Archive for Earth Friendly
Land, sea and air - how our noise pollution is impacting other creatures
Posted by: | CommentsWe tend to think of pollution as something we can see or at least quantify, whether it be a river strewn with waste, a harbour full of plastic bags, or broken glass along the side of a highway. We are also aware of the damage we do to our air quality as we read about the particles of pollutants in the air we breathe or the ominous impacts to our ozone layer. Sometimes however our pollution impacts our environment simply due to what we consider our evolution and animals suffer from something we can’t even see - noise pollution. I was amazed to read about some of the ways our progress is impacting animals in terms of noise and wanted to share some examples with you.
Female gray tree frogs struggle to listen for and then locate male frogs who seek them during the mating season. The reason is the ever growing
noise from traffic near to their habitats. The population declines as the different species either struggle to find a potential partner or in the case of the European tree frog they’ve simply stopped trying by limiting their calls to ‘occasional’ versus the instinctive constant. A frogs way of saying I can’t compete with your noise.
The hermit crab evolved to have the ultimate in protection from enemies via their shells but this provides no buffer from noise. Studies show that the noise emitted from boats traveling nearby confuses the crabs to the extent that they fail to notice or hear the predators who seek them in the water. Delayed response time due to confusion results in the crabs being caught as prey rather than making safe in their shells. Hermit crabs that live in quieter locales survive at a much higher rate as their evolved protection in doing the trick - they react quicker and live longer.
We’ve made it harder for the creatures that fly also, as many bats, owls and birds, are finding noises from planes, construction, machinery and vehicle traffic is changing the way they live. Environmental noise has been shown to impact the way that bats and owls seek and hunt for prey. Bats such as the Bechstein’s bat are less likely to hunt in noisy areas and will move to other areas that don’t provide equivalent food sources and starve. Many waterbirds, birds of prey, and starlings have adapted to urban volumes by simply being louder themselves, other birds with lower frequencies are not as able to change their tunes, which potentially causes them to fail to communicate with and find each other for mating.
Sadly we are even having negative noise related impacts under the ocean waves as noise from sonar, commercial shipping and drilling for oil and gas are causing great harm. It appears that whales, dolphins and porpoises can become scared by the high-pitch sounds, causing them to surface in too shallow water that is beyond their physical limits and beach themselves. Communication within these species also falls foul of noise pollution like sonar, which has caused some dolphins to go temporarily deaf and whales to be separated from their calves. The potential problems in the the oceans may be the most perilous of all as due to climate change, the oceans are expected to get noisier as molecules that absorb sound waves are being changed as the water becomes more acidic. Some are predicting that sound absorption in the ocean may decrease by 60 percent and that underwater noise may travel 70 percent further in the future as a result of climate change.
The fragile ecology of our earth never sounded so at risk.
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The 82nd Academy Awards, even Oscar is greener
Posted by: | CommentsSo did you watch the 82nd Academy Awards last night? Did you notice (when you weren’t grinning at images of George Clooney or Keira Knightley) that a number of the nominated films had an eco-theme to them? You probably spotted at least one as it was nominated for almost everything (9 nominations in all) including best picture but there were four films in total that had a semblance of green or environmental messages contained within.
Hollywood gathers every March to honour the most creative and talented movie-makers in the industry but last night marked the first Oscars ceremony that so many films which asked their respective audiences to consider matters green were all nominated. In years past the closest we tended to get to films with a global message about sustainability were typically apocalyptic in nature but last nights nominations asked questions both large and small about the way in which we live. So before I get started can you think of the four films that went before the Academy for consideration?
I’ll start with the most obvious, that being James Cameron’s blockbuster Avatar. The film that has now broken all global box office records didn’t win the biggest prizes on offer for Best Picture or Director but in terms of influence you have to acknowledge the audience worldwide. In just 12 weeks the film has grossed some $2.6 billion and remarkably more than 70% of that is from markets outside the US making the film a record breaker in all markets. Has the green message of the film been lost on those who were captivated by the special effects? Research suggests no and that it was impossible to disregard the message in relation to the future of our planet - Cameron suggests the film was to be ‘motivational and ‘a cautionary tale’.
The second film you may have seen, as it received just the one nomination (best documentary feature) and also won it. The Cove was more than a film, it serves as a call to activism which you can certainly support via their website. I won’t give away everything as it’s a film that should be explored on a personal basis but the synopsis is as accurate as can be:
Utilizing state-of-the-art techniques, including hidden microphones and cameras in fake rocks, the team uncovers how this small seaside village serves as a horrifying microcosm of massive ecological crimes happening worldwide. The result is a provocative mix of investigative journalism, eco-adventure and arresting imagery, adding up to an unforgettable story that has inspired audiences worldwide to action.
Our third green Oscar nominated film was a documentary that I reviewed on the blog back in November, and like ‘The Cove’ I heartily recommend that you take the time to rent or download a copy of ‘Food Inc’. It’s a film that at best will change the way you consume food or at worst will make you suggest others watch the film. We have to review the way we gather, raise and process our food. It really is as simple as that.
Finally something a little lighter but no less pertinent. I’ll even give you a clue that it was created from the book by the wonderful (and marginally subversive) Roald Dahl. Dahl had an uncanny knack of combining children’s stories with messages that reflected just how much the adults have taken us away from our goals as a society. If that seems a lofty goal for a kid’s film its because you’ve yet to see the ‘Fantastic Mr Fox’ which manages to combine both. The film, nominated for best animated feature film and best original score features Mr Fox leading a campaign against a collection of evil farmers. You need to see it!
So if you are hoping to see the Oscar nominated films one wet weekend, why not start with these four?
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Green Gazette (Issue 40) Eco-retailing, Plastiki and winning the lottery
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s March! How did that happen - I’m sure I was just adjusting to it being a new decade just a few weeks ago and suddenly January and February have both come and gone. Nevertheless I’ll move forward with the latest installment of the Green Gazette where we share with you all the green news and ideas that are fit to print (in an online sense).
This is giant retail news from the UK - I can’t think of a good equivalent in North America (perhaps Target?) but the British retailer Marks & Spencer (M&S) has announced a green commitment that is beyond compare. You can read all about it via this link from the Environmental Leader but I’ll be happy to share the abbreviated version with you. M&S have made a statement that by 2020 every product that they sell must be able to boast of ‘at least one eco or ethical attribute’. Phase one is that 50% of suppliers have reached the threshold by 2015 and 100% by the end of the decade. It’s a fantastic step and part of the retailers huge ‘Plan A’ which calls for the company, by 2012, to become carbon neutral, send no waste to landfills and extend sustainable sourcing. The actual scope of the project is as ambitious as it is impacting, as the retailer currently carries some 36,000 product lines. Very exciting!
Plastiki
Do you remember Kon-Tiki, the (eco) boat/raft constructed by Norwegian Thor Heyerdahl from limited parts to demonstrate his theory that the native people of South America had constructed a craft to traverse the South Pacific many hundreds of years prior to the European golden age of explorers? No? I had to read the book in school and while many of the details escape me all these years later the name of the boat certainly remains. Thus I found it novel that banking heir turned environmentalist David de Rothschild has named his vessel ‘Plas-tiki’ as a modern day homage to the sailing Dane. Plas-tiki is a remarkable boat also, made up of some 12,000 recycled 2 litre plastic bottles. His mission is of similar stature and involves sailing from California to the infamous Great Pacific Garbage Patch in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The giant garbage patch is a huge soup of plastic waste and other man made sludge that circles in on itself in the middle of our largest ocean. Estimates on size range from 700,000 square kilometres (270,000 sq mi) to more than 15,000,000 square kilometres (5,800,000 sq mi) (0.41% to 8.1% of the size of the Pacific Ocean), or up to “twice the size of the continental United States” The area may contain over 100 million tons of debris. His trip is aimed to bring attention to the growing area of the ocean that is essentially dying due to the poor water quality. If he sticks to his plans he’ll not be stuck in the patch and will continue onward to Australia. You can follow his eco-adventure via his blog. Incidentally Kon-Tiki was almost a success, read the book!
Finally a story of good luck and what a lucky couple then did with it. Winning a lottery of over £56 million in the UK (over $82 million) an
Lottery Winners Eco-Farm
English couple did what many winners would do and moved into a new home. After giving their old home to their cleaner (they had a cleaner) Nigel Page and Justine Laycock purchased a 400-year-old dairy farm. Where’s the green in that you might wonder? The farm was restored by developer Paul Lavelle, who spent £2 million transforming it into an eco-friendly home. It features a ’solar park’ where 20 panels captured the (occasional) heat of the sun and store it in rocks in the ground and later distributed to the home. The house uses just 10% of the energy required to run a normal household. The farm is almost 100 per cent carbon neutral, you can read more about it in the Daily Mail.
That’s all for now!
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Eva Longoria Parker Manages an Earth Friendly Business and a Green Home
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ABC’s Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria Parker may not be the first name that comes to mind when you think about eco-minded celebrities, but she is authentic in both her personal and business life. In an interview with Jennifer Schwab from the Huffington Post Longoria Parker discussed her earth friendly business and explained why green issues mean so much to her:
“Growing up on a ranch with lots of land and animals, I came to appreciate the beauty of nature and the simplicity of life. It is because of this that I have an intense love for the earth and Mother Nature. My father instilled in me the idea of conservation at an early age and it has stuck with me since. He would take us camping for days at a time and teach us how to eat and survive off the land. He taught us how to find water, what berries to eat off trees, how to plant our own vegetables. I remember my dad always walking around the house turning off lights constantly and always yelling at us if we left the water on while brushing our teeth. To this day, I cannot be in a house where there are lights on in a room that is not being used. And I often yell at Tony for leaving the water on while brushing his teeth. I have managed to carry my conservation ideas into my own life. I don’t use bottled water in the house; we recycle, and use reusable bags at grocery stores. So when the time came to build out Beso and the Nightclub Eve in Vegas, I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to do this right for mother earth”.
Eva Longoria Parker's Beso and Kiss Kiss Lounge
How exactly did the talented actress and restaurateur manage to make the second Beso an earth friendly business? As anyone who watches entrainment news magazine show like Entertainment Tonight, The Insider, Extra and E! News etc… knows, Beso is an uber trendy and successful L.A. hotspot. “The City Center edition was created as a green version to meet LEED certification, with upgrades such as: a special $350,000 stove hood and scrubber to filter volatile organic kitchen compounds; Swarovski crystals which were reclaimed from the Oscars broadcast for use as chandeliers; reclaimed woods throughout; recycled wallpapers; recycled and compostable to-go boxes; recycled paper menus; a green cleaning crew; lots of natural light to save power during the day; locally sourced building materials to save on shipping and reduce the transportation carbon footprint” according to the Huffington Post article.
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