Category Archives: hippie

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“A YouGov survey to be published tomorrow will show 3% of people have already stopped flying and another 10% have cut down because of concerns about climate change.” Times

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“We’re Greenpeace, and we want a fresh green Apple.
Right now, poison Apples full of chemicals (like toxic flame retardants, and polyvinyl chloride) are being sold worldwide. When they’re tossed, they usually end up at the fingertips of children in China, India and other developing-world countries. They dismantle them for parts, and are exposed to a dangerous toxic cocktail that threatens their health and the environment.”
Write to Apple to demand they:

  • Remove the worst toxic chemicals from all their products and production lines.
  • Offer and promote free “take-back” for all their products everywhere they are sold.

via greenmyapple.
I added this to the form letter part:
“I’ve been a Mac fan for a long time, and I was really disturbed to learn that Apple scored so badly on environmental impact. As much as I’ve loved my Macs, if I have to choose between my green values and my Mac, my green values are going to win.”

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“This Green Electronics Guide ranks leading mobile and PC manufacturers on their global policies and practice on eliminating harmful chemicals and on taking responsibility for their products once they are discarded by consumers. Companies are ranked solely on information that is publicly available.”
Greenpeace on how IT companies line up against the Toxic Tech campaign.
It’s a shame Apple do so badly but it’s good to see Nokia doing so much.

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“A federal judge in California has ordered the US Navy to temporarily stop using sonar equipment because it might harm whales and other sea mammals.” (BBC). Hippie joy!

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Interesting reading at a time when the nuclear power PR people are getting lots of positive stories in the popular press:
“If you believe newspapers and watch the news, nuclear power is part of the answer to global warming. Nuclear power is greenhouse-gas emission friendly, we’re told.
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But nuclear power only looks greenhouse-friendly from a distance. If you take a closer look, it’s far from a solution to the climate crisis.
The first problem is the widespread idea that most greenhouse gases come from electrical power. Unfortunately for all of us, that’s not the case. In 1999 the International Energy Agency estimated the world emissions from electrical networks at less than 39 per cent of total emissions.
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Going on the figures on the World Nuclear Association website, if the present global output of electricity were obtained entirely from nuclear reactors, and as efficiently as best practice allowed, the uranium in all the known rich-ore bodies in the world that they list would keep them going for just under nine years. Thereafter, the world would have no nuclear power stations operating and therefore no power stations at all.
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In other words, nuclear power isn’t neutral when it comes to greenhouse gases. On the contrary, greenhouse gases are emitted at every step along the way to generating nuclear power.
In dismissing solar power, Homer has to overlook the recent United Nations report saying that an 800-square-kilometre area of the Sahara could generate enough electricity for the whole world. He is, of course, still entitled to his opinion that solar is a pipedream. But so too is the popular notion that nuclear power is greenhouse-gas friendly.”
Debunking nuclear myth of greenhouse friendliness, The Age.

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I was just looking for information about recycling plastic on the Hackney website, and came across this:
“Yellow pages directories are made into separate components and reprocessed into new batteries or reused as raw materials.”
Batteries made out of phone books? That’s quite impressive technology.

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Amnesty to target net repression
“Internet users are being urged to stand up for online freedoms by backing a new campaign launched by human rights group Amnesty International.” (BBC)
“Just try logging on to the BBC News website from an internet cafe in China. You can’t. The same goes for websites for The New York Times, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and a host of others which could hardly be described as pornographic or “dangerous”.
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In its quest to control the internet China has sought help from overseas. Some large, US-based computer software companies are believed to have sold Beijing the sophisticated software needed to run its filtering system. Companies like Google and Yahoo! have also been accused of co-operating in China’s internet censorship.” (BBC)
“Some 45 years after an Observer article launched Amnesty, The Observer and Amnesty International have teamed up again to campaign against a new threat to our freedom – internet repression.” (Observer)
Find out more at http://irrepressible.info.
You can add a badge to your site or email with content that is censored somewhere in the world:

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And more in the ‘depressing environmental news’ section: “Fish stocks in international waters are being plundered to the point of extinction, a leading conservationist group has said.
Illegal fishing and bottom-trawling in deep waters are to blame, according to a report from WWF.
It says the current system of regional fishing regulation is failing to tackle the problem, with not enough being done to enforce quotas or replenish stocks.” (BBC)
Really depressing pictures of the seabed before and after trawling:

People sometimes ask why I don’t eat fish – this is why.