FEATURE: Carnival of the Green #39
Sadly Al is 'unavailable' due to a, er, sudden illness, yeah that's it, a sudden illness, so I am hosting the Carnival of the Green on his behalf.The Carnival of the Green was created by City Hippy and Triple Pundit as a weekly round up of the green blogosphere. Last week the Carnival of the Green was hosted by Treehugger and next week the Carnival drops in to Camden Kiwi.
For those of you that do not know who I am my name is Heston Wundercrantz and I am launching a comic all about moi, naturally, in one weeks time, via my, sorry, via Al's CityHippy blog. In fact if you sign up to Al's newsletter (see top right) then you will get a sneak preview of Issue 1 tonight.
Anyhoo, on with this Carnival malarkey. I thought that I would include some pics of yours truly to make it all a bit more interesting...
Welcome to the...
Carnival of the Green [Imagine fireworks going off...]
Practical green solutions to everyday problems:First up from our friends over at a Guide to Green Living comes a very practical two-part post (here and here) on natural cleaning products and recipes for natural cleaners for use on various surfaces in the home.
[Puff...ah...]
Fellow UK Eco Blogger, Tracy Stokes, explores how Going green is good for business. She reports on the Environment Agency's Spotlight on Business report and makes suggestions on ways for businesses to green up.
Dr. Charles cordially invites all to join the 2nd annual 2006 tomato-growing contest that he is hosting, with prizes for the largest tomato, most sensuous, most disgusting, and tomato 'most likely to raise public awareness of global warming and then defuse the global threat of terrorism'. Hahahaha...love the last category...can't wait to see that tomato!
From next weeks host, Camden Kiwi, comes a great Top 10 ways to reduce your impact on the planet. The Coffee House have been having a discussion about how individuals can reduce their impact on the planet. A lot of the usual things come up, but I'd like to to see a lot more emphasis on Reducing consumption (recycling and reusing are good, but not, surely, in the top 10) and on action that we take as citizens, rather than just as consumers.
Good ol' Sludgie brings us, via the regular Petition Parade series, news of four enviro calls to action: the dog slaughter in China, non-surgical sterilization of pets, stopping horse meat consumption and making global warming an election priority.
Frugal For Life tells us about the SteriPEN, an alternative to the awesome LifeStraw. Sadly this alternative does not look like being that good an alternative for those who need it the most.
Steve Balogh over at GroovyGreen draws our attention to the Washington Slugs that help the environment whilst catching a free ride. Apparently, Each workday, members of a unique breed of commuters known as “slugs” line up, sometimes at regular bus stops, sometimes at special areas. Chatting quietly, they wait for strangers to pick them up and drive them to the office, or home at the end of the day. How astonishing, refreshing and trusting. Will it catch on?
Fellow Carnival of the Green founder, Nick Aster, from Triple Pundit, examines how we can empower Indian farmers with mobile phone market applications. Nick's post presents a system to provide accurate weather forecasts, as well as crop pricing data for Indian farmers to improve their yields and welfare as well as feed hungry people.
The Good Human falls in love with their new "green" diapers at first flush.
Stuff to discuss over a pint:My 'good friend' Al, posts something juicy about the Climate Porn debate. He likes to think of himself as the Hugh Hefner of Climate Porn, whatever that means...
[Slurp...mmm...]
Enrique over at Commonground asks whether Australia could be the cradle of global culture? It seems a surprising idea, but recently a controversy has been raging about whether a sophisticated people may have lived in the remote and inaccessible Kimberley region of NW Australia as long as 60,000 years ago, before being wiped out by the aborigines.
Very distrubing news from A DC Birding Blog that DDT might be making a comeback to tackle Malaria. DDT is bad news for bird-life and undoubtedly has massive and negative effects on Human Beings too. Devil's choice really. If you have not read Silent Spring by Rachel Carson I totally recommend it.
Green Thinkers blows our minds by highlighting the fact that Texas appears to be tops in wind energy production of all US States. The state generates enough energy to power 600,000 homes.
Aaron Newton of GroovyGreen seeks to address our excessive and out-of-synch lifestyle. Aaron believes that in our hasty, valiant effort to change some of the more ecologically destructive behaviors of our unsustainable consumer culture we’ve missed a step. We have not stopped to consider the excess of our present existence. Good point.
From Trends I'm Watching comes a call for an efficient residential Solar Energy System. With the heat wave hammering the US and Europe, solutions that might reduce electrical grid brown-outs and use the sunlight heating the rooftops of buildings for electricity look better every day. Seems obvious to me really...all that sunlight needs to be harnessed...
JBruno from The Voltage Gate debates the misguided essay published by a fellow of the Ayn Rand Institute, who puts all environmentalists in the same boat - ecoterrorists and conservationists alike. How absurd? In return, I put all fellows of the Ayn Rand Institute in the same boat as, erm, 12 obese Cruise tourists...
Deirdre Helfferich, of Ester Republic, discusses the potential for a community solar project. In a small town, one never does things in isolation. That's true for turning to alternative energy, too. This series of posts is beginning to get comments from the community. Good idea really...club together on projects like this...hmmm...
Phillip Barron asks whether mountain bikers can be green. Interesting, one would have thought they would naturally care about the environment that is essentially their playground...seems that some folks are poor stewards...naughty bikers!
An exhaustive post on Carbon offsets from Bootstrap Analysis. The post explains the concept of carbon offsets, but notes the problems with wind energy, reforestation projects, and finally concludes we need to reduce our carbon footprints, not offset them. Could not agree more...
Politics, who needs it eh?From The Examining Room of Dr. Charles. This is an astonishing and exhaustive investigative timeline tracing the origins of the 'anti Gore/Inconvenient Truth' YouTube video with its two degrees of separation from Exxon sponsorship. And ABC agree that something dodgy is going on...
Al's fellow Christmas Lights campaigner, Green Jenni, brings news that after a recent global warming presentation, Salt Lake City's very earth-friendly mayor, Rocky (Ross) Anderson, announces he won't run for a third term. He wants to get back into grassroots activism and plans to make a lot of noise about global warming and human rights. Go Rocky!
GroovyGreenGuru Michael D’estries takes us to Northern Ireland to examine the recent Green Energy requirements for new buildings. It’s amazing what can occur when an actual government gets behind renewable energy. The Government is proposing changes to the Building Regulations which will make the use of renewable energy compulsory in all new builds from 2008. Very good news...
And last but not least, in fact this needs to run and run...
DeSmogBlog blogger Ross Gelbspan's expose of a leaked memo from the Intermountain Rural Electric Association (IREA) reveals that big coal is planning a major blitz against efforts to fight global warming and that a few companies are going to finance a counter-film to Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth.
Here endeth the 39th Carnival of the Green. I hope you have enjoyed it all and if not then I am sure that, at the very least, the pics of me (drawn by the very talented British illustrator, Paul Davis - what a guy!) would have made your day.
Night!
Heston Wunderkrantz
The real CityHippy
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posted by Anonymous @ 6:03 AM
6 Comments:
Good Carnival this week!
Thanks, Heston.
Love the illustrations of you, Heston. Thanks for including my post.
Heston - looking good mate!
Love this week's Carnival - Al should be afraid, very afraid.
Nice to be part of 'Carnival' Heston. The TOP 10 you mention, from The Coffee House;
1. Walk, cycle, use public transport & lastly, carpool
2. Reduce, reuse, recycle
3. Reduce useage of lights, heating & gadgets
4. Buy Fairtrade & Organic
5. Buy energy efficient products
6. Protect woodlands & green spaces
7. Reduce useage of fossil fuels
8. Conserve water
9. Use more renewables
10. Buy local, reducing product miles
...is top heavy with consumer related points simply because, like it or not that's what our main impact on the environment is, unfortunately. 'Reduce, reuse recycle', as the school kids chant these days, is critical to changing consumption patterns and lessening our impact upon our surroundings. Welcome the debate. :-)
Hi Matt
Thanks for the comment...I totally hear what you are saying and have no problem with that list...very CityHippy.
I was paraphrasing CamdenKiwi's submission.
I think CamdenKiwi's additional list aims for more sustainable consumerism rather than just ethical consumerism, ie less unnecessary consumerism, and both lists are valid of course. Her list is:
1) Organise your life to reduce the distance you travel as much as possible.
2) Reduce the use of gas and electricity in your home
3) Buy fewer things.
4) Encourage green space.
5) Be mindful of the impact of all purchases
6) Reduce your meat intake. Set yourself a goal of eating meat no more than twice a week, and make it a treat, eating good quality organic meat cooked well.
7) Get your electricity from a renewables suppler, such as ecotricity, if you can’t generate it yourself. Consider using this sort of electricity rather than gas.
8) Become involved in local politics, encouraging your local council to reduce the environmental impact of their activities, and improve community facilities.
9) Actively protest against high-impact activities. Check planning requests, and submit against any requests to increase carparking, concrete over land, or anything else that will have a negative environmental impact.
10) Evangelise the need to reduce our impact on the earth whenever you can. Ask for tapwater in restaurants, complain about the amount of packaging when you buy something, if you’re buying a new thing, ask the retailer to take back the old.
Namaste
Al
Hi Al,
Appreciate your clarification. Certainly we're looking at sustainable and ethical. All good stuff!
:-)
Matt
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