Sheherazade is Bringing Sexy Back (opinion piece)

You know green is sexy when an incredibly good-looking ex-model and socialite launches a manual about eating locally and other ways to be environmentally friendly.

Sheherazade Goldsmith, daughter of the actress Viviane Ventura, has impeccable green credentials. She’s the former model who swapped the catwalk and high heels for Wellington boots and a life down on the farm. Being married to multi-millionaire eco-activist and Ecologist editor, Zac Goldsmith she can also get away with innuendo - her new book is called, “A Slice of Green Life: Get Closer to the Soil Without Going the Whole Hog.”

The book’s aim is to make you to your feel good about what you can achieve and not guilty about what you can’t. Sheherazade says ‘Each of us has a role to play in reversing the decline of our planet, whether it’s turning our televisions off at the socket or installing a wood-burning stove. I’m certain that knowing you’re part of the solution and not the problem is good for the soul. And with every passing day, our chances of reversing the damage to the planet increase as the number of people willing to take a stand grows. It’s finally possible to be optimistic’

The manual launches at an important time in Great Britain: the booming organic movement is facing a huge split over air-freighted food - “food miles” are at a record high up 136% since 1992. This issue is covered in more detail by an excellent article in the Independent.

You can pre-order the book at Amazon, which is due to be published on 7th June 2007.

News Update

Organic movement faces split over air-freighted food more…

Britain confident about whaling ban more…

The cruelties of global warming. Those who cause the fewest greenhouse gas emissions suffer the most as the climate changes. more…

US and Germany split on climate change more…

Rich must pay bulk of climate change bill - Oxfam

FEATURE-Nuclear dump to leave Taiwan tropical isle more…

How using eco-friendly fuel can make your pint cost more

It may seem strange, that a natural fuel can have such a bizarre effect on a nation’s favourite drink - strangely enough, this is exactly what’s happening in Germany.

The story begins in Bavaria – one of the most famous beer-loving regions in Germany. The area has 615 breweries and gave Germany its famous beer purity law, dating back to 1516. In its current form, the law permits only four ingredients: malted grain, hops, yeast and water to be used to brew the beer. However, it is only one of these that is causing a real stir.

In the past two years, the price of barley has soared by more than 40 percent, to around 385 Euro per tonne from around 270 euros a tonne two years ago, according to the Bavarian Brewers’ Association. Farmers are planting crops such as rapeseed and corn that can be turned into ethanol or bio-diesel – a fuel made from vegetable oil.

The German government subsidises biofuel crops at the rate of 45 euros per hectare and therefore some farmers see it as a better alternative to growing barley, which traditionally has not yielded high profits.

This is not good news for Germany’s beer lovers “people expect it to be as inexpensive as other basic staples like eggs, bread and milk,” said Erdmann, director of the family-owned Ayinger brewery. The hike in price is straining smaller, family owned breweries, that cannot afford to pay the increase.

For many, the price fluctuations in Germany will echo what happened in Mexico, when increased demand for corn to make ethanol in the United States pushed up the price of tortillas.

Last week, the United Nations tried to phase down enthusiasm over biofuels, pointing out that the diversion of land to grow crops for fuel will increase prices for basic food commodities.

News Update

Making a pile out of rubbish. How the British recycling industry is already worth £10 billion a year and will boom. more…

They Tried to make Amy go to recycling. She said No, no, no. more…

New biofuel gives the power of petrol. Ethanol could be eclipsed after a breakthrough by a Silicon Valley firm. more…

Geoffrey Lean: Nuclear nation? It’s bunkum more…

Climate to push up Australian power costs - study more…

FEATURE-Palm oil puts squeeze on Asia’s endangered orangutan more…

Feelgood funding blocks eco-warriors more…

News Update

Briton designs £1m concept car. Diesel Hybrid to set new standard. Read more

Investors swoop on eco towns Read more…

Experts at Kew create garden for the longer, hotter summer. Foreign flowers will bloom at 40 degrees centigrade. Goodbye to lawns, hello to olive trees. Read more…

This urban chainsaw massacre has to stop. Ben Macintyre on the plight of gritty city trees. Read more…

Pay-as-you throw scheme “penalises householders” Read more…

Merkel gloomy on G8 climate deal Read more…

Foundations laid for houses with a green conscience Read more

Legislation to tackle excess packaging Read more…

Stinking Naples only tip of EU’s rubbish heap Read more…

Do bananas spread Sars? China gripped by health scare Read more…

Congo rebels threaten rare mountain gorillas Read more…

Being wasteful is not a personal liberty Read more…

Britain may have missed its chance for clean coal. Read more…

New Environmental Graffiti Widget!

What is a widget?

A widget is an interactive object that functions on third party sites. You can get the code and paste it on your myspace, friendster, xanga, google homepage and keep track of this blog really easily.

Here’s what it looks like:

Enjoy!

Carbon Sinks?

Research released this week has indicated new findings on the impacts of global warming. European scientists from the University of East Anglia (UEA), British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and the Max-Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry have discovered that the levels of carbon dioxide absorbed by the Southern Ocean are dwindling, despite having remained constant since the 1980s. The four year study concluded that the change is attributed to higher winds around the Southern Ocean, themselves believed to be caused by the man-made hole in the ozone layer, and the increased levels of carbon emissions made by humans.

Experts had previously anticipated a decline in absorption of carbon emissions by oceans, but they hadn’t expected it to happen until considerably further into the century. That the Southern Ocean has shown signs of decreasing absorption is of great concern given that it is the largest marine “carbon sink.” It accounts for fifteen per cent of all carbon taken out of the atmosphere, with oceans having removed a quarter of all carbon emissions since the Industrial Revolution.

It is calculated that a fall in the Southern Ocean’s absorption rate of between five and thirty per cent in the next fifty years will result in a corresponding rate of temperature increase, causing concerns that it will not be possible to keep temperature rises within previously hoped-for limits.

Lead author Dr Corinne Le Quéré of UEA and BAS said,

“This is the first time that we’ve been able to say that climate change itself is responsible for the saturation of the Southern Ocean sink. This is serious. All climate models predict that this kind of ‘feedback’ will continue and intensify during this century.”

UN’s Credibility Called Into Question

We have learnt over the weekend that the UN Commission on sustainable development: a body responsible for promoting economic progress and environmental protection is now to be chaired by Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe: once the most affluent country in Africa will this year produce only 50% of its food needs – less than half of last year’s harvest, which left 1.5 million dependant on food aid. Once a model-economy, now a state whose inflation is a massive 2200 per cent; no country has seen its economy shrink so much in peacetime according to the World Bank. Economic development has been turned back by decades.

US Deputy Assistant Secretary for Environment Daniel Reif-Snyder said: “We really think it calls into question the credibility of this organisation to have a representative from a country that has decimated its agriculture, that used to be the breadbasket of Africa and can’t now feed itself.”

Much of Zimbabwe’s economic trouble can be attributed to Mugabe’s controversial land reforms in 2000, where the government was able to seize land, often violently from white farmers and redistribute it among landless blacks, who seldom had experience or skill in crop management. As a result, output plummeted and food became scarce.

Zimbabwe’s environment and tourism minister, Francis Nhema, 48 (above), who is due to chair the UN body, did rather well out of Mr Mugabe’s wholesale seizure of land. He was handed Nyamanda farm near Karoi, a once-thriving enterprise producing tobacco and maize. Most of its 1012 hectares are now lying idle.

Nhema’s role also includes heading Zimbabwe’s national parks, where wildlife has been decimated by poaching.

Zimbabwe’s election has been met with fierce criticism by western nations. Ian Pearson, Britain’s Minister for Climate Change and the Environment said, “Zimbabwe’s election will be seen as an outrage by millions of people who look to the United Nations for help to escape from poverty

“They will be asking how the body charged with promoting sustainable development will be able to maintain credibility whilst being chaired by a representative of a government whose failed policies have destroyed its own economy.

“How can a once food-rich country where 1.8 million people now depend on food aid be expected to give its authority to the UN’s work on critical issues such as agriculture, rural development and land use?”

However, Nhema replied ‘I think its not time to point fingers.’

“Different opinions were expressed and it is their right to express those opinions. At the end of the day majority rules as democracy should,” he said.

EU countries also objected to the Commission on Sustainable Development’s entire two-week session, which they said had degenerated into scripted speeches without setting targets for renewable energy and other environmental policies.

As a result, the commission ended the conference among ministers from around the world on Friday without coming up with a consensus document after the 25-member EU refused to approve a paper because it did not include concrete measures.

After attempts at agreement failed, the commission voted for Zimbabwe’s environment and tourism minister, Francis Nhema. The post rotates among regions and Nhema was Africa’s choice to lead the commission for the next year.

The vote by secret ballot was 26-21 with three abstentions. Fifty of the 53 commission members voted.

Germany’s environment minister, Sigmar Gabriel, noted that the EU and the United States had imposed travel sanctions, among other penalties, against officials in President Robert Mugabe’s government for human rights abuses.

“It would not be possible for us to invite the next chair, if it is from the government of Zimbabwe, or to have contacts with the chair,” said Gabriel, whose country holds EU’s current presidency.

Environmental Graffiti Goes Live!

Environmental adj. Pertaining of and to the environment: 1 The natural world or ecosystem 2 ambience 3 A setting or scene 4 A habitat 5 A melting pot (of ideas)

Graffiti n & verb from the Italian graffito ‘to scratch’: 1 non-official etching or scratching on a surface e.g. Pompeii 2 An artform traditionally associated with a hostile subculture

Environmental Graffiti n + adj. + verb = 1 a new grass-roots environmental blog now live for people to test before the launch! 2 A resource: over the coming weeks we will endeavour to provide you with the most useful environmental knowledge and debate. 3 A vision for the future: much more than just a blog - a mix of a debating chamber, library, newsroom and having a chat with your mates in the pub. Every single moment spent on this platform will actively contribute to social change. Your opinion matters.