Each Friday we’ll bring you a round-up of the week’s green news from around the web. Please drop us a line if you know of a story we should include in the next round-up.
Mandelson green custard attack: Protester explains her motives
From The Telegraph
Environmental protester, Leila Deen, has attacked Peter Mandelson, the Business Secretary, by throwing green custard in his face. Miss Deen, a 29 year old activist from the campaign group Plane Stupid, said the protest was part of an ongoing campaign against the proposed third runway at Heathrow airport. The Brighton based charity worker explained her motivations in a statement issued through the organisation. [full article]
Cadbury makes a first step toward fair trade chocolate
From Triple Pundit
Defining exactly what Fair Trade means isn’t easy, but the idea certainly sounds good. FINE starts their definition as Fair Trade is a trading partnership, based on dialogue, transparency and respect, that seeks greater equity in international trade. The idea is pretty simple – make sure small farmers and workers in poor countries don’t get screwed and that they’ve got enough money to give themselves some kind of pathway out of poverty. [full article]
American taste for soft toilet roll ‘worse than driving Hummers’
From Climate Ark
The tenderness of the delicate American buttock is causing more environmental devastation than the country’s love of gas-guzzling cars, fast food or McMansions, according to green campaigners. At fault, they say, is the US public’s insistence on extra-soft, quilted and multi-ply products when they use the bathroom. This is a product that we use for less than three seconds and the ecological consequences of manufacturing it from trees is enormous. [full article]
Coal industry tries to hide dirty facts behind ‘clean’ claims
From The Guardian
The fightback begins here. Well, we can hope. The misleading and downright duplicitous ads against clean coal chronicled here are now being contested by – you guessed it – an ad. Last week the Academy-award winning movie producers Joel and Ethan Coen began airing their commercial on cable TV in the US. It is a spoof air freshener advert with a suburban housewife spraying her home with a coal-black aerosol from a can called Clean Coal. [full article]
Honey, the numbers don’t lie: bees are in long-term decline
From The Daily Green
Once a year the National Agricultural Statistics Service, an arm of the Department of Agriculture, counts beehives, how much honey was produced from those beehives during the previous 12 months, how much honey was left from the year before, and how much beekeepers sold their honey for. At the same time they survey honey prices at the wholesale and retail levels and adjust the overall price according to how much was actually sold. [full article]
EU confident Obama will follow its lead on climate change
From Grist
The EU presidency is confident that the United States under President Barack Obama “will follow the leadership of the European Union”, by setting ambitious mid-term goals for cutting greenhouse gases. The 27 E.U. nations in December committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020 but have also agreed to increase the cut if the rest of the developed world gets on board with the plan. [full article]
Papua New Guinea creates first conservation area
From Yahoo! News
Papua New Guinea has created its first conservation area to save an area of pristine rainforest larger than Singapore and to protect rare animals such as a bear-like tree kangaroo, conservationists said on Tuesday. Saving the horse-shoe shaped area on the remote eastern Huon Peninsula will also lock away 13 million tons of carbon and the project might eventually yield tradeable carbon offsets to help fund local communities. [full article]
Climate change protest disrupts flights at Aberdeen airport
From The Guardian
Flights at one of Scotland’s busiest airports were disrupted today when climate change protesters dressed as Donald Trump played golf on a taxiway. Nine demonstrators from the Plane Stupid campaign group cut through Aberdeen airport’s perimeter fence at around 2.15am in protest at BAA’s plans to expand the airport. [full article]
Plant diseases threaten woodland
From BBC News
Some of the finest gardens and woodlands in Britain are under threat from two closely related and aggressive fungus-like plant diseases. The government has allocated £25m in a bid to eradicate the diseases which are spreading across the country. Rhododendrons, a carrier of both diseases, are likely to be removed in woodland to combat the problem. [full article]
California snow not enough to overcome drought
From Reuters
California’s mountain snowpack is only at 80 percent of normal, despite recent snowstorms, and is far from enough to ease a prolonged drought, making water conservation measures a necessity, state officials said on Monday. The drought is forcing municipal water rationing and sharp cutbacks in irrigation supplies to farmers. [full article]
Civil disobedience turns up the heat on Congress
From Greenpeace
In the shadow of the US Capitol, clean energy activists from around the country staged the largest mass civil disobedience on global warming in American history. Over 2,500 people gathered in Washington, D.C. to make a resounding call for Congressional action that will kickstart a clean energy revolution, create thousands of green jobs, and stop global warming. [full article]
Plants inspire new generation of solar cells
From ScienceDaily
The ability of plants to turn sunlight into energy through photosynthesis has been successfully mimicked by scientists at the University of Southampton to produce a new generation of solar cells. The Southampton team led by Professor Pavlos Lagoudakis of the University’s School of Physics and Astronomy, has developed a new range of photovoltaic devices. [full article]
Don’t forget to drop us a line if you know of a story we should include in the next round-up of green news.
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