inkycircus

"I want to ride my bicycle. I want to ride it where I like."

I was pleased as punch to FINALLY buy myself a new bike seat. I've practically been cycling on a plank of plywood these past months. It's a wonder I didn't develop ass callouses like a monkey.

In anycase, whatever sense of splashing out on my clunking bike and injecting with vim fast evaporated when I saw Schwinn's new red hot electric bikes slated to debut this summer.

One battery charge takes less than 4 hours and lasts for 60 miles. Their seamless design doesn't have any of dorkiness of most electric bikes (take Peter Parker's ride in the disappointing yet supremely heckle-able Spiderman 3) either. God bless them they've even gone to the trouble of making sure a girl can ride in her summery skirt and save herself the perspiration of slugging up hills. All three models come in an optional low step thru frame. Bliss.

VIA MetaEfficient

The power of peer pressure

Big hotels have big laundry bills, hence the polite little cards in the bathrooms entreating you to think of the environment and use your towels for more than one day in a row. Tis a small change, but every little helps. So how do you get people to make that change? It's a commonly held perception that the best way to get people to go green is to tell them everyone's doing it. Whether this induces guilt or altruism isn't necessarily relevant, what matters is that they do it. An Arizona psychologist wanted to see if this peer pressure effect would motivate people to hang up and reuse those towels, so put four different little messages in the bathrooms to see what would happen.

The four messages were:
1. "Help Save The Environment," with information stressing respect for nature.
2. "Help Save Resources For Future Generations," with information stressing the importance of energy-saving.
3. "Partner With Us To Help Save The Environment," with information urging guests to help the hotel preserve the environment.
4."Join Your Fellow Citizens In Helping To Save The Environment," stating the majority of hotel guests reuse their towels.

The fourth message meant that 28% more people reused their towels. Take note, hoteliers around the world. And take note green activists too - you don't have to scare people or hector them, all it takes is a nice polite little message.

Via Fox News.
(PHOTO: LOSTPOET)

Angry angry ocean karma

We've had some heated debates at the circus over whaling. Should they, shouldn't they, who decides, how good is the evidence, how many whales, if any, are safe to harvest. And why Japan bothers to keep on pretending their whaling is for scientific research. Why don't they just join Iceland and Norway and hunt openly, instead of using cowardly loopholes built into the International Whaling Commission. Oh right, because they've taken control of the IWC by purchasing votes from tiny nations, so they might as well stick with the system and change it from the inside.

Whatever. Japan convened an IWC meeting last week hoping change the now 20 year-old moratorium on commercial whale hunting. Only 34 of IWC member countries attending, with anti-whaling countries such as Canada, the US, Britain, Australia and New Zealand boycotting the proceedings.

Days later a Japanese whaling ship near Antarctica, the Nisshin Maru, caught fire. The whale processing deck was mostly  destroyed. One crew member died. The "scientific" whale hunt for the season might be abandoned. The cause of the fire is unknown.

Now I wouldn't put it past those crazy Sea Shepherd guys in New Zealand, even though the jury is still out over who rammed who in last Monday's "encounter" between the activists and whalers. But I don't think this was malice or coincidence. I think it was karma.

Which makes me crazy. But I think it's catching. Because you know why the news agencies have churned out a million blow-by-blow stories  - on the fire, the rescue mission (and rejection of Greenpeace assistance), the engine restart, the engine turn-over but still dead in the water, the possible oil spill and subsequent penguin colony destruction, the winch status, which determines whether the ship can haul whales out of the water - because it has this strange feeling of justice (at least to those already convinced that scientific whaling is total crap). And justice tastes good. Kind of sweet. Kind of like this quote from New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark: 

"I think [the Nisshin Maru] needs to be towed back to where it came from," she said. "And one would hope that the fact that this season has been so ghastly for the Japanese whaling fleet … might give cause for reflection on whether they come back again."

It's unfortunate that my brain has to kick in and ruin the happy smug-party. Because rejoicing in this event only shows how divided the argument really is. A broken IWC is bad for both sides of the debate and especially bad for whale populations. "Scientific" whaling is not the answer; plus it gives Japan even LESS credibility about being a responsible whaling nation IF the anti-whalers were to try and talk about commerical harvests. And the anti-whalers need to pull their head from their bums and realize that lots of whaling is already happening and if they'd talk reasonably maybe we could all regulate it better. You know, learn something. Likewise, objecting out of the moratorium, like Iceland and Norway did, won't help us come to a solution for this uniquely international resource problem.

We need some sort of international consortium that cannot be bought or riddled with loopholes to figure out what, exactly, to do. We need a powerful scientific committee to take charge and say how many of which species, of what age/size/sex can be safely taken from which populations (and then shave off a few for good measure).

Until then, I guess I'll settle for the crippling of the Japanese whaling fleet.

Green by decree

Most of us could manage to be a bit greener in our lives. Whether that means not eating Chilean strawberries in winter, not flying around the world quite so much, or just replacing some of our lightbulbs with energy efficient ones, we could do more. But who should be compelling us to do so? It's reasonably clear that most people don't bother to make such efforts when left to their own devices. But does that mean that the government should intervene and start making non-green things illegal? Australia's government is just about to do exactly that, and ban normal incadescent lightbulbs in favour of the energy efficient equivalent (via The Guardian).

This Big Brother theory can actually work, as shown in Ireland where you have to pay a small fee in shops to get a plastic bag. They give you a paper one free of charge, but plastic costs extra, leading to a huge drop in the number of plastic bags used each year and a nice little nest egg of money to be put towards green projects (via MSNBC). Of course, this hasn't solved all the country's environmental ills, but it certainly has made a difference. I think it's a good idea. Normal light bulbs waste a lot of the energy they use, by turning it into heat instead of light. So masses of energy will be saved if everyone uses the efficient light bulbs. People will get used to the weird neony light in no time.

(PHOTO: BUZZYBEE)

Meat - just say no

At the moment, I'm working on a project about being green. When I started on it, I thought I knew a reasonable ish amount about greenness, carbon footprinting, etc etc, but I've come across a few things that I hadn't the first idea of. I know that when you're buying food you should buy local, organic, fair trade blah blah, but I naively hadn't really even considered the environmental impact of eating meat. I've read (and seen) Fast Food Nation, and it brought me the nearest I've ever been to considering turning veggie even though I'm a fairly dedicated carnivore. But that was pretty much purely for health reasons, because watching the cows being processed into beef was so amazingly repulsive. But now that I know that America grows significantly more grain to feed the nation's cows than it's humans (ref: Cornell Uni), and that it can take 15,000 litres of fresh water to produce 1kg of beef (various sources, eg Food and Agricultural Organisation), and with all the bird flu hoo ha currently going on here, that vegetable lasagna is looking a whole load more tempting.

(PHOTO: SH0DAN)

Happy happy hybrids

As I was cycling to work this morning, I heard an advert on the radio for a Lexus Hybrid and almost swerved into a lamppost.  Did anyone else know that Lexus made a hybrid? Because I certainly didn't, and it left me wondering where was I when it made the news. Whenever anyone mentions hybrid cars, it's always Toyota's ubiquitous Prius that gets the namecheck, and I thought that was the only hybrid on the market. Ok, so the Lexus version is twice as expensive, but I see that it's an SUV (which seems to be the car of choice for every Z list star) and I would have thought that all those celebrities who drive Priuses (Prii?) could easily afford the difference for the luxury brand name. Lexus, your advertising is clearly lacking, and you're letting your stablemate Toyota get all the credit for being green. Step it up a little. Or give one to me and I'll drive it around and spread the word on your behalf?

Photo by Shortsands. And I do know that you don't charge hybrid cars, I just liked the pic.

I know it's a cliche but...

WE'D BE BETTER OFF WITH THIS FROG PRINCE. HE'S DEFINITELY GREEN. PHOTO: GOZDEO)

I can't help but be disgusted by Prince Charles today. I'm not violently against having a monarchy, I know they're expensive and silly but so what. There are plenty of sillier and more expensive things in this world, and tourists seem to like them. However, when they are screaming hypocrites I lose my benevolence and get angry.

Of the whole bunch, Prince Charles is one of the more annoying. He fancies himself as a bit of a green freak, obviously in the hope to make us all forget that he's a lazy rich boy with a valet who puts toothpaste on his toothbrush for him every night. Fair dos, saving the environment is a noble cause. But why the hairy hell has he just FLOWN to the US to accept an award for being so eco friendly? With his wife. On an outrageous jolly. It's astounding. Then the daft pompous arse has the temerity to make some ghastly joke to show how amusing and self-aware he is to criticism. Here's the joke in full: "I must warn you at the beginning that I am in fact a video recording. I have only made a virtual flight across the Atlantic and am virtually half dead and only virtually royal. I am a mere hologramatic visitor from cyberspace who could not be more flattered and honoured to be receiving this award." Augh. And then he expects us to forgive his shameless one-finger salute to the environment by saying it's ok as he took a scheduled BA flight to America rather than hiring a private jet.

This is what he said in his acceptance speech at Harvard: "Every passing year has seen further evidence emerge of the damage we are doing to this poor old planet, the only one we've got so far... that sustains life in such a miraculous and well-ordered way". He also said mankind was unlikely to stop damaging the planet until there was a change of outlook. Change of outlook, eh? Like, maybe, I dunno, NOT flying half way round the world for 2 days to accept an award? Just a suggestion.

Via BBC News.

Oxford Dictionary word of 2006

(THE CHESHIRE VILLAGE OF ASHTON HAYES AIMS TO BE BRITAIN'S FIRST CARBON NEUTRAL COMMUNITY)
What was new and good in 2006? Well the New Oxford American Dictionary officially ushered in the phrase "carbon neutral" into its distinguished pages. Its brand spanking new official definition as shared by the OUP blog: 

Being carbon neutral involves calculating your total climate-damaging carbon emissions, reducing them where possible, and then balancing your remaining emissions, often by purchasing a carbon offset: paying to plant new trees or investing in “green” technologies such as solar and wind power.

So that's great and all. But what's far more telling is which words carbon neutral beat to new word status. Words like DRM, standing for digital rights management [pause to hear Boing Boing's Cory Doctorow have a blowup), or ghostriding, which is the verb to describe the practice of exiting a moving vehicle and dancing either next to it or on it. My favorite runner up for the word of the year was "funner." Why? Because I was first scolded for using this word about twenty years ago (ie. "Shera is so much funner than He-man!") and have been waiting for sweet sweet redemption ever since. But alas, I think saving the world from toasting takes precedence. Because all our lives will be much funner that way.

(Belated thanks to Rebecca!)

How green is my Sat Nav?

FOR WHEN YOU JUST CAN'T BE ARSED TO MAPREAD. (PHOTO: ZURBLE)

As if having to cope with seeing all the Christmas gifts you loving bought for your friends and family now retailing at rock-bottom prices wasn't hard enough, how about finding out that when you finally decided to stop being a luddite and join the Sat Nav generation, if you'd been a tiny bit more patient you could have bought this.  A new type of Sat Nav system (which seems as yet to be unnamed) that can not only tell you the fastest route to your destination, it can also tell you your greenest route. By using data on traffic hotspots (sitting in traffic is deeply non-green), speed limits, and road widths, the creators of this new system were able to produce an average fuel saving of 8.2%. Of course, it would mean gathering a shedload of detailed info about roads, but if the team who developed the concept can recruit enough volunteers who are willing to let their cars be used as probe vehicles the idea might be a goer. But by the time they do I'll probably have learnt how to use my TomTom and figured out how to make the wretched thing stop telling me distances in yards so I wont want to give it up...

Story via New Scientist.

Sayonara Mr. Polar Bear

IN TRUE BEAR FASHION THEY COULD JUST EAT GARBAGE.

We've been hearing it for while now. That polar bears are drowning and starving because the sea ice from which they hunt is melting away. A new report from the US Geological Survey on the Alaskan Beaufort Sea population continues the grim news. Cub survival (from spring birth to autumn count) is down from 61% in the 1960s to around 25% these days. The overall population has shrunk 15%, from around 1800 bears to 1500. Adult males are smaller, too. Researchers have seen several deaths due to starvation and even evidence that polar bears are stalking and killing each other for food. Cannibalism is never a good sign. The authors suggest that the overall pattern of decline is similar to the population of polar bears from around Hudson's Bay in Canada, which have dropped 22% in the past 17 years.

Polar bears are already protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act in the US; the US Fish and Wildlife Service is debating whether to add the animal to the "threatened" list next month. But let's be honest. Listing polar bears ain't gonna do much good. They are seriously, seriously screwed. A ban on hunting, or cordoning off land as nature preserve will not keep these beautiful white bears in the black. Keeping boats and cars and people away won't help them hunt. The ice will keep melting and those tasty, tubby seals will keep on getting away. Nothing less than a halt and reversal of global warming (hah hah) would do the trick.

(Of course if the bears WERE listed as threatened, then maybe a clever enviro lawyer could use some legal loophole to force Bush into ratifying Kyoto...or something.)

I suppose the polar bears only hope is to continue interbreeding with Grizzlies and refine their palettes away from blood and blubber to something a little more in the fish, nuts n' berries category. Hopefully the retard prize hunters will allow the next burly hybrid enough time to acquire said nouveau foraging skills.

Anyways. Polar bears do have a reputation as the only carnivore to actively hunt humans, so I guess we could see if that skill will come in handy (darker grizzlyesque fur would be a plus there too. You know, so they aren't instantly identified by the blood-stained muzzle and have half of chance of blaming the kill on..um...caribou?).