Green Blog

If you are looking for a way to save trees by reading books on an e-reader but you don't like the Sony Reader or can’t use the Amazon Kindle you might want to check out the Cool-er e-reader. View the full article

Today the European Parliament voted 550 to 49 in favour to ban the trade of all seal products (such as fur and omega-3) within the European Union. The new EU-wide legislation is meant to send a clear signal to Canada that their annual commercial slaughter of seals is “inherently inhumane.” View the full article

The Swedish company Flygbussarna (shortly translated to The Flight Busses), who offers bus services to and from all the major airports in Sweden, has made this very cool advertisement installation next to a highway in Sweden. View the full article

Photo credit: blmurch Kristin Halvorsen, Finance Minister in Norway, has together with her Socialist Left Party proposed a plan that would forbid the sale of new cars that run solely on gasoline after 2015 in the country. View the full article

The stupidity coming from the religious right in USA never ceases to amaze me. This time it’s Congressman John Shimkus’s (R-Ill) who said that God will decide when the earth will end during introductory remarks at a House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment hearing last week: View the full article

European car makers Pininfarina and Bolloré have created BlueCar, a hybrid vehicle powered by lithium-polymer batteries. According to the car makers the first units of this electric car will be delivered in about a year. Leases for the BlueCar will be available in six European countries at a cost of €330 per month. View the full article

Photo credit: Marshall Astor - Food Pornographer Kathy Freston, a "self-help author and personal growth and spirituality counselor", has posted an interesting article over at the Huffington Post about the consequences of eating meat. Or in this case if we didn't: View the full article

Tesla Motors, the electric car startup company, recently unveiled their new Model S car in Los Angeles. The electric prototype car will cost $49,900, after a $7,500 tax credit and will be available for purchase in late 2011. View the full article

Yesterday the new climate change movie "The Age of Stupid" had premiere in the UK. The movie stars Pete Postlethwaite as an archivist in the devastated world of the future, asking the question: “Why didn’t we stop climate change when we still had the chance?” He looks back on footage of real people around the world in the years leading up to 2015 before runaway climate change took place. View the full article

Photo credit: Joshua Davis (jdavis.info) Just as even the longest journey starts with one step, the salvation of the planet can start with one person: you. Each person that wants to be an eco- conscious traveller has to respect nature and seek for ways to reduce impact on it. That is achieved by making responsible choices and knowing well that just a few easy steps can make a big difference. Fly nonstop: Planes burn the most fuel on takeoff and landing. That means that a long haul flight that takes you straight to your destination emits less CO2 than short haul flights. For the same destination, a long haul flight may burn up to two-thirds less CO2 than short haul flights. View the full article

Lord Nicholas Stern, British economist and academic who is most known for the Stern Review said, during an improvised speech at a Cape Town hotel in South Africa, that if we don̢۪t act quickly and determinedly to address climate change the world will face billions of climate refugees and extended world wars in a near future: View the full article

Photo credit: thienzieyung During the past few months, and under high pressure put by the European Union, Greece has started to adopt a greener policy. Among other measures and actions, eco-friendly plastic bags were introduced into the market, bio-eco products were widely advertised and each municipality planted more flowers in their area, also encouraging citizens to ‘green’ their homes. View the full article

The Swedish right-wing government seems hell-bent on continue its climate wrecking journey. After calling for as much as 88% of the EU emission cuts to be allowed to do overseas in development countries the government now want to scrap a 30-year-old ban on the building of nuclear power plants. View the full article

Photo credit: ckaroli As adults we know what is good for us.  And, of course, our job as parents is to look after our kids; teach them manners and respect, make sure they get enough exercise, eat a healthy diet.  But do we take as much notice of which personal care products they are using? View the full article

Photo credit: longhorndave According to new research by the University of Zurich's World Glacier Monitoring Service the global warming trend continues and as a result the glaciers around the world are melting for the 18th year in a row. View the full article

Photo credit: Ateo Fiel After getting bailed out by the American public the “big three” in USA still show that they can’t be trusted. For years these failed auto companies have resisted and done everything in their powers to stop stronger compulsory MPG and CO2 emission standards, denied climate change and their promises that they could cut their greenhouse gases voluntarily have all failed. If you thought the bailout would help put pressure on the big three to start shifting their production to more environmental friendly vehicles, that the consumers actually wants, you thought wrong. These failed auto makers have no intent in stopping their resistant for sane technology change after getting bailed out: View the full article

The Times Online is reporting that a polar bear was found stranded on a block of ice travelling down the Thames in London yesterday. Although the polar bear only was a giant sculpture designed to help promote a new natural history channel in the UK it highlighted the effects of man-made climate change, in this case melting ice caps. View the full article

It’s called a clothes line. What you do is you connect a piece of string between two points so that it is taught and then you put wet clothing on it. This can be done inside or outside and it saves you a bunch of money as well as lowering your carbon footprint since you don’t need the materials for a dryer or the energy that it takes to run the machine. There are also a bunch of other advantages to your clothing by line (for example your clothing won’t shrink). I don’t know the official figures about Spanish clothes line use but anecdotal evidence suggests that a majority of Spaniards use them, my host mother is no exception. It’s a bit cold outside so it takes a while for everything to dry and there is only so much space on the line so you the load size is kind of small but that’s fine with me since it lowers my carbon footprint. It’s funny how higher energy prices are leading us back to simpler times and back to devices we used to use for hundreds of years and the whole thing about the simplest solution is often the best one. View the full article

Ian Angus, founder and coordinating committee member of the Ecosocialist International Network and editor of the web journal Climate and Capitalism, is interviewed here by the Greek newspaper Kokkino (Red), which published a slightly abridged version: View the full article

What is equality and development? And what kind of influence has the environment on both of these relations? For me, environmentalism has always been about caring about the well-state and equality of everyone and everything... View the full article

Just days after Al Gore and a bunch of environmental organisations launched a “Reality Coalition” campaign to tell the American public that there is no “clean coal” they might have gotten their best advertisement, ever. Last month a coal ash dam in Harriman, East Tennessee, USA, ruptured and sent out billions of gallons of toxic sludge across a 300 acres big area, even knocking one home off its foundation. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) these coal ash damns can reach up to 1,500 acres and contains heavy metals like arsenic, lead, mercury and selenium which the federal agency considers to be “a threat to water supplies and human health.” “This spill shows that coal can never be ‘clean,’” said Kate Smolski, Senior Legislative Coordinator for Greenpeace. “If the Exxon Valdez was a symbol of pollution 20 years ago, the Tennessee Coal Spill of 2008 is the symbol of it today.” View the full article

A new “Green Bible” which is said to embrace environmentalism and the need to protect the Earth has apparently sparked some controversy among evangelicals in the US, the United Press International reports. The Green Bible, has been endorsed by the Humane Society and the Sierra Club and has so far been sold in 25000 copies. “Other evangelicals are concerned the Green Bible will mislead Christians because it does not interpret Scripture literally, said James Taylor, a founding elder at Living Water Christian Fellowship in Palmetto, Fla. “These groups don’t have a religious focus; they have a desire to spread their environmental message,” Taylor said of the essayists who contributed to the Green Bible, which contains a foreword from Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu.” Yes, these religious fundamentalists are worried that the “Green Bible” won’t follow the Bible literally. You know, they are worried that the “Green Bible” won’t say that it is alright to own a slave or sacrifice animals as well as humans as it is “pleasing to the Lord”. Or that it is alright to murder and rape people in the name of a fairy-tale God. It makes my mind boggle that people still in the 21st century believes in religious dogma and superstition. Will we ever be able to leave the Dark Age? View the full article

Photo credit: Amir Farshad Ebrahimi Australians (and indeed most people in the Western Murdochracies) live in an Orwellian world in which war is peace, slavery is freedom, ignorance is strength and 2 plus 2 does not equal 4. View the full article