Green Options

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.

Editor’s note: This week’s Focus Topic is International Earth Day.

All week long, EcoWorldly writers from six continents will put their heads together to describe Earth Day celebrations and events around the world.

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

And don’t forget to let us know what issues matter most to you. Let us know what topics you care through our Focus Topic Poll about and we’ll write about them from around the world.

Public transportation in Africa can be fun and comical; even depressing or horrible, depending on how you look at it. Consider this: you are a backpacker traveling deep somewhere in the Kenyan rift valley in a 1975 Leyland bus or British Bulldog as they are known here. It is your first time in Africa and everything seems a memorable adventure to take back home. As the bus throttles uphill, belching black smoke in its wake, it gives loud engine rants that sound like Armageddon has arrived, at the top speed of 25 miles an hour.

They disregard sitting capacity here and the bus is never full until the last passenger tilts with it while hanging precariously on the door rails. And there will still be enough room for another one! The foul-mouthed crew had packed passengers at the previous stop like sardines on a hot afternoon with temperatures running to nearly 40° C (104° F) and one must endure the sticky sweat of the person sitting next to you.

That person most probably will be a rotund lady with a basket-full of damp clothes and groceries as well as sun-dried fish and a live chicken for soup on one hand. On the other will be a six-month old baby with his mouth holding on to his mother’s teat, and a two year old wailing profusely and tagging along.

The bus window next to your seat won’t open and your legs won’t fit the spacing forcing you to put your leg astride to expose your feet on the aisle, also packed with all sorts of goods, from a sack of charcoal to sticks of sugarcane. You feel like a caged animal. Sounds familiar?

Putting pen to paper for Bus Transportation Week I began to make a few notes about bus travel in Switzerland – the country that I usually cover on EcoWorldly. My notes read: reliable, clean, efficient.

Not much of a story there.

When there is not much happening in Switzerland and I need to file an EcoWorldly post, I usually look at wider Europe. My notes on bus travel in other nations around Europe read: mostly reliable, mostly clean, mostly efficient.

Still not much to write home about.

And then I read Pem Charnley’s article about bus transportation in Britain, which struck much more of a chord. Having recently written here about the woeful state of British rail transportation, I thought it might be appropriate to continue Pem’s theme and recount my experience of bus travel when I returned to our sunny island for a brief visit recently.

The story starts in the West Midlands with a Saturday shopping trip from my residence in Warwick to the nearby town of Royal Leamington Spa. As before, I shall evaluate the transport infrastructure of the 4^th richest nation in the world using some carefully chosen criteria.

People fall into one of two categories: those who ride the bus and those who’d rather lick paint. Which view is right? Sure, we love to hate the bus, but are all buses really that bad? As a side effect of my mulish refusal to own a car, I find myself riding a bus quite often. By riding many a bus in Europe, Asia, and the Americas, I’ve found three important criteria by which to judge a good bus system.

1. You have access to a good schedule and map of the bus routes. Certain places get a gold star for laying out a detailed, clear schedule. Others leave you guessing on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere.

Dear Readers,

Last week, we asked what issues matter most to you. With the initial results rolling in, we’ll concentrate first on public transportation, which currently leads as the number one issue on everyone’s minds.

Recently, Pem brought us a chilling account of England’s bus system, which has much room to improve. We’ll follow this article with a focus on [...]

The wind howls, the setting some kind of Arctic wind tunnel. Sure, there’s a waiting room over there, but it’s deserted. And no wonder. The strip lighting such an intense hue that it dazzles – a fluorescent goldfish bowl that makes the squall preferable.

There’s only a few people here. A mum yells at her kids, then tells her friend about her recent sex life, the wind carrying her conquests to the damp corners of the platform and anyone unfortunate enough to have hearing as functional as her genitals.

To use the bus is not a green option, it’s the last ditch attempt of the stranded.

Dear Readers,

Every two weeks, EcoWorldly writers put their heads together to report on a single issue as it’s happening all around the planet. We have writers on six continents, so these group topics are always a great way to learn more about environmental issues from many perspectives.

Now we want to give you a chance to choose topics that matter to you. What environmental issues would you like to know more about in countries all over the world? We want to bring you news and views about the issues that matter most to you.

Take our Interactive Poll of environmental issues.

I’ve yet to see a red squirrel in the wild. Such is this animal’s continued population freefall that I may never see one. Full stop. Though once a common site down in the south of England, now it is mainly in the north and in Scotland that it survives.

It’s been a native of the British Isles for 10,000 years now, yet the naivety of the Victorian era threatens this creature with extinction.

In 1876, one Mr Brocklehurst, formally of Cheshire, in the north of England, now turning in his grave, decided it was a good idea to release a pair of North American grey squirrels into the wild. The rest, as they say, is history.