JUNE 1st, 2010
Jessica Simpson once memorably described tuna as the chicken of the sea. This is not a line of thought that it is wise to pursue too far, however one can see her point, tuna is versatile and tasty. It is also dangerously over fished and despite the dolphin friendly signs on your tins of tuna, fished irresponsibly and unsustainably by many fishermen.
Amidst distressing reports of bluefin tuna possible heading towards commercial extinction in the meditarannean, it is all the more important to check to see that the tuna in your can is caught by pole-and-line. If you are a sandwich fan, then M&S and Pret a Manger are the only high street chains with guilt free tuna sandwiches. Sainsbury’s are also poised to make the switch. Tesco however are lagging behind and have only just committed to making sure ten percent of their tinned tuna is caught by pole-and-line.
Source: Greenpeace
MAY 27th, 2010
The Grist blog reports one small ray of sunshine emrging from the gargantuan black cloud that is the BP oil spill. The spill is forcing politicians to confront the dangers of fossil fuels and look to cleaner alternatives. First Shwarzenegger withdrew his support for off-shore drilling outside California. Now Obama is connecting the Gulf spill with clean energy and saying ‘we’ve got to start cultivating solar and wind and biodiesel’. Hopefully as the American public begins to see first hand the devastation that is only just beginning to descend, there will be sufficient good-will to support the required investment in clean energy infrastructure.
source: Grist
MAY 26th, 2010
Parisians had a glimpse of a carless future last Sunday when intrepid french farmers turned the busiest road in Paris, the Champs Elysées into a huge farmers market. The stunt which was billed as a celebration of agricultural life, helped to serve as a good natured reminder of the rural life which farmers believe is all too easily ignored by Parisians, including one Nicolas Sarkozy. Involving 8,000 plots of earth 150,000 plants, sheep, cattle, and three-quarters of a mile of the thoroughfare, this was no half-hearted affair.
Serendipitously the Neo team found themselves in Paris at the time, taking a break from their high-thresher jobs, and were able to get some photo’s in before the farmers culled the crops.
Source: Guardian
MAY 17th, 2010
Eco-furniture has taken a great leap forward with the advent of Stephen Ma’s ec-O bench. As well as looking like it could be used to take down Darth Vader’s Deathstar, the ec-O bench is made from recycled material such as bio-aluminium: (100% recycled aliuminium from redundant aircraft), features a built in water collector for plant life and generates electricity for its lighting with inbuilt solar panels. Looks like Ma has just set a new eco-benchmark.
Source: bornrich
MAY 7th, 2010
Few things are as pervading in everyday life as plastic. It’s unlikely that most have us will have gone a day this year without using plastic in some shape or form. This is why Vancouver based environmentalist Taina’s decision to go a year without plastic is a particularly impressive undertaking. Explaining her decision, Tania says she became ‘grossed out, pissed off, and overwhelmed by the presence of plastics around me.’ Since January she has been living a plastic free existence.
Sounds pretty impressive, although in her set of self-imposed rules she has allowed for ‘touching plastics where they exist in my everyday. For example, a bus seat.’ Despite this blatant cop-out, Tania is to be saluted for her commitment. For more information about the projects and the difficulties she has encountered in her quest, head over to her plasticmanners blog. There is, at the time of writing a nice piece about a guerrilla stunt in Vancouver involving a giant plastic six-pack ring and various statues…
Source: plasticmanners
MAY 4th, 2010
The answer is probably yes, unless you are a cyclist, pedestrian or user of public transport. For the rest of us gas guzzlers we could be wasting about 20mpg each gallon! This adds up to a phenomenal £800 if you drive 15,000 miles a year. Simple adjustments such as checking your revs and smooth acceleration and deceleration can make a real difference. For more info and some helpful tips head over to the Guardian.
Source: Guardian
APRIL 20th, 2010
According to British Law you have to wait 7 years before you can declare a missing person officially dead. It is not surprising then that when no trace of the coelacanth was found for 65 million years, scientists believed it was safe to declare it extinct. It appeared that they had been overly hasty however when in 1938 a South African museum curator stumbled across a coelacanth at a fisherman’s port. Whilst almost all species of the coelacanth went extinct 65 million years ago, somehow a few managed to survive.
Some interesting features include a brain cavity that is 99% fat, a heart that is a straight tube, and kidneys that are combined into a single organ. It is possible that these traits were common to many extinct species from the period. For more information about this fascinating throwback head over to environmentalgraffitti.com.
Source: EnvironmentalGraffitti
APRIL 7th, 2010
Take a walk throughout any city in any country, and sooner or later you will come across a deserted plot of land, a barren traffic island or some other urban eyesore. Throughout the world guerrilla gardeners are reclaiming these spots for mother earth. Whether it’s turfing over an abandoned car, or taking your life into your hands by planting flowers in a Mexican pothole, green spots are turning up in unexpected places in a city near you.
Perhaps the height of guerrilla gardening is to be found in the works of London-based artist Anna Garthorth. Using a mixture of beer, sugar, and garden moss she has created moss graffiti (see above), surely the most eco-friendly graffiti on the planet.
For a more in-depth look at guerrilla gardening check out environmentalgraffiti.com. Also Julien Temple’s excellent documentary Requiem For Detroit is a fascinating look at how people respond when their whole city becomes an abandoned urban eyesore. You can check it out here.
Source: environmentalgraffiti
