My assumption is that kids are already well ahead of their parents in terms of incorporating green living (with less fuss than adults) into their lives and those of their peers. In fact, kids often pressure parents to recycle, according to a study published in the BBC.

Still, raising children to be good citizens and those that can quickly make the link between paper usage, recycling, deforestation, government action and climate change later in their life (I coin these savvy “Forest Citizens”) is not easy but it is well worth it on many levels. Here is who we are watching to help us raise good Forest Citizens as we embark on the craziness of the school year:

Read more of this story »

Every year an area of rainforest the size of England and Wales is cut down. This leaves local people homeless, drives animals and plants to extinction and releases more CO2 emissions (which cause climate change), than all of the world’s planes, trains and automobiles. Tropical deforestation is an issue that affects us all. ~The Rainforest Foundation

Read more of this story »

It is hoped that the fund will raise up to 21 billion dollars over the next 13 years from nations around the world. Norway has already chipped in, pledging 100 million dollars to kick things off. Brazil has made it clear though that donations are only being accepted with a condition of no strings being attached. In other words, countries that donate money will have no say over how the money is used.

Read more of this story »

How can a mahogany desk, made of slow-growing hard wood plundered from the Amazon, be eco-friendly?

When it’s re-used.

Often, the greenest consumer route is not buying new products made with Earth-friendly methods but rather scoring used products made with traditional, possibly heinous methods. Reduce, reuse, then recycle.

This rule of thumb certainly applies to office furniture. Unlike energy-consuming products such as appliances, furniture is somewhat innocuous to the environment during that period between factory and landfill known as “in use.” The impacts on indoor air quality, however, are like Britney: Not that innocent.

Read more of this story »

Mandy Haggith with the ‘paper mountain’ she built to show what a year’s waste looks like. Photo by Angus Bruce, The Independent

“The paperless-society goal is a very nice and noble one,” said Arpad Horvath, an associate professor at the University of California-Berkeley who has studied the issue of replacing paper with wireless technologies. “Unfortunately, I don’t see any trace of progress toward it.”

Read more of this story »

Now — in one of the most significant conservation sales in history — The Nature Conservancy and The Trust for Public Land have preserved 320,000 acres of forestlands in western Montana that provide valuable habitat for species in the Crown of the Continent.

“There hasn’t been an animal extinction here since Lewis and Clark encountered it in the early 19th century,” explains Kat Imhoff, the Conservancy’s state director in Montana. “It’s the only such ecosystem in the Lower 48 states.”

The deal is part of the Conservancy’s large-scale efforts to protect forestlands around the world — the majority of which are working forests supplying sustainably harvested timber.

Over the past five years, the Conservancy has protected 3.5 million acres of forestlands — at a time when nearly one-half of Earth’s original forest cover is gone and global deforestation rates continue to rise.

Read more of this story »

In fact, cattle pasture now covers 7.8% of the Amazon region, with an ever growing presence as worldwide demand for beef skyrockets. Illegal cattle grazing helped Brazil become the world’s largest beef exporter in 2004, but after several years of declining deforestation rates in the Amazon, degradation of the rain forest is again on the rise. The pressure to produce more and more has led many ranchers to ignore regulation.

It is rare to find a politician who is willing to stand up to an industry that is responsible for a significant portion of the GDP, but Minister Minc made good on his promises to crack down on illegal ranching last week when his office confiscated 3,100 cows from one rancher who used a nature reserve in the state of Para as pasture land, cutting away forest that got in the way of his cattle. Not only is Minc committed to punishing those who clearcut the Amazon, he sees a use for the contraband livestock.

Read more of this story »

One of the principal sinks for the carbon we do produce, or that exists naturally, are trees. Naturally, as intelligent humans, we’ve decided to cut down as many of those trees as possible. We cut them down, we burn them, and we destroy entire ecosystems while also destroying our own future.

However a novel idea has been raised by Fritz Scholz and Ulrich Hasse from the University of Greifswald, and has been published in the journal ChemSusChem.

Read more of this story »

And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. - Genesis 2:15

Jim Lackey is not amused that the media - new media bloggers included - keep churning out misleading headlines on what the good old Archbishop Gianfranco Girotti actually said about sinning environmentally.

If you’re wondering who the hell the Lackey fellow is, Jim Lackey is the general news editor of the Catholic News Service and he says there is nothing new about environmental blighting as a sin. He says editors are just having fun and are committing another sin in the process - adulteration of the original ingredient! But the CNS website itself has “NEW SINS” as the sub headline to the big story. Perhaps he means it’s an old sin with a new definition?

Read more of this story »

A Tragic Case Study
We have seen how local ecology plays an important role in conflicts in Africa, which are mostly camouflaged as political, religious or ethnic. Let us spare a brief moment and look at the Democratic Republic of Congo as a case study outline for ecology as a source of wealth and as a precursor of death for innocent millions of people.

A synopsis of the history of the DRC, as Congo Kinshasa is commonly known, tells us that the plunder of its natural resources begun well in the 19th century when King Leopold II’s Belgium, its former colonial master, demarcated it for its own enrichment with the infamous “Scramble for Africa” - a period in late 19th Century world affairs when Africa’s interior was feverishly carved up by European imperialist expansion.

No Peace Amid Wanton Destruction
Since then, DRC, formerly Zaire under the notorious Mobutu Sese Seko, has not known peace. But the wanton plunder and destruction of its ecology, plentiful of minerals and forest cover, continues. And millions of people have and continue paying the heavy cost of it all - through rape and death under the watchful eye of the world hiding beneath the blue flag of the United Nations. Talk of ecological wealth turned into a curse.

Read more of this story »

We’re all familiar with the statistic: every minute, an area of forest the size of five football fields is clear-cut in the Amazon. But a report just released from Brazil’s National Space Research Agency (INPE) reveals unparalleled deforestation in the last part of 2007. To make things worse, this follows three years of some of the heaviest clear-cutting ever. Despite world-wide attention, the Amazon rainforest is disappearing faster and faster.

In the wake of the report, Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, called an emergency meeting to formulate a plan for saving what’s left of the Brazilian rainforest.

Read more of this story »

Graphic by Thara Srinivasan, courtesy of UC Berkeley

Due to commercial and illegal logging, the rate of deforestation in Thailand has been one of the highest in Asia.

Most of the primary forest in Thailand is gone, with secondary forest only covering roughly 20% of the land area. This is compared to over 70% forest cover prior to World War II.

As Perry Garfinkel states in Buddha or Bust: “The environmental impact [of this deforestation] is inestimable—from silting that kills fish and leaves riverbeds dry, to the loss of nesting and feeding for birds and other wildlife.”

Enter the forest monks of Thailand, who have come to be known as environmental or, “Ecology Monks.”

Read more of this story »

Image from www.adsoftheworld.com.

A greenprinteronline.com dispatch.

Next time you use a paper towel in a public bathroom, remember this clever ad from the World Wildlife Federation. The ad makes a direct, visual link between deforestation in South America and habitat loss for wildlife. The same is true here in Canada.

This from the WWF website: “Across Canada, habitat loss, pollution, foreign invaders, climate change, and unsustainable harvesting have pushed over 500 species dangerously close to extinction. Species of every description, from lichens to leatherback turtles, whooping cranes to wood bison are at risk.”

You can make a difference by printing with sustainable methods. At Green Printer, we use recycled paper exclusively and print with dry offset printing - the responsible choice.

Dispatch from greenprinteronline.com.

Check this: more than 30% of all the trees that are logged go to
make paper. That’s a lot of energy to kill all our poor, little green
friends: in fact, deforestation contributes between 20% and 25% of all carbon pollution,
which in turn accelerates global warming. And yes, we’ve heard it
before: recycle, recycle, recycle. But does it work? Yes, but….
according to the RFU, most of us still don’t do it as much as we’d like
to.

In Canada, we recovered only 44% of all paper products used and over 90% of all office paper is still made from virgin fibres.
Ouch, that hurts the feelings of treehuggers like us. Here are seven
easy office tips to save trees and cut down carbon emissions:

1. It’s what your mother always told you: Frugal is the new chic. When making copies, set your machine to use both sides of paper and cut your consumption by 50%.
2. A recycling bin beneath everyone’s desk. Hide a paper
   recycling receptacle next to every printer, copier and fax machine so
   that your work crew can get rid of unwanted paper in them. We are
   creatures of comfort and leisure: it’s easier to lean down than walk
   across the hall, non?
3. Print in carbon lite mode: To save even more
   ink, print in draft mode. It will usually lighten the shade, but you’ll
   still be able to read your copy clearly.
4. Cut the junk: Remove your office mailing address from the
   junk mass mailer’s list - if everyone in Canada did, we would cut
   emissions the equivalent of removing 3 million cards of the road. Huge.
5. Consider alternative paper: Think about buying paper made from treeless paper.
6. Buy recycled toner and ink: Cartridges contribute metal and
   plastic to landfills, but buying toner and ink that’s refilled can help
   alleviate this environmental burden.
7. Don’t forget the office loo: Toilet paper is often made from virgin fiber and up to 424,000 trees would be spared by replacing a 500-sheet roll of virgin fiber toilet paper.

Green Printer
(GP) is the only environmental printing company in North America that
sells brochures and other paper products in runs as low as 10 (instead
of 1000) in order to save trees and meet your organization’s unique
printing needs. And, GP works closely with and buys from paper mills
that run on clean energy and use offsets. What’s more, GP is not shy to
tell you to print less in order to save trees – and the planet. We’ve
also got a funky Eco Calculator.

According to Greenpeace, Indonesia had the fastest pace of deforestation in the world between 2000 and 2005, with an area of forest equivalent to 300 soccer pitches disappearing each hour.

But they’re looking to turn things around and, in all reality, on their heads!

Ahead of the U.N. climate change summit being held in their native Bali this December, the Indonesian people – from the lowest to the highest in status, including the President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono – will be planting a total of 79 million trees in one day!

Scheduled for November 28th, the tree planting will be part of a global initiative launched at U.N. climate change talks in Nairobi last year. The Plant for the Planet: Billion Tree Campaign has so far planted 346,469,727 trees, with a total pledge of 1,130,983,692 trees. 79 million is definitely going to help matters!

"Everybody, residents and officials from the lowest unit of the government to the president, will take part in this movement," said Ahmad Fauzi Masud, spokesman for the Indonesian forestry ministry. "It will be a national record and, possibly, a world record."

Indonesia is listed as Southeast Asia’s biggest economy – not surprising when you’re home to Bali – but sadly, they are also one of the world’s three biggest greenhouse gas emitters, along with the U.S., China and Brazil. This comes as a result of its massive deforestation, in conjunction with peatland degradation and forest fires, according to a recent report sponsored by the World Bank and Britain’s development arm.

Additionally, environmental groups are worried that the continued and rapid growth of palm oil plantations throughout Indonesia are damaging the countries rainforests. Despite the fact that many of these plantations are out to fuel (haha, get it, “fuel”?) new plans for biofuels, the damage to the rainforests may be a greater threat.

Participants from 189 countries will be gathering in Bali this December to discuss a new deal to fight global warming. With the Kyoto Protocol running out in 2012, and in the wake of earlier talks between envoys from participating countries, the talks will hopefully bring about a new goal that countries like the U.S.,, Australia, China and India will all be able to agree too.

ENN - Indonesia to Plant 79 Million Trees in One Day

Plant for the Planet: Billion Tree Campaign

Photo © UNEP

The Rainforest Alliance recently also pledged their support to the CGI, and agreed to work with two major players in the paper industry and one in the musical instrument industry.

This support will take the shape of increasing the companies use of wood from responsibly managed forestlands certified to the standards of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).

The three companies include Domtar, a North American pulp and paper company; Time Inc, one of the largest publishing companies in the world; and Gibson Musical Instruments, Inc., the leaders in musical instruments in the United States.

"As these three major players in the paper and musical instrument industries are demonstrating, large companies are taking sustainability seriously and considering the long-term environmental, social and economic implications of their purchases," said Tensie Whelan, executive director of the Rainforest Alliance, in attendance at the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting.

"Buying wood products from FSC-certified forestlands supports responsible forest management, conserves biodiversity and curbs deforestation."

Deforestation

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, deforestation — the conversion of forested areas to non-forest land use such as arable land, pasture, urban use, logged area, or wasteland — causes 20% of global greenhouse emissions per year.

The FSC works through providing economic incentives to those biodiverse communities that would and could otherwise turn their lands in to grazing for cattle. In turn for these incentives, those areas are left — and encouraged — to grow in to stronger forests.

By using products that have been certified by the FSC, businesses can begin to shape how the rest of the world sees the importance of sustainability, and subsequently provides consumers with the ability to support such initiatives. Businesses will always have to be the front line of change, simply because governments often refuse to be.

Thankfully, ecological sustainability also happens to be good for business, and provides an incentive — sometimes the only one — for companies to get behind such projects as the FSC and CGI.

So while some members of society may often look at Bill Clinton with a sour expression — best summed up by watching the Simpsons — there is without a doubt a lot of good that he is doing. Let us hope that that good continues well in to the future, and continues to reap results such as these.

Rainforest Alliance - Rainforest Alliance, Gibson, Domtar and Time Inc. Commit… via ENN - Rainforest Alliance, Gibson, Domtar and Time Inc. Commit…

Environment News Service - Billions Committed for Environment at Clinton Global Initiative

Rainforest Alliance

Clinton Global Initiative

Photo - Deforestation for agriculture in Benambra, Australia

As described by SolarCooking.org and its sponsor, SolarCookers.org (a much more visually appealing site, by the way), solar cooking is the "simplest, safest, most convenient way to cook food without consuming fuels or heating up the kitchen." But while it might be a convenience for those of us in the developed world, solar cooking is, as the site says, a blessing to millions of people around the world who don’t have the luxury of fresh, clean running water, a safe gas- or electric-powered stove, or money to throw away for precious cooking fuels.

That’s what makes SolarCooking.org and SolarCookers.org such rewarding resources: here you’ll find more information than you could possibly imagine about the history of solar cooking, how to make a solar cooker (with some instructions available not only in English but in languages like Arabic, Portuguese, Persian, Urdu, French, Spanish, Vietnamese, Catalan, Kikongo and Tshiluba), solar cookbooks, a solar cooking wiki, an RSS news feed, a PowerPoint presentation, and, well, pretty much all things related to how to cook food or purify water using the power of the sun.

All of this knowledge comes courtesy of Solar Cookers International (SCI), a 10-year-old non-profit based in California. Since its start, SCI has worked to help thousands of people in refugee camps in places like Chad, Ethiopia and Kenya build simple, often portable, solar cookers that help their lives in many ways. It’s a beautiful concept that not only eliminates the ecological damage caused by traditional wood or dung cooking fuels (which contribute to deforestation, pollution and climate change), but helps free some of the world’s most disadvantaged people from the time, costs and risks often associated with the simple act of acquiring fuel to cook a meal.

Among the benefits of solar cooking: it’s a free power source for families who might otherwise spend 25 percent or more of their income on cooking fuel; it’s a method that doesn’t burn food, so people can spend their time doing other tasks rather than just watching a cooking pot; it can sanitize dishes and kill insects in grains; and it can pasteurize milk and water, which is a huge plus in the developing world, where waterborne diseases are blamed for 80 percent of illnesses and deaths. If all that sounds too good to be true, SolarCooking.org and SolarCookers.org make it abundantly clear that’s not the case.

Also on GO:

Solar Ovens Provide Alternative to Cooking with Wood in Rural China

Image source: SolarCookers.org

On Saturday, over a hundred artists and some 2 billion people participated in the Live Earth concerts to highlight global warming. It was the largest mass musical event in history: a day-long multimedia extravaganza at eight primary venues on all seven continents.

And while public attention was focused on climate change, things elsewhere continued much as always. During the 24 hours of Live Earth, 214,000 acres of tropical forest disappeared forever. Two billion gallons of human sewage were dumped into the world's oceans. 10,800 children died from drought or the lack of clean drinking water. And we are now 85 million barrels closer to the end of the Petroleum Age.

Granted, climate change is a significant issue. We needn't agree on its causes to realize its potential impact: a shifting climate means the shifting availability of things like fresh water and viable farmland. While natural resources follow wind and tide, human populations do not. The resulting stresses are likely to produce regional instabilities at a very fragile moment in history.

But the effects of global warming, whatever they are, will be measured on a scale of decades or centuries. In the meantime, beyond the unblinking stare of MTV — far from the well-heeled audiences of London, Hamburg, and Giants Stadium — away from the celebrity and speechmaking, humanity's collective lack of environmental wisdom is grinding nature underfoot. While some propose spending billions of dollars to combat the uncertain foe of climate change, more pressing matters already threaten to upend our everyday lives.

We've rounded up five of these issues for your consideration. As you think back to Live Earth on Saturday, consider the things which are still happening today. Then ask yourself what you can do about it.

The End of Cheap Oil

When we think about progress — economic expansion, advances in food production, and the creature comforts of modern living — what we are really thinking about is cheap petroleum.

We're living at a unique time in human history. Throughout our lives, we've taken for granted the availability of plentiful, relatively inexpensive petroleum. This will not be the case for our children, or the generations which follow.

Bring up peak oil at a dinner party, and you're likely to receive the sort of stares reserved for UFO enthusiasts and those who insist the moon landings were all a fake. But peak oil is being discussed today in places such as the boardrooms of Exxon, if not in public.

Peak oil is the point at which conventional petroleum production tops out. There have been few major discoveries of conventional oil in the past decade, and existing fields command a finite supply. Beyond peak oil is a long and irreversible decline in the amount of petroleum which can be brought to market — and this slide will coincide with a worldwide demand which accelerates from year to year.

It's not just the energy. Look around you right now and think about all the petroleum products that touch your life every day, from plastics to the pesticides which make modern agriculture possible. Conservation may help, but all these things will eventually go away — and we have no replacement for them. Unless solutions are found before oil becomes unaffordable, our lives will change radically on the backside of the peak.

And when will peak oil happen? Some people think we may already be there. The so-called Early Peak theorists point to 2010. More conservative analysts say anywhere from 2015 to 2030. Soon enough, in any case. Long before the poles melt. If sea levels rise, they will inundate cities already emptied by the collapse of the economies which make them possible.

The Collapse of Ocean Ecosystems

We are turning our seas into sewers, and fishing marine populations to the brink of extinction.

In the Pacific and elsewhere, massive whirlpools of plastic waste turn slowly in the currents, a source of deadly and inedible food for hundred of marine species. It's not just a question of aesthetics: pollution on this scale disrupts the food chain — a chain which reaches to your local grocery store.

Look at satellite imagery of our coastal areas and you'll see the telltale smudge of massive algae blooms which choke oxygen from the sea and reduce oceans to lifeless underwater deserts. These blooms are the direct result of unchecked agricultural runoff — the dumping of manure and fertilizers into watersheds which eventually find their way to the world's oceans.

Meanwhile, researchers have determined that up to 29% of marine species have been overfished or so effected by human mismanagement that they are on the brink of collapse. In some cases, species face 100% collapse no later than mid-century. These trends are still thought to be reversible, but each year that goes by makes the ultimate recovery of the oceans less and less likely.

It's difficult to calculate the impact of such widespread change to marine environments, but humanity has always been heavily dependent on the ocean for food and commerce. The problems seem more dire when expanding worldwide population is taken into consideration. There is certainly a link between climate change and stress on marine environments. But the factors over which we have more direct control are the ones doing the most damage, and the window of opportunity for addressing them is rapidly closing.

The Coming Water Crisis

From the oceans we turn our attention to an even rarer resource: fresh water.

Of all the water on earth, less than 3% is fresh. Of this, some 70% is locked in glaciers and polar ice. Our survival depends on the tiny bit which is left.

Over a billion people already lack access to a safe supply of adequate drinking water. These numbers will increase with world population. Here, again, is a clear link to climate change: as rainfall patters shift, so does the availability of fresh water.

But the real crisis is this: right now, our largest cities depend heavily on groundwater. Beijing, Buenos Aires, Mexico City — and perhaps your own community — draws its water from underground aquifers. These aquifers take centuries to replenish, so it's unlikely their use on this scale is sustainable.

The recent corporatization of drinking water is no accident: investors recognize the trends of shrinking supply and increasing demand. This is the reason multinational companies are snapping up neglected municipal water infrastructures and throwing themselves into the bottled water business. Water is the Blue Gold of the 21st century.

How will we replace shrinking fresh water supplies? Desalinization of sea water is an obvious answer, but desalinization is expensive energy intensive. It would require the development of a distribution system that dwarfs the one by which we currently bring petroleum to market.

We will have to seek out new ways to reprocess wastewater and reduce our current demand on groundwater supplies. While changes will necessarily trickle down to the household level and will be neither cheap nor convenient, they are unavoidable if we wish to sustain our current rate of population growth.

There are no equivalents to carbon credits when it comes to water: you can't pay someone not to consume water on your behalf. When it comes to dwindling fresh water supplies, there can be no smoke and mirrors. Stop drinking for a day, and you'll realize the pressing nature of thirst. The recent drought in the American Southwest and the threat of water rationing in places like Los Angeles are a preview of things to come.

Deforestation

We depend on Earth's forests for the quality of human life. Over half of all known species live in tropical rainforests.

Every second, 2.4 acres of old-growth rainforest disappears, never to return. That's about 78 million acres a year: the area of a medium-sized country. The pyres from the illegal harvest of irreplaceable Amazon jungle are clearly visible from space, and the effects of large scale clear cutting reverberate across the entire planet.

While you might not care or even be aware of the destruction of some exotic tropical species, the reduction of Earth's biodiversity has very real economic and environmental impact on humans. Trees cool our climate and regulate the amount of carbon dioxide in the air. Much of our medicine is derived from plants located exclusively in the world's most threatened ecosystems.

The future is complex, and the sum of many actions. But such widespread abuse of non-renewable resources bodes ill for the planet's long-term sustainability.

Nuclear Weapons

Out of sight, out of mind: we like to think the end of the Cold War stuffed the nuclear genie back into the bottle.

But as Russian President Vladimir Putin's recent threat to re-target European cities demonstrates, the idea that the risk of a nuclear war has abated is largely an illusion. It's not really necessary to recount the horrors of a potential nuclear exchange, other than to remind ourselves that a nuclear winter would be the ultimate environmental disaster, and humanity's last insult to the planet.

There remain approximately 20,000 active nuclear weapons, slumbering away in the missile silos, bunkers, and submarines we hide around the world. They're a miscalculation or a sharp political crisis away from being called to duty — a sword that's been hanging above us so long that we've come to mistake it for the sky.

If the political resolve being marshaled to combat global warming could be channeled into achieving the complete destruction of these awful weapons, it would go a long way toward the safeguarding of our survival as a species.

The Future

We could have easily added a half dozen other issues to this list: pandemics like AIDS and antibiotic-resistant tuberculosis; the enormous economic disparities between the northern and southern hemispheres; and the pervasiveness of industrial toxins in our food and air.

As the old saying goes, the future is unwritten. Humanity is a versatile species, capable of great resourcefulness in the face of challenge. All is not doom and gloom. We have more than sufficient capacity to address the changes of the new century.

The attention focused on global warming has renewed a moribund environmental movement. More importantly, it has people thinking — for the first time in many years — about the larger issues of sustainability and the kind of future we'd like to provide ourselves and our children.

Hope you enjoyed Live Earth. Remember, though, that the real job is ahead, as is the task of setting priorities to address it.

—-

Copyright © 2007 Lighter Footstep Media