Green Options

The devastation Man’s appetite for seafood is wreaking on the ocean environment has been thrown into sharp relief by a “red fish list” published by Greenpeace.

These are the fish which are most in peril from destructive, illegal or simple over fishing.  It lists 19 fish, two shellfish and one crustacean.

Cod we all know about and hopefully everybody avoids.  However the list also includes other common white fish, including hoki and pollock.

Then there are other common seafood: salmon, quahog, swordfish, red snapper, halibut and most types of tuna.

The list goes on and on and is truly astounding: you can read it all at the Greenpeace Red Fish List page.

Now that the polar bear is about to receive over 128 million acres of critical habitat designation, the state of Alaska is taking legal action to challenge the decision.

Following the announcement that threatened polar bears are set to receive over 128 million acres of critical habitat designation, Alaska Governor Sean Parnell and Attorney General Dan Sullivan responded by taking legal action against federal protection of polar bears.

You can now explore the Amazon, Madagascar, and Sebangau National Forest in Borneo through Google Earth.

On September 25, I wrote about a Google Earth tour (narrated by AL Gore) and new Google Earth tools and layers which help people to look at the possible effects of climate change under three different scenarios. Now, three new tours have been launched that allow the exploration of critical rainforests and real-life success stories.

The tours (embedded below) have a great wealth of information and inspirational stories bound into succinct Google Earth or YouTube videos.

700 people stripped naked in French vineyards this week. Why? To try to influence world leaders to do more regarding climate change.

Last month, I wrote about the world’s largest leather exporter leaving the Amazon. This week there is even bigger news. The world’s largest meat exporter is leaving.

A new report released today says that if we shift our economy — to a greener, low-carbon economy — we will have more jobs, not fewer.

Earlier this week, Tony Blair (former prime minister of the UK) and the Climate Group reported that if we worked to avoid climate change we’d create 10 million new jobs by 2020 — worldwide. Another recent study by Greenpeace and the European Renewable Energy Council says that such a shift could increase employment in the EU by 2.7 million jobs by 2030.

One more report, released today by the Global Climate Network (an alliance of nine influential think tanks) comes to similar conclusions.

I need to be very careful in what I say about this topic because it would be easy to scare people beyond what is rational.  I could also also easily make enemies in the Wheat industry which is about the last thing I’d like to do.  I’m going to try to hit the right balance, but it is risky.

Mycotoxins

Most people don’t know that Mycotoxins are a very real issue in our food supply.  These are nasty, natural chemicals that are produced by certain fungi that infect crops. This is not something new.  In Medieval times there was a wide-spread neurological disorder called “Ergotism.” It was caused by mycotoxins in the rye crop produced by a disease called “ergot.” The poor people who lived off of rye, rather than wheat, were disproportionately effected.

Mycotoxins are still an issue today.  2009 has been a particularly bad year for a toxin called “vomitoxin” in wheat, barley and pasta wheat.  Its not a secret, but unless you read the farm press or trade news, you would never know.  Sometime do a Google News search for “vomitoxin.”  If there is rain when these grains are flowering, they can become infected with a fungus called Fusarium graminierum. The disease starts by reducing the farmer’s yields, but it can also produce a toxin in the remaining grain called deoxynivalenol (more commonly called DON toxin).  The trade term, “vomitoxin,” comes from the physical response that animals have if they are fed too much of this contaminated grain (which is obviously not pretty).

In the UK, journalist and television presenter Jeremy Clarkson found his own bit of global warming, on his doorstep! Seven members of group Climate Rush visited his home and left steaming piles of horse manure on his drive, along with a message reading ‘This is what you’re landing us in’.

According to Greenpeace and the Environment and Animal Society of Taiwan (EAST), Pacific tuna could face extinction by 2048, due to overfishing, pirate fishing and exploitation.

In a news conference held last week, the two groups recommended a 50 percent reduction in tuna catches and asked the Taiwan government to support the Western and Central Pacific Fishery Commission (WCPCF), to “close the four pockets of international waters in the Pacific Ocean as marine reserves to sustain the tuna stock.”  The WCPCF, also known as the Pacific Tuna Commission, is a decision making body comprised of 27 countries and territories around the world that manages tuna fishing in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean.

Yesterday, marking the 100-day countdown to the world-changing climate change conference in Copenhagen, Greenpeace presented beautiful ice sculptures in China and India to “to symbolise the ‘disappearing future‘ for the 1.3 billion people in Asia at risk of water shortage as a result of climate change” and “to show ‘the world washed away’ by glacial melts. They also engaged in several other creative demonstrations around the world to encourage climate action in Copenhagen in December.

The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has agreed new rules which ban the transportation and use of heavy grade oils by ships in the Antarctic Ocean.

The change was agreed during the 2009 meeting of the IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee and is scheduled to come into force in 2011.

In essence it will only allow ships to use only lighter grade oils which, if spilt, evaporate more easily, are easier to clean up and are far less damaging to wildlife.