bemoreeco

This remarkable story is reported by EarthFirst about Edith Macefield. Edith rued her house being engulfed by local industry and refused to leave. In desperation local developers offered increasingly large sums of money for Edith to move out. The Seattle Times article states Edith was offered nearly $1m to move, she turned it down.

Edith, 86, passed away a fortnight ago, in the same house and on the same couch where her mother had died. As the Seattle Times reports:

The tiny house in the industrial flats once was part of a row of picket-fence-lined cottages along a working-class street. That was old Ballard. Today it sits walled in on three sides by what will be a five-story health club and a Trader Joe’s. New Ballard.

The only reason the new hasn’t completely obliterated the old — yet, anyway — is because of the principled lady who lived there. She stuck it out through years of garbage trucks rumbling by, a homeless car-camping colony out her front door, and now, for the past two years, the racket of construction mere feet from her windows.

“I don’t care about money,” Edith said. “What would I do with that kind of money anyway?

So what becomes of her house now? The article notes that joints and holes have been left in the construction around her assuming they will be added in once the house is demolished? Edith had no relatives, and in the last two years spent much of her time with the senior construction superintendent.

Yes, we know. It’s Friday, and that means a rundown of all the fun, dumb and bizarre green ideas this week. It hasn’t been the most memorable week, but there have sure been some corkers. Here is a rundown of our favourites.

Dumb Green Idea: 1/3rd of all Marine Life Wiped Out

This one is less of an idea and more of an amazing series of mistakes. This week The Times reported that almost a third of all marine life had vanished…from scientific records. In an attempt to freshen up the Marine Life Register scientists discovered that over a third of marine life had been counted 2 – 3 times. One had been included under different names 56 times.

Mis-spellings played a role in the number of names attributed to a species and over-enthusiasm on the part of naturalists eager for the glory of being the first to come across an animal or plant was thought to be another factor.

The article goes on to state that one scientist managed to discover the same species 4 times. This is the same scientists who introduced the Latin naming system to standardize the discoveries of worldwide scientists. Sadly these scientists did not magically use the same Latin names to describe species

Dumb Green Idea: Flying a balloon over Al-Gore’s House

This one isn’t so dumb, it’s just a little naive and irritating. A group calling themselves Americans for Prosperity are up in arms about not being allowed to fly a balloon over Al-Gore’s residence. For the climax of the Hot Air Tour, a tour bemoaning the negative effect on the American economy of environmental bills and initiatives, Americans for Prosperity wished to fly a hot air balloon over Al-Gore’s house.

Not liking the idea of having a hot air balloon flying over his private residence, Al-Gore had the police prevent such an action. A decision which has naturally irked the group’s members and provoked criticism of the police (sorry, yes cops!).

What’s frustrating is Americans for Prosperity are stoking a clear problem (handling the rough times in the switch to greener energy ahead), instead of pressing forward for business-minded solutions. Worse, their argument itself is open to criticisms. If America was not reliable on oil would they still be in Iraq and Afghanistan? And if they weren’t in the Middle East, how much money might that save?

This is an amazing idea. As part of Design21’s competition to improve the cycling experience with design accessories or add-on’s for existing bikes, Matthew Boyko and Christina Ng came up with the Bloom Device to ‘Peddle Green’. The concept involves mixing seedlings with soap which creates carrier bubbles. When in motion the air pushes these seed-carrying bubbles into the air.

Similar to the tuft of a dandelion as the wind carries the seedling, we propose a way of dispersing seedlings with bubbles and bicycling. Seeds are co-mingled with a bubble mixture and upon pedaling to your destination , you release the floating seeds.

Although this idea did not win the competition, it has gained a lot of publicity via venture capitalist, Guy Kawasaki’s blog. Interestingly, the inventors suggest the best use of this would be in urban, rather than rural areas. As noted in the comments of Guy’s blog, this is likely to cause problems. However, in a rural environment this could prove an especially clever idea.

The winner of the competition was Ben Decherd’s brilliant portable power back, a pack charged by cycling which can be used to power a range of essential devices, most especially in disaster-struck areas. Second place went to the UK’s own Joe Wentworth’s retrofit handlebars.

Green Girls Global reports on Green Wave, an interesting event taking place at Preston Park in Brighton from the 5th - 6th July. Green Wave is an event organised by the Business Forum and New Era Associates to create awareness of green products and services in the area. Most importantly, it’s a family-orientated event which combines education with interactive entertainment. As noted on on the Green Wave website:

There will be showcasing opportunities for all sectors of the community in eight different Zones, which will be themed, and will provide lots of interactive entertainment for the family. For example, the Earth Zone could display wormeries, composting ideas and house a mini eco farm, whilst the Energy Zone will demonstrate products using sustainable energy, ranging from mobile phones to solar powered cars, with the addition of an Energy Play Area or eco circus for children.

Organisers predict 10,000 – 15,000 visitors will attend the two-day event. Green Girls Global also state that interested businesses with ethical products and servies to promote might gain a stand at the event free of charge.

Should you still be shopping at Primark? That’s the question reverberating around women-kind this week following a child-labour scandal. The truth is, Primark were not directly involved in employing these child-labour, rather three of their suppliers sub-contracted work which eventually filtered down to individuals employing children in the slums of India.

This story isn’t entirely new. Almost a month ago Channel 4 pulled their “The Devil Wears Primark” exposé at the last moment. The best report of the Primark scandal is Dan McDougall’s astonishing piece in yesterday’s Observer.

See the BBC Panorama preview below for a great overview of the story.

Perhaps the biggest ethical dilemma here is that we all know child labour is wrong. The problem is that for many families the money their children earn from this labour is what pays for food. However, this certainly isn’t a redeemable argument Primark can adopt. Child labour IS wrong and they have a social responsiblity to thoroughly examine their supply chains right down to people making their clothes, and even where they get their material from.

This video documents Ecover’s visit to the WaterAid projects in Ethiopia.

This is so clever it hurts, it really hurts.  A new eco-nightclub, funded by Andrew Charalambous is due to open on London’s Pentonville Road on July 10. The club, part of the Club4Climate Group, aims to inspire young people to tackle global warming.

The key attraction of the club is a bouncing floor which uses vibrations created by dancers to power 60% of the venue. However, judging from these paragraphs in The Evening Standard there could be some problems:

The venue will sell organic spirits served in polycarbon cups and will be powered with renewable energy. There are also plans to install a recycled water system to flush its lavatories and an energy-generating dancefloor, which would harness power from the pounding of clubbers’ feet and convert it into electricity.

Although entry to the club costs £10, those customers who can prove they travelled there by foot, bicycle or public transport will be allowed in free. Before they are let in they will be asked to sign a pledge promising to work towards curbing climate change.

Now whilst we wouldn’t like to be cynical about such a great idea, we’re really not sure encouraging customers to cycle to the club (and, thus, cycle home afterwards) is such a great idea. Nor are we too sure that forcing customers to sign a pledge will be a great appeal. Imagine the bouncers: “Sorry mate, if you’re name aint on the pledge, you’re not coming in“.

Via TreeHugger (of course).

So we have two pretty dumb green ideas this week. One is just ignorant of the current global climate, the other is truly, truly, frightening. Needless to say which is this week’s clear winner.

Dumb Green Idea: BA’s half-full luxury flights

Really, when times are tough, the climate is of imminent concern and both Silverjet and Eos have folded, why would you decide it’s a great time to move into an invisible premium market? In short, BA have decided to launch a luxury-service to cater to the customers deserted by the previous business-class only airlines, Silverjet and Eos.

It’s annoyed environmentalists who point out that, now, every passenger has twice the carbon footprint of the typical passenger. Pretty dumb.

Dumb Green Idea: Eating cats (yes, seriously)

Hot on the heels of Jamie Oliver gassing young chicks and slitting the throats of young lambs, comes this ambitious attempt to make a point by a group of Danish students. Furious with the way food animals were being treated, they decided to eat a cat…and upload the pictures onto Facebook. As reported by the Copenhagen Post (and EarthFirst).

The group, all students at the Danish School of Journalism, had their Facebook accounts closed by the on-line community’s administrators after they uploaded pictures of themselves cooking and eating a cat. The meal had been intended as a way to shed light on the plight of food animals such as pigs and cows, but instead it has animal lovers hissing in protest.

[...] Before ending up on the students’ plates, the main course lived a life as a feral cat. It had been shot by a farmer trying to control the number of cats on his land. In addition to the 30 pictures that have now been removed from Facebook, the group’s profile also included a recipe for a dish called ‘litter box’.

I’ll end with this extremely apt quote from Frederick Nietzsche:

“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster.

Green car of the year 2008 announced  by ETA – 1300 cars named and shamed

The big news of the week is Bristol becoming the UK’s first Cycling City. Bristol has been awarded £100m to double the number of people cycling in the city. As reported in The Guardian:

Chief among the recipients is Bristol, which saw off competition from Manchester and Leicester to be named the country’s first “cycling city”. The city council, in partnership with neighbouring South Gloucestershire council, won the bid promising Britain’s first Paris-style on-street bike rental network, the offer of free bikes to people in deprived communities, state-of-the-art shower and locker facilities in the city centre, dedicated commuter “cycle ways” linking the suburbs and the centre, and an ambitious expansion in training for schoolchildren. It will match its £11.4m grant with the same amount from the two councils and their partners over the next 30 months.

It’s certainly an ambitious plan with a lot of promise. Will it be successful? Doubling the number of cyclists is not going to be issue and it requires committed activists to see the plan through the politics of running a city. Be sure to also read the Guardian’s Environmental Editor’s take on the decision: