It is… because I care…
Apparently more and more, the government is putting a price tag on our environment.
AP – A big power company accused of spreading smog and acid rain across a dozen states agreed Tuesday to pay at least $4.6 billion to cut chemical emissions in what the government called the nation’s largest environmental settlement.
Reuters – The number of heat-related deaths in and around New York City will nearly double by 2050 – and could rise as high as 95 percent — due to global warming if no efforts are made to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a new study shows.
AP – Thousands of walrus have appeared on Alaska’s northwest coast in what conservationists are calling a dramatic consequence of global warming melting the Arctic sea ice.
Nintendo aims to increase environmental awareness among gamers by introducing Chibi-Robo: Park Patrol for the DS platform as well as offering 500 tree seedlings to kids who want to spruce up their neighborhoods. The game itself is based on the growing environmental movement, letting players play the role of a cute little robot. Your task would be to clean up a park by planting flowers, building park equipment and defeat toxic enemies known as Smoglings. You’ll be able to carry out actions like watering plants, squirting enemies or riding a bike. Each good deed results in Happy Points that power him. Even the modes of transportation inside the game are environmentally friendly to help drive the message home. Looks like Nintendo has broken new ground once again with Chibi-Robo: Park Patrol, being on of the first environmentally themed video game adventures in the world. You can get your tree seedling by registering at http://www.Chibi-Robo.com between now and Nov. 9.
Nintendo helps keep earth green (Via Ubergizmo)
From Google:
Posted by Steve Miller, Google Earth Outreach
On October 13th and 14th, Googlers and many people around the world will head out to clean up local parks, beaches, trails and other places close to home. We’ll be planning our cleanups using Google Maps and sharing our plans with friends and families, along with an invitation to help. So far, Googlers have sent in almost 100 cleanup maps and proposed plans, and have invited more than 900 of their personal contacts to help.
And since many small cleanups add up to one big impact, we hope you’ll join in too. It takes just a few minutes to plan your own cleanup, make a map of it, and send your map to us — we’ll add it to a growing map of all the cleanups around the world. If you keep your cleanup small (groups of 6-10 people work best) and close to home, it’ll be easy to organize and you can be sure that you’re doing what’s most important for your neighborhood. After your cleanup, share your work with the world by posting photos and videos to your map.
If you’d like to join this global effort, you can get started here.
International Cleanup Weekend: Think globally, clean locally
Now that Canada has a stronger currency than America, what’s to stop them?
A unified front of left-leaning ice-friendly countries, led by Russia and including Canada and Denmark, has begun to emerge from the once-frosty north. So far, they’re just demanding the immediate return of all the ice they lost this summer. (This year, “six Californias” of open water appeared in the Arctic.) But what no one has asked is: Why do these fringey countries like ice so much? Is it because they have nothing else? Unfortunately, now that Canada’s dollar is oddly similar to an actual dollar and a donut at any one of the 2,733 Canada-based Tim Horton’s costs like four actual dollars, we must listen to their distress. But they are misguided! God’s great plan for His world has at last granted Canada a Northwest Passage! Freed from this sad dependence on ice and misery, Canadian sea shipping lane dominance will turn Toronto into the new Tokyo, and Montreal into the new Seoul! Though Regina will still suck pretty bad.
Waterworld: Ice-Free Canada To Become Backdoor World Power! (via Gawker)
Reuters – Arctic sea ice declined this year to the lowest levels registered since satellite assessments started in the 1970s, extending a trend fueled by human-caused global warming, scientists said on Monday.
I’m a Vegetarian, you should be too! Enjoy this post from “The Daily Green”
World Vegetarian Day is Today: 3 Ways to Eat A Little More Green
Today is the 30th anniversary celebration of World Vegetarian Day — a day to recognize and promote the ethical, environmental, health and humanitarian benefits of a vegetarian lifestyle.
A surprisingly high percentage of our daily impact on the environment comes from our food choices, and one obvious benefit of vegetarianism is its relatively low impact. Just think about it: Eating grain instead of feeding that grain to a cow for months or years is a more efficient, less wasteful way of getting the nutrition and energy needed to live happily. Simply, it just takes less grain, which takes less land, which requires less fertilization and water, and which reduces erosion of top soil.
A United Nations report last year called animal farming a “major threat to the environment” and a “major player” in causing global warming, with agriculture contributing 22% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. The world’s livestock — which graze fully 30% of the land not held up in ice, according to the U.N. — contribute not only by consuming grains, but by belching nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas more potent, though shorter lived, than carbon dioxide. A lot of fuel is also burned up transporting meat across the world, adding yet another contribution to climate change.
An inclusive day, organizers of World Vegetarian Day welcome non-vegetarians too, of course. Vegetarianism is only one tool for eating with a high consciousness about the environment. Eating local and eating organic can go hand-in-hand with both vegetarian and omnivorous diets.
Here are some suggestions for celebrating World Vegetarian Day from the North American Vegetarian Society, with some of our own suggestions tacked on:
- Invite friends and family home for a celebration meal. Make it a fall harvest meal, using seasonal vegetables like corn, squash and apples from local farms.
- Eat meat-free for the day or throughout the month.
- Follow the Environmental Defense climate diet, which advocates eliminating just one meal of meat per week, or consider the One Hamburger a Day Global Warming Solution, a similar strategy to rein in the typical three-burger a day meat equivalent in the American diet to one.
