, 2009
Greening your Grill
It’s hot out there so get your aprons, burger flippers and most importantly your grills ready for another season of barbecuing!
Nothing is more indicative of summertime than the smell of sizzling barbecuing and the taste of hot-off-the-grill food.
But how can we enjoy this favorite summer past time while reducing our impact on the environment?
Barbecues that are fueled by either natural gas or Liquefied Petroleum Gas are far better than those fueled with the average charcoal briquette immersed in petroleum solvents. The benefit of gas over charcoal is that there is less smoke, and therefore less contribution to air pollution.
Also, charcoal briquettes could pose a health risk, as they produce hydrocarbons, which, when released into the air, can aggravate heart and lung problems. However if you already have a charcoal BBQ, try to purchase charcoal that is natural and locally sourced.
Read full article on
www.simplegreenaction.ca.
Photo Credits:
LennieZ on flickr.com
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Today’s Green Tip from the Sierra Club:Cut Out the Plastic
Today's Green Tip from the
Sierra Club !
What's good for our bodies is good for the planet -- and what's bad for the planet is bad for our health. This week we're exploring the idea that caring for the earth must include minding our own wellness.
Tip #2: Cut Out the Plastic
Many of us already know
how devastating plastic can be for the planet but most aren’t aware enough that
the synthetics can harm human health. From
heating food in plastic containers to
reusing plastic bottles (and perhaps even using them the first time) to
scientific concerns about
BPA, there's an ocean’s worth of reasons to steer clear. Instead of throwaway plastic, choose reusable
glass or metal. If you do find yourself having to use plastic, at least be sure to
recycle it.
Tell us: How have you cut plastics out of your life?
Are your vegetables green enough?
By David Suzuki with Faisal Moola
Give me spots on my apples, but leave me the birds and the bees, please!
~ Joni Mitchell
Any parent knows that it can be a challenge to get kids to eat vegetables and some fruits. We’ve learned all the tricks: smothering broccoli with cheese sauce, putting peanut butter and raisins on celery sticks and calling it “ants on a log”, convincing kids that eating spinach will give them Popeye muscles.
Some kids just don’t like the taste of certain fruits and veggies, and some have issues with the way the food looks. Adults are usually less picky about taste but can be finicky when it comes to the appearance of our fruits and veggies.
We’ve become accustomed to blemish-free produce. But what’s wrong with a few spots on our apples?
Well, according to the executives at two of the world’s largest agricultural companies, Monsanto and Dole,
our kids may be right: there is something wrong with spots, as well as the shape, texture, and taste of some vegetables. Or, at least, that’s what they’d like you to think.
The two companies have come up with a five-year plan to produce new varieties of spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, and lettuce with improved nutrition, flavour, colour, texture, and aroma.
We’ve never really had a problem with the way these vegetables looked or felt or tasted. But then, we now live in a world where square, seedless watermelons are seen as desirable, and where companies like Monsanto can hold patents on genetically engineered seeds to grow food that has a uniform quality. The patents have allowed the biotech giant to sue farmers for “patent infringement” if the plants are found growing on their farms without a license – even if the plants may have arrived by wind rather than plan.
Monsanto was also one of the first companies to start commercially marketing DDT, and has also been a major producer of Agent Orange, Roundup, and other toxic chemical pesticides, as well as bovine growth hormone to increase milk production in cows.
Dole has been involved in some controversies over its pesticide use, among other things, as well.
The issue isn’t just about the agri-giants and pesticides and genetically modified foods, though. (In fact, the two companies say their collaborative project will be done through breeding and not genetic engineering.)
The issue is about our relationship with food.
Along with trying to maximize profits, the agriculture industry has made it possible for food to be transported around the world, and for produce to keep longer without spoiling. This can benefit areas that have food shortages or short growing seasons.
It also means, though, that we are giving up a lot of our control over one of the basics of life to large corporations that may not always have our best interests in mind. As Michael Pollan writes in his bestselling book In Defense of Food, eating goes beyond biological necessity: “Food is also about pleasure, about community, about family and spirituality, about our relationship to the natural world, and about expressing our identity.”
Agribusiness will continue to play a role in our food production and delivery systems, but that doesn’t mean we can’t embrace some of the other trends emerging in the way we feed ourselves. As Mr. Pollan argues: “What we need now, it seems to me, is to create a broader, more ecological – and more cultural – view of food.”
That means
eating more locally grown and organic food, eating less meat, steering away from processed foods, and not worrying about the odd spot on your apple. Or, as Mr. Pollan says in the opening of his book: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”
These small measures will help make us healthier, and they’ll also make the planet healthier, by reducing the emissions generated in food production and transportation and by improving the ways we use our land base. Not only that, but they may even help get your kids to eat more vegetables. Carrots and peas are more fun to eat if your children grow and pick them from the garden.
Come to think of it, we can all find spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, and lettuce with better nutrition, flavour, colour, texture, and aroma than some of the factory-farmed produce found on grocery-store shelves. We just have to look in the farmers markets, or in our own backyard or community gardens.
Take David Suzuki’s Nature Challenge and learn more at
www.davidsuzuki.org
-- END --
Interesting articles:
Monsanto-Dole project
Square watermelons
Michael Pollan: In Defense of Food
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Today’s Green Tip from the Sierra Club: Choose Organic
Today's Green Tip from the
Sierra Club !
What's good for our bodies is good for the planet -- and what's bad for the planet is bad for our health. This week we're exploring the idea that caring for the earth must include minding our own wellness.
Tip #1: Choose Organic
Whether with
food,
cosmetics, or
clothing, try to ensure that anything you put in or on your body is free of pesticides and other chemicals that pollute
the planet and
your innards. Choosing purer products might
cost more in the short term but in the long run, you'll be saving
more than just dollars. Just look for t
the seal.
What are your favorite organic brands?
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