President Bush today established the largest marine conservation area in history. Over three hundred thousand square kilometres in the Pacific will now be protected as national monuments. The covered area includes the depths of the Mariana Trench. The status will protect the waters from commercial fishing as well as oil & natural gas exploration.

I’m sure everyone out there still hates Bush, but hey at least it’s something.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090106/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_marine_conservation

The new European Union president is President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic, and he does not believe in climate change. He thinks that it is a dangerous myth, who is this guy George Bush? Sorry that’s unfair to George Bush because he believes in climate change.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article5430362.ece

It is the most dangerous type of person who will consult the consult of a few rogue scientists while ignoring the vast consensus of the majority. Science isn’t faith, you don’t choose which part of it you want to believe. It comes as a whole. You can’t rely on science for every part of your daily life, to fly you across the globe, to watch your satellite television, to save your life on a hospital bed, but then choose to ignore it when it becomes an inconvenience. That’s foolish, but unfortunately the world has many foolish people and we are all paying the price.

Fashion designer Karl Lagerfield recently defended the fur industry saying; ‘it is justified as the beasts fur comes from would kill us if they could’.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fashion/fashionnews/4075783/Karl-Lagerfeld-defends-fur-industry-saying-beasts-would-kill-us-if-we-didnt-kill-them.html

Now I wasn’t aware that large primates were in the diet of minks, or of other animals that people customarily wear on their backs. Maybe Karl Lagerfield’s friends wear tiger coats?

In seriousness though, he makes a really good point when he says; “In a meat-eating world, wearing leather for shoes and clothes and even handbags, the discussion of fur is childish.” I think that’s true, if you criticize someone for wearing fur & then you order yourself a steak dinner, you are a hypocrite.

I also agree with what he said about the media’s exaggeration of models being too skinny. How many times do you hear people really say, ‘wow people are too skinny in this country’. Never happened. If we’re saying that skinny women can’t be in public eye because it might make 1% of girls too skinny. Then I am saying take all fat people off of television because it has made 30% of people too fat. And that is one of the greatest health crises of our time.

But still, ‘kill us if they could’, really?!

Malaysia has begun using satellites to monitor forest cover in the nation in an effort to stop illegal logging. Now they’re mostly doing this to save their own legal logging industry & not because of the environment. But the end result is the same, the environment will benefit. Legal logging can be planned & sustainable where as illegal logging is erratic & destructive.

This doesn’t have anything to do with the environment, I just wanted to highlight something that I think is ridiculous. Apparently the Australian government is in the process of creating a censorship filter which will cover the entire country’s internet access, & possibly slow browsing speeds up to 85%.

That a first-world democracy would enact such an illiberal move is disheartening.

http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20081226/ap_on_hi_te/tec_australia_internet_filter

The Hong Kong government is always looking for new & profitable ways to exploit the harbour & reclaim the land for commercial usage. Someone has to fight on behalf of the waterway & that someone is The Society For Protection Of The Harbour.

Check out their website for more information on how you can help preserve one the world’s greatest beauties for future generations.

http://www.harbourprotection.org/

Check out this blog on BBC, it’s pretty interesting:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/

A dike holding back a retention pond broke in Tennessee this morning contaminating hundreds of acres with a mix of water & coal ash. When asked to comment a TVA spokesperson had this to say: ‘Fuck the environment’.

Follow the link to read more; http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/12/29/tennessee.sludge/index.html

Check out the Arbor Day Foundation’s website where you can have trees planted in the name’s of loved ones. It’s a gift that gives for a lifetime.

http://www.arborday.org/shopping/giveatree/giveatree.cfm

If you need convincing:

‘As the trees grow and prosper, so does the meaning of your gift.

Over the course of 50 years, a single tree can generate $31,250 of oxygen, provide $62,000 worth of air pollution control, recycle $37,500 worth of water, and control $31,500 worth of soil erosion.

Your trees will be silent sentinels, honorable monuments, and for decades to come, active participants in nature’s plan.’

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081214/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_climate_new_partners

It’s good that people are finally coming around to the idea that going green doesn’t mean losing jobs or hurting the economy.