We all know that the meat industry is a dangerous threat to our climate and overall a questionable industry. The cattle release CO2, methane and other greenhouse gases. They also use a lot of land areas, around 25% of the earths total land area. And about one third of all farm areas are used to grow food for the cattle.

According to studies the meat industry is responsible for about one fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions, in the world. That means they currently pollutes more than the whole transport sector. And by year 2050 the meat production is expected to increase with 50%.

And then I haven’t even mentioned the rather obvious animal suffering.

But maybe, if some “environmentally concerned scientists” get their way, the meat you’ll eat in the future will be produced inside a lab. Scientists from the In Vitro Meat Consortium are currently trying to produce meat from muscle tissue for human consumption.

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The following touching text is a letter written by a fireman, some months after the one thousand fires Greece endured last summer, and addresses to people all over the world.

“I would like to forget:
- Those 3-4 sheeps we didn’t make it to save and heard them terrified as the flames reached them.
- Those birds that didn’t make it to leave their trees as the flames circled them, and were falling all over us like leaves in autumn…
- The terrified faces of my colleges when we saw 50-metres-high all around us.
- The panicked voices of other firemen on the phone, telling people got burnt in their houses…

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Today the Swedish parliamentary climate commission failed to set up tough emissions reduction goals to combat climate change.

The Swedish climate commission was created to set up guidelines, emissions reduction goals and to create unanimity between all the major political parties in Sweden regarding climate change. Even though the opposition, as well as the currently ruling right-wing alliance government called for “tough” emission reduction targets the commission failed to create unanimity.

Hans Jonsson, chairman of the climate commission, said during a press conference today that “we are in agreement on 300 pages worth of text. There is a half-page left on which we cannot find agreement. It has to do with Sweden’s emissions targets for 2020.”

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It is a fact that more than 1000 whales and dolphins are killed every year by whalehunters, who make some endangered species head torwards extinction.

Mainly Japan, with support from Norway and Iceland, refuses to obey the rules of the moratorium set in 1986, from the Worldwide Whalehunting Commitee, which had as a goal to let the whale population increase, after it’s dramatic drop between the years 1925-1975.

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Below are some of the best Green videos of the week, collected by the Ecolive.TV community.

20% renewable energy by 2020

Raising the share of renewable energy from 8.5% to 20% in the overall energy consumption is a necessary contribution to the global fight against climate change and towards better control over our energy dependence. The EU is a world leader in the use and deployment of technologies that exploit renewable energy sources, providing over 350.000 jobs and an annual turn-over of € 30 billion.

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According to a recent published report, by Benjamin Halpern and his colleagues at UCSB’s National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, over 40% of the world’s oceans are heavily impacted by anthropogenic activities. Only a few, “if any”, areas are unaffected.

The report have taken four years to compile and resulted in 17 models of the earth. Each of the different models shows the damage caused by human activities such as pollution and fishing. The different models have then been merged into one showing the global effect (see image).

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It’s time to clear this up folks. Hopefully you already know that surfing with a black background (on your computer screen) will not always save energy. If not, let me explain why black backgrounds aren’t that green.

Black backgrounds can save some energy if you use a CRT screen (CRT screens are those huge and big screens). If you, like the majority, uses an LCD screen (the flat ones) a white background instead of a black will save energy.

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Australian Climate Action Groups from Melbourne and wider afield gathered together on Saturday 9 February, 2008 for a Climate Movement Convergence at Melbourne’s Northcote High School. A major event was the launching of an important book published by Friends of the Earth entitled “Climate Code Red – the Case for a Sustainability Emergency” by David Spratt (Carbon Equity) and Philip Sutton (Greenleap Strategic Institute) (this important report can be downloaded here). A key outcome was the decision by some of these groups to form a Coalition for a Climate Emergency Declaration.

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It’s Valentine’s Day! That means heart shaped figures and lots of chocolate. While I personally think it’s a pretty pointless day (why would you need a special day to show your love for someone?), I know some who don’t. And Jenny Cisney is one of them.

Jenny Cisney, Information Designer at Kodak.com, has come up with a pretty neat idea to make something useful of those heart shaped candy boxes.

When you polish off the last piece of chocolate from your Valentine’s box of candy today… (What? You don’t eat all yours right away?)… don’t throw away the box! You can use it to make a Valentine’s picture frame.

So you have switched your incandescent light bulbs to CFLs. Your food is organic, you buy locally produced products. And you have become a recycling master in your neighbourhood. Now what?

Now is the time to get a green, organic and sustainable wardrobe!

The Greenloop has everything you could ever need in fashion and accessories. They sell some really good looking reusable shopping bags, shirts, pants and shoes, and then some more.

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