Last posts on environment

Position altered

2008-06-18T03:50:00+02:00

Fellow travellers, of course you are well aware of my attitude to immigration. I am very much for the increased intake of non-animal creatures -- particularly from the Middle East. However, I have recently become aware of a case that forces me to reconsider this position.

I speak, of course, of the threat posed by a certain breed of feline. Due to their potential to disrupt delicate Australian ecosystems, it is imperative that none of these hybrid "supercats" (and what an appallingly elitist term that is!) should be let into the country.

Certainly, they are non-human persons with rights. And I feel for them, I really do! But it is my considered opinion that the rights of local citizens take precedence in this case.

If you think I am being speciesist, so be it.

Planète Sacrée's website is online!

2008-06-13T10:34:03+02:00

Please connect to :http://www.planete-sacree.com Your feedback is needed on contact@planete-sacree.com

Standby Power

2008-05-04T15:53:19+02:00

Standby alarm clocks

to give us our morning wake up

Standby coffee machines

to brew the day's first cup

Standby answering machines

to screen and never miss a call

for our convenience

standby all

Standby washers

for our weekly loads

Standby dryers

to instantly have dry clothes

Standby microwaves

for the slim times we choose to cook

for our convenience

standby nuke

Standby TVs

for the eventuality that something

we might want to see is shown

Standby DVD players

for the handful of times

we movie at home

Standby radios

to listen to some late night show

for our convenience

standby grows

Standby fax machines

for everything that requires great speed

Standby copiers

to duplicate anything we might need

Standby PCs

the whole world on our desktop

for environmental reasons

standby stop

What I'm Reading Online - Our Personal Connection To What Is Wrong

2008-04-28T16:50:00+02:00

>> SACRALISING DRESS

This article at Anderson Cooper's 360 Blog by a former female Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saint, interested me because it seems to concern sacralising behaviour (related post).

"Women lost a lot of rights in 1953. They no longer had any say in who they could marry nor could they choose how to dress. The way this was spun was that since the community had come through the raid so successfully, it was now ready to practice a higher form of God's law. (God is always the explanation when things get more restrictive; change is presented as a prize for being righteous and faithful. We were always told we were worthy of a higher law.)"

She reiterates the idea a little further down the page:

"The clothing also desexualizes women. Our chests are flattened out and any natural shape is hidden.

"We were always told by Warren Jeffs when the dress and choices became more restrictive that is was a sign that 'God loves you so much he wants you to be more like him.' (We believed Warren received direct revelations from God.) What we were losing were rights and any sense of control over our lives and all individuality."

As mentioned in a study of religious and secular communes in the previous blog post, the study's authors concluded that "ritual constraints are not by themselves enough to sustain co-operation in a community -- what is needed in addition is a belief that those constraints are sanctified."

>> LIVING CLOSE TO NATURE = POVERTY AND MISERY, or ENRICHING RELATIONSHIPS with earth and others? Or both?

"Couldn't God Have Designed A Gentler Universe?" by Jesuit astronomer Guy Consolmagno SJ at Thinking Faith: The Online Journal of the British Jesuits got my attention because I just finished reading Three Cups of Tea for a bookgroup, which is about American Greg Mortenson's mission to build schools in Islamic countries (Pakistan and Afghanistan). Twice in that book there's a sort of teaser for a comparison-contrast argument that never actually happens. Early in the book, the question is raised whether the rural mountain town that Greg is so taken with is a paradise, because the people seem happy, they are welcoming, they smile a lot, they are patient and accepting of what happens, they have leisure time, they have close relationships with each other and live intimately with the land and seasons, or a miserable backwater, because the people have high rates of goiters, cataracts, malnutrition and infant mortality, almost no access to health care, live in frigid temperatures for half the year, and work very hard to survive. Later in the book, there is a moment's musing about a 'hard' but 'pure' life of such people, and what Western technological influences like roads, bridges and buildings will do to the close relationship those people have to their land.

Consolmagno's words resonated with that in my mind:

"There's an odd divide in Western culture nowadays. We've become separated from nature. We have air-conditioned homes, air-conditioned cars, air-conditioned offices, air-conditioned lives. [In far northern climes, substitute 'well-heated' for air-conditioned.] We spend most of our lives wrapped in cotton wool. If we feel pain, we want it to stop, now.

"Well-lit streets at night that mean that most people never see the Milky Way -- or at least not until the lights go out. After the Northridge earthquake in southern California in January 1994, the phones at the Griffith Planetarium in Los Angeles started ringing off the hooks as people wanted to know why the earthquake made the sky look so scary. The earthquake struck at 4:30 a.m., while it was still dark outside. When people rushed through their blacked-out homes to the outdoors, a million people saw something in the skies over Los Angeles they'd never seen before: stars. And they were terrified. ...

I spent two years in the Peace Corps in Africa.I saw there how we used to live, back before flush toilets and neon lights. People lived close to nature, in a way that hardly anyone in America does anymore. And I learned in Africa that there’s a word for people who live close to nature: starving.
Our lifestyle puts a heavy toll on the environment; but so does the lifestyle of the desperate people in Kenya or Haiti, who strip the forests bare in their day-to-day struggle to stay alive. So I don’t necessarily mean to disparage our cotton-swabbed existence. My point is just to point it out, because the shock we experience when a natural disaster hits us is precisely the wrench of being jerked out of our cotton-wool womb and forced to confront nature. Nature can be hostile as well as beautiful; nature gives us food and gives us death."

The rest is worth reading, though no answers are given.

>> Two articles on the HIGH PERCENTAGE OF IMPRISONMENT in the U.S.:

Adam Liptak in the NYT (23 April) writes "Inmate Count in U.S. Dwarfs Other Nations'" and Marie Gottschalk writes "Two Separate Societies: One in Prison, One Not" in the WaPo (15 April), both on the same topic.

Gottschalk points to a recent Pew Center study which showed "that for the first time in this country's history, more than one in every 100 adults is in jail or prison" and one in every 32 adults is or has either been "incarcerated, on parole or probation or under some other form of state or local supervision." The U.S. incarceration rate "is 5 to 12 times that of other industrialized countries as well as being the highest in the world." The rate is ten times higher for African-American men: One in 9 young black men is imprisoned.

Liptak elaborates on the stats: "The United States has less than 5 percent of the world's population. But it has almost a quarter of the world's prisoners. Indeed, the United States leads the world in producing prisoners, a reflection of a relatively recent and now entirely distinctive American approach to crime and punishment. Americans are locked up for crimes -- from writing bad checks to using drugs -- that would rarely produce prison sentences in other countries. And in particular they are kept incarcerated far longer than prisoners in other nations."

Gottschalk, citing hearings held by Senator James Webb (D-Va) last October, says that the increases in incarceration are not "driven so much by an increase in crime as by the way we chose to respond to crime," with tougher sentencing guidelines. Her main point is that "the leading presidential candidates have not identified mass imprisonment as a central issue, even though it is arguably the country's top civil rights concern."

Liptak points to more reasons than simply tougher sentencing guidelines for the high U.S. incarceration rate (which, he notes, seems to have led to decreases in crime, although Canada's crime has likewise decreased with no concurrent increase in incarceration rates), and he discusses each factor separately:

"Criminologists and legal experts here and abroad point to a tangle of factors to explain America's extraordinary incarceration rate: higher levels of violent crime [a murder rate 4 times higher than many Western European nations], harsher sentencing laws, a legacy of racial turmoil, a special fervor in combating illegal drugs, the American temperament, and the lack of a social safety net. Even democracy plays a role, as judges -- many of whom are elected, another American anomaly -- yield to populist demands for tough justice."

Is this high rate of imprisonment our country's nuanced form of mob justice?

Concerning the factor of "American temperament," Liptak notes that "some scholars have found that English-speaking nations have higher prison rates. 'Although it is not at all clear what it is about Anglo-Saxon culture that makes predominantly English-speaking countries especially punitive, they are,' wrote Michael H. Tonry, a professor of law and public policy at the University of Minnesota, in Crime, Punishment and Politics in Comparative Perspective (2007).

"'It could be related to economies that are more capitalistic and political cultures that are less social democratic than those of most European countries,' Mr. Tonry wrote. 'Or it could have something to do with the Protestant religions with strong Calvinist overtones that were long influential.'"

>> WHY BOTHER WITH ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY?

That's what Michael Pollan ask, and answers, in his article titled "Why Bother" in the NYT Magazine (20 April). Pollan examines some of the obstacles and justifications for doing nothing, or very little:

Why bother to take any steps in the direction of reducing my footprint on the Earth "when I know full well that halfway around the world there lives my evil twin, some carbon-footprint doppelgänger in Shanghai or Chongqing who has just bought his first car (Chinese car ownership is where ours was back in 1918), is eager to swallow every bite of meat I forswear and who's positively itching to replace every last pound of CO2 I'm struggling no longer to emit."

And even if, for the sake of virtue, "I decide I am going to bother, there arises the whole vexed question of getting it right. Is eating local or walking to work really going to reduce my carbon footprint?" (Pollan points to studies that show they may not. )

"If determining the carbon footprint of food is really this complicated, and I've got to consider not only 'food miles' but also whether the food came by ship or truck and how lushly the grass grows in New Zealand, then maybe on second thought I'll just buy the imported chops at Costco, at least until the experts get their footprints sorted out."

His argument for making our daily, individual lives more sustainable is this:

"Whatever we can do as individuals to change the way we live at this suddenly very late date does seem utterly inadequate to the challenge. It's hard to argue with Michael Specter, in a recent New Yorker piece on carbon footprints, when he says: 'Personal choices, no matter how virtuous, ... cannot do enough. It will also take laws and money.' So it will. Yet it is no less accurate or hardheaded to say that laws and money cannot do enough, either; that it will also take profound changes in the way we live. Why? Because the climate-change crisis is at its very bottom a crisis of lifestyle -- of character, even. The Big Problem is nothing more or less than the sum total of countless little everyday choices, most of them made by us (consumer spending represents 70 percent of our economy), and most of the rest of them made in the name of our needs and desires and preferences. "

Pollan cites Wendell Berry, who 30 years ago "was impatient with people who wrote checks to environmental organizations while thoughtlessly squandering fossil fuel in their everyday lives -- the 1970s equivalent of people buying carbon offsets to atone for their Tahoes and Durangos. Nothing was likely to change until we healed the 'split between what we think and what we do.' For Berry, the 'why bother' question came down to a moral imperative: 'Once our personal connection to what is wrong becomes clear, then we have to choose: we can go on as before, recognizing our dishonesty and living with it the best we can, or we can begin the effort to change the way we think and live.'"

----

Much more to Pollan's article (specialisation, hidden energy costs, why we should take individual steps anyway), but where this last bit leads me is back to a perhaps romantic notion of the 'purity' -- or at least the honesty -- of living life close to the land, and that state of being contrasted to the cultural free-floating angst, the urge to crime and urge to punishment (leading to high rates of incarceration and a punitive justice system), the need to sacralise and the need to artificially create meaning that we find widespread in our culture, where we are so much more likely to be living without integrity, living "the best we can," as Berry says, in at least a veiled awareness of our own complicity in unsustainable living, in an unnecessarily harsh 'justice' system, in the war we are waging and its collateral damage as well as its intended damage to humans, other animals, and the Earth, and so on. We can watch reality TV, and it's an almost-but-not-quite successful effort to screen ourselves from Reality, from "our personal connection to what is wrong."

Getting Cancer, the Natural (Usual) Way

2008-04-16T19:35:00+02:00

An article in Slate yesterday by Darshak Sanghavi (pediatric cardiologist and professor at U. Mass Medical School) asks why the U.S. and Europe focus our rhetoric and resources on some uncommon and/or unproven causes of cancer rather than trying to prevent and better screen for the many natural causes of cancer.

In part, he says, it's because of a popular (but false) motif, that "the natural world is less toxic and more healthful than the industrial one," so that avoiding cancer, it seems, can be accomplished by buying organic, unpasteurized, and more 'natural' foods and cosmetics:

"Unwittingly, we've seriously impeded cancer prevention with this not-so-useful distinction between the natural and artificial. It's distracted us from the uncomfortable truth that most cancers are caused by the natural environment around us. As a result, we expend great effort and ink on low-yield strategies to prevent cancer, even though the better ones lie within our grasp."

Sanghavi talks about some 'artificial' sources of very few cancers (asbestos, DES, Alar, and folic acid) and a few of the most common natural causes of cancer: UV-A rays of the sun, Helicobacter pylori bacteria, Hepatitis B, the human papilloma virus, and exposure to a mold product called aflatoxin.

He ends by suggesting that we've been approaching cancer prevention as something within our individual control, just another consumer shopping challenge, when actually it's vaccines, large-scale agricultural reform, and regular screening that would reduce cancer deaths:

"Our scattershot approach to preventing cancer subscribes to the cult of personal responsibility, albeit with a recent eco-friendly twist: To really help themselves, goes the thinking, people must simply take charge of their health and avoid cancer-causing, artificial products. Somewhat insidiously, we're starting to believe that cancer mostly is prevented by informing individuals to change their consumption habits -- not by proactive, broad-based public-health measures like widespread vaccination or agricultural reform.."

What I'm Reading Online

2008-02-28T11:25:00+01:00

Just catching up on some things ...

----> "Are you going to hell?", a Salon interview by Louis Bayard of former born-again Christian John Marks, whose recent book Reasons to Believe: One Man's Journey Among the Evangelicals and the Faith He Left Behind details Marks' "two-year investigative odyssey through the heart of Christian America. Listening to the fiery testimony of megachurch preachers, traveling from Easter pageants and Focus on the Family seminars to Christian rock concerts and blogger conferences, Marks experienced firsthand both the promise and the limitations of the faith enterprise -- even as he queried, all over again, the grounds of his own beliefs." Marks hopes the book will lead to increased dialogue between evangelical Christians and others, a conversation which he says will be loud and angry, and which "can be done but only with both sides acknowledging that the other won't change."

Bayard mentions the statistic that "some 40 million unbelievers are attending church services," and aks why, to which Marks responds: "Because they like the church, they believe in what it represents, they believe in the social stances, they believe in the political values. But when you get to this central question -- Do you believe that Jesus Christ redeemed you for all time and do you live as if that's true? -- most people cannot tell you how many real believers there are."

----> Dave Pollard on "responsibility" as "promising back" and the many pitfalls of human interaction, particularly in groups. What he says resonates strongly for me right now as a leader (host, facilitator) of a small group and even as an active member of other regular small groups. I think I am usually aware at the time of hurt or disappointment in reaction or response to my actions and others' actions in small groups, but I often don't know what to do about it, other than to focus my attention on responding skillfully:

"All of these truths are about Responsibility and its burden. When we stand up in front of a group as an 'authority', or talk to an individual one-to-one, or just communicate wordlessly with someone, we are being asked to take some responsibility for their feelings, their understanding, and even their love. When a member of the audience asks us a question and we answer in a way that is unsatisfactory to them (for whatever reason) they are hurt. When we say something to someone that makes them flinch or frown or leads to a 'pregnant pause', they are hurt. When someone looks at us, perhaps in invitation to some further communication and we turn away, they are hurt. It is not intentional. No one is to blame. But there has been a Failure of Responsibility. The word 'responsibility' comes from the Latin words meaning to promise back. All of this pain is the result of unintended broken promises."

----> Which is more environmentally responsible: reading a newspaper in print or online? Brendan Koerner (The Lantern) at Slate says that reading online is better, but only slightly, and he doesn't have the stats to prove it. There's a lot to consider, either way: For paper, there's the tree content, the percentage of the paper's paper that's made of recycled paper, the emissions and petroleum use of the pulping process, and the newspaper distribution environmental costs. (Not to mention the petroleum use and emissions of the machines used to hew and transport the logs, which he doesn't.) For online versions, there's the kilowatt-hours of electricity used by each server (perhaps hundreds of them, including ad servers), the electricity to power the end-user's computer, and perhaps the environmental cost of disposing of all of our computer hardware, though that assumes that reading newspapers is a major reason people have computers -- a dubious assumption, IMO. Then there's the issue of carbon -- online, carbon is released right into the atmosphere; in print, it's 'locked' into the newsprint, which can be recycled or will decompose slowly in a landfill (but doesn't it release into the atmosphere then?).

My head hurts.

Capitalism fuels sexism!

2008-01-07T02:45:00+01:00

Fellow travellers, as you well know appalling reactionaries are fond of denying the link between our -- sorry, their -- appalling consumerist culture and the commodification of women.

Well, if they were to read this story about disturbing harassment of women at Summernats in Canberra then they would have to accept the undeniable truth of our argument.

Fellow traveller Kevin Rudd has shown he is serious about addressing climate change by ratifying the Kyoto Protocol. And I hope he will also work at deconstructing the appalling patriarchal, sexist, Gaia-phobic culture that still dominates in this country. As the Summernats frenzy shows so clearly, oil is at the root of both these scourges.

He really has no alternative but to ban the use of all fossil fuels immediately. He'd be ~~killing~~ liberating two birds with one stone, then.

Consumption, Population and Quality of Life

2008-01-02T22:53:05+01:00

Good article by Jared Diamond in today's NYT ("What's Your Consumption Factor?"), clearly explaining why it's not so much population as consumption that drives resource use (and over-use) worldwide: If "the whole developing world were suddenly to catch up [to America's resource use/standard of living], world [population] rates would increase elevenfold. It would be as if the world population ballooned to 72 billion people" instead of the 9 billion people the world is projected to have by mid-century.

"Some optimists claim that we could support a world with nine billion people. But I haven’t met anyone crazy enough to claim that we could support 72 billion. Yet we often promise developing countries that if they will only adopt good policies -- for example, institute honest government and a free-market economy -- they, too, will be able to enjoy a first-world lifestyle. This promise is impossible, a cruel hoax: we are having difficulty supporting a first-world lifestyle even now for only one billion people."

Other points:

Higher consumption (1st-world standard of living) is not tightly correlated with higher quality of life, partly because "[m]uch American consumption is wasteful and contributes little or nothing to quality of life. For example, per capita oil consumption in Western Europe is about half of ours, yet Western Europe's standard of living is higher by any reasonable criterion, including life expectancy, health, infant mortality, access to medical care, financial security after retirement, vacation time, quality of public schools and support for the arts. Ask yourself whether Americans' wasteful use of gasoline contributes positively to any of those measures." [I agree generally but wonder when he suggests solutions whether he's considering America's expansive geography and Europe's compact one.]

Fishing and timber industries can operate sustainably now but don't. Instead, both are "managed non-sustainably, with decreasing yields."

Americans' consumption rates will be reduced, one way or another, because they're unsustainable.

Ron Paul on the issues...let's not support him, ok?

2007-12-29T10:22:36+01:00

The Real Ron Paul. Can you honestly support his positions on the Kyoto Protocol and ANWR, plus anti-choice, pro-gun, anti-immigrant? I’d like to see this man stopped, frankly.

Medea’s Bill

2007-12-06T16:29:45+01:00

This planet will live interesting times during the next decade: A combination of a full size global financial crisis, of major environmental constraints, and of shortage of energy, water, and certain key commodities. Herald Tribune (11/22/07) quotes OECD saying in a recent report: “Losses in the distressed sub-prime mortgage sector of the United States could reach $300 billion, only a portion of which has so far been accounted for by write-offs at major banks… We still have not hit the worst point in resets, delinquencies and ultimate losses on mortgages." Lead by US financial markets, Europe and now China and others are getting closer to technical bankruptcy, when assets market value becomes lower than debt level. In China, the Chinese people discovering the joys of getting rich quick thanks to a booming stock market are applying to it their millennium old gambling inclination.This financial crisis would be bad in the perspective of conventional free economy. What makes it worse is that the world economy, growing since 2000 at its highest level in some 40 years, demands more energy, more fresh water, and more commodities. Producing more fresh water means ultimately consuming more energy. Mining, growing and transforming more commodities whether agro, chemical, metal or mineral means the same. Ultimately, the world faces a massive energy shortage. But mankind is running out of areas in the world where local environment impact conditions combined with attitude of the local population are favorable to new power generation capacity. Nuclear is clean in CO2, but unpopular. Making it fool proof means higher costs. Coal can be made clean, even CO2 free, but at a higher cost of kWh bringing it a nuclear costs level. Oil and gas are available and can be CO2 clean as well (through CO2 storage for instance), but they don’t come cheap anymore. Renewable energy is available, but very expensive.To increase energy capacity, we need to massively invest long term. Our financial markets have lost the ability to invest in anything which is not short term, low risk. This factor, combined with environment pressures, means that all new power plants run late. And their capital costs escalate with delays.According to Greek mythology, when Jason and his Argonauts came to steel the Golden Fleece from Medea’s empire, Medea warned them that wherever they would go, she would, one day, send them the Bill. On top of our facing a combination of bankruptcy and energy shortages, our planet is beginning to present Medea’s Bill to mankind: We never paid for the investments engaged in natural phenomena which took from tens to hundreds of millenniums to generate the fossil reserves of the planet. Our planet did, beginning way before the first hominians began hunting and gathering. By doing so, the planet put in underground storage the CO2 levels which were five times higher than today in our atmosphere in the days of the dinosaurs. We are destroying these reserves as if they were free of charge, while putting back carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere, as if the air and a stable climate were free of charge too. During this century, we will start paying Medea’s Bill, and the moratorium will completely change the way we perceive financial planning. This is the end of Stockholders Value Enhancement!How shall we face this colossal challenge? We will from now on regularly talk about the options and solutions.Andre Teissier du Cros

Should we keep building towers ?

2007-11-15T14:35:00+01:00

The city of Paris is planning on building new towers. Is this an initiative in the line of sustainable development ? The answer is complex, as are all those relating to ecology. As of now, the Paris experience has been exemplified by the Montparnasse tower, which has mangled the totality of the capital’s most beautiful perspectives and has destroyed the magic of this Parisian district along with its urban plan. Other achievements include a tower dedicated to business offices, boulevard Morland, a few steps away from the Notre Dame cathedral: the Jussieu tower, famous for its asbestos; the 15th century towers, which needs refurbishing; also the towers from La Défense, an important business district which can be seen from the Tuileries as if under your nose...When visiting the world, not one city has succeeded to maintain its sacred character, built throughout centuries because we were then giving time to time.Is this a fatality? Does it mean being opposed to progress to be questioning or to be opposing the building of residential or office towers?Let us understand the reasons justifying the high rise building: prices of building-sites, their scarcity, cars devouring all space, and efficacy of verticality for business buildings: Only economical reasons, none related to the quality of the citizen’s life. Elected members have their short term worries, property developers their financial obligations, architects their aesthetic concepts. Yet, how come Paris’ first arrondissement, just as dense in population as the district of La Défense, manages room for two big parks: the Tuileries and the Palais Royal, and yet none of its buildings is higher than 7 levels?How does this relate to sustainable development ? very directly. Skyscrapers were, during the early 20th century, the symbol of triumphant modernity. Weren’t they also telling us about the actors’ inability to escape from the constraints of urban development?Building residential towers has not given proof of providing appropriate living spaces. No doubt building office towers was an unavoidable stage at the time, even if it seems out-of-date today: more than thirty years ago, the question was already addressed by economists and urbanists, and it remains up-to-date. At the time of internet, video-conferencing and portable phones, along with the obligation to reduce costly and exhausting moves, couldn’t we think over the urban design a little more, trying to escape from economic fatality?Sacred Planet does not have any ready-made answer to this question, but will assign the file to its experts in order to evaluate and compare the different experimentations and urban solutions throughout the world.

The Tale of the Emperor of China who loved ripe melons.

2007-10-30T08:20:00+01:00

According to the great Chinese philosopher Sen Fu (late 19th Century), there was once a great Chinese emperor who had a passion for well ripened melons. And he had a problem: Even the greatest Emperor could not get ripe melons in Winter. So, each year, he was patiently waiting for the summer.He had a very skilled gardener who had an idea: Not too far away, there was a steep hill with one side well exposed to the South. He told the Emperor: "Your revered Highness (or whatever was the proper address), let me install greenhouses on that hill. I am sure that, with the sun exposure it has, I can ripen melons in Winter." And the Emperor, who was an open mind and loved innovation and enterprise, let him do it. Let all readers of Sacred Planet learn from our Experts: glass was invented some 3,000 years ago, and the invention of green houses has been lost in the night of times, as the French say.So it was done: the following year, the gardener, full of pride, brought ripe melons to his Majesty as early as February and told him that next year, he would get them all year round. He could not get them earlier because an order of melon seeds had been, ah, held back by Chinese red tape.This gave the Emperor an idea: He summoned the seven hundred wisest Mandarins who formed the highest level of his Council (and who cost him a fortune in pensions, overheads, pretty girls and delicacies.) And he asked them:"Esteemed Members of my Imperial Council, I want you to study this question: Is it possible for melons to ripen in Winter?"The wise Mandarins immediately convened, formed various committees, initiated bibliographic researches, questioned the writings of Confucius, Lao-Tse, Chen-Yi, Dong Zhong-Shu, Sun Tsu, and many many others. They wrote notes, preliminary reports, and memorandums, and finally dissertations in eight iambs as per formal Mandarin rule which are as stringent as the Rule of the Three Units in French 17th Century dramatic art. They produced thousands of pages beautifully written in ideograms, using the most expensive peacock feathers for pens. And they still didn't have an answer.So the Emperor told them: "You worked so hard, you deserve a rest. Come with me for a walk in the open air." And he had then driven to the Hill of the Melons, in 15 beautiful carriages. And they walked in the garden and were surrounded with nice melons smelling deliciously, but they still went on discussing and debating.So the Emperor picked up a perfectly ripened melon and put it under the nose of the five most eminent Mandarins and asked them: "Tell me, what is this?". And then, he had a surprise:They could not recognize a melon.All their lives, they had seen melons only once they were in their plates, peeled and cut in slices...So the emperor, who had an open mind and loved innovation and enterprise, but also believed in tax cutting and in keeping overheads under control, had them all buried alive.Morality for Sacred Planet: When planning for the Earth's survival, let us stick to facts and proven experience, and stay away from preconceived ideas, especially the ones considered as official authority by the Mand... I mean the Media.André Teissier du Cros

For or against the Principle of Precaution

2007-10-24T08:00:00+02:00

In early October, the Jacques Attali Commission raised the question of the Principle of Precaution upheld in the French Constitution. Its members considered in majority that this text was a restraint to economic growth and in particular to research. Here is a true topic for debate. If it is of interest to you, your remarks interest us.Here comes ours; They will allow you to better understand our dogma.An English anthropologist, Roy Lewis, is the author of a book you can find in pocket edition under the title « Why I ate my father ».It is the story of the first humans, told in a very crazy manner, but concealing lessons which deserve to be remembered.One day an ingenious father gone down from his tree with his family and wandering about the savannah discovers how to make a fire. It’s magical, but dangerous : it burns ! His brother, a cautious and conservative man, worries about it - one could even say he panics. Suddenly, alarmed, he shouts to all his litter and to those who want to follow him : « Back to the trees ! »For thousands of years humans have found themselves confronted in such a way with the risks of their discoveries, and are more or less putting up with them. So was born and has developed what we call Progress. It does not come without risk. But one cannot deny it has brought better living conditions to the major part of mankind.Therefore the concept of risk management imposed itself, and with it the Principle of Precaution. Today, when considering damages we are causing to the planet, many think it would be safer to stick to the Principle of Precaution and reduce potential risk upfront. We would be like alpinists all of a sudden refusing to climb the mountain by fear of danger. Unable to call themselves alpinists anymore... So goes the march of mankind, we think. It cannot progress without discoveries, and this for two reasons ; First because it takes place in an inexorable evolution of nature, as from a given order pointing towards an ever greater complexity, that might lead it to explore other universes one day. Then, because the challenge it is facing to save the planet cannot be achieved without a joint effort towards innovative solutions, and they won’t be without risk. What is anyway more risky than life itself? And since life is short, let us live it fully and not allow the cautious and finicky ones play on our fears and make it all bleak.Let’s not listen to fear. Let’s live!

Genetically modified plants vacuum up toxins

2007-10-17T20:06:43+02:00

Scientists have figured out a way to trick plants into doing the dirty work of environmental cleanup, U.S. and British researchers reported on Monday.

Researchers at the University of Washington have genetically altered poplar trees to pull toxins out of contaminated ground water, offering a cost-effective way of cleaning up environmental pollutants.

A group of British researchers, meanwhile, has developed genetically altered plants that can clean residues of military explosives from the environment.

The planet is not at risk. We are

2007-09-27T18:05:00+02:00

Over the past few years questions have been asked ever more forcefully whether global climate changes occur in natural cycles or not, to what degree we human beings contribute to them, what threats stem from them and what can be done to prevent them.

Scientific studies demonstrate that any changes in temperature and energy cycles on a planetary scale could mean a generalized danger to all people on all continents.

Global Warming Could Trigger World Crop Collapse

2007-09-18T15:21:39+02:00

With the U.N.-affililated Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) already warning of declining grain harvests due to extreme weather, a U.S. study released last week suggests that global warming could cause world agricultural systems to face possible collapse by 2080, with countries in the south being the hardest hit.

Gorillas head race to extinction

2007-09-12T23:09:48+02:00

By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website

Gorillas, orangutans, and corals are among the plants and animals which are sliding closer to extinction.

The Red List of Threatened Species for 2007 names habitat loss, hunting and climate change among the causes.

The World Conservation Union (IUCN) has identified more than 16,000 species threatened with extinction, while prospects have brightened for only one.

The IUCN says there is a lack of political will to tackle the global erosion of nature.

Governments have pledged to stem the loss of species by 2010; but it does not appear to be happening.

The rate of biodiversity loss is increasing
Julia Marton-Lefevre

"This year's Red List shows that the invaluable efforts made so far to protect species are not enough," said the organisation's director-general, Julia Marton-Lefevre.

"The rate of biodiversity loss is increasing, and we need to act now to significantly reduce it and stave off this global extinction crisis."

One in three amphibians, one in four mammals, one in eight birds and 70% of plants so far assessed are believed to be at risk of extinction, with human alteration of their habitat the single biggest cause.

Critical list

The tone of this year's Red List is depressingly familiar. Of 41,415 species assessed, 16,306 are threatened with extinction to a greater or lesser degree.

RED LIST DEFINITIONS

Extinct - Surveys suggest last known individual has died

Critically Endangered - Extreme high risk of extinction - this some Critically Endangered species are also tagged Possibly Extinct

Endangered - Species at very high risk of extinction

Vulnerable - Species at high risk of extinction

Near Threatened - May soon move into above categories

Least Concern - Species is widespread and abundant

Data Deficient - not enough data to assess

The main changes from previous assessments include some of the natural world's iconic animals, such as the western lowland gorilla, which moves from the Endangered to the Critically Endangered category.

Numbers have declined by more than 60% over the last 20-25 years.

Forest clearance has allowed hunters access to previously inaccessible areas; and the Ebola virus has followed, wiping out one-third of the total gorilla population in protected areas, and up to 95% in some regions.

Ebola has moved through the western lowland gorilla's rangelands in western central Africa from the southwest to the northeast. If it continues its march, it will reach all the remaining populations within a decade.

The Sumatran orangutan was already Critically Endangered before this assessment, with numbers having fallen by 80% in the last 75 years.

But IUCN has identified new threats to the 7,300 individuals that remain. Forests are being cleared for palm oil plantations, and habitat is being split up by the building of new roads.

Governments know they are going to fail to reach that target
Jean-Christophe Vie

In Borneo, home to the second orangutan species, palm oil plantations have expanded 10-fold in a decade, and now take up 27,000 sq km of the island. Illegal logging reduces habitat still further, while another threat comes from hunting for food and the illegal international pet trade.

So fragmented have some parts of the Bornean forest become that some isolated orangutan populations now number less than 50 individuals, which IUCN notes are "apparently not viable in the long term".

Straight to zero

The great apes are perhaps the most charismatic creatures on this year's Red List, but the fact they are in trouble has been known for some years. Perhaps more surprising are some of the new additions.

"This is the first time we've assessed corals, and it's a bit worrying because some of them moved straight from being not assessed to being possibly extinct," said Jean-Christophe Vie, deputy head of IUCN's species programme.

"We know that some species were there in years gone by, but now when we do the assessment they are not there. And corals are like the trees in the forest; they build the ecosystem for fish and other animals."

IUCN is now embarking on a complete assessment of coral species, and expects to find that about 30% to 40% are threatened.

The most glaring example of a waterborne creature failed by conservation efforts is probably the baiji, the Yangtze river dolphin, which is categorised as Critically Endangered, Possibly Extinct....

Read it and weep

Handy Climate Change Guide

2007-05-21T21:51:48+02:00

The handy New Scientist "Climate Change: A Guide for the Perplexed" succinctly refutes or explains the 26 most common climate change myths and misconceptions, such as: Chaotic systems are not predictable, They predicted global cooling in the 1970s, CO2 isn't the most important greenhouse gas, The lower atmosphere is cooling, not warming, We are simply recovering from the Little Ice Age, Hurricane Katrina was caused by global warming.

Britain's dirty cities more dangerous than an A-bomb

2007-04-04T00:35:16+02:00

Air pollution in major cities is potentially more damaging to health than being exposed to the radioactive fallout of an atomic bomb, according to a report published today.

The study suggests that high levels of urban air pollution cut life expectancy by more than the radiation exposure of emergency workers sent into the 19-mile exclusion zone around the Chernobyl disaster.

Report: Global warming changing life on Earth

2007-04-02T21:54:15+02:00

From the micro to the macro, from plankton in the oceans to polar bears in the far north and seals in the far south, global warming has begun changing life on Earth, international scientists will report next Friday.

"Changes in climate are now affecting physical and biological systems on every continent," says a draft obtained by The Associated Press of a report on warming's impacts, to be issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the authoritative U.N. network of 2,000 scientists and more than 100 governments.

The most polluted city on earth

2007-04-01T20:55:00+02:00

Fighting for air: frontline of war on global warming

Progress comes at a high price for China and India, but there are grounds for hope

Jonathan Watts in Linfen, Randeep Ramesh in New Delhi
Monday March 26, 2007
The Guardian

Residents of Linfen, China, wear masks to protect themselves from the pollution. Photograph: Wu Hong/EPA

In the most polluted city on earth, the smog is so thick that it seems to consume its source. Iron foundries, smelting plants and cement factories loom out of the haze then disappear once more as you drive along Linfen's roads. The outlines of smoke stacks blur in the filthy mist. No sooner are the plumes of carbon and sulphur belched out than the chimneys are swallowed up again.

Kenya and Tea Production

2007-03-25T21:20:00+02:00

A United Nations project being launched in Kenya will help about a dozen tea plantations build mini-hydropower dams to cut their energy costs.....read the article

Amazon 'faces more deadly droughts'

2007-03-25T18:26:50+02:00

Two years ago the world was shocked by pictures of hundreds of rotting fish floating in the world's second largest river.

Stranded villagers stared in bewilderment at dried out banks, and helicopters delivered food and water to isolated river communities.

London plans to be the world's greenest city...

2007-03-01T16:10:00+01:00

London is planning to cut carbon emissions by 60%.....

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES - POLAND

2007-02-22T07:50:00+01:00

POLAND SET TO DESTROY THEIR OWN ENVIRONMENT>>>>

previously (link to article)

Recent update on the Polish Highway debate...

The most recent update to the debate over the Rospuda River Valley highway.... the wetlands are included in the EU's Natura 2000 conservation scheme .... has at least stopped the construction whilst the Polish government takes real time to look at the alternatives instead of just 'bulldozing' ahead without the slightest thought about it's environment.

Poland seems hell bent on catching up on decades of communist rule - now it's a 'develop or perish' attitude - don't look to either side, put in the ear plugs - don't listen to any piece of advice - just put your boots on and develop (maybe a misnomer in this case!).

read the details..

Going in cycle

2006-08-03T21:37:55+02:00

I have received my Velo'v card today!

But what is Velo'v, you might say... Velo'v is a brilliant and simple concept. There are about 3000 bikes provided by the city hall of Lyon. All those bikes are situated in 200 'stations' around Lyon and in the suburbs. You can take a bike where you live, for example, ride to your workplace and park it to the closest velo'v station, where somebody else will use it to go somewhere else.

If you live in Lyon and wish to use the bikes on a regular basis, you can order a long term card (like the one I have received). It cost £7 (10€) for a whole year. After that, you can use the bike as much as you want, considering the first half hour is totally free and after that it is about 0,50€ per hour. If you are just passing by, you can get a short term card which costs 1€. Once again, the first half hour is free and then it's about 1€ per hour. It is really convenient for people who have no opportunity to store their bikes at home or at work, and you don't need to worry that someone is going to steal your beloved bicycle. The bikes are really handy with a basket at the front, three levels of speed (not sure how to explain this, but you get the idea... don't you..?) the required lights and the thing to tie your bike to something to avoid theft (obvious lack of vocabulary here...). Everyone loves Velo'v in Lyon, they constantly add more stations and more bicycles and the concept has already reached other French towns. More and more people choose to use bikes instead of cars in town which makes the city much more agreable and clean.It has also brought back an old habit of our ancestors : the romantic cycling... All around Lyon, you come accross young men riding Velo'v with their girls facing them, sitting on the handlebar... I'll try and take a picture sometime soon. Romance is back in the heart of our cities, so bucolic!

The new consumer. She’s making companies concerned.

2006-06-09T13:55:00+02:00

The Independent, UK, in a recent article notes that companies are now more concerned than ever about environmental issues.

The smart ones know they have to be, because their consumers are driving them to thinking.

“Shoppers are becomingly increasingly frustrated by the voluminous packaging that fills their bins when they unwrap food.

That irritation has been picked up in research. Consumers shouldering the hassle and moral unease about generating this vast, obvious waste could choose to patronise street markets that are cheaper and less wasteful.

Consumers aren’t just annoyed because packaging is awkward, many are worried about the environment. And big companies are only too aware that, with climate change rapidly rising up the political and public agenda, green issues cannot be ignored.”

If that ain’t good news, what is?