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Beautiful indeed

Monday, January 16th, 2012

John Pagani tweeted a post Beautiful with a link. Once I watched it, I had to email it to lots of people as well as re-tweet to make sure as many people as possilbe saw it.

One friend, replied, “I cried watching it”. Another,”I’ve sent to everyone I think will love too.”

This is a non-commercial attempt to highlight the fact that world leaders, irresponsible corporates and mindless ‘consumers’ are combining to destroy life on earth. It is dedicated to all who died fighting for the planet and those whose lives are on the line today. The cut was put together by Vivek Chauhan, a young film maker, together with naturalists working with the Sanctuary Asia network (www.sanctuaryasia.com).

Content credit: The principal source for the footage was Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s incredible film HOME http://www.homethemovie.org/. The music was by Armand Amar. Thank you too Greenpeace and http://timescapes.org/

Tags: Beautiful, Earth, Greenpeace, John Pagani
Posted in Environment, Sustainability | No Comments »

Inspired giving

Saturday, December 10th, 2011

As a little girl I used to stay with Shirley Smith, one of NZ’s first barristers, and she was a huge fan of Unicef. Every card she ever sent came from Unicef and it’s one of the rituals I have adopted. This Christmas as well as giving my step-grandchildren their usual Christmas present – usually a voucher to their favourite shop or some cash, I talked to their grandfather about adding an inspired gift – a life-changing gift for children.

Says Victoria Carter, Cityhop’s co-founder,”I’ll still be making a usual donation to the City Mission and I’m hunting down gifts for teenage boys to help them cater to this difficult age group in the gift giving category!

“I liked the idea of reminding children at Christmas how lucky they are. Unicef, World Vision and other charities all offer this inspired giving and there are some wonderful ideas for giving, yes the goat is there, but there’s also water purification, therapeutic milk for starving babies, pencils, even soccer balls. You might have seen Jonah Lomu promoting it in a ghastly jumper, saying no to naff!”

Says the Unicef website, Inspired Gifts are life saving and life changing gifts distributed to children and communities around the world throughout the year. Unicef buys vaccines for almost 60% of the world’s children, 3 billion doses a year, so by buying an inspired gift, like a polio vaccine gives 100 children the certainty of life without polio.

With gifts from $6 many people could easily add an inspired gift to their Christmas gift giving and make a difference. Think about it.

Tags: best Christmas gift, best Christmas present, inspired giving, Jonah Lomu, Unicef, Victoria Carter, World Vision
Posted in Reuse and recycle, Sustainability | No Comments »

Smart cities say no to water bottles

Friday, October 28th, 2011

San Francisco began the ban and now Seattle has followed, announcing a ban on bottled water being served at meetings and events. While it sounds like an eco-friendly step it’s also got a financial benefit.

Last year the City spent $58,000 on bottles of water and that isn’t even counting the true cost, i.e., the cost of disposing of the plastic let along the making of the bottles or the carbon footprint.

No reason why Auckland Council couldn’t do the same, it would be a vote for the fine quality of the water we get out of our tap! Take note Watercare, maybe you could start advocating to the Council to drink more of your stuff!

This could be Len Brown speaking but it’s actually the Mayor of Seattle: “We own one of the best water supplies in the country, every bit as good as bottled water and available at a fraction of the price. When you add up the tremendous environmental costs of disposable plastic bottles clogging our landfills, the better choice is crystal clear.”

Posted in Environment, Reuse and recycle, Sustainability | Comments Off

Less space = more happiness

Sunday, October 9th, 2011

Having spent much of weekend clearing, sorting and throwing out the concept of having a little less is resonating with me. I know I collect too much, my husband will tell you that. I do have trouble throwing things away because nearly everything I have has a story!

However it is also hugely satisfying sorting out cupboards and deciding it’s time to let something go. Our local St Vincent de Paul shop is filling each week! Trade me has a pile of listings and the present drawer is getting some order as I decide to finally give something away that I probably bought because I wanted it!

The point of this blog is that while I searched for Steve Jobs amazing speech on living to Stanford University, I stumbled on Graham Hill, Less Stuff More happiness on TED.

He points out how we need three times the space we did 50 years ago. With all ths extra space we have we still don’t have enough space for all the stuff we buy. One of the biggest growth businesses is ‘storage.’

And of course all this extra stuff means we are making a bigger carbon footprint and impacting on our environment as we build bigger houses.

Ironically even though we have three times more stuff our happiness levels have flat lined for the past 50 years! Hmm maybe buying things doesn’t make us happy!

Makes you think, the less stuff we have the less space we need the less Co 2 we produce and the more money we have. Sounds a bit like carsharing.

Back to emptying another cupboard!

Posted in Reuse and recycle, Sustainability | Comments Off

Plastic into oil

Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011

We all know oil is used to make plastic. Now a clever Japanese inventor has come up with the technology to turn plastic waste into oil!

In this u-tube clip, he says until he had children he hadn’t given much thought to the environment. Now the places he used to enjoy as a child are no longer there or are filled with rubbish.

He reminds us of the huge piles of plastic waste being dumped all over the world. Then he shows us the machine he invented. He stuffs everyday plastic household rubbish in to the box and after a while oil is created. He says it could be turned into petrol, kerosene and so on.

You can find him going around under-developed countries, visiting schools showing children how what is rubbish could have another purpose.

The machine produced in various sizes, for both industrial and home uses, can easily transform a kilogram of plastic waste into a litre of oil, using about 1 kW·h of electricity but without emitting CO2 in the process. The machine uses a temperature controlling electric heater instead of flames, processing anything from polyethylene or polystyrene to polypropylene (numbers 2-4). Comment: 1 kg of plastic produces one liter of oil, which costs $1.50. This process uses only about 1 kW·h of electricity, which costs less than 20 cents!

Posted in Environment, Sustainability | Comments Off

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Archive for the ‘Sustainability’ Category

Beautiful indeed

Inspired giving

Smart cities say no to water bottles

Less space = more happiness

Plastic into oil

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