Green Options

This article is part of EcoWorldly’s week-long spotlight on Politicians You Can Believe In. To read more, subscribe to our RSS feed, or view our posts about politics.

“Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great. You can be that generation” - Nelson Mandela, Make Poverty History rally, Trafalgar Square, London, UK, February 2005

What makes a political leader to be great? What makes a generation to be great? To think of it, one word defines it - sustainability. Would this, then, be a moral issue or an economic issue?

Does the world’s population today — both older and younger segments — understand the social dilemma that the next generation of leaders just on the threshold of global influence find themselves in?

Yes, next generation of leaders. Because we can no longer hedge our hopes and beliefs and inspirations on leaders who are stuck in the time warp of old politics.

This article is part of EcoWorldly’s week-long spotlight on Politicians You Can Believe In. To read more, subscribe to our RSS feed, or view our posts about politics.

As part of Prime Minister Gordan’s reshuffle, a new department was created that is likely to boost growth in the renewable energy industry, while addressing climate change.

The UK is a country that is particularly vulnerable to the affects of climate change and has identified it as an issue of vital national importance. The EU’s goal to reduce carbon emissions by 20% by 2020 may help mitigate this predicament, but requires significant action.

Energy and climate change had been addressed across two departments, the Department for Environment and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and the Department of Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) . As an attempt to bridge the gap between energy strategy and climate change policy, the UK has created a new department, the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC).

This week, EcoWorldly presents political leaders from around the world who have had significant positive effects on the environment and society. View more on our posts about politics, or subscribe to our RSS feed, as our international team of writers uncovers political leaders with truly positive track records.

Believe it or not, inspiring and effective political personalities do exist. Not only that, but they are the sort of figures a country should expect to lead them.

With the US presidential election on the doorstep, both the candidates are bandying promises of “change.” This week’s spotlight, Political Leaders You Can Believe In, will seek to reveal politicians who have already succeeded in delivering on the promise of positive change. In doing so, we hope to raise the bar for the US presidential candidates and encourage voters to hold the candidates to some of the following pledges.

Bicycling it isn’t always easy. Busy streets, honking horns, and inadequate city funding for bike lanes and paths can make bicycling an uphill battle. However, with green in the news, the economy in a slump, and summer on its way, it’s getting easier to find reasons why there are some 1.4 billion bicycles and only about 400 million cars in the world today.

This week, EcoWorldly authors from six continents contributed articles on bicycling in their country. With exerpts from those articles and others in the blogosphere, here are seventeen very good reasons to bicycle no matter where you live. Click the headings as you go to read more.

If you want a blissful sex life, don’t ride a bike. I am not a keen biking enthusiast, particularly of the black mamba or Indian type, those old type ugly contraptions that are the primary mode of transport in most parts of Africa, other than human feet.

While walking is good for health and the environment, when you do it for miles and miles on end with a heavy load on your back or head as most men, women and children do in Africa, a bicycle comes in handy for it is in black Africa what a camel is in Arabia or a Llama is in some parts of South America.

Those who can afford a taxi ride take not the yellow cabs you’ll find idling on any street corner in New York City but a boda boda, as they are known in East Africa, literally a bicycle taxi that would take you from one border to another.

But the bicycle taxi riders here have learned the hard way and have taken to heavy drinking of cheap, traditional brew to drown their troubles. Becoming sexually inactive or rather a man who cannot sexually perform is the worst thing that can ever happen to a man, especially if his wife starts looking for fun elsewhere, risking catching the HIV/ Aids virus in the process.

This week at EcoWorldly, we’re talking about bicycling, bicycling, and more bicycling!

All week long, EcoWorldly writers from six continents will put their heads together to explore the ups, downs, ins, and outs of bicycling in many countries around the globe.

You can stay tuned to this topic by checking in daily at EcoWorldly, or subscribe to the RSS feed to stay tuned in by [...]

In many ways, Shinhyocheon is just a typical suburb. It’s in Nam-gu, on the southern outskirts of Gwangju, one of South Korea’s biggest cities. In fact, if you don’t look closely, the Shinhyocheon solar village is easy to miss. Of the 1.4 million people living in Gwangju, most have never heard of it. Local taxi drivers wrinkle their brows and shrug; even the tourist information center in downtown Gwangju has trouble finding it on the map.

But for those who know it, Shinhyocheon deserves a place in energy history. In 2004, it became South Korea’s first solar village – a neighborhood of 64 solar powered houses where residents enjoy cheap, clean energy. The solar panels in this neighborhood generate over 115 KW of energy in a year. For each resident, that translates into an annual savings of around $589 USD, or a total of $37,700 for all 64 houses combined.

Inspired by Shinhyocheon’s success, the local government is planning to expand the number of solar houses in Nam-gu by adding 340 new sun-powered residential buildings.

By 2010, China will unveil a modern city powered by 100% renewable resources, capable of growing all of its own food using organic farming methods and recycling all of its waste.

The future city, Dongtan, is growing out of an island at the mouth of the Yangtze River Delta. The unique Ecocity being built on the island is also a creative way to protect the island’s ecologically sensitive wetland environment from China’s fast-paced development.

What will life in China’s first ecocity look like?

This week, the writers at EcoWorldly will explore ecocities around the world. Stay tuned to this topic by checking in daily at EcoWorldly, or subscribe to our RSS feed to receive email updates.

Having just heard from Keith Rockmael at San Francisco’s Ecocity World Summit 2008, we decided to take a closer look at ecocities, starting with the question “what makes an ecocity?”

Arguably, April 22, 2008 will pass as a non-event in Africa, because celebrating Earth Day on this day will be a celebration of the ecological disasters and sustainability failures of a continent believed to be the cradle of mankind.

As a dual citizen of both the Earth and Mother Africa, I am inclined to think that 2008 AD should have heralded a better world for every single human being. But, sadly, that is not so. Earth Day 2008 will be a celebration of the ugly in Africa.

For we cannot justify the fact that majority of the world’s poor are Africans, surviving on less that US$ 1 a day, living in gigantic slum neighborhoods awash with tons and tons of filth, without adequate clean water, and without access to basic health care. A great irony for a continent so richly endowed with natural resources.

If you just happen to be in Seoul this weekend, you won’t want to miss the 2008 Earth Day celebration.

No, contrary to the hopes of men across Korea, actress Kim Tae Hee will not be there wrestling in fruit salad to save the Earth. And though the celebration is on April 20 (420 to cannabis lovers), smoking a joint will get you swiftly arrested in South Korea. No fun? Don’t dispare.

There’s a great lineup of events planned to generate awareness of environmental issues and bring Koreans more in touch with their green side.

Here’s a schedule of events that will take place this Sunday in Seoul Plaza, outside Seoul City Hall.