All developed countries have started taking measures to reduce their bad impact on Earth. Banning incadescent lightbulbs, cars from the city centres, or introducing laws for greener factories and industries. Greece at last followed their example by promoting a greener life in the capital.

After its apathy at Bali’s summit, where the greek spokepersons had no specific proposals or positions, Greece seems to start thinking more about the environment. Such late a start can be partly justified, as the country lacks basic means. Most people are way too indifferent and uninformed about global warming and facilities don’t meet the specifications for major changes (for instance the way buildings had been built makes it impossible to widen the roads and introduce cycle lanes etc).

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These are some of the latest Green videos published this week, collected by the Ecolive.TV community.

Map reveals extent of human damage to oceans
Marine ecologist Ben Halpern shows us the map he unveiled at the AAAS meeting in Boston last week, which shows the impact of different human activities on oceans worldwide.

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German engineers have devised a way of tugging merchant vessels along with huge, computer steered kites, known as Skysails, that catch the ocean winds. It marks the beginning of a revolution in the way that ships are powered. The sails are calculated to be able to reduce fuel consumption by 30-50 per cent,depending on the wind conditions. The system could be applied to about 60000 vessels out of the 100000 listed in the Lloyd’s register.

Orders are already coming in ranging from trawlers to a super-yacht. If the world fleet is equipped with sails, it is calculated that 142 million tones of CO2 could be saved per year!

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Up to 350000 newborn seals were estimated to be killed last summer in Canada, and the number is thought to be much bigger this coming summer. In 2005 the 98,5% of the babies killed weren’t even 2-months-old, and autopsies showed proved that most of them were still alive during the extraction of their fur.

If you want to help, don’t wait till summer to hear about these things again on the news. Sign the petitions of www.protectseals.org and stop buying cosmetics or clothes that contain seal fat or fur. Maybe a decrease in the demand on the market will decrease the number of seal murders.

Image credit: Mike Baird. Image licensed under a
Creative-Commons Attribution license.

Two new green web hosts has been added to our growing green web host list.

The first one is Host Papa, a web host located in Canada who purchases Green Certificates (Green Tags or RECs).

The second one is Lightbeing Creations. Lightbeing Creations is a green reseller host. They buy server space from the 100% solar powered hosting company Aiso.

Aiso are one of the few that truly offers green web hosting. Live Earth choosed to host their site with them. Asio is also a member of the U.S. Green Building Council and was featured in Inc. Magazines’ Top 50 Green Companies. If you want you can learn more about Aiso here.

Missy Higgins is a popular musician in Australia. If you watched the Live Earth (7.7.07) events last year you could see her perform in Australia.

Now she is trying to make her way to the US music scene in her “green” US tour. She will promote her new album, “On A Clear Night” (which is being released today), and show her “commitment and interest in the environment” by touring in a Prius and stopping at various forward thinking green places along the way.

A series of videos will document Missy’s “green” tour in the USA. After the jump you can watch a trailer for the videos.

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Lucas Oleniuk, photographer at the Star, has made a video to illustrate climate change from still-images “taken in our own back yard.”

Twenty days in Ontario resulted in twenty thousand still images that make up this beautiful piece called “Airsick: an industrial devolution“.

“Airsick: An Industrial Devolution” is more than just another video. It is a statement, a warning, a wake-up call. And it dovetails perfectly with the Star’s commitment to Earth Hour, a global action slated for March 29 - when people in cities around the world will turn out their lights for an hour to take a stand against climate change. (The Earth Hour organization calls our changing weather patterns “the greatest threat our planet has ever faced.”)

Watch “Airsick: an industrial devolution“, and read more about it over at the Star.

In London today, all cars, except the cleanest ones, have to pay £8 ($16) a day, to enter the city of London. But starting in October this year owners of big gas-guzzling cars will need to pay £25 ($50).

On a news conference Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London, said that he believes that “this ground-breaking initiative will have an impact throughout the world with other cities following suit as they step up their efforts to halt the slide towards catastrophic climate change.”

Ken Livingstone admits that the new tax will only have a minor impact on greenhouse gas emissions in London. But, he says the new congestion charging scheme for gas-guzzling cars will send signals that its time to change lifestyle.

“I have every sympathy for a Scottish hill farmer who needs his 4×4 to get around,” Livingstone said. “But there is absolutely no justification for cars producing high amounts of pollution being driven in central London.”

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