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Posted by Dave (at the last day of the International Whaling Commission, in Anchorage, Alaska)

Yesterday at the IWC, the debate on the Japanese resolution for coastal whaling took place. There’s been no agreement in the request for such a programme, so the vote has been put off until later today.

It’s at once interesting, unsurprising and alarming that Japanese delegation is now making no secret of the fact that that coastal whaling is a form for commercial whaling. Yet, they’re also trying to claim it’s no different from Aboriginal Subsistence whaling as practised by indigenous people in Russia, Alaska and Greenland. They want to have their whalemeat and eat it, so to speak.

“What’s wrong with commercial whaling?”, asked the Japanese commissioner, Joji Morishita.

Continue reading Coastal whaling: Japan’s double standard on indigenous people…

At tonight’s Harvard Law School cocktail party, before Nicholas Negroponte arrived to give a talk about One Laptop Per Child, a friend asked me why I continue to attend Negroponte’s talks. “Given how many of these you’ve heard, what are you going to get out of this?” The truth is, I learn something new every time Negroponte talks about the project. Even before he began talking, it was interesting to discover that he’s come equipped with almost a dozen “B2″ prototype machines. They’re open and live on tables around the room, for people to play with – that’s a big improvement from the last time I played with the machine, when the machines were still being hand-built, were in scarce supply and you needed someone to walk you through the Sugar interface. Negroponte starts by reminding us that OLPC is an education project, not a laptop project. He traces his work on the project to Seymour Papert and to the learning process students go through in learning Logo. Debugging, he argues, is as close as we can get to learning how to think… and it works for skills like spelling, as well as for programming. Much of the focus of… (more)

(Posted by Ethan Zuckerman in Emerging Technologies at 1:29 PM)

We come across a lot of interesting ideas and innovative solutions, but we choose only a few to discuss in detail. The best of the stories we don’t cover get selected and collated as headlines in News and Views. It’s like a little Worldchanging news service, and if you haven’t noticed, the daily News and Views stories are now being delivered via RSS feed either with the other posts, or as a feed by themselves. 31-May The Dirty Water Underground Chicken Poop: More Glamorous Than Ever Disaster Balloons House-Off Button Makes ‘Going Green’ Easy Sustainability Reports Help Investors Manage Risk 30-May Off The Grid Homes We Want Solutions! Global Peace Index – The Texture of Peace Ban Considered On Organic Food Brought In By Air Can Nanotechnology Be Good For Climate? 29-May China’s Solar-Powered City Design That Solves Problems for the World’s Poor Changing Ecologies of Food and Agriculture The Green View From Beijing ‘Synergies’ Between Renewables, Efficiency Would Cut GHG Emissions 28-May Biodiesel Makers See Opportunity as New York Seeks Greener Future Architecture and robotic ecologies Plasma Could Turn Old Tyres Into New Emission Scheme To Shield the Poor Grassroots Green Chemistry 26-May Ants show us how to make… (more)

(Posted by David Zaks in Media at 11:11 AM)

Posted by Dave (at the last day of the International Whaling Commission, in Anchorage, Alaska)

IWC stories: The security has been pretty tight here at the IWC – I’ve even seen members of the National Guard wandering about in full fatigues. There’s been lots and lots of police here. That said, the police have been really friendly – and are constantly dropping by the Whale Broadcasting Corporation to say hello. Earlier, I caught a hotel security man was eyeing my camera. I thought I was in trouble for something – he wanted advice on doing long exposures of the Northern Lights.

Earlier, our whales expert, John Frizell, was in the elevator of the Captain Cook hotel, with some tourists.

“Are you here for the convention?”, they asked.

“Yes, I am”, said John.

Continue reading From the International Donut Commission, in Anchorage Alaska…

Posted by Dave (at the last day of the International Whaling Commission, in Anchorage, Alaska)

Malcolm Turnbull, Australian environment minister, with Joji Morishita, Japanese IWC commissioner at the IWC in Anchorage
© Greenpeace/Walsh

Three days ago, at the opening of this International Whaling Commission meeting, the Japanese commissioner, Mr Joji Morishita requested that no slanderous statements be made during the meeting. It would have been a fine thing if they practiced what they preach. Yesterday, the Japanese delegation completely misrepresented the situation that occurred in the Ross Sea back in February of this year, and made some fairly dodgy comments about Greenpeace.

It’s all stemmed from a joint New Zealand and Japanese proposal on “Safety at Sea“. Japan’s Powerpoint presentation showed a list of our expeditions and encounters with the Japanese whaling fleet. As Shane pointed out earlier – the Japanese delegation have to be commended on this, as it’s possibly a better record than he has! The Japanese commissioner, then showed videos of incidents involving the whaling fleet and vessels from Sea Shepherd.

Next, Japan’s commissioner talked about the fire on the Japanese factory whaling Nisshin Maru in the Ross Sea, culminating in the death of one crewman. Alas, he completely failed to acknowledge that our ship, the Esperanza (which I was on board) came at high speed to the assistance of the Nisshin Maru while it lay disabled, after being the first vessel to respond to the distress call.

Continue reading Safety at Sea: Japanese IWC commissioner still misleading people…

Posted by Page (in Amsterdam)

Dead whales, dolphins, and porpoises in The Hague. (Click to enlarge.) © Greenpeace/van Houdt, © Trouw.

Here on the Defending Whales blog, you’ve read about our display of dead cetaceans in Berlin and Stockholm, to emphasize the terrible threats these animals face, beyond being hunted. The mammals were collected from beaches around Europe; many were the victims of bycatch, which means they drowned in fishing nets. Others were mortally wounded by ships’ propellers. All in all, they died terrible deaths… and what’s even worse, is that these animals are protected by the EU Habitats Directive. They shouldn’t have died.

On Tuesday this week, we displayed the animals on “het plein” in The Hague, here in the Netherlands, right in front of Dutch parliament. Seeing the wounds was absolutely heartbreaking; I am haunted by the memory of the face of a harbor porpoise, barely recognizable because of the damage it sustained. I won’t ever forget the dolphins with their tails cut off by fishermen, so they would sink (more photos here, and here).

We handed out fliers, and talked to lots of people. Almost without exception, everyone I talked to was curious about how the animals died, and were shocked to find out that the Dutch government isn’t making much of an effort to enforce the EU Habitats Directive. We had “death certificates” displayed next to each animal, so people saw that some of them had drowned in nets used by Dutch fishing companies.

Continue reading In death, they speak even louder…

Posted by Dave (in Anchorage, Alaska)

Embajador Mariano Fernandez, Chilean IWC Commissioner discusses his resolute opposition to commercial whaling and next year’s meeting in Santiago, Chile.

El Embajador Mariano Fernandez, delegado de Chile ante la Comision Ballenera
Internacional CBI, en Alaska, Anchorage USA, dar a conocer sus pensamientos del
pais sudamericano donde el 2008 se realizara la 60 reunion de esta organizacion
internacional. Ademas se refirio al futuro de la CBI que los paises
latinoamericanos ven y apoyan, el que se refiere a que ya es hora de que la CBI
no centre sus acciones solo en la caza ballenera, sino que incluya de manera
efectiva el uso no letal del recurso ballenero, el cual ha sido elegido por
todos los paises latinoamericanos que asistieron a esta reunion.

Watch the video »

Rain Bird Corporation is a company dedicated to the intelligent use of water so much that they've created a film competition with that title.

The global demand for water is growing. Of all the earth's water, only 1% is fresh water suitable for human consumption. The United Nations anticipates that more than 2.7 billion people will face severe water shortages by 2025. The Intelligent Use of Water film competition is intended to use film and video as a tool for inspiring action and awareness around water conservation. The competition asks: "Is a global water crisis inevitable?" and calls for short films that feature intelligent ways of using water more efficiently.

Submissions of any genre, from one to twenty minutes in length are accepted (including excerpts of longer films.) The finalists will be judged by a yet to be named celeb panel and will be screened in October in LA. The winner of the juried competition will receive $6000, and the audience pick will get $3000.

Sometimes the best way to cut down on your consumption is just to use less stuff. Green Options writer Maria Surma Manka gave me a tip suggestion recently that will help you do just that: "Wash your hair every other day. I started doing this about 1 1/2 years ago and besides spending less time in the shower using up water, I buy shampoo and conditioner much less (half as much, actually). Plus, I get compliments nearly every time I get my hair cut about how soft it is, so it's really gotten healthier from not running it through products every day."

This is one of those win-win-win tips. Many people have the kind of hair that just looks and feels better when it's not washed everyday. (Win #1) By skipping a day, you are saving water, product packaging, and energy. (Win #2) And, as usual, it will also save you money. (Win #3)

The U.S., Canada, and Mexico have formally agreed to make their energy systems more efficient. A regional strategy will be implemented to better coordinate and exchange energy research, science, and technology. As one U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) official put it, the three countries are shifting towards a “North American perspective” as they explore how more synergy among their systems will help move us towards a cleaner, more efficient energy system and fight global warming.

This announcement seemed to come out of thin air to me. But apparently these talks stem from the North American Energy Work Group (NAEWG) that was formed in 2001 to improve transparency and regulatory compatibility, promote the development of resources and infrastructure, increase cooperation on efficiency standards, and address challenges on the demand side. The NAEWG began as a place to generate ideas, but has since evolved into developing plans for concrete results and the exchange of information and technology.