A beer that’s green!!! Sounds absurd? Well don’t be too surprised. After organic and biodynamic wine it is green beer that is making news these days.
Going by the name of Cascade Green, this organic beer company manufactures the fuzzy liquor in Tasmania Australia with a commitment towards a greener life. Their special product is called ‘Beer of the Earth’ as Cascade Green has been consistently working for over 6 years to reduce the energy and water consumption by 16% and 30% respectively in the manufacturing process.
The website is an extremely vibrant affair. But you have to be more than 18 years of age to access it. Here I read about the brewery’s green location that is surrounded by 250 hectares of pristine forest with Mount Wellington in the backdrop. The company is doing its best to maintain the beauty of the natural surroundings. And it is also taking special care to neutralise carbon emissions by purchasing carbon offsets.
Via cascadegreen

‘Climate Porn’ is the latest term on the green block. Apparently, a soon-to-be released movie for the television in Australia has been labelled so. Interestingly called ‘Scorched’, it shows Sydney of 2012 suffering through 200 days of zero rainfall. Insiders reveal that the film focuses on the effects of drastic climate change. There are bushfires surrounding the city in the film and the authorities don’t have enough water to put them out.
So, due to its hyper-realism with fake news broadcasts (aimed at sensationalising) and websites with all that scary jazz the film is being tagged as climate porn because all that it shows will never happen. Experts (they are the ones calling it ‘CP’) describe the movie as a thrilling spectacle but they maintain, it distances the public from the main issues of global warming and deforestation.
In other words, climate porn is the marriage of fiction and non-fiction in the world of entertainment.� By that logic, should ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ also fall in the same category?
Via theaustraliannews

The fish are dying. It may be shocking but the truth is, 25% of the world’s known fish species, especially tuna and cod, are at the brink of extinction. The oceanic ecological balance has gone berserk and as a last minute preventive measure, governments have banned fishing in certain areas. Apparently, EU pays 61 million dollars to Greenland every year so that Germany can continue fishing in its waters. Incidentally, Germans like their fish frozen thereby giving fisherman a lot of time to fish and ruin the ecological system even in far off areas.
Most developed countries and third world nations are to be blamed for this. The European Union’s strategies have been one of hypocrisy. In the garb of being green and environmental friendly, it has been allowing governments and industries to undertake large-scale fishing in foreign seas as well. This probably could be due to the free trade policies and also due to globalization that fishing companies have brazenly continued to exploit the oceanic populations. They need to be put a check on. Rising sea temperatures themselves have done a lot of damage to oceanic fauna.
Via greendiary

We must comprehend Earth’s precincts while making our day to day choices as the wellbeing and endurance of our planet relies mainly on our understanding. As we are consuming the bequests of our nature in profusion, we ought to have thoughts of recurring or replenishing it in one way or other. Accordingly, in recent times a considerable fact regarding environment has been articulated by ‘WalMart’, a substantial retailer of Gold jewelry that more or less 20 tons of mining waste is produced by a solitary gold ring. In view of that WalMart has introduced a novel range of jewelry that would take away the gold mining bangs on inhabitants and surroundings.

WalMart’s freshly launched ecofriendly jewelry is designed such that it could be traced back to the collieries, where they originally belong .This latest golden green jewelry has been sensibly labeled as ‘Love, Earth’ collection so that we get exceedingly enthused to love our planet earth and save it from eco-hazardous processes.

This wholly new concept may perhaps be a speck of media hype act but if it’s a authentic march towards a greener world then it sincerely become worthy of approval and nobility. The ‘Love, Earth’ assemblage by WalMart is in fact a green alternative that would help us bonding with our planet earth in true sense.

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For the travellers of wilderness, the Green Living Project is like a dream come true for your folks. Well to start with, they let you travel to far off places, documenting all of the successful, sustainable projects that different communities are trying out. Not only this, you even get the chance to stay in eco-resorts that most people don’t even get to see. Right now they are exploring Africa and North America. Apart from taking fabulous trips to amazing places, the project hopes to inspire others by documenting and demonstrating successful, sustainable projects The documentaries are well made and include interviews with the local populace and the cultural aspect of the area.
Do look up the project website that is brimming with videos from projects and blog posts where you can actively participate. The Green Living Project encourages supporters to come along on the trips as volunteers. This fall the group will be travelling to South Africa, Mozambique and Namibia, as well as 2 trips in spring 2009 to both South America and back to Africa. The projects themselves are truly inspiring because you learn with each one that the eco-project often had additional benefits for the environment and community that were not foreseen during the planning.

Via treehugger

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You are lucky in case you are able to spot an exotic langur/ monkey in your area. By the time your children will grow up, primates might become an ancient relic- one found only in books and folklores! The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) recently evaluated the status of primate species world over and has found that those representing the vestiges of once abundant exotic monkeys and great apes will soon vanish from the Earth’s surface. The report compiled after a study involving the work of hundreds of scientists, reveals that, nearly half of world’s primate population face extinction threat and their situation is worsening day by day. This study has been the most comprehensive analysis done in recent times. The fall in their numbers is evident as the “red list” (by IUCN) reports an increase in the number of primate species and sub-species in the three highest threat categories - vulnerable, endangered and critically endangered, from 39% to 48% in just one year! As of now, some 303 of the 634 species and sub-species of primate face survival threats in the wake of an increasing trend of poaching for bushmeat trade.

Until now, habitat destruction and illegal wildlife trade were the reasons behind the dwindling population of primates.But now these animals are being butchered for man’s appetite aswell. Thus bushmeat trade has emerged as a major threat to the survival of these exotic monkeys and apes in natural environs. There are places on the world map where fortunately the forests and natural habitat of primates is still conserved. The jungles are there but there are no apes because of rampant killing of these animals for their meat. Hunting is also done for procuring the animals for pet trade and Chinese medicine.� �
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The findings of this report (funded by Conservation International, the Margot Marsh Biodiversity Foundation, Disney’s Animal Kingdom and the IUCN) reveal an alarming situation for monkeys, gibbons and langurs of South East Asia and Gorillas of Africa. Those nations where the highest percentage of threatened species is recorded are� Cambodia (90%), Vietnam (86%), Indonesia (84%), and Laos (83%) and China (79%). The picture is less depressing for Madagascar (43%), Mexico, and South & Central America (40%). Nevertheless, in coming few years even these countries might show a figure parallel to that seen in S.E. Asia today!

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Its high time, the conservation efforts need a lift. But my heart goes out to all those conservationists whose hard work of day and night, is slashed in one blow by merciless and insane poachers! Will there ever be an end to man’s greed???
Via: Guardian

The concept of eco-interiors was talked about at great length by Jeanie Pyun, editor of Sprig along with famous eco-interior designer Kelly LaPlante on Discussion on WashingtonPost.com. The strongest point of the show was the little tips that were offered to help you green your style. And that was not all as the hosts gave guidelines on finding healthy food and products. Even FAQs like “What is a green roof” and “What does VOC mean” were answered by them. Since the discussion was hosted online, the two eco-friendly women could post web-links directly to the chat to give readers easy, direct access to the tips being discussed. Other areas of concern were, “why it is still so difficult to find healthy products and why are they not cheaper?” as well as “what is a single mom hoping to green on a limited budget?”

Now isn’t Washingtonpost.com really cool as the discussions there are like an interactive blog, where readers can ask questions in real-time to experts on a variety of subjects.� For those of you who did not know, Pyun was the former editor of Organic Style magazine and co-editor of In Style Home magazine. LaPlante owns a furniture showroom in Venice Beach, CA, is the host of Brilliant Green on Ovation TV, and recently published her first book Ecologique.�
C’mon let’s go green because the experts say so.
Via treehugger

You want to save the earth? Ask Mondo-green mermaid Daryl Hannah how. The pretty lass nurtures a deep love for bio-fuels and leaves no stone unturned to make it a part of her life. She has been using the fossil fuel alternative for over a decade in her converted El Camino and bio-diesel for buzzing around her farm. She even founded the Sustainable Biodiesel Alliance. Wow, it is indeed very cool to see people and celebs go the extra mile to save the earth.

Daryl’s mantra is simple. She uses fuel from waste vegetable oil, and not ethanol which has received a lot of flak for rising food costs. In Daryl’s words, “There are plenty of fuel processing techniques and feed stocks that bio-fuels can come from—for both bio-diesel and ethanol— like garbage, hemp, algae, cellulose waste, prairie grasses, moringa and jatropha.”
So don’t give up on bio-diesel just because some corporate sharks are promoting otherwise!
Via ecorazzi

‘The Savage Mountain’ is the nickname given to the K-2 peak. And rightfully so, coz it is one of the most dangerous peaks to conquer in the world. Living up to the sobriquet attributed to it, K-2 once again claimed eleven lives (not confirmed) yesterday when an ice avalanche swept away some of the climbers and also the lines used by the climbers, thereby stranding the others midway.

Many mountaineers believe that some of the people climbing the mountains are inexperienced and so many-a-times become the reasons behind these disasters. Also, this incident has once again sparked off the age-old debate regarding the use of bottled oxygen by mountaineers. Apparently, bottled oxygen attracts amateur climbers to attempt dangerous summits like K-2 and Mount Everest. Many expert climbers believe that these amateurs make the routes crowded. It was the official reason behind the 1996 disaster when 8 people died trying to reach the top of Mount Everest. This time again, expert climbers are quoting the same reason for the disaster.

I think it is plain stupidity to put the blame on amateurs and bottled oxygen. Agreed that pros can do the climb without any oxygen aid, but hey if amateurs take the comfort of an oxygen cylinder please do not ignore their high spirits. We are talking about mounting 8000 meters above sea level here! No way can we call the climb a ‘comfortable journey’ for anyone. And don’t you think having more stringent checks on the ability of people to be a part of mountaineering expeditions is a better way to avoid these accidents than simply indulging in blame game. Let’s not beat around the wrong bush!

Via skinnymoose

Startling is this fact about solar power that, just about an hour of sunlight hitting the Earth’s surface is sufficient to fulfill the power needs of humans for an entire year!!! However, we know that if our systems were that efficient how much power we could generate with the sun rays coming down on our planet for the whole year. Besides expensive silicon components of a photovoltaic panel and low system efficiency, till now our knowledge on the mechanism behind solar storage was also limited. Bugged by the twin factors of inefficiency and expense a MIT professor Daniel Nocera undertook an exhaustive research at the end of (which he believes) his team has unlocked the ‘nirvana of energy’.The Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy, Prof. Nocera has made a discovery that may change the way we have so far used solar power through PV cells. Being inspired by green plants that photosynthesize and store solar energy all the time in them, Prof. Nocera has developed a simple method to split H2O molecules.

The end products being Oxygen and Hydrogen gases. The hydrogen thus produced may then store the solar energy. His study has resulted in the emergence of a new catalyst. The latter consists of phosphate, cobalt metal, and an electrode. This new catalyst is easy to set-up and works on neutral pH at normal room temperature.When the catalyst is placed in water and current is run through the electrode, oxygen gas is produced. When another catalyst is used to produce hydrogen gas, the oxygen and hydrogen combine inside a fuel cell, creating carbon-free electricity.

This simple set up can be used to power a house or an electric car irrespective of time (day or night). The whole set up can be duplicated in large numbers to harness the abundant sunshine bestowed to us by Mother Nature. Whether this clean technology will massively cut down the energy requirements of mankind is yet to be explored. But one this is for sure, this discovery has opened new avenues in the commercial usage of solar power.
Via: Goodcleantech