No comment -- just watch this and act...

The problem with palm oil – Orang Utans on brink of extinction

Rescued orangutans find sanctuary

BBC Panorama documentary:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/front_page/newsid_8518000/8518752.stm

Chingo and Jojo are just two of the thousands of orangutans whose lives have been blighted by the destruction of the Indonesian rainforest. Panorama followed their journey from rescue to re-homing.

But what does the future hold for man's closest relative? Demand for palm oil found in many products sold in British supermarkets is feeding the industry that threatens to wipe out an entire species.

Benn: 'Power lies with shoppers'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/front_page/newsid_8518000/8518843.stm

Hilary Benn, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, told Panorama that it is up to consumers to send manufacturers a message about sourcing palm oil that does not threaten the endangered orangutan or contribute to destruction of the rainforest.

In January, Mr Benn announced that DEFRA will be undertaking the first research project of its kind to assess the UK's relationship with palm oil, including how much is consumed and where it is used most, including government procurement.

He said that working with business, the government will attempt to map the palm oil supply chain to the UK in a bid to help shift Britain's supply to sustainable sources.

Panorama: Dying for a Biscuit, BBC One, Monday 22 February, 2010, 8.30pm.

Argyll - Sustainable Oban - at The Wave in Glasgow

Hiya
A few of us travelled to Glasgow (by car-share and with one of the most climate-friendly vehicles, a Toyota Prius) to participate in Scotland's great Climate Change demo. It was great to see about 8,000 people gathered to march, chant, dance and wave. We felt buoyed up by the news just in this morning that Barack Obama will attend the Copenhagen climate summit this December during the period when it matters most, i.e. the second week. (source)

Here are two video impressions from Glasgow:



and



Let's hope this, and the much bigger demo down in London on the same day, will make an impression on the UK government, help the Scottish government push through its very ambitious legislation to mitigate climate change, and encourage everyone at COP15* to pull together for fair, binding, fast climate action.

*COP15 - The official title of the Copenhagen conference which takes place from 7-18 December 2009. It refers to the 15th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). (source)

16 ships create as much pollution as all the cars in the world

Just read an article in The Mail on Sunday (22 Nov 09) that "16 ships create as much pollution as all the cars in the world". Apparently, "54 oil tankers are anchored off the coast of Britain, refusing to unload their fuel until prices have risen." … "the super ships that keep the West in everything from Christmas gifts to computers pump our killer chemicals linked to thousands of deaths because of the filthy fuel they use."
Ships are as bad for our climate as planes. It's time we gave them the attention they need.
Hey, people, Copenhagen is almost upon us. Write to your governments and councillors and representatives to include ships in the next climate protocol.

For the full article, go here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1229857/How-16-ships-create-pollution-cars-world.html


PS: It is a good idea to think before you buy: do you really need this? do you really want to give your friend/lover/parent/child the gift you were thinking of?

Greenpeace and Spencer Tunick have done it again

Hiya

Remember my post on a Greenpeace/Spencer Tunick co-operation on the Aletsch Glacier in Switzerland in July 2007? Well, they have teamed up again to try and save the vineyards of France.

The following is based on information gleaned from the Greenpeace website on the subject, some of it in French (my translation):

On Saturday, October 3rd 2009, in a vineyard in Fuissé, in the South of Burgundy, 713 individuals joined together in a militant artistic installation organised by American artist Spencer Tunick to highlight the impacts of climate change being felt all around the world. In France, they are already affecting the wines and the vineyards. If we don't act here and now, humankind and its cultural heritage will ultimately be condemned.

For more than 15 years, Tunick has staged mass nude installations all over the world. His collective landscapes always question humankind's relationship with its environment.

Under a magnificent sun and in a wonderful ambiance, Tunick achieved four different installations, two of them involving all participants, and one each involving only the women and the men, respectively. The participants and the Greenpeace team were all very happy to be part of an event relayed to most TV stations in France and to many international agencies.

In July 2007 I participated in "a large living sculpture, [to] be a part of a body landscape expressing humankind's vulnerability to climate change." Why? Because, with all those other people, I believe that "Another future is possible." (Greenpeace)

Another great photo from the Aletsch Glacier is on that site. It brings back some magnificent memories ...

Talk soon! Peace.

21 Sep 2009: Wake-Up Call on Climate Change

Wow, what a day! Even Oban contributed to a wake-up call sent to the world's leaders to take effective, binding, fair action to mitigate climate change. The Oban Times of 24th September has an article on p. 2 with a good photo (better than mine, above); ForArgyll.com has an interesting article and follow-up on their news site. And, of course, the Sustainable Oban blog, Sustaining Oban, has some information.

Click here for a video put together and published by avaaz.org, the organisation that launched this particular boat. Avaaz comment on the video page:
"On 21 September 2009, at more than 2600 events in 135 countries across the globe, we joined together to issue a deafening wake-up call to world leaders on climate change. The breadth and creativity of events is breathtaking, and our message broke through to leaders and international media."

And in a message to those who signed up, Avaaz wrote:
"The Wake Up call was covered by hundreds of major news outlets and made the evening news everywhere from Germany to New Zealand. Europe's environment chief praised 'the mobilisation of so many people by Avaaz.org', and the Spanish environment minister called the action 'extraordinary'. After a deluge of votes and phone-calls from the UK, Prime Minister Gordon Brown became the first major world leader to agree to our demand to go to Copenhagen, taking a phone-call personally and saying that with 'the pressure that can brought by organizations like yours...what people think is impossible can become possible'.
"World leaders have heard us. But as Tuesday's UN summit showed, one day of action won't be enough to get real progress on climate. We need to come back again and again, louder and louder, until we get a fair, ambitious and binding climate treaty.
"We'll keep the pressure high through the TCKTCKTCK campaign until Copenhagen, with another global day of action on October 24th, and start planning right now for the LARGEST CLIMATE MOBILIZATION IN HISTORY ON DECEMBER 12th, in the final days of the Copenhagen negotiations.
"Avaaz is now 3.6 million members strong in 14 languages, in every country of the world. On Monday, our movement took a huge step forward -- we showed that we can not only send millions of messages to leaders or donate millions to worthy causes, but that in just a few days we can flood the streets and crash phone lines from Mexico City to Mumbai.
"If we stick together, anything is possible.
"With hope and excitement for the future,
"Ricken, Ben, Paul, Milena, Alice, Luis, Brett, Taren, Margaret, Iain, Pascal, Graziela, Paula, Benjamin, Rajeev, Veronique, Raluca, Julius, Yuri, Saravanan, Vladimir, Tihomir, Sam, Emma and the whole Avaaz team
"PS - the video above was made from over 10,000 wake up call pictures and 600 videos uploaded to Avaaz in just 24 hours! There were many tears among people making the video as we saw the amazing dedication of everyone, from the Avaaz community to our TCKTCKTCK campaign partners to people joining the first climate action of their lives. Click here to see the video of this amazing worldwide movement in action."

Way to go! Let's get ready for another global day of action on 24th October!

Cut 10% in carbon emissions during 2010

Hiya

A message from the Low Carbon Communities Network inspired me to explore the campaign to cut carbon emissions called 10:10.
Here's what I found:
****
Everyone's looking for something to do about climate change. What’s needed is something straightforward, immediate and meaningful. I think I've found it.

Today I joined thousands of individuals and organisations from across the country to unite behind one simple idea: that by working together we can achieve a 10% cut in carbon emissions during 2010. It’s called 10:10, and everyone can be a part of it.

Cutting 10% in one year is a bold target, but for most of us it’s an achievable one, and is in line with what scientists say we need right now. By signing up to 10:10 we’re not just promising to reduce our own emissions – we’re becoming part of a national drive to hit this ambitious goal country-wide. In our homes, in our workplaces, our schools and our hospitals, our galleries and football clubs and universities, we’ll be backing each other up as we take the first steps on the road to becoming a low-carbon society.

To find out more and sign up go to www.1010uk.org
To read coverage of the campaign from the Guardian go to www.guardian.co.uk/10-10
***

Countdown to Copenhagen

Global Warming -- a reminder of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)

Dear all,

Here's an extract from the UNFCCC website, just to remind ourselves of a burning issue, a ticking bomb, an alarm bell that has been silenced by the credit crunch and, here in the UK, by the MPs' ridiculous milking of the system which has resulted in the allowances scandal and has caused about half the MPs to leave their posts. Will it improve the system? I fear not. Will it help the climate? Hardly.

We need to focus our action. This is one way of doing it. Thank you, Low Carbon Communities, for the link and the information.

***
The Climate Convention and the Protocol

Over a decade ago, most countries joined an international treaty -- the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) -- to begin to consider what can be done to reduce global warming and to cope with whatever temperature increases are inevitable. More recently, a number of nations approved an addition to the treaty: the Kyoto Protocol, which has more powerful (and legally binding) measures. The UNFCCC secretariat supports all institutions involved in the climate change process, particularly the COP, the subsidiary bodies and their Bureau.

This section contains numerous resources -- for beginners or experts -- such as introductory and in-depth publications, the official UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol texts and a search engine to the UNFCCC library.

****

If you would like to download the clock for your own blog or website, click in the headline or here.

Writing Competition to Raise Awareness of the Sustainable Environment

Raising Awareness of the Sustainable Environment:
A new writing competition is launched by the 29th Winchester Writers’ Conference, Festival and Bookfair

3-5 July [2009] at the University of Winchester

All writers are challenged to enter this competition to express their awareness of the dangers of climate change and their concern for sustainability of our environment

Specification:

Write an article, no more than 1000 words, on either or both, topics:

• A Moment of Illumination: Describe the time when you saw climate change in a different light and how this experience has changed your life.

• Extreme Climate Events: Picture a place that you know well. Imagine stepping into the future and visiting this place in 2039. Describe how the impact of extreme climate change has altered this place.

First prize £100. Second Prize £75. Third prize £50 and Three Highly Commended Awards

Adjudicator: Robert Hutchison, Chairman, Winchester Action on Climate Change

Sponsor: The University of Winchester

For details contact
Barbara Large
MBE Centre for Research and Knowledge Exchange
University of Winchester
Winchester
Hampshire S022 4NR

Tel 01962 827238
Email Barbara.Large@winchester.ac.uk or print your application from the
website www.writersconference.co.uk

Time to be grateful -- Happy New Year!

Hello again

As the old year draws to a close, I have much reason to be grateful: for some wonderful old and new friends, both here in Oban and all over the world; for pretty good health; for clients who have stayed with me, some of them for almost decades now; for a warm, comfortable home; for lots and lots more -- so many reasons to feel truly privileged in a world full of misery, conflict, doom and gloom.

My heart goes out to everyone suffering in Palestine, Gaza, Colombia, Indonesia, Mexico, Guatemala, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Tibet, Chechnya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, in Congo, Zimbabwe -- almost wherever we look, there is conflict, strife, all-out war, most of it absolutely illegal, unjustified and fanned by vested interests, mostly based in the West, mostly, I'd say, due to greed and power-mongering. And our pamered lifestyles -- let's not forget that!

Our pampered lifestyles also drive a largely silent, even more frightening catastrophe: our planet will survive, nature will survive, but the human race is fast racing towards its own destruction. Still, there are people -- politicians especially -- who prefer to bury their heads in the sand, denying what is visible to anyone willing to look: CO2 levels and average temperatures are soaring; the polar ice caps are melting; deserts are ever expanding; water is becoming scarcer and scarcer.

Happy New Year to you all, anyway!
Or, in the words of the inimitable Mafalda, a lovely cartoon character of Argentinan origin:

"Les deseamos a todas las buenas personas que conocemos que el próximo año tengan toda la fuerza y den lo mejor de sí mismos sin importarles que les recompensen sus esfuerzos para trabajar por un mundo mejor, en el que la paz sea posible, con justicia y equidad y en el que sobrevivan las utopías aunque parezcan (y sean) imposibles."
In my own translation:
"We wish all the good people we know that in the New Year you may have all the strength to give your best, regardless of whether your efforts may be rewarded, to work towards a better world in which Peace may be possible, with justice and fairness; a world in which utopias may survive although they may seem (and be) impossible."

(from a PowerPoint presentation received in Dec. 2008 with the following credits: Imágenes ©Kino. Desconozco autor del texto. Realización Power Point: ©LnYamuni)