Calling out liars

Before their lies can be repeated enough to become the truth.

Buy Nothing Day

Respect the planet, consume less, feel better. (Feel sorry for the WalMart employee trampled to death by shoppers.)



Update: Steve Bates of The Yellow Doggerel Democrat defines Black Friday.

Update 11/29: Bryan of Why Now? on the gun fight at Toys R Us and why we have this frantic need to overwhelm our kids with crap.

Update 12/1: Bill Moyers talks to Michael Pollan about food, food quality, being aware where your food comes from, eating local.

When you have nothing to lose

You apparently show the nation you don't give a shit:

The Environmental Protection Agency is working on new clean air rules that would allow coal-fired power plants to be built closer to national parks.

It's part of an effort by the Bush administration to put looser environmental regulations in place before leaving office.

*cough* Thanks, Georgie. We'll *cough* be thinking of you after you're gone.

Edible cars

Made from corn.... parts of it at least:

How organic is your vehicle? While corn-based door panels and dashboards made from hemp may sound like a pipe dream, major car manufacturers have begun ditching traditional petroleum-based plastics and composites in favour of bio-based materials.

Indeed, researchers have predicted that by 2015, 100 kilograms of every car could come from materials made from plants like soy, wheat, canola and sugar cane.

"By and large, anything you make from oil you can make from biological material," says Terry Daynard, chief executive officer of the Ontario BioAuto Council, an industry-driven group working to promote biomaterials. "The question, of course, is can you do it in a cost-effective manner and can you do it with all the quality requirements the auto manufacturers want."

[snip]

Biomaterials are considered "greener" than those based on materials such as fossil fuels because they don't generate greenhouse gases. Replacing one tonne of conventional plastic with a bio-equivalent eliminates three tonnes of planet-warming carbon dioxide, for example.

That's a big plus for manufacturers who see Europe setting hard targets for carbon dioxide emissions and want to be prepared if similar regulations are enacted here.

Bioplastics are also generally lighter than their petroleum-based counterparts, which translates into better mileage. Every one-kilogram reduction in vehicle weight saves up to nine litres of fuel a year.

Finally, when the life the vehicle ends, plant-based parts can be composted instead of consigned to landfills.

As long as it doesn't turn into compost while still being driven....

One way to not worry about the environment

Is to cover it in as much oil in the shortest time possible:


Moscow -

More than 30,000 birds have died along the Russian coastline following an oil and sulphur spill in the Black Sea. "The damage is so great that it cannot be estimated. This amounts to an ecological disaster," Alexander Tkatschov, the governor of the affected southern territory of Krasnodar, was quoted as saying Monday by the Interfax news agency.

President Vladimir Putin would fly to the area immediately, government chief Viktor Subkov said.

The oil spill occurred when a severe storm in the Black Sea caused tankers and cargo ships to break apart on Sunday, spilling thousands of tons of fuel and sulphur.

San Francisco -

Hundreds of workers attempted to save wildlife and halt the spread of a large oil spill in the San Francisco Bay that has continued to spread and led to the closing of many beaches on the US West Coast. More than 200 birds have been buried alive in oil and 60 have already died, radio broadcaster KCBS reported late Saturday. More than 220,00 litres of oil have leaked into the bay since Wednesday after a huge container ship slammed into the Bay Bridge.

Only 75,000 litres of oil has been cleaned up so far, and 13 kilometres of floating barriers had been deployed to halt the spread.

Sixty boats, including 20 special craft to remove oil from the water, were involved in the more than 500-man cleanup effort, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Update 12/9: And now, South Korea:

Seoul - A Hong-Kong registered supertanker that collided with a barge spilt an estimated 10,500 tons of oil into the Yellow Sea off the coast of South Korea Friday, according to the Maritime Ministry. The Hebei Spirit was eight kilometres north-west of the Taean peninsula, 110 kilometres south-west of Seoul, waiting to enter port when it was rammed by an unmanned barge carrying a crane.

The crane punched three holes into the tanker that had a cargo of 260,000 tons of crude oil. The barge had loosened itself from a tug in stormy weather.

More than 30 ships and helicopters have been deployed to prevent a larger oil spill amid fears that the leak could reach the coast by Saturday.

Love Food Hate Waste campaign

Kicks off in Britain. What if we activated something like that over here? What if we actually learned how to eat properly, ate more healthily, and didn't buy more than we needed? Our nation-wide obesity problem would disappear, vegetable consumption would rise, meat production would fall, diabetes cases would drop, our landfills would not fill as fast.

Sounds good? As Americans we are told to consume, faster, more. And remember, whenever an addict is cured, someone loses money. Imagine the food corporate writhings and whinings that would go on as we ceased to eat crap. How many businesses would see their income drop? Could we ever say to ourselves: eat less, want less, buy less. Use up, wear out, recycle?

LONDON - New research has revealed that Britons waste a whooping 6.7 million tons of unused fresh fruit, vegetables and baked items annually. The Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) estimated that the cost of these food items touches at least £8 billion per year.

Therefore a new campaign called 'Love Food Hate Waste' has been launched in the country with an aim of increasing awareness among consumers. The organizers estimated that almost one third of all food purchased in Britain's High Street ends up being wasted.

Food that is thrown away often ends in landfills, where it decays and released gases like methane, which are classified greenhouse gases. The WRAP claims that when energy expended to pack and transport the food is taken into account, almost 15 million tonnes of carbon dioxide is spewed into the atmosphere.

"Our research showed that 90 per cent of consumers are completely unaware of the amount of food they throw away. Once attention is drawn to it however, we know that people are surprised and keen to take action," said Liz Goodwin, chief executive of WRAP. "If we could halt the amount of food being wasted in this way, we would make a big impact – the same as taking 1 in 5 cars off UK roads."

About that global warming thing....

Copenhagen - Danish researchers have provided further evidence to suggest how the North Pole's ice cap is shrinking, reports said Monday. "The ice cap is at an extreme low. For the 50 years we have data from, we have never seen anything like it," Leif Toudal Pedersen of the Technical University of Denmark told the Jyllands-Posten newspaper.

A survey based on satellite imagery from Sunday suggested that the ice cap was 40 to 45 per cent less - or a reduction of 2.5 million square kilometres - than on average during the period 1997-2000, the newspaper reported.

[snip]

Global warming was a contributing factor, but this year strong currents have also swept large masses of ice from Siberia via the North Pole past eastern Greenland and further south where it melted, Pedersen said.

Ice free summers in the North Pole area could be a reality in 15 to 20 years as opposed to previous projections of 30 to 40 years, he said.

No matter what the White House says about it, it is happening.

Some ideas on how to make your house more green from the Sierra Club, and people are not waiting for the politicians to tell them what to do.

51 things we could do to save the environment.

Planet Ark.