Category Archives: Nature and Environment

Environmental And Food Activists Need To Consider Social Justice, Eric Schlosser Says

Posted by BeiBei, Curator on April 14, 2012 None comments

Written by Margaret Steen for Stanford Center for Social Innovation; published: March 21, 2012

[photo - Eric Schlosser]

Is the food movement in danger of becoming elitist? That was the critique given by Eric Schlosser, author of the book Fast Food Nation, and co-producer of the documentary “Food Inc.”  March 14 at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Schlosser’s talk, “Environmentalism, Elitism, and Food,” was this year’s Conradin von Gugelberg Memorial Lecture, honoring the environmental commitment of a member of the MBA Class of ’87.

Schlosser is an investigative journalist whose bestselling book, Fast Food Nation, was an expose of the fast-food industry, and he followed up with “Food Inc.,” a film about corporate control of the American food supply. In his lecture he compared the current food movement with the environmental movement, looking at the history of each and warning that the food movement, like the environmental movement before it, risks losing touch with its democratic roots. Read more »

Nature Deficit Disorder ‘Damaging Britain’s Children’

Posted by BeiBei, Curator on March 31, 2012 None comments

Not just Britain’s children, is it?  岂只是英国的儿童？

 

By Richard Black, Environment correspondent, BBC News, 29 March 2012

UK children are losing contact with nature at a “dramatic” rate, and their health and education are suffering, a National Trust report says.

Traffic, the lure of video screens and parental anxieties are conspiring to keep children indoors, it says.

"Nature lesson" for children

Evidence suggests the problem is worse in the UK than other parts of Europe, and may help explain poor UK rankings in childhood satisfaction surveys.

The trust is launching a consultation on tackling “nature deficit disorder”.

“This is about changing the way children grow up and see the world,” said Stephen Moss, the author, naturalist and former BBC Springwatch producer who wrote the Natural Childhood report for the National Trust.

“The natural world doesn’t come with an instruction leaflet, so it teaches you to use your creative imagination.

“When you build a den with your mates when you’re nine years old, you learn teamwork – you disagree with each other, you have arguments, you resolve them, you work together again – it’s like a team-building course, only you did it when you were nine.” Read more »

Denmark Tops the First-of-Its-Kind Global Cleantech Innovation Index

Posted by BeiBei, Curator on February 27, 2012 None comments

Denmark, followed by Israel, Sweden, Finland and the US provide the best conditions today for clean technology start-up creation, according to the first Global Cleantech Innovation Index.

FEBRUARY 27, 2012 — LONDON — Today, Cleantech Group and WWF publish Coming Clean: The Global Cleantech Innovation Index 2012. The report looks at where entrepreneurial cleantech companies are growing today, reasons as to where they will spring-up over the coming years, and which countries are falling above and below the curve for fostering cleantech innovation. Read more »

Industrial Scars 地球癌症

Posted by BeiBei, Curator on January 27, 2012 None comments

This article was published in New York Times a year ago, but the images are still potent as long as the reality they depict remains.  They remind me of my hometown, except J. Henry Fair has not made it there to create another eerily artful piece.

下半部的中文是在“文学城”网站上看到的。

- BeiBei Song, Editor ｜ 宋贝贝

An Artful Environmental Impact Statement

 

J Henry Fair/Gerald Peters Gallery

Abstraction of Destruction J. Henry Fair’s aerial photographs in this show at Gerald Peters Gallery include “Lightning Rods”” (2009), depicting a holding tank at an oil sands facility in Alberta, Canada. More Photos »

By ROBERTA SMITH

The vivid color photographs of J. Henry Fair lead an uneasy double life as potent records of environmental pollution and as ersatz evocations of abstract painting. This makes “Abstraction of Destruction,” his exhibition at the Gerald Peters Gallery, a strange battle between medium and message, between harsh truths and trite, generic beauty. Read more »

America’s Cup Healthy Ocean Project To Amplify Need For Ocean Conservation

Posted by BeiBei, Curator on October 17, 2011 None comments

from America’s Cup Event Authority

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA – OCTOBER 17, 2011 – Global leaders in the arena of ocean conservation, oceanographic research, and environmental sustainability gathered today in San Francisco to celebrate the launch of the America’s Cup Healthy Ocean Project, the global initiative of the 34th America’s Cup to educate the world’s populations about the issues facing our oceans and inspire them to act.

Driven by its commitment to have the 34th America’s Cup be “more than a sport,” the America’s Cup Event Authority (ACEA) has set an ambitious goal with the AC Healthy Ocean Project to develop the world’s largest communication outreach program focused on improving ocean health. To accomplish this goal, ACEA has partnered with some of the leading voices in the ocean conservation field, including Dr. Sylvia Earle and her organization Mission Blue, OceanElders, Sailors for the Sea, One World One Ocean and IUCN, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

Dr. Sylvia Earle, Oceanographer, Explorer-in-Residence at National Geographic and Global Ambassador to the AC Healthy Ocean Project: “As an ocean scientist and explorer with thousands of hours on, around and especially under the sea, I have personally witnessed a time of unprecedented discovery – and unprecedented loss. Half a century ago, it seemed the ocean was too vast, too resilient to be affected by our actions.  Now we know:  coral reefs, kelp forests, coastal marshes, numerous kinds of fish and other ocean wildlife have declined sharply owing to pressures we have applied.  Dead zones have appeared.  Oxygen-producing plankton is declining. The ocean is in trouble – and that means we are in trouble, too.”

Read more »

Veolia Innovation Accelerator program working nicely, with internal wrinkles to smooth out

Posted by BeiBei, Curator on March 31, 2011 None comments

At last year’s Cleantech Forum, the French environmental giant Veolia announced the Innovation Accelerator program to tap into cleantech innovations for the company’s environmental businesses around the world.  At a time when many start-ups faced scaleup issues, the program itself seemed innovative.

Attending the Forum again this year, I spoke briefly with two of the program’s executive leaders, Philippe Martin, Senior Vice-President Research & Innovation and Michel Morvan, VP Strategic Intelligence and Innovation, to find out how VIA has been working out.

Read more »

Climate Change’s Biggest Losers

Posted by BeiBei, Curator on March 7, 2011 None comments

From McGill University

Climate change in 50 years is expected to have the greatest impact on populations least responsible for causing the problem.

Read more »

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