Green Options

This is part 2 in a three part series on how a good shave doesn’t have to come at the cost of the environment. Part 1 covered alternatives to the can-o-foam shaving cream. Part 3 will cover various aftershave choices.
The goal of this article is to help you throw away less stuff. If you can get a better shave and enjoy the shaving experience more while you’re at it, so much the better. While there are energy efficient electric shavers on the market, we’ll only be looking at wet shaving methods since the first and third parts of this series also cover wet shaving techniques.

Editor’s note: This post was written by Emily Loose at the WILD Foundation. It follows up on Jake Richardson’s earlier post.

The future of a rare herd of desert elephants in Mali is under threat from one of the worst droughts in living memory, which has left a key water source at its lowest level in a quarter of a century.
The 350 to 450 elephants of Gourma, the northernmost herds still alive in Africa, are being forced to trek extreme distances across the fringes of the Sahara to find scarce water. Juveniles are likely the worst affected, as (unlike the bigger bulls) their trunks are not long enough to reach deep into wells - one of the only remaining water sources.

This is step 1 in a three step series on Green Shaving. Part 2 covers choosing the razor and part 3 will cover the aftershave.

It’s important to choose the shaving cream well and know how to use it right.
Many people buy canned shaving creams. But those pressurized cans hold surprisingly little cream. They’re also hard to recycle. The final nail in the canned cream coffin is that after using them, you smell like whatever cheap scent comes with the can. Not great if you want to impress your date. You have better options, but first let’s consider how to properly apply shaving cream.

Citizen journalism, open government, status updates, community building, information sharing, crowdsourcing, and the election of a President.
Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Max Gladwell.

Our children will inherit a world profoundly changed by the combination of technology and humanity that is social media. They’ll take for granted that their voices can be heard and that a social movement can be launched from their laptop. They’ll take for granted that they are connected and interconnected with hundreds of millions of people at any given moment. And they’ll take for granted that a black man is or was President of the United States.

What’s most profound is that these represent parts of a greater whole. They represent a shift in power from centralized institutions and organizations to the People they represent. It is the evolution of democracy by way of technology, and we are all better for it.

For most of us, social media has changed our lives in some meaningful way. Collectively it is changing the world for good. Given the pace of innovation and adoption, change has become a constant. Every so often we find the need to stop and reflect on its most recent and noteworthy developments, hence the following list.

Please note this is not a top-10 list, nor are these listed in any particular order. It’s also incomplete. So we ask that you add to this conversation in the comments. If you’d like to Retweet this post or take the conversation to Twitter or FriendFeed, please use the hashtag #10Ways.

Recently, we published famed conservationist Dr. Ian Player’s story of his 60 year long struggle to save St. Lucia Lake in South Africa. In 1970, the lake had become so salty it was killing the crocodiles. Dr. Player and his colleagues found themselves wrestling 1,000 Lb crocodiles and airlifting the animals by helicopter to a safer home. Here, with excerpts from Dr. Player’s story, are the photos of that rescue. Read Dr. Player’s full story at WILD.

“In April 1970 there was a headline that St Lucia would be dead in a few months. This led to a furious Chairman of the Parks Board, Mr. Wood, making a statement in which, inter-alia, he said that he, ‘did not accept the Lake would soon be dead.’ But the Northern section was already dead, with more crocodiles dying daily, and the stench of death was overpowering. Newspaper articles appeared almost daily about the lake and the salinity, and letters were written to the press urging more practical solutions.”

Korean police officer Lee Gil-jun is in prison on a 2 year sentence for not returning to work after commanding officers ordered him to fire a water cannon into a crowd of peaceful protesters last May.

This week, Obama’s alternative energy promises prompted Danish Minister of Climate and Energy Connie Hedegaard to say she’d be happy if the US took Denmark’s first place title on renewable energy.

Trees for the Future, a US-based NGO, has planted 65 million trees in dozens of countries. And they’re still going.
For almost exactly 20 years now, Trees for the Future has been coaching farmers on sustainable agroforestry techniques. That’s a fancy way to say farmers can improving their soil and crop quality by planting trees around the farm. The trees help by holding in soil moisture and drawing water back to refill water tables, preventing erosion and improving soil fertility.

Water to 5 million of Mexico city’s residents will be cut off for 36 hours over Easter weekend due to record low water reserves.

Male chimpanzees are able to exchange meat for sex with females, a recent study of wild chimps in Côte d’Ivoire found.
Notorious B.I.G.’s “more money more problems” way of thinking may not be true for male chimpanzees looking to mate. It turns out that male chimps who bring home the bacon–so to speak–have twice as much sex over the long term. This, despite meat making up only 1.4% of the diets of wild chimps.