everyday's a green day :)

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Whitebird Sings
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everyday's a green day :)

Post by Whitebird Sings » June 5th, 2005, 9:57 am

It is shortly before 10 am where I live in the world... and I am planting trees today... celebrating green day!

...yesterday I planted flowers and went for a long walk with my dog
...I don't own a car
...I recycle
...I use environmentally friendly products

What else can I do that you do?

In the West, all of the above sounds like the words of a recovering addict... and in some ways I suppose it is... We all need to be part of our own 12 step program toward sustainability...

...a 12 step program toward saving our planet

...the air we breath
...the plants, the animals, and the water

These things that we have believed are ours for the taking without limit... are ours to save!!!...

What else can I do that you do?

TODAY IS GREEN DAY... THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF THIS PLANET'S LIFE... Let's go for it... let's all live a life that is in harmony -- in rhythm with everything around us...

BOOM BOOM...
BOOM BOOM!! :lol:


World marks green day; UN warns of booming cities

05 Jun 2005 12:53:18 GMT

Source: Reuters
(Updates with details, including from Japan, London)

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent

OSLO, June 5 (Reuters) - From Japan to Jamaica, millions marked World Environment Day on Sunday by planting trees or staging rallies as the United Nations urged better "green" city planning to cope with runaway urban growth.

By 2030, more than 60 percent of the world's population will live in cities, up from almost half now and just a third in 1950, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said. Growth poses huge problems ranging from clean water supplies to trash collection.

"Already, one of every three urban dwellers lives in a slum," Annan said in a statement. "Let us create green cities," he said, adding the U.N. goal of halving poverty by 2015 would not be met unless city planning was less haphazard.

Activists mark June 5, the date of the first environmental summit in Stockholm in 1972, as the U.N.'s World Environment Day. The 2005 theme is "greener" planning for cities, many of them hit by air pollution, fouled rivers and poor sanitation.

In San Francisco, the main host of the 2005 event, mayors from more than 50 cities including Shanghai, Kabul, Buenos Aires, Sydney, Phnom Penh, Jakarta, Rome and Istanbul planned to sign up for a scheme setting new green standards for cities.

Cities would be ranked from zero to four stars according to compliance with a set of 21 targets. And around the world, from Australia to Zimbabwe, activists staged rallies, cleaned up litter, organised poetry competitions or planted trees.

In China, home to a fifth of humanity, the 2005 focus was to curb noise and clean up fouled water, air and rubbish in urban areas, Pan Yue, vice minister of the State Environmental Protection Administration, told Chinese Central Television.

In Australia, green groups and local councils organised festivals to promote awareness of environmental issues from recycling to tree planting to cleaning up waterways.

COOL FASHION

In Greece, the port of Zakynthos banned cars for the day and allowed free public transport, while tree planting took place along the Sri Lankan coast -- devastated by the Dec 26. tsunami -- in Kenya and at Ocho Rios on the Caribbean island of Jamaica.

Among events in Japan, a fashion show encouraged workers to dress less formally in summer to help cut air conditioning bills and save energy under a government-sponsored "Cool Biz" drive.

"By trying on these clothes, it helps ... raise awareness of environmental issues and help realise how we need to revolutionise our ways," said Sanyo Electric Chairman Satoshi Iue after walking down a catwalk in a grey suit and a white stiff-collar shirt -- but minus a tie.

In Norway, a youth group staged protests against plans to build new gas-fired power plants, saying they would mean too much pollution and add to greenhouse gas emissions.

GLOBAL WARMING

The San Francisco meeting would set goals including a cut in emissions by cities of heat-trapping carbon dioxide (CO2) gas from cars, factories and power plants by 25 percent by 2030.

That is more ambitious than under the U.N.'s Kyoto protocol, which seeks to cut emissions from developed nations by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.

"Cities are prolific users of natural resources and generators of waste. They produce most of the greenhouse gases that are causing global climate change," Annan said.

Other targets for the cities will include ensuring residents would not have to walk more than 500 metres (550 yards) in 2015 to reach public transport or an open space.

And in London, the environment ministry admitted that Britain's year-long presidency of the club of the world's top eight industrial nations -- focused on slowing global warming and helping Africa -- would emit a lot of hot air.

"The total carbon dioxide emissions associated with the G8 presidency will amount to 4,000 tonnes ... roughly equivalent to the emissions generated by the electricity and gas used in 800 average homes over a year," it said in a statement.

(With reporting by David Fogarty in Singapore, Jeremy Lovell in London, George Nishiyama in Tokyo, Anis Ahmed in Dhaka and Tamora Vidaillet in Beijing)


AlertNet news at http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SP70775.htm

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Whitebird Sings
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Post by Whitebird Sings » June 5th, 2005, 10:05 am

P.S. ...why is it that when a person speaks of things like this -- we are often accused by some loud and obnoxious voices as radical leftist nut cases??

(I'm thinking for example of a President to the south of my country and his father before him... and they are not alone)

...it seems to me that those who do not take steps to save the planet that we live on are the short sighted nut cases... and not the rest of us...

...seems to me 8)

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Whitebird Sings
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Post by Whitebird Sings » June 6th, 2005, 8:03 am

Atlas shows environmental damage

Last Updated Sun, 05 Jun 2005 23:45:17 EDT
CBC News

The United Nations has unveiled a new world atlas that uses satellite imagery to show the often damaging environmental changes sweeping the planet.

The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) produced the atlas, called "One Planet Many People," to mark World Environment Day.

The atlas compares and contrasts satellite images of past decades with ones from the present.

It finds many of the world's precious resources have seriously deteriorated because of rapid urbanization, overfishing and the loss of forests.

UN environment expert Pascal Peduzzi warned that natural resources are being used up so rapidly that many are in danger of disappearing.

"We've already cut 20 per cent of the Amazon. We have also seen some lakes that just totally vanished."

Peduzzi also said 78 per cent of the oceans are overfished. He said overfishing caused the collapse of cod fishery in Canada and sardine fishery in California.

The atlas shows the effects of retreating glaciers on mountains and in polar regions. It shows the explosive construction growth around some of the world's major cities and how this is increasing pollution and leading to global climate change.

But the atlas also reveals how environmental problems can be solved when people work together. The UN group says it shows that the ozone layer is improving as a result of the Montreal Protocol that called for the ban of ozone depleting aerosol gases.

The atlas was unveiled in San Francisco, where representatives from cities from around the globe on Sunday were ending a week of meetings, held to discuss the future of the world's environment.

[the article also includes a picture to illustrate before and after...

see: http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/ ... 50605.html ]

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