Big Green divestment call

I came across an article by Naomi Klein on The Nation magazine regarding a call for Big Green, that is the large mainstream environmental organisations, to divest in fossil fuels. According to this article, several mainstream environmental have stopped investing in fossil fuel companies, others have not. This article summarises the main points and provides a link to the original article.

When will the UK be prepared for snow?

So far, the winter of 2010 is looking like the worst winter in living memory in the UK, with arctic weather throughout the country, which is predicted to be the coldest winter in the UK since 1963, if not colder. November this year saw the earliest snowfall in winter for 17 years. Temperatures have been very low, as low as −21.2 °C in Altnaharra in the Scottish Highlands, and snowfall has been 30-40 cm in Sussex, and 20 cm in Greater London.  In most of the rest of Europe, it is a similar story, with heavy snowfall in Northern France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Ireland for example, where there has also been a lot of disruption.  It is not only the places which normally get snow, for example Sweden, Norway, and Russia, that have had snow this winter, although Norway has had its coldest November on record, one place in Norway, Karasjok, had a temperature of −35 °C on the 27th November 2010. 

There has been snow every January/February in the UK for the last three years now, including the South East of England, and there has also been snow in December for the last two years.  The snow this year is predicted to last until at least 26th December.  It seems that every time there is snow in the UK, everything grinds to a halt.  Transport is disrupted severely, and so are sports fixtures among other things. When will this change? And what can be done for the UK to be better prepared, and prevent scenes of chaos such as those at Heathrow Airport and throughout the country?

GM soya increases poverty, threatens health in South America

Further to our previous articles about organic food, and about Monsanto and GM, this post is about an article in GM Watch, which in turn showed an English translation of the original Svenska Dagbladet (or SvD for short) news article about the disastrous effects of GM soya cultivation in South America. Indeed, the conversion of South American agriculture to large-scale, industrial farming of genetically modified soya harms the environment, increases poverty, and threatening human health, two leading advocates for small farmers' rights have said to SvD during a visit to Sweden.

Ban factory farming now

Factory farming, otherwise known as intensive farming, is an integral part of industrial food production.  The first factory farms were started in 1920s USA, and started in the UK during the late 1940s.  In order to get really cheap (and I would say unnaturally cheap) food, animals in factory farms are kept in really terrible conditions.  Factory farming is cruel to animals, damages animal health, damages our health through factory farmed produce, and damages our environment with pollution.  Lots of hidden costs, which are not reflected in the price of the factory farmed goods.  This type of farming is also heavily subsidised too which is also reflected in the cheap price.

I would recommend seeing the Food Inc. video, if you have not already done so, because it illustrates perfectly the disturbing truth about intensively farmed food and food in general, among other issues.

Amazon deforestation slows but concerns remain

One of our previous articles was about the need to save our rainforests. There was some good news yesterday, the Guardian has reported that large scale deforestation in the Amazon rainforest has fallen dramatically last year according to official figures.

On the other hand there are concerns remaining. One of these concerns is about the vested interests lobbying to water down environmental protection laws in Brazil, reported in the Guardian back on the 3rd July. Unfortunately this amendment was approved by a special committee of the Brazilian Parliament (or to be precise, National Congress of Brazil) on the 6th July, as reported by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

Saving our tropical rainforests

We are surely all aware of the devastation being inflicted on the world's tropical rainforests. Hundreds of thousands of square kilometres lost every year for short-term "profit" and greed. The devastation must stop at once, otherwise the survival of plants and animals native to the rainforest are put in jeopardy. The way of life of the indigenous peoples of the Amazon is also under threat. And then there is the increase in carbon dioxide (CO₂) in our atmosphere due to the deforestation adding to the greenhouse effect, and the pollution - especially carbon monoxide (CO) pollution - from burning the trees. It is not too late for us to act to save the rainforests, and we must step up existing efforts.