Eco-Chick · The modern girl's guide to living green & fabulous.

Copenhagen’s (COP15) Amazing Green Art

No successful movement works without important art. Where would the hippies have been without their unique (ehm, hallucinogenic) posters, 2nd wave feminism without all those novels and creative nonfiction writings, the Vietnam protests without the music, or Civil Rights without heart-wrenching photography? Not only did these pieces of art change opinions and inflame feelings at the time, all of these movements (and artistic statements) still resonate and influence today.

The plethora of art being displayed in and around the Copenhagen climate change negotiations is notable for both its volume and variety, and indicates that the movement to ensure a healthy future for the planet and it’s inhabitants is more than just a job for policymakers.

The Solar Peace Sculpture by Fred George

The people affected most by climate change are also the world’s poorest. For anyone who hopes for world peace, nothing could be more dividing (and enraging) than the world’s wealthiest continuing to pollute with greenhouse gases at the expense of those who already have so little.

Artist Fred George created this 9-foot sculpture for Copenhagen (it is a traveling model of the original 50-foot version) from used oil barrels and solar panels, which can feed into a city’s electrical grid in places where it is a permanent installation. “What a great opportunity to have a global conversation about preserving the environment and promoting alternative energy. We want people left with the vision of peace: peace with nature, peace within, peace worldwide,” says George.

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Humor in Global Warming? Yes.

From the August 24, 2009 issue of The New Yorker

How Sustainable is Your Favorite Wine? Greenopia Rates 25 Wineries

Greenopia has just rated 25 wineries for their environmental impact. Here’s why:

Any oenophile worth her spitting glass has heard the dire stories about how global warming will affect wineries, altering the very microclimates that make it possible to grow champagne in Champagne, France and enable growers to eke out a Pinot Noir under a very precise set of conditions. Wine production is a multibillion dollar-a-year industry in the United States, and wine-growing regions are set to migrate northward (or shrink- by up to 80%- disappear altogether) as warm days with moderating sea breezes shift with the increased temperatures, and general local and worldwide climate disruption alters the conditions and locales where grapes have been growing for hundreds of years.

So it makes sense that the wine industry (and vino lovers) would take action against climate change and environmental degradation.

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Profits Before People: 7 of the World’s Most Irresponsible Companies

This article originally appeared on EarthFirst.com.

Money isn’t everything – or is it? To most corporations, making a profit is goal number one – but some of those companies take it way too far, sacrificing the health of the planet and its inhabitants for a bigger bank balance. Far too many corporations turn a blind eye to the consequences of their destructive, exploitative practices. The worst of them are committing atrocities that go beyond the realm of objectionable into criminal, dumping toxic chemicals without regard to public health and employing child labor.

What makes these seven companies extra evil is the fact that they’ve committed crimes that are BOTH environmentally and socially irresponsible.

Nestle

Image via Blood in Your Coffee

More than 40% of the world’s chocolate comes from Côte d’Ivoire (the Ivory Coast) in Africa, where tens of thousands of children are estimated to be working in dangerous conditions on cocoa farms. Nestle uses cocoa harvested by slave labor, and only when Senator Thomas Harkin (D-Iowa) led an investigation and introduced legislation that would require chocolate sold in the US to be labeled “slave-free” did the company act. Nestle promised that by July 2005 they would find a way to certify chocolate as not having been produced by any underage, indentured, trafficked or coerced labor, but since then, they have achieved very little.

Nestle’s bottled water business is also a major cause for concern. Nestle controls one-third of the US market and sells 70 different brand names of bottled water including Arrowhead, Deer Park, Perrier and Poland Spring. The company buys up pristine springs in some of the most beautiful natural spaces in America and builds huge factories on the sites, releasing pollution into the air and drawing enormous amounts of water out of the springs.

And, while the company claims an environmentally friendly ethic, saying it would never harm an aquifer, that’s exactly what they have done in places like Mecosta County, Michigan, damaging the watershed with excessive withdrawals, reaping huge profits and leaving the locals to deal with the consequences.

Pfizer

Image via Daylife

Air and water pollution, disregard for safety standards and experimentation on Nigerian children: these are just a few of the environmental and human rights offenses perpetrated by the world’s largest pharmaceutical company. It’s hard to imagine how Pfizer officials can bear to look at themselves in the mirror every day after what they’ve done.

Pfizer is guilty of some of the most despicable price gouging in corporate history: it keeps its HIV/AIDS-related drugs out of the hands of the world’s poor, who need them the most. Pfizer has aggressively fought efforts to make these drugs more affordable, refusing to grant generic licenses for HIV/AIDS drugs to Brazil, South Africa and other countries in need of them.

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Dose of Reality: Happy New Year

“The science is beyond dispute… Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response.”

I never thought I’d see the day when the President of the USA would be considered “more green” than the prime minister of Canada. I’m happy to say, that I truly believe Obama is just that. (Although…to be fair – being “more green” then the Canadian government isn’t super hard right now.)

The future looks mostly friendly with Obama on leading the way. Originally there was some skepticism over his support for “clean coal” support – but won the environmentalists back with his incredibly aggressive and undeniably ambitious plan for climate change and renewable energies. This plan focuses on an attempt to reduce 80 % emissions from 1990 levels by 2050 along side auctioning 100 % of the pollution permits. If he holds true to his plan it will also include a $150 billion investment for green jobs and clean energies.

He is calling for 30% of all the government’s electricity to come from renewable energy within the next 11 years, and 25% of ALL U.S.A electricity to come from sustainable/renewable sources by 2025. All “new buildings” would be carbon neutral by 2030 and U.S oil consumption would drop by at least 35%. He opposes oil drilling in the Arctic, supports Nuclear energy (although doesn’t want it stuck under Yucca - but did accept $159 800 in contributions from Exelon) and supports labeling foods for GMOs and country-of-origin.

So it looks as though that America is rolling into a new year with some bright light ahead of them. To the east Spain is putting forth intense efforts to start a competition for the biggest and baddest solar energy device this world can offer. They’re not even going to keep it to themselves, but have said that they will export the technology to places such as Algeria and Morocco.

The 20MW solar tower is also a forerunner for an even more ambitious idea, one that Abascal [Abengoa’s CTO] hopes will become a standard for CSP plants in future — a 50MW version that could generate electricity around the clock. “During the day, you’d use 50% of your electricity to produce electricity and 50% to heat molten salt. During the night you use the molten salt to produce electricity.”

Molten salt technology is in its early stages but Abengoa is testing the idea at a power plant in Granada. So far the company has demonstrated that it is possible to store up to eight hours of solar energy by heating tanks containing 28,000 tonnes of salt to more than 220C. “This will make it possible to have almost constant production or at least it will be able to produce energy for most of the day,” said Abascal.

India is doing it’s part by introducing such technology as the solar rickshaw!

The solar version reaches a pretty impressive speed of about 15 kilometres per hour and, fully-charged, the battery can keep going for 50-70 kilometres. The goal is to develop the current four Soleckshaws into more advanced models in time for the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi.

Hopefully these sorts of technologies will only keep going so that the everyday rickshaw driver can afford one. But for less costly environmental efforts we can turn to Japan where they’re using recycled bottles to save people’s lives.

All over the world there are people devoting their lives, or simply just doing their best to help save the environment. I look forward to this new year, when I suspect that we’ll see many changes in America, Canada and all over the world. Although some of the governments may not have the best plans, at least they’re starting to have plans at all. And it’s going to take the effort, passion and devotion of every single person to see some major changes starting to take place.

So Happy New Year! I hope this coming year brings you lots of green-filled surprises and cool new technologies for us all to try out. Throughout the year I’ll keep you updated on coral reefs, endangered species, deforestation, pollution and the hardships that people are facing because of global warming and other environmental disasters.

“We are not acting as good stewards of God’s Earth when our bottom line puts the size of our profits before the future of our planet.”
— Obama Oct. 14, 2007, in a speech at an interfaith forum on climate change