A tissue of lies?

Toilet paper is one of those things we generally can’t ‘live’ without. We all buy it and I’m sure those of us who choose to buy a recycled toilet/tissue paper have often happily purchased Nouvelle. Safe in the knowledge that you are doing your bit.

Afterall it has a Woodland Trust badge on it and everything - it must be OK? Surely…

Well, sadly the reality is far more murky. Nouvelle is produced by Georgia Pacific and according to the WWF Report on how companies source fibres for tissue paper they don’t fair so well. For example “Land rights conflicts, forest destruction, irresponsible plantations management and illegal harvesting of timber are key issues associated with many of these forest regions”.

To learn more about the specifics of the tissue industry reports go to the WWF website, the information there is much more in-depth than I want to go into in this post and makes for an enlightening read.

But there is more to this story.

Georgia Pacific is owned by Koch industries and those of you out there that already know Koch industries will understand why this information might lead you to change brands. Surprisingly a lot of consumers have probably never heard of Koch even though they are the largest privately owned company in the world - no, really.

Dig a little deeper.

As ever, the Internet is your friend and you can find out a lot of information on your own - here are a couple of interesting links - both of which are from the U.S Department of Justice:

Koch Industries Indicted For Environmental Crimes At Refinery

Koch Industries To Pay Record Fine For Oil Spills In Six States

Wow! and we are just getting warmed up, these guys have been busy for sure. I don’t think I need to go much further - you get what I’m getting at.

The alternatives.
Getting back to toilet paper then, there are alternatives that do come from managed sources. According to the WWF report, looking for the FSC logo on packaging will help as this is the only standard they recognise as assurance that “If virgin fibres are used they need to come from forests managed to the highest environmental and social standards”.

SCA Tissue produce the Naturalle brand in the UK which is 100% recycled and available to UK consumers.

More information on recycled brands here.

Hopefully the WWF will have a new report soon and we will see if anything has changed in the world of tissue and toilet paper. As we effectively flush or trash 270,000 trees per day this is no place for toilet humour.

The Great Green Juxtaposition

As it’s my first post here I thought I’d head straight into a rant. Why not?

I’m a bit advocate of doing little things in your life to become green. I have done bigger things like giving up the car, but small things like using recycled toilet paper etc is all well and good. However there are some things that I can’t work out whether the change I’m making is really doing that much good. Can trying to be green actually be worse for the planet?

For example, if I download a film rather than buying one I’ve saved the production of the disc, the packaging, the delivery etc. But then what about the eight hours I’ve had the computer on downloading it and watching it? Then I might burn it to disc anyway. Is the energy used downloading it less than making it? What if everyone did it, the national grid can hardly cope with people putting on the kettle in the break in Coronation Street, nevermind on the day of release for the latest blockbuster.

At work we recycle paper. But the oversized bins that we put the paper in are made from plastic and so are the recycling sacks inside them. And on top of our normal refuse collection, someone comes in a diesel van and picks up all the paper and card.

And what about a wind-up radio? It saves on batteries/electricity but it’s made out of plastic.

And then there’s the other way round. My flat is damp so occasionally I forget about the environment as a whole and think about my localised environment and put the dehumidifier on. That’s bad right? But the water it collects waters the plants so is that okay to use it? I’m using electricity but saving water.

I originally had a point but it’s become lost a bit, and I think that’s what I’m talking about - people can become confused about what to do for the best. But sites like this one, Life Goggles which I write for and the other editor’s sites (see right) can help you muddle through.
 

Guest Editor: Jack Guest - A Convenient Truth, a film about the world getting better

Only a few years ago, anyone working to raise awareness about climate change was doing just that: working to raise awareness. The challenge was primarily to convince people that climate change was happening, and that it was a problem to take seriously.

One of the refreshing things about today’s climate is that this first challenge has been won. Thanks in large part to Al Gore, and all the work preceding his, global warming is all but uniformly recognised - both on a national and international level- as the greatest threat facing humanity today.

This means that for the first time in the history of environmental campaigning, activists, politicians, mothers, fathers, businesses and anyone else moved to act can focus all of their energy on creating solutions to the problem. And this means that the challenge of global warming can become an opportunity for things to get better.

From all I’ve seen so far, the cornerstones of this opportunity are two-fold: collaboration and action. Action is self explanatory: we have to do something, and we have to do it now. Collaboration is the mechanism to do it. Gone are the days of ‘them and us’ approaches to environmental issues- more clearly than ever we all see that there’s a massive problem, and the only way out is to work together.

That means governments, businesses, pressure groups, families, students, civil servants, red, blue, green, black, white, pink, capitalist, anarchist, socialist , upper-class, lower-class, working-class, middle-class, religious, non-religious, 4×4 driving, cycle driving, suit or sandal wearing, you name it. We are united by our common humanity, and if that doesn’t make sense to you, then by our common being on this blue ball together a long, long way from any other coloured balls on which we can live.

So what’s the convenient truth about all this? That doing the work- doing what’s needed to stabilise the climate, not only enriches our own lives, it also enriches the lives of those around us, and everyone with a stake in planet earth- which is everyone. Everyone wins.

It’s not always easy. Collaboration, whether within a family, or within the arena of international politics takes work. It takes work to get through our clashing egos in order for our common humanity to emerge: imagine Mr Capitalist and Mr Anarchist in the Big Brother House arguing over whose turn it is to do the washing up, meanwhile the chickens in the garden are being eaten by a hungry fox who got driven from his home in the woods.

The question is the nature of our end goal. Too often in life the end goal is drama, tension, sparks flying and continuing to fly. Is that what we want on a planetary level? Or can our end goal be harmony? Can we do away with the drama of doom and gloom, now? Do away with the tension of political stand-off? Can we collaborate enough so that once the initial sparks of ego clashes have flown, they can recede and we can get on with the job at hand?

I think we can, and I think it’s worth it. And that’s A Convenient Truth.

The feature length preview of my film, A Convenient Truth, is now available online, www.climatefilm.com/preview

View the trailer on YouTube or visit the website at www.climatefilm.com

Final Destination: House of Parliament

After a successful weekend at the south bank, the WWF giant boat & plane with thousands of names on them have been delivered to the House of Parliament. Let’s hope that MPs will get the message and support a truly effective Climate Change Bill.

Global Warming what its really about

Global Warming is about a lot things that us humans have done to the earth due to past resources such as gas that runs our cars and it is found in the materials in our plastic bags.So blame the ones who overuse or who rely on this power to much of this power when we should be preserving for when we really need it.

To understand this we will have to look at one element that makes life well alive. Carbon is the central element that makes us move and to have energy to do things. We are a Carbon-based life form. Carbon is a very special element because it can be found practically anywhere it’s in pencils, paper, plants, coal, the food you eat and even in you and down to the smallest cell in your body. Carbon is even unique because of it’s strong force known as a bond. When a Carbon bonds with another element that bond between them has a very strong force holding them together and with in that bond there is stored energy. A professor at MIT says that even when something dies the Carbon bonds still keeps its energy even with death. In fact if you went back a long time ago you would have found a sea in what we call middle east in this sea there were zooplankton and many other creatures that lived in the sea and when they did die there corpses piled on top of corpses compressed over several thousands of years to form this mush we call today Oil which is fossil fuel or ancient life just liquified. Coal is fossil fuel but in a solid form.

Now back to Oil. Oil is used in most anything from Cars to plastic. The only way to break this carbon bond is to excite the carbon and this can be done by a spark or a flame or a some other way. for example if you were to light a piece of paper has carbon with in it and the heat coming off is the excitement of the Carbon, when you eat a apple you break a carbon bond which converts into energy for you to use, when you turn on a gasoline engine the spark ignites and excites the Carbon atoms to break apart and off you go. When you break a carbon bond it almost immediately finds a new partner and whats better than having a stable element such as Oxygen but not just one but two Oxygen. When you break a bond it doesn’t matter if it is a piece of paper, gas or a apple you release CO2 in to the atmosphere. CO2 is a colorless and a odorless gas. CO2 or known as Carbon Dioxide is one of several greenhouse gases which makes about 75% of all greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Most of the greenhouse gases are from cars and industrial plants and power plants. yourself may release CO2 but its in a smaller form so humans are not really part of the problem. When traveling from here to there either using cars, planes, buses, boat to many other things like mowing the grass and shipping items thats when us humans effect our environment. So you could blame the Oil industry for polluting the environment, and they were the ones that killed the electric car but they only wanted to make some money or you could blame your self for not being educated on how the things we do each day effects our atmosphere. Whatever it may be we all effect this atmosphere either in small or big way.

There are things we can do now that will help because there may be a point in time where there may be no point of no return to a better environment which we don’t want to happen right? and think about our future generations to come. Something we can do now to limit our carbon emissions can come very simple as transport. you could cycle to where you have to go, you could walk, you could roller skate/skateboard, you could carpool instead of driving alone you would be transporting one to about eight coworkers/school mates. For food you could buy organic foods that are within 0-100 miles of where you live, buy foods that don’t come in plastic containers unless it has a recyclable sign, you could support your farmers market and don’t have to wonder if your food came from new Zealand or some odd place, you can bring your own canvas bag for items bought from the places where you buy your food.

There are a lot of things you can to limit your carbon emissions but there are so many things that I may not even know about yet but I try to tell you about most anything I find out or have come across with each week and will post about it with a tip of the week.

Going Green Down Under

Hi there.

I’m Joel and I’m excited to be part of the Green Guys Global team. I usually blog over at Life Goggles where we also write about green stuff, but mix it up with music and videos.

For those that know me know that I have just recently (last week!) emigrated to the West coast of the US. On the way though I spent 2.5 weeks in New Zealand and a short while in Australia and thought I’d pass on some thoughts regarding our trip.

We travelled on a coach tour in order not to pollute more with our own vehicle. There were many optional excursions that were to organic farms, or eco tours, in fact a member of our group had just spent two weeks volunteering on community projects and there were others on offer. New Zealand feels very eco friendly, however I’m not always so sure it is. The huge number of tourists prevent it from being so in many ways. The numerous hotels we visited for just one night made be appreciate Charles’s tip of bringing your own sleeping bag, and whilst they were (quite rightfully in some ways) proud of their jetboat rides and helicopter trips that were offered almost every day, the environmental cost of these trips must be huge.

Lake Tekapo and The Church of the Good Shepherd - New Zealand © Joel Williams

I did find a lot of information about handling waste. There they seem to have the 5 R’s:
- Reduce,
- Re-use,
- Recycle,
- Recover and,
- Residual Management.

The Christchurch museum had an excellent section for children and adults alike on this topic, including an example cross section of landfill over the last 50 years.

Now, like Southern California, most of Australia has been undergoing a drought for many years. I therefore expected to find a lot of messages about water conservation, yet this wasn’t the case. I wasn’t actively looking for it of course, but I didn’t think I’d need to.

They do have Eco Tourism Australia which certifies accommodation and tours if they are “environmentally sustainable, economically viable, and socially and culturally responsible”, which is a great thing, however I expected to see more for some reason.

There are whole University degrees devoted to the subject of sustainable tourism (and Green Girls Global has a great article), and whilst I highly recommend New Zealand and Australia for some many reasons, sustainable tourism wouldn’t be one of them. Yet.

Guest Editor: Pascal Gillon - The amazing EZ eco tips for us, guys

So, how do we help the environment without to think that we will lose some of our comfort and doing it without headaches?

Simple!

ENERGY/WATER SAVINGS:

Turn off any light you do not use.

Turn off all stand buy machines that you do not use at night (TV, computers for example).

Use rechargeable batteries (you WILL save a lot of money at the end).

Use fluorescent light-bulbs everywhere you can in your house.

Cook things a few items at the same time: use the steam alone too, when boiling food and put the cover on after having turned the gas/electrics of the cooker off.

Save water by taking more showers than baths. Wash full loads of washing up and laundry (with cold rinse at least for the latter).

FUEL SAVINGS:

Do NOT race off in your car when you are stopped at a traffic light and it turns from a red light to green. Just ease off.

Close all windows when you are on a motorway.

Do a few errands in one go, instead of a few trips a day.

Use the bus, tube even train each time you can.

Walk whenever you can (and that is good for your heart to).

ITEMS/MONEY/TIME SAVINGS:

Buy “as new”: each time you can. A car is a car. Second hands can be quite cheaper and reliable.

For books, audio visual items, apparels and more, buy as new (used) or very good from, for example, amazon.co.uk

Shop in charity shops:

1. Prices are quite competitive.
2. It is like buying an item that you do, by using it again, recycle.
3. You can find collectables for a bargain.

Buy food in bulk and freeze what you can. (you save space and packaging too)

Buy organic whenever you can

Buy local products when you can.

RE-GIVING TO EARTH/PEOPLE:

Recycle what you can, re use what you can, give what you can and only as the last resort, throw away things.

Use e mailing a lot, you save paper. If you send a gift, re use packaging and boxes too.

Volunteer if you can : smiles, hugs, thanks DO make you stronger and more complete as a man.

And that is it: within two or three weeks, that should be in place in your life and it becomes habit

Our Actions Have Consequences

When people don’t recycle, or leave the lights on, or driving their cars, the footprints they leave behind are to a large extent invisible and hence perceived to be intangible. That’s why one of the great challenges of environmental marketing is in brining to life the consequences of individual actions. This print done by Saatchi & Saatchi Copenhagen for the WWF does it rather nicely - it beautifully demonstrates that the survival of the forests is directly connected to what people consume.

Guest Editor: Dr Gary Robertshaw - How times have changed!

Green campaigners and those concerned about the environment were once regarded as fringe activists, ‘tree huggers’ and ‘eco warriors’.

Belittled for their stance against things like road building, corporate pollution, urbanisation and 4×4s, and personified as lentil-eating vegans living in trees.

Now the evidence for man-made climate change is overwhelming with rapidly disappearing ice sheets, rainforest destruction, population growth, species extinction, hurricanes and extreme weather patterns as billions of tonnes of carbon are pumped into the atmosphere every year.

In response, it’s now trendy to be ‘green’ as everybody from the newly green Tories to major banks to supermarket chains to ‘eco’-airlines is keen to show their concern for the environment. Not a day goes by without another announcement that another major business is going green.

But how ‘green’ are these corporations really and how sincere are they in their commitment to the environment? Can a supermarket that uses palm oil obtained from cleared rainforests in its food products and which flies ‘organic’ food half way around the world clocking up a huge carbon footprint be considered green because it asks customers to re-use their plastic carrier bags? Clearly, much of the recent surge to become green is a cynical ploy aimed at capitalising on consumer concerns and increasing profits.

Don’t be fooled! Remember, buy locally produced food. Buy food grown organically, free from pesticides and harmful chemicals. And buy Fairtrade-certified products. For more advice, tips and a list of companies offering truly green products and services see The Green Providers Directory (www.search-for-me.co.uk)

THE GREEN PROVIDERS DIRECTORY

I set up The Green Providers Directory in 2006 in an effort to encourage more consumers to use environmentally friendly, ethical and organic goods and services. I have deliberately set out to make the directory not-for-profit and run it in my spare time out of a genuine commitment to furthering the ‘green’ cause and out of a duty to try and reduce the widespread damage being done to our planet. Whilst there are many green sites that cover environmental damage and discuss the problems of climate change, I felt that they lacked proactivity and failed to engage mainstream consumers, which is needed to facilitate change on a global scale and not just stimulate debate amongst core eco-consumers.

The premise of the directory is based on consumer power. That is, if large numbers of consumers can be educated and convinced of the dangers of climate change, then their combined demand for greener goods and services will cause a paradigm shift in buying behaviour and force companies to adopt policies that reduce harm to the environment

Each company listed has been vetted against their stated ethical policy and a demonstration that they are contributing in some way to combating climate change and environmental damage. We routinely reject applications because they fail to meet these criteria. I have also been keen to avoid associations with ‘pseudo-green’ national corporations who are using the growing concern to jump on the green bandwagon, whilst continuing to pursue non-sustainable business practices. To that effect, you will not find supermarkets, car makers, tobacco companies, etc…anywhere in the directory. As The Green Providers Directory is privately owned and not-for-profit there is no requirement to affiliate with any particular company - it’s completely unbiased and independent.

The basic concept is that visitors to the site can be confident in finding true green companies for all their everyday needs. The advice given is impartial and there is no active selling. This gives the site a point of differentiation from other ‘green’ directories and instills greater credibility.

Great Book Up for Grabs

The Green Marketing Manifesto, John Grant’s new book is out and everyone with an interest in the dynamics of green consumerism, the promises of sustainable business, the pitfalls of greenwashing and more should get hold of it.

So for celebrating both the launch of Green Guys Global and John’s new book I have one copy up for grabs! If you want a copy of the book, leave a nice comment below, tell me why you believe you should get a free copy and it’s yours!

Buy the book here