Helen Mirren in Oxfam Unwrapped: Give a decent gift
December 16, 2007
Award-winning actress Dame Helen Mirren, Helena Bonham Carter, funny man Rob Brydon and musician Will Young appear in a comical tongue-in-cheek and yet serious OxFam Unwrapped PSA appealing to the sensibilities of Christmas shoppers to give a decent gift this holiday season.
Instead of, say, another talking fish or dancing pig.
Oxfam International is a confederation of 13 organizations with over 3,000 partners in more than 100 countries working to end global poverty and injustice.
Two of the most popular gift donations are sheep and life-sustaining crop trees. Green gifts include a can of worms, fair trade honey, bicycle, sponsorship of a farmer, and a quinoa crop. For the truly hard to buy for on your Christmas gift list is the exotic purchase of a crocodile life.
(video of ad follows after the jump …)
Read more
Green Holidays List: 10 tips for a green holiday
December 5, 2007
Aside from the Christmas tree sitting in the livingroom, there is little about the season of giving that is green. Then again, depending on how the tree was grown and the amount of pesticides used, the only thing green about the Christmas tree might be the color of the tree needles.
To promote a mindfulness towards the consumerism of Christmas, the environmental organization ForestEthics offers ten simple and practical tips to greening the holiday season. The Green Holidays List offers alternative suggestions to toxic toys, plastic trees, store bought wrapping paper, disposable plates and cups, all things plastic and Christmas tree lights that are not powered by low-energy LED lights are among the list.
The number one tip on the Green Holidays List for a greener holiday season is asking Sears to stop sending the 1,083-page Sears Wish Book Christmas catalog. According to ForestEthics, in Canada the Sears Christmas catalog is printed using clearcut forest that threatens the caribou habitat in Ontario and the amount of energy needed to produce the print catalog could power 3,300 homes for a year.
Read more
Saint Nicholas: History of Santa Claus
December 4, 2007
Saint Nicholas is the historical inspiration for our modern day Santa Claus. The name Santa Claus comes from Sinterklaas, which is the Dutch word for Saint Nicholas. It was through his acts of generosity that Saint Nicholas became Santa. He was known for giving anonymously and never asking for thanks or to be repaid.
St. Nicholas was born in Patara, a village in an area that is now southern Turkey, sometime during the third century. His family was wealthy and raised him to be Christian. His parents died in an epidemic when he was still a teenager. The legend of Saint Nicholas’ generosity started there when he used all of the inheritance left to him to help those in need.
Read more
Invention Nation: Grassroots green inventors
December 3, 2007
On the premiere episode of Discovery’s Science Channel Invention Nation, show hosts Chris, Nobu and Micah converted a bus fueled by diesel to pure vegetable oil. Viewers learned how to make biodiesel as well as being introduced to hybrid vehicle technologies.
Invention Nation is a continuing series chronicling the three inventors adventures and discoveries as they travel the country in search of grassroots green inventors and earth friendly inventions.
Future episodes of Invention Nation will highlight a human-powered car, how to make a solar panel from used CDs, build a bike from bamboo, solar ovens, floating wetland made from recycled bottles, how to turn food waste into methane gas, how to utilize straw as natural home insulation, and building a homemade windmill. As they drive across country, the three gone green will show their enterprising nature as they fuel their bus with the used cooking grease from roadside diners.
Read more
Brad Pitt: Make It Right NOLA green houses
December 3, 2007
Make It Right is a fitting name for a new project to build 150 green homes in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans by next summer. The ultimate goal is to build more than 150 new green homes.
Brad Pitt is attempting to restore one of the neighborhoods most devastated by Hurricane Katrina — infamous as one of the five deadliest hurricanes in the history of the US — with the launch of the Make It Right campaign.
In Louisiana, New Orleans residents of the Lower Ninth Ward suffered unthinkable loss of life and property. 5,000 homes were destroyed. Two years later, many families are still displaced and the rebuilding has been very slow going. That is not right. Making it right is long overdue.
This morning, NBC’s Today Show host Ann Curry interviewed Pitt regarding the Make It Right foundation. Pitt has assembled 13 architects to design the new environmentally-friendly homes, donated $5 million dollars of his money, with another $5 million dollar donation from billionaire Steve Bing, and is now reaching out to the American people to help rebuild the Lower Ninth Ward.
Read more
Hoh Rain Forest: One square inch of silence
December 3, 2007
Deep in the Pacific Northwest’s Hoh Rain Forest at Olympic National Park, among ancient trees and ferns, sits a small red stone of great significance. Once a gift given to Gordon Hempton by former Cultural Elder of the Quileute Tribe David Four Lines, Hempton used the stone to mark the location of the spot now called the One Square Inch of Silence.
Hempton was listening for silence as he walked into the Hoh Rain Forest. When he came to the place where no outside noise could be detected, he distinguished the rare place he had discovered with his red stone. The One Square Inch of Silence is an independent project based on soundscape management, a concept formulated on the hypothesis that if a loud noise, such as the passing of an aircraft, can impact many square miles, then a natural place of silence can have the same impact in an equal amount of space.
Read more
Harry Potter: JK Rowling green publishing saves ancient forests
December 2, 2007
Creator of young waif wizard Harry Potter and the imaginary magical world of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry author JK Rowling accepted The Order of the Forest award from the Canadian environmental organization Markets Initiative in recognition of her influence in the book publishing industry shift to green printing practices.
When Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was set to go to print, Rowling requested publishing houses use environmentally-friendly paper sources.
As a result, the pages of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows did not threaten the destruction of trees in ancient or endangered forests. In addition to the 197,685 trees still standing, the green publishing practices conserved 327,657,453 liters of water and eliminated 7,876,000 kilograms of greenhouse gas emissions traditional printing would have spewed into the atmosphere.
Markets Initiative credits Rowling with launching a trend that has seen an additional 300 publishers, including HarperCollins UK, Random House US and Scholastic, adopt green printing policies.
Benefit of trees for the urban landscape
December 2, 2007
In our concrete and asphalt urban landscape, we need more trees.
According to the Arbor Day Foundation, “Trees counteract global warming in multiple ways. A single tree can remove more than a ton of CO2 over its lifetime. Also, shade provided by trees reduces summer air conditioning needs.”
The benefit of a tree is amazing. One tree offers the same cooling as ten room size air conditioners operating 20 hours a day. The US Forest Service estimates 50 million well placed shade trees have the potential of eliminating the need for seven 100-megawatt power plants.
Earlier this year, in celebration of Arbor Day 2007, the Home Depot Foundation partnered with the National Arbor Day Foundation in an educational campaign to raise awareness about the benefits of trees for the community combined with the goal of planting 1,000 trees in different cities across the nation.
Read more