Climate change is making forest fires around the world bigger and more intense, increasing the threat to people and the environment and costing countries millions in damage and firefighting expenses, the United Nations said Thursday.
Defending Whales: Commercial whaling ban reinforced at IWC in Anchorage
Posted by Dave (at the last day of the International Whaling Commission, in Anchorage, Alaska)
A round of applause just echoed around the chamber – a majority vote of 37-4 in favour of the CITES resolution has effectively overturned the St. Kitts Declaration from last year’s IWC. The St. Kitt’s resolution, which effectively declared that a ban on commercial whaling was no longer need, has now been overturned!ed
The St. Kitts, co-sponsor of last year’s pro-whaling declaration actually admitted it before the vote – saying that the adoption of the CITES resolution would effectively repeal the St. Kitts Declaration.
This reconfirms that the 1986 moratorium (i.e. ban) on commercial whaling is as valid today as it was two decades years ago. Nice to see the IWC working as it should work! Time for some celebration…
Draft resolution on CITES
CITES: Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora
Wikipedia: CITES
Greenpeace – Making Waves: Bush’s sham of a climate plan
From the AP story: “President Bush on Thursday urged 15 major nations to agree by the end of next year on a global emissions goal for reducing greenhouse gases.”
Sounds very proactive of him. But wait a sec. There are already globally agreed emission reduction targets. They were set in Kyoto, Japan… 10 years ago. Hmm. Maybe no one told President Bush about the Kyoto Protocol, or perhaps it has just slipped his mind.
If you run into him, please point out that the Kyoto Protocol entered into force (became legally binding) on 16 February 2005. It commits industrialised countries (like the USA) to cut their combined emissions to 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008 – 2012.
Greenpeace – Making Waves: Japanese animation: Our turn to save the whales
Academy-award nominated Japanese animator Koji Yamamura has created this tiny, beautiful story about a Japanese headmaster who saves a whale, returning a debt for having been saved from starvation after the second world war. The 2-minute film took him 5 months to make and comprises 1700 drawings.
You can read more about Yamamura here.
AIGA’s Center for Sustainable Design: A Sign of the Times
AIGA Center for Sustainable Design web site
Sustainability has become a buzz word in the design industry. Graphic design industry magazines such as HOW and Communication Arts are publishing articles (and even entire issues) devoted to green design regularly. Designers are starting to pay attention and change the way they work.
Sustainable and eco-conscious design has been a long time in the making, but the proliferation of web sites and resources on the subject in recent years and months shows that momentum is building. One growing resource, AIGA Center for Sustainable Design, represents, to me, a benchmark in the green design movement.
Quick Rule: “Good” Companies are “Open” Companies
Sustainability is a work in progress, so it’s impossible to have all the information to know whether a company’s activities are green enough. However, you can learn whom to trust simply by testing whether a company will genuinely respond to you.
Last Friday, I wrote a piece on The Eightfold on the opportunity for theme parks to green the customer experience. In it I mentioned Bearfire Resort, a year round outdoor ski resort to be built in Dallas, Texas in 2009. Since Texas summers are resource intense, I questioned the value of building a 650,000 square foot ski resort.
MELTING ICE: A HOT TOPIC?
The Earth has warmed by approximately 0.75 °C since pre-industrial times. Eleven of the warmest years in the past 125 years occurred since 1990, with 2005 the warmest on record. There is overwhelming consensus that this is due to emissions of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO2), from burning fossil fuels. Examination of ice cores shows that there is more CO2 in the atmosphere than at any time in the past 600,000 years. Between 1960 and 2002, annual anthropogenic global missions of CO2 approximately tripled. They rose by about 33 per cent since 1987 alone. Continue reading MELTING ICE: A HOT TOPIC?
Save the Sámi Reindeer Forests: Greenpeace Forest Rescue Station, Inari Finland: Logging restarted in the disputed forests
Logging has restarted in the disputed Saami reindeer forests in Inari. Finnish state has decided to continue the destruction of old-growth wilderness forests in Kessi. Photos from current logging operations can be viewed in the Finnish weblog. Read what Saami Council has to say.
Greenpeace – Making Waves: Look after yourself Cindy Sheehan, and thank you
Photo by KG4CHW. License: Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.
Cindy Sheehan spoke with Amy Goodman on DemocracyNow yesterday about the day her son Casey died in Iraq, campaigning to hold Bush and Congress to account for the Iraq war, becoming a leading peace activist, and divisions in the movement.
She wrote a sort-of resignation letter to the US peace movement on Monday, in which she wrote: “When I started to hold the Democratic Party to the same standards that I held the Republican Party, support for my cause started to erode and the ‘left’ started labeling me with the same slurs that the right used. I guess no one paid attention to me when I said that the issue of peace and people dying for no reason is not a matter of ‘right or left’, but ‘right and wrong.'”
I think Cindy is right to take time now to withdraw, reflect, and perhaps retool for another crack at it some day. I always found her story about moving from grieving mother to antiwar activist profoundly challenging. Above all, it has lessons about love of enemy — the soldiers and mercenaries who’ve died invading Iraq, Iraqis and foreign fighters involved in the quagmire there. And now it reminds us to love ourselves too.
Sometimes peace groups and sustainability campaigns could do with a bit more of that peace internally, if they want to last or be a model for more people to join. So look after yourself Cindy — and thank you!
Defending Whales: The Southern Atlantic Whale Sanctuary – not this time round
Posted by Dave (live from the International Whaling Commission in Anchorage, Alaska)
As I write from the IWC’s meeting room, the meeting has gotten bogged down in discussions about Greenland subsistence quotas and procedures about how the Scientific Committee. Riveting stuff.
Earlier, the proposal by Brazil and Argentina for a Southern Atlantic Whale Sanctuary was sadly defeated – it needed a 3/4 majority to pass, and managed to secure 60%. Milko, our Latin American campaigner is confident that the sanctuary will be adopted by next year’s meeting.
Curiously, Guatemala, a country that had earlier associated itself with the sanctuary, abstained – which was very unhelpful. It’s hard to know why – according to Milko, there had been great media coverage in Guatemala about how the country was now supporting the conservation of whales – but perhaps they’re leaning back towards the pro-whaling side?
Continue reading The Southern Atlantic Whale Sanctuary – not this time round…