There are concerns circulating on the internet that organic farming could be ‘banned’ by a new Bill about to be presented to the US House and Senate. The Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009 (bill HR 875) proposes measures to enforce the use of pesticides and fertilisers to ensure ‘food safety’. The Bill’s jurisdiction might …
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Category:Living
Watch the planet breathe.
Sometimes its hard to see the big picture. Its difficult to step outside ourselves and realise that we are part of something larger than ourselves. Our plant is a living system and we are an organism on its skin – one that is rather parasitic at the moment though we could be benign. To get …
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Hexayurt – a great design for low impact building.
The Hexayurt is a prize-winning shelter you can build yourself for about $200 (backup link). Suitable raw materials include common building materials ( fire safe insulation boards,) hexacomb cardboard and plastic. You cut six 4′ x 8′ panels in half diagonally to make the roof, and use six more whole panels to form the walls. …
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The destruction of the Amazon is real (in pictures).
We are destroying the Amazon rain forest so that we can have cheap burgers. The slide show linked here shows the rapid decimation of the ancient forest. It takes centuries to regrow. Without it our biosphere is made vulnerable to climate volatility. It sounds like a foolish, short sighted trade-off doesn’t it? (The solution? Fewer …
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20 years on, the ozone hole lingers
The global recognition of CFCs’ destructive potential led to the 1989 Montreal Protocol banning the production of ozone-depleting chemicals. Scientists estimate that about 80% of the chlorine (and bromine, which has a similar ozone-depleting effect) in the stratosphere over Antarctica today is from human, not natural, sources. Models suggest that the concentration of chlorine and …
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Females more valuable, but still undervalued.
The Irish Central Statistics Office has just released a study on gender demographics for Ireland with some comparisons to the EU. The data shows that females are better educated, healthier and more peace-abiding than men, but they still earn far less and don’t get as much say on how the country is run. This may …
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Can we go “cold turkey” on fossil fuels?
Scientists now warn that we must effectively halt fossil fuel use if we are to avoid global climate warming of 2 degrees C by 2050. That’s probably a realistic estimate. But we are unlikely to do it. In fact we probably won’t even try. (See previous post.) But we could take a big step in …
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A sober perspective of the ecological crisis
In Bound to Burn, an article copied here, Peter Huber lays out a realistic perspective of the challenge of redirecting our energy consumption patterns. It is very sobering. He outlines the seemingly intractable and growing demand for carbon based fuels, comparing them with an insignificant impact of alternative fuels, concluding that carbon sequestration is the …
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Losses of $ 4 Trillion (that’s 12 zeroes).
The IMF has warned that potential losses from the credit crunch could reach $4 trillion and damage the financial system for years to come. It says that even if urgent action is taken to clean up the banking system, the process will be “slow and painful”, delaying economic recovery. It says that banks may need …
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Get happy – get off the earnings ladder!
People who compare their earnings with others are damaging their health, becoming less happy, more depressed, and less satisfied with life overall, according to new research by Professors Andrew Clark and Claudia Senik from the Paris School of Economics, to be presented at the annual conference of the Royal Economic Society. (BBC report here.) This …
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