Planetary Ruin

Here’s a frothy brew you wouldn’t want to put a straw into: a not-so-tasty blend of sewage and garbage. As unappealing as it may seem together the two can cut greenhouse gases, help cleanup water supplies and add a new source of green and endlessly renewable fuel, all with the help of a new patented invention by Viridis Waste Control: Septage Bioreactor Landfill (TM) technology.

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If we’re to do business, keep the poison away. Such is the message reverberating lately in the global marketplace.

Mercury tests of tuna sushi bought in October by the New York Times from Manhattan restaurants and stores revealed toxic levels high enough to warrant precaution for children and pregnant women. Some suppliers have argued that because mercury enters the oceans as an industrial pollutant, its presence in fish is out of their control and must instead be dealt with on a global level.

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Britain reversed previous estimates to say its emissions of climate-warming greenhouse gases fell in 2006, showing on Thursday that it was already nearing a self-imposed goal for 2025.

Britain says it is a world leader in the fight against global warming and is introducing legally binding targets to cut carbon emissions by 26-32 percent by 2025 and 60 percent by 2050 below 1990 levels.

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BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Commission will step up legal action against Italy over the country’s handling of a rubbish crisis in Naples, it said on Thursday.

“The European Commission is sending Italy a final written warning over the chronic waste crisis plaguing Naples and the rest of the Campania region,” the EU executive said in a statement.

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Whole Foods Markets from New Jersey to Virginia began giving away one free reusable bag per customer yesterday to encourage shoppers to “BYOB” — Bring Your Own Bag.

The bag had already caught my eye, not only because it’s so cheerful and colorful, but also because it’s made from 80% post-consumer waste. Plus, it’s got a washable surface and actually seems more ample inside than the standard paper grocery bag.

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PARIS (Reuters) – France will ban the sale of more than 1,500 pesticides from February 1 as part of a larger plan to cut by 50 percent the use of phytosanitary products in the next 10 years, the farm ministry said.

“Michel Barnier, minister for agriculture and fisheries, has announced the cancellation, before February 1, of marketing licenses for products containing 30 substances considered as the most worrying,” it said in a statement released late on Tuesday.

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A near 20 year struggle for land rights and conservation of their rare Araucaria forests for an indigenous Pehuenche community of the Andes range has been rewarded with a grant of title to 22,000 acres of land in southern Chile.

Also in December, the Huiliche indigenous community of Mapu Lahual received a prestigious Seal Award from Chilean president Michelle Bachelet for the contribution of their local development and conservation project to one of the most isolated and poorest areas of coastal Chile. This project, “Strenghtening Governance and Sustainable Livelihoods in the Huilliche Territoty of Mapu Lahual” is being carried out by WWF Chile and the Mapu Lahual indigenous Association.

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Although shipping emissions are one of the largest contributors to total CO2 emissions in the U.S. and beyond, they have only been recently studied in depth. Part of the recent interest in shipping emissions and methods to mitigate them has been sparked by the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency’s SmartWay Transport program.

Launched in 2004 after a year of study and dialogue with various research groups and consultants, the program engages trucking companies, retailers, rail companies, and individual truckers interested in reducing their emissions and helps them with everything from practical everyday fixes such as proper tire maintenance to financing for new equipment that greatly improves fuel efficiency.

We spoke with Mitch Greenberg, Program Manager of the EPA’s SmartWay program to find out how it works, what companies and shippers can do to get involved with the program, and what it has planned for the year ahead.

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Dear Pablo, Assuming that one can’t break the habit of drinking pop, what kind of container is more environmentally friendly, aluminum cans or plastic bottles (2 liter)?

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MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s government on Tuesday opened the door to applications from entrepreneurs and big polluters to profit from greenhouse gas emissions cuts by selling these to Western countries.

The U.N.’s Kyoto Protocol puts limits on greenhouse gases from 36 rich nations but softens the restrictions by allowing governments to fund emissions-cutting projects in poor and former communist countries and count the cuts as their own.

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