Blog for the environment: Blog Action Day, October 15

September 8, 2007

Blog Action Day, October 15: Organizers hope to have as many as 10,000 blogs writing about environmental issues and environmental action.

Blog Action Day 2007, the environment

If you blog, perhaps you could join in. If you read and comment only, feel free to urge others to join in.

It’s headed up by a bunch from downunder. U.S., Canadian and Mexican bloggers haven’t got on the bandwagon a lot, yet. As the organizers describe it:

On October 15th – Blog Action Day, bloggers around the web will unite to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind.

In its inaugural year, Blog Action Day will be co-ordinating bloggers to tackle the issue of the environment.

What Each Blogger Will Do

Bloggers can participate on Blog Action Day in one of two ways:

  1. Publish a post on their blog which relates to an issue of their own choice pertaining to the environment.For example: A blog about money might write about how to save around the home by using environmentally friendly ideas. Similarly a blog about politics might examine what weight environmental policy holds in the political arena.Posts do not need to have any specific agenda, they simply need to relate to the larger issue in whatever way suits the blogger and readership. Our aim is not to promote one particular viewpoint, only to push the issue to the table for discussion.
  2. Commit to donating their day’s advertising earnings to an environmental charity of their choice. There is a list of “official” Blog Action Day charities on the site, however bloggers are also free to choose an alternate environmental charity to donate to if they wish.

And that’s it.

A gentle nudge to a better planet. Seems like a good idea to me.

Tip of the old scrub brush to Meeyauw.

4 Comments | Climate change, Conservation, Dust Bowl, Environmental protection, Ethics, Free market economics, Geography - Economic, Geography - Physical, Global warming, Globalization, Natural history, Natural resources, Nuclear power, Politics, Weblogs | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Collateral damage from magic bullets

July 22, 2007

In an earlier post I noted Norman Borlaug’s receiving the Congressional Gold Medal. In comments, Bernarda noted those who disagree with the claim that Borlaug’s Green Revolution was much of a benefit, or perhaps more accurately, those who note the problems that result from such advances — and there are many. Bernarda pointed to a BBC lecture from Vendana Shiva, detailing the problems that Punjab experienced as a result of governmental and society structures unable to deal with the changes required by high-yield crops: “Poverty and Globalisation.” It’s worth a read or a listen.
Similarly, in another BBC lecture in that series, Gro Harlem Bruntland details problems from “progress” that includes cutting the forests, in “Health and Population.” Relevant to other discussions here, she notes a rise in malaria due to deforestation, raising an issue that the junk science purveyors opposed to Rachel Carson’s honoring would like to ignore. Here is a small excerpt of her talk — note that deforestation is not a problem that more DDT can solve:

Gro Harlem Bruntland:  Recently, in Mozambique, I saw children with their eyes glazed with fever from a malaria that could have been prevented if their parents could afford bed nets. Deforestation had changed malaria from a nuisance to a curse in a matter of twenty years. 

Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO). Wikiquote image.

Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO). Wikiquote image.

More people are suffering from this killing and debilitating disease now than ever before, and deforestation, climate change and breakdowns in health services have caused the disease to spread to new areas and areas that have been malaria-free for decades, like in Europe.

In the Philippines, I have watched how beggars sit exhausted on the pavements convulsed with coughing. Tuberculosis, which we long believed had been brought under control by effective treatment, is on the rise again. Increasingly, we see forms of tuberculosis which are resistant to all but a very expensive cocktail of drugs.

I think that HIV/AIDS may be the most serious threat to face sub-Saharan Africa and other developing regions. space. Already, the AIDS epidemic is the leading cause of death in several African countries. AIDS has reversed the increases in life expectancy we have seen over the past thirty years. The social and economic devastation in countries that could lose a fifth of their productive populations is heart-rending.

I believe we are facing this alarming situation largely because of an outdated approach to development. Our theories have to catch up with what our ears and eyes are telling us – and fast.

There was a period in development thinking – not so long ago – when spending on public services, such as health and education, would have to wait. Good health was a luxury, only to be achieved when countries had developed a particular level of physical infrastructure and established a certain economic strength. The implicit assumption was that health was to do with consumption. Experience and research over the past few years have shown that such thinking was at best simplistic, and at worst plainly wrong.

I maintain that if people’s health improves, they make a real contribution to their nation’s prosperity. In my judgement, good health is not only an important concern for individuals, it plays a central role in achieving sustainable economic growth and an effective use of resources.

As in Europe at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, we have seen that developing countries which invest relatively more, and well, on health are likely to achieve higher economic growth.

In other words, malaria prevention grows on trees, or malaria grows with the cutting of trees.

1 Comment | Citizenship, Conservation, Current History, DDT, Disasters, Economics, Environmental protection, Ethics, Geography - Economic, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, Globalization, History, Junk science, Public health, Rachel Carson, Research, Science, Travel, War on Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

R.I.P.: HP Sauce (made in Birmingham, anyway)

March 16, 2007

This morning at 6:00 a.m. local time (GMT), the last shift finished work at the H. J. Heinz Co.’s plant in Birmingham, England, closing production in England of its famous HP Sauce. Production will be shifted to a plant in the Netherlands.

HP sauce, photo from BBCAbout 125 Britons will lose jobs.

HP is a vinegar-based sauce, used primarily on breakfast dishes if I understand it correctly. It is not available in the U.S. under that name, or at least, not available widely. I have been unable to get a description of what it tastes like.

HP was registered as a trademark before 1900, in what appears to be a reference to “Houses of Parliament,” where, the creator of the sauce said, it was quite popular. For a time it was called “Wilson’s sauce” after British Prime Minister Harold Wilson. According to a BBC story:

The closure has been opposed by unions and civic leaders but US owners Heinz decided the factory was not viable.

Businesses near to the factory launched a Save Our Sauce campaign and protests were held in Birmingham and outside the American Embassy in London in a bid to get the company to change its plans.

Birmingham City Council leaders met with Heinz managers to try to draw up fresh plans and MPs tried to get HP banned from tables inside the Houses of Parliament as it was no longer “a symbol of Britishness”, but all to no avail.

Production team leader Danny Lloyd, who has worked at the factory for 18 years, said it was “like the bottom had fallen out” of the workers’ worlds.

Heinz markets Heinz 57 sauce in the U.S, primarily intended for beef dishes, and competing with A.1. Sauce, a product now owned by Kraft Food, another monster, conglomerate food marketing organization. Heinz also owns the Lea & Perrins brand, which is famous in the U.S. for British-invented Worcerstershire sauce.

A high school class could make quite a meal of branded foods and sauces once made by small, local companies, now owned by large, global conglomerates.

Tip of the old scrub brush to Groves Media. Photo from BBC.

Update, March 16, 2007: How big is this thing? Courtesy of Paul Groves, check out this link: www.brownsauce.org

13 Comments | Business, Business Ethics, Current History, Economics, Food history, Freedom - Economic, Globalization | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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