His name is Jean-Michel Cousteau! [dramatic chords] His father's name was
Jack something, and like his father, Jean-Michel believes by working on things like
Finding Nemo he,
"can reach a far larger audience through entertainment in popular media than through innumerable press conferences, summits and reports. That is not to say that prestigious conferences and notable studies are irrelevant. They are critically necessary to validate the condition of the world’s oceans and bring opinion leaders together to share ideas and shape the collective political will." With this new
sea-lebrity (haha! get it?), he hopes to
help young people change the world. ...Well I just thought that was like totally rad and wanted to share with the virtual blue.
posted by ZachsMind
on Nov 15, 2003 -
7 comments
"Bring 'Em On:" A Certain Four Horsemen Rein Up to Inquire of The Taunt -- or "The Health and Environmental Costs of War on Iraq (PDF)." An independent survey just released by the UK global health charity
Medact, finds that "the war on Iraq and its aftermath exacted a heavy toll on combatants and civilians, who paid and continue to pay the price in death, injury and mental and physical ill health. Between 21,700 and 55,000 people died between March 20 and October 20, 2003."
According to the BBC, the report says that the "conflict and its aftermath have put the most vulnerable in society - women, children and the elderly - at risk", and "there has been a reported increase in maternal mortality rates, acute malnutrition has almost doubled from 4% to 8% in the last year and there is an increase in water-borne diseases and vaccine-preventable diseases."
posted by fold_and_mutilate
on Nov 12, 2003 -
32 comments
mother earth fights back "Global warming, which most climate experts blame mainly on large-scale burning of oil and other fossil fuels, is interfering with efforts in Alaska to discover yet more oil."
via dangerousmeta and " It’s so hot
windshields are shattering or falling out, dogs are burning their paws on the pavement, and candles are melting indoors."
- are the naysayers ready to get on board? and start acting like
good global citizens?
posted by specialk420
on Jul 30, 2003 -
24 comments
Severn Cullis-Suzuki is best known as the eldest daughter of environmentalist
David Suzuki, and famous for her
speech at the
1992 United Nations Earth Summit. Since that time she has travelled internationally as a public speaker and environmental
activist. Now Severn has chosen to break out of her father's shadow, and that of her childhood speech, to focus on grassroots projects that emphasize action instead of only talking about the state of the world. She is the founder of the
Skyfish Project, a forum for environmental discussion. It is also where she first presented the
Recognition of Responsibility to encourage individuals to take the pledge towards sustainable living.
posted by twos
on Jul 29, 2003 -
7 comments
The
Chicago River was essentially the city of Chicago's cesspool until the construction of the Chicago Ship & Sanitary Canal, which connected the Chicago River to the Mississippi Basin in 1900. Now there's
serious talk of intentionally returning a section of the river to a cesspool-like state, by dumping untreated sewage and (possibly) toxic chemicals into the river. The purpose: to prevent invasive species such as the
Asian Carp and the
Round Goby from using this connection to cross between the Great Lakes and Mississippi basins. Is it ever possible to avoid unintended consequences in environmental engineering? And is it necessary to "go nuclear", so to speak, to try to correct them?
[Second link RealAudio; transcript here.]
posted by Johnny Assay
on Mar 4, 2003 -
9 comments
Oh No - Not the O-Zone Layer AGAIN! It seems that our wonderful ozone hole over the Earth has split in two... Now you don't need to wear 100 sunblock just on Australia and Antarctica. But scientists *sound* a little happier, or perhaps I'm just reading into it a little too much.
posted by djspicerack
on Sep 30, 2002 -
4 comments
Canadian Prime Minister surprises with pledge to put Kyoto accord to Parliament. Until now, with resistance from the oil-rich western provinces, Canada has been luke-warm on Kyoto. PM Jean Chretien surprised all of us (a pleasant surprise, for many) by making the announcement today at the Summit in South Africa. The PM recently announced that he'll be leaving office in 18 months - leaving him with a lot of power and little accountability - possibly working on his own legacy rather than for the good of his country. So far so good.
posted by stevengarrity
on Sep 2, 2002 -
15 comments
Shocking photos which show just how much glaciers have melted in the last century. Now that the North Pole is a swimming pool, the Ross Ice Shelf has, as the Onion put it, embarked on a world tour, and the worst flooding in 800 years is hitting Eastern Europe, aren't we maybe a little bit worried about climate change... just a little, maybe?
What freak weather phenomenon is creeping you out these days?
posted by AlexSteffen
on Aug 14, 2002 -
82 comments
Entire EU signs on to Kyoto Enviro Pact All 15 European Union nations ratified the Kyoto Protocol against global warming yesterday and goaded Washington, which has turned its back on the treaty, to do its part.
The pact would have required the United States, which accounted for 36 percent of the industrialized world's greenhouse gas emissions in 1990, to trim emissions by 7 percent from 1990 levels.
posted by planetkyoto
on Jun 1, 2002 -
37 comments
"We have entered the Century of the Environment, in which the immediate future is usefully conceived as a bottleneck: science and technology, combined with foresight and moral courage, must see us through it and out."
Or so says Edward O. Wilson in February's Scientific American. Consumption and production can NOT be infinite, no matter what "near-horizon timelines" predict. But will capitalism rise to the occasion and will the free market fix the wrongs it's committed?
posted by taumeson
on Jan 16, 2002 -
18 comments
UN warning over plundered Earth EARTH is being plundered at an unprecedented and unsustainable rate which needs to be curbed quickly to avoid disaster, the United Nations says.
Will the conflicts of the 21st century be based around the control of water, the needs of food production and economic inequality? Maybe it's time to consider these issues. We can't totally blame the poor and weak for their own circumstances.
posted by skinsuit
on Nov 7, 2001 -
14 comments
What if oil and natural gas
were renewable resources? Prof. Thomas Gold opines that oil is produced by microbes breaking down methane deep within the earth, thus explaining how some depleted oilfields have begun producing again. He even wrote a
book on it. Brilliant re-examination of accepted theory or crackpot lunatic?
posted by CRS
on May 22, 2001 -
9 comments
Timber interests spoofs Dr. Seuss's Lorax with the
Truax. Here's the Utne
article where I saw it mentioned.
They can't seriously expect us to swallow that tripe. [
3F03]
Diametrically opposed environmentalism squabbles to follow.
posted by alan
on May 12, 2001 -
13 comments
"You don't have to burn books now," says Thomas. "You just press the delete key." Two unabashedly
partisan reports of the Bush administration's clandestine campaign to "tighten up" anything from online government sources dealing with the development of Alaskan mineral resources.
We've done the debate on Alaska, but what about the ability to amend online records? The old administration's sites are meant to be preserved by law, but plenty appears to have been deleted in the name of "polishing":
"We changed value-laden words like 'destroy' to 'impact.'"
Newspeak in action? Should government-run sites be required to carry a Changelog?
posted by holgate
on Apr 14, 2001 -
7 comments
Most of the world rejects the USAmerican attempt to end-around-run the Kyoto protocols. Surely we'll get our way (I use the pronouns reluctantly in this case). Who can stop us? Besides, who cares? Not President-elect (de facto) Bush. Add the guiltless bloodshed in Israel/Palestine to this and my last post and it's hard to be thankful at the global level.
posted by Sean Meade
on Nov 22, 2000 -
3 comments
Sierra Club defends Gore record on the environment.
Among the choice quotes:
" I think Nader has to take responsibility not for what he wants, but for what George Bush does. . . .If you're a political leader and you follow a strategy which you have calculated is likely to produce George Bush in the White House, you have to take responsibility for what George Bush does. And George Bush is going to put into place policies that are going to cause people to die."
Only 6 more days to post election topics! Yee haw!
posted by norm
on Nov 2, 2000 -
6 comments
Click for Clean Air. "Canada argues that clearcutting our old-growth forests and replanting them, and building nuclear reactors in developing countries, is more effective than reducing fossil-fuel pollution. It also wants to buy "pollution rights" from countries like Russia that are burning less fossil fuel because their economies have collapsed."
Not that Canada's alone in the above, and not that the solution is a click away, but you have to start somewhere. For those of you who aren't Canadian, David Suzuki is a respected scientist and public figure who's been worth listening to since...since...forever.
If you're not Canadian, you can still participate.....
posted by ajh
on Sep 21, 2000 -
2 comments
