EcocentricRegulation
Bangladesh’s courts put their foot down (again) this week on shipbreaking, one of the world’s dirtiest and most dangerous industries. The Supreme Court in the capital city Dhaka re-asserted that all ships coming into the nation to be dismantled for scrap metal will now be required to carry proof that they have been …
EcocentricTechnology
Oh, IKEA. Always going that extra kilometer. As if the affordable bedside tables and mid-store meatballs just when we are getting hungry (you always know!) weren’t enough, the world’s favorite Swedish home furnisher is now trying to give America a gentle shove into the age of renewable energy. IKEA is working with U.S. Department of …
EcocentricEnergy
Bill Gates—through his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—revolutionized the health world by focusing vast amounts of money on diseases of the developing world that hadn’t responded to traditional philanthropy. (That’s why TIME put Gates, his wife Melinda and U2 frontman Bono on the cover as People of the Year in 2005.) Lately, …
EcocentricInvasive Species
The dreaded Asian carp are back in the news today. The five Great Lakes states—Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Ohio—suing to beef up anti-carp defenses scored a legal victory yesterday:
On Monday, a federal judge held an initial hearing and scheduled more hearings for expert testimony in early September. The
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EcocentricOil
We’ve learned so many wonderful new terms during the more than four-month old BP oil spill: top kill, static kill, bottom kill, Corexit, junk shot. It’s time to add one more: Oceanospirillales. That’s that name of an order of proteobacteria that are currently chowing down on the plumes of underwater oil created by the spill—and …
EcocentricOil
There seem to be two rules to being a passenger on a Greenpeace ship. One: if you take a beer from the refrigerator, always remember to log it on the drinks sheet. (And pay your bar bill before you leave the boat—otherwise, I believe they make you walk the plank.) Two: there is no such thing as a passenger on a Greenpeace ship. …
EcocentricOceans
The Associated Press has a nifty exclusive: an interview with the mayor of the Japanese town of Taiji. If that name rings a bell, it’s probably because you’ve seen The Cove, the Oscar-winning documentary that details the dolphin slaughter carried out by the residents of the village. Though The Cove makes it seem as if the dolphin hunt is …
EcocentricOil
With the world’s gaze focused on the dangers of oil spills, attention turned this week to a relatively overlooked environmental calamity: oil spills in Ogoniland, a part of Nigeria’s Niger Delta. If the BP rig disaster was a geyser, the spills in Ogoniland have been a slow bleed
EcocentricOil
Twice over the past month and a half I’ve sat with groups in Louisiana and Florida while Kenneth Feinberg—the booming Boston lawyer who is running the multi-billion dollar oil spill compensation fund—made his pitch. The audiences couldn’t have been more different—worried and wary fisherman in the tiny Louisiana village of Port …
EcocentricUncategorized
Exactly a month ago, I was driving down a long, empty stretch of road in eastern Australia, swerving around kangaroo carcasses and listening on the radio to Prime Minister Julia Gillard give a policy speech on climate change ahead of the August 21 national elections. It was a stunning day in rural Queensland, with blue skies stretching …
