NEWS: A smorgasbord of green

In this news roundup I have five, yes FIVE, nuggets for you. And the last one made me particularly happy.

COKE IS shIT
First up we have the terrible and sad news that Coke made less money recently from their fizzy drinks. (I actually saw this in the Metro yesterday...still not online...grrr...what are they playing at?) This news made me feel like perhaps people are listening to what is being said and are choosing healthier options. Hurrah!

GONE WITH THE WIND
Second up we have the terrible news that a huge wind farm project in the UK has been canned, pretty much because it would spoil the view. Whilst it would power 47,000 homes clearly the government felt that the view was far more important.

Friends of the Earth commented that any government that wants to expand airports and turn down wind farms is simply not fit to govern.

The government defended their position by saying that tackling global warming is critical but we must also nurture the immediate environment and wildlife. On this occasion, we agree with the independent inspector that the impact on landscape and recreation would outweigh the benefits in terms of reducing carbon emissions.

Hmmm...but hang on...building wind turbines in spite of destroying (and even that is highly debatable) a tiny amount of a local environment to power 47,000 homes would be the logical thing to do. Otherwise there will be no landscape in the future to worry about. Silly me. There I go assuming the government have logical thought processes again. As Friends of the Earth said It's hard to believe that the nuclear industry has not played some role in this.

LA URBAN FARM GOES TO THE WAL
Talking about farms I arrive neatly at our third story about an urban farm in LA that feeds 350 families, and has been doing so for 13 years, with healthy organic produce. Turns out they have been served a 3 day (as much as that eh?) eviction notice. They have to get out Monday and leave anything still in the ground, still in the ground. What a waste!

Guess what will be built on the site in the farm's place? OK, I'll tell you. A Wal-mart Warehouse. Nice! Support is growing though...check it out and join in if you can...especially you Angelinos!!! Anyone (GreenLAGirl?) over there shed any more light on this?(Thanks to BoingBoing for the link).

SHOPPING FOR BODYSHOP
Last but one I just wanted to flag up the potential impending sale of the Bodyshop. Apparently L'Oreal are circling and I have even heard talk of Lush making an offer. My vote would be on Lush getting it to be honest if an auction/bidding war takes place. The Roddicks have more than enough money and given the choice why on earth would they choose L'Oreal over Lush? Maybe the fact that Lush was started by The Body Shop’s chief supplier and that Lush tried to buy them previously in 2001 for £175m will have an influence. We will have to wait and see.

BOB GELDOF LIKES CITYHIPPY (the name at least)
And finally, yesterday I bumped into Sir Bob Geldof in Waitrose. He was buying a paper and looking suitably counter-culture. Love it. I sidled up to him and said: Hey Bob, lovin' the whole Make Poverty History thang, I run a green lifestyle site and you might wanna take a look. It is called City Hippy and lives at Cityhippy.net. He looked at me, smiled and said 'CityHippy, Nice name, I'll check it out'. Needless to say that made me feel a million bucks...and as I walked off I turned and cheekily said 'Now if I could get you to do a guest post that would be superb.' He smiled as if to say...don't push your luck sonny. Hahahahaha.

Namaste

Al

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