Renewable Engery and Green Technologies

Green Technology, an article in magazin-deutschland, and Power Surge, a NOVA episode, explore the future of energy and why countries need to start making the switch to renewable energy.

In light of oil running out and our environment degradation, our world is faced with the question of "how to get energy the world needs without harming it?" This is especially difficult to answer since we are healing to add 7 billion tons of extra emissions/year in the next few years due to economic growth.

It is said that necessity is the mother of invention; Power Surge noted that our generation has the biggest necessity in history so invention is inevitable and that as they come it is our responsibility to support them. The article Green Technology would say that there are inventions now that are being developed that should be supported now such as solar and wind power.

These two sources would both agree that nuclear and solar power (including biofuel) need to be used to turn away from non-renewable resources, but only power surge touched on the fact that we need to work with what we have used in the past. Things like coal power don't need to be abandoned but rather cleaned up. Also, things like cars and dishwashers don't need to be thrown out completely but rather efficiency needs to increase to save energy.

The solutions presented for energy crisis and environmental devastation is to improve what we have, develop what we need, and support not the cheapest methods but the right ones.

Half of the Rainforest May be Gone by 2030

Half of the Rainforest May be Gone by 2030

According to World Wildlife Fund (WWF) half of the Amazon will be destroyed or severely damaged by 2030. Destruction of forest for logging or to produce farmland is the main culprit. Both these factors are rapidly increasing. Unfortunately at the same time in the next 20 years there is expected to be 20% rain fall and a 2 degree increase in the Amazon area due to global warming.

The lack of rain and increase in temperature will not only stunt the growth of the forest, it will also increase the likely hood of forest fires. In these conditions the forest will not be able to regenerate at a quick enough pace. If open soil is exposed the line layer of topsoil in the Amazon is quick to be eroded away and leaves the land unable to support healthy and significant vegetation.

If the Amazon continues to be destroyed at the rate it is the climate of the world will be affected as well. If 60% of the Rain forest is degraded this will cause global warming to such an extent that even precipitation in India will been changed.

We are starting a dangerous cycle where the rainforest will be destroyed by global warming and global warming will be speed up by the destruction of forests. This in effect will cause humanity much grief.

Environment Canada Preparing 'Secret' Report on the Oilsands Impact

'Secret' Environment Canada presentation warns of oilsands' impact on habitat

Environment Canada and the Canadian government are at a standoff. A 'secret' presentation released last spring describing the danger of water used and released by the tar sand mines.

Harper and Peter Kent have recently said that communities and wildlife downstream are not at great risk to the pollutants though study says it is.

The study suggests that not only is the water being polluted but so is the air. This is causing acid rain across nearby provinces. The mine has also destroyed enormous amounts of native caribou homes.

The tar sands account for more than "100,000 direct and indirect jobs in Canada, and will contribute more than $1.7 trillion to the country's economy over the next 25 years." The numbers of jobs are only expected to grow in the next few years as the mine expands.

This is the main reason our economy is not crashing right now. The battle between the ecomony and the environment is playing out in this senerio as it is with most of Canada's problems.

Green Washing

Companies Are Cleaning Up Thier Images But Not Thier Act

Green peace defines greenwashing as "the cynical use of environmental themes to whitewash corporate misbehaviour." The main idea is to appeal to the public by making thier products seem environmentally friendly, throw environmental work out of proportion, or even use environmental work or support to hid bad things they do.

Car companies filming commercials in forests, oil companies advertising the money they have invested in wind power, green logos with lots of leafs are on countless new products, and companies brag about the recycled paper used to print off a plastic toy's instructions. These are all examples of greenwashing, and they are all problems. They make it incredibly difficult to find businesses genuinely interested and dedicated to helping the environment.

It is said that there are seven ways that companies greenwash; The 7 Sins of Greenwashing. 

1.     The Sin of Hidden Trade off- Claims to be green in one sense but hides significant impacts. (The percent of products committing sin (USA) is 73%)

2.     The Sin of No Proof- No reputable third-party verification of claims (59%)

3.     The Sin of Vagueness- Sayings like "all-natural" and "environmentally friendly"... Arsenic is all natural! (56%)

4.     The Sin of Worshiping False Labels- Companies make their own official looking seals and award them to their products (24%)

5.     The Sin of Irrelevance- Ex. saying your product is "CFC Free" when CFCs are banned by law (8%)

6.     The Sin of Lesser of Two Evils- Claim is true but does not recognize overall harm done by product (4%)

7.     The Sin of Fibbing- Flat out lying (0%)

All of these contribute to confuse and manipulate consumers.

When consumers do not know who to trust they often are not able to support the few companies that are actually clean. Greenwashing is also often used as propaganda to make people buy into their products and trust them. This gives these deceptive businesses more power and also incentive to deceive all the more. By buying these products people are actually supporting deforestation and by trusting them they are commending the companies for the means at which they produce their product. A company may save ducklings from oil spills but at the same time they as spending millions to lobby in the government for less fracking regulations.

Greenpeace created stopgreenwashing.org to educate people which companies are committing eco-crimes or throwing their environmental initiatives out of proportion so that they may make educated decisions and fight against these corporations.

According to Triple Pundit (a new-media business organization which focuses on the triple bottom-line) 'smart' consumers are avoiding greenwashed products . Apparently mothers in the states are beginning to use Facebook and are reading blogs to find out which greenwashed products to avoid. The Stop Greenwashing website is another powerful tool to enable people to make educated and right choices.

A Long Way Gone

I read the book A Long Way Gone in the summer of grade 11. It is the memoir of a young boy caught up in the civil war of Sierra Leone who loses his family and humanity as he is forced to be a child solider. It is mixed with both the horrors he lived through and witnessed in his country as well as the horror he and his fellow soldiers inflicted on others.

Though the civil war was seen as political in nature much of the conflict was it was fuelled and prolonged because of the presence of gold, cash crops, and especially diamonds in Sierra Leone. Debeers was the company mining in Sierra Leone and when they pulled out of the country the government lost control of the mines causing chaos and many illegal processes. The government was not able to gain control again. Instead the rebels used the diamonds to fund their war.

The war killed 50000 people in Sierra Leone and stole the childhood of thousands more. All the while the market was flooded with cheap diamonds and western companies flourished. Flourished at the expense the politically unstable and now war torn nation.

Capitalism

Though an extremely biased left-winged film, Michel Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story  raised and answered a lot of excellent questions. The most important of these is how corporate dominance is taking over all aspects of our lives and whether or not there is a possibility and need to break out of the capitalist system.




Like the documentary MANN TALK: The Correlation Between Capitalism and Corruption look at how capitalism corrupts. Unlike Moores it explores how it corrupts individuals, slowly diluting ethics and morality. Causing people to turn away from what they believe in and chase after the idea of money. People also more readily accept lies presented by those in power which promise wealth. MANN TALK is very religiously biased but again presents interesting ideas of how capitalism is failing us.

Even though people do see this as major issues it is obvious that capitalism does exactly what it promises to do, and that is create wealth. Capitalism is Wealth explains how things like greed and corruption is human nature and though it may be magnified by capitalism, it is not created by it. Which is true; in any economic or political system you will find corruption and that they are all riddled with greed. This article explains that capitalism only creates the possibility, arguably the guarantee, that each individual receives the fruit of their labour and the right to security.

The article Capitalism's Own Worst Enemy, brought up the fact that though capitalism is seemingly the best system to create jobs and money it is now creating the loose of jobs and income inequality. CEOs are getting million dollar bonuses and the average worker's pay or even job is getting cut. This obviously creates feeling of anger and strife between classes. Obama came into power to support the average American and not corporations, to help reverse the widening of this gap. However wealthy companies and people are throwing themselves and/or money at Obama in hopes of turning him into a capitalist puppet. As this article makes clear capitalism does create the means for phenomenal amounts of wealth, which our western society has bared witness to for the past few decades, but it also creates the possibility for failure and corruption.

HIV Vaccine

Canadian scientists get green light for trials on groundbreaking HIV vaccine

A potential HIV vaccine is under review by the FDA (United States Food and Drug Administration). The team led by Dr. Chil-Yong Kang, a virologist at the University of Western have been working on the vaccine since 1987 and are very excited.

After they get the go ahead they will be able to begin testing on humans because so far, in the lab, the vaccine have had no negative effects on rats and monkeys.

A vaccine like this could save millions of lives with 2.3-2.8 million people becoming infected every year. Hundreds in Canada alone. Between Nov. 1, 1985 and Dec. 31, 2009, there were 69,844 positive HIV tests reported in Canada.