Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. Greenify your life!

December 2009

Climate Summit vigils continue

Posted Thu, 31/12/2009 - 11:09 by Monique

Thursday, December 31st 2009

The highly anticipated Final UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen has come and gone but regional attention to the critical status of our own islands in the Caribbean that are especially vulnerable to already threatening effects of climate change, remains a top priority.

During the past months, as a build up to the summit, various organisations around the world as well as here in Trinidad and Tobago held wake-up calls, vigils and masses to capture the attention of participating officials and ensure their positive decisions and commitments to avert catastrophic climate change.

Come on EMA and police, enforce law on loud music

Posted Wed, 30/12/2009 - 09:14 by Monique

Published: 30 Dec 2009

Within recent times, citizens of this country have been subjected to excessively loud “music” emanating from cars. The drivers of these vehicles display a total lack of consideration for the general public, and absolutely nothing is done by the authorities to control this nuisance that is detrimental to public health and peaceful existence. The World Health Organisation recently reported that excessively loud “boom car” music can cause physical damage at the cellular level, hearing impairment, and hypertension. Excessive noise is an annoyance that prevents citizens from enjoying sleep and rest. This deprivation can affect productivity and safety, and can also lead to an increase in aggressive behaviour.

Climate change - confusing and confused

Posted Wed, 30/12/2009 - 09:13 by Monique

Julian Kenny
Tuesday, December 29th 2009

The signals come fast and furious, some with messianic zeal, others with stridency, some with disarming sincerity, a few with all the airs of intellectual superiority to us mere mortals, but few with any real understanding of the enormity of the challenge.

It is now almost a religion. In the past few years we have heard that there is a possibility that Trinidad may be ’drowning’; that there is accelerated coastal erosion; sea levels are rising faster in the south than in the north; a very precise erosion rate for the north coast has been reported; that the flavour of Blue Mountain coffee had changed; that by the year 2071 precisely 211.7 hectares of land on a particular part of the coast would be lost to erosion and inundation; that rainfall patterns on the island have changed; that carbon is to be sequestered by reforestation of parts of the Nariva Swamp; that Caribbean Sea fish would be migrating north; that there would be more and more devastating hurricanes in the Caribbean.

Climate bill pushes trees over food

Posted Wed, 30/12/2009 - 09:12 by Monique

Published: 27 Dec 2009
Edward Felker

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has ordered his staff to revise a computerised forecasting model that showed that climate legislation supported by President Obama would make planting trees more lucrative than producing food. The latest Agriculture Department economic impact study of the climate bill, which passed the House this summer, found that farmers would profit in the long haul from the legislation. But those profits would come mostly from higher prices for their crops caused by the legislation’s incentives to plant more forests and thus reduce the amount of land devoted to food-producing agriculture. According to the economic model used by the department and the Environmental Protection Agency, the legislation would incentivise landowners to convert up to 59 million acres of farmland into forest over the next 40 years.

Have an eco-chic wedding

Posted Wed, 30/12/2009 - 09:11 by Monique

Published: 27 Dec 2009
Simone Sant-Ghuran

A couple years ago, I saw an alarming documentary on Global Warming called The Inconvenient Truth. In it, former US Vice-President Al Gore spoke passionately about the grave danger the earth is in. He also said that we may just have only ten years to save our planet from catastrophes involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves; the likes of which would surpass anything we have ever experienced. It may seem odd that I’m writing this in a wedding column but if we can have weddings that will impact less on the environment and on the pollution levels of our country and by extension, our planet, it will certainly be a step in the right direction. Here are just a few simple ways we can be more “eco-friendly” with weddings:

Climate bill pushes trees over food

Posted Wed, 30/12/2009 - 09:10 by Monique

Published: 27 Dec 2009
Edward Felker

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has ordered his staff to revise a computerised forecasting model that showed that climate legislation supported by President Obama would make planting trees more lucrative than producing food. The latest Agriculture Department economic impact study of the climate bill, which passed the House this summer, found that farmers would profit in the long haul from the legislation. But those profits would come mostly from higher prices for their crops caused by the legislation’s incentives to plant more forests and thus reduce the amount of land devoted to food-producing agriculture. According to the economic model used by the department and the Environmental Protection Agency, the legislation would incentivise landowners to convert up to 59 million acres of farmland into forest over the next 40 years.

Beyond that climate change conference

Posted Wed, 30/12/2009 - 09:09 by Monique

Opinion
Saturday, December 26th 2009

As was expected by many the much-heralded Copenhagen summit on climate change has essentially achieved no more than an agreement to try to come to an agreement of some kind sometime, hopefully in 2010 or certainly in the not-too-distant future.

Countries inevitably seek their interests and when it got down to the wire. The two major polluters, the United States of America and China, along with the European Union and Brazil, South Africa and India all simply dug their heels in holding out for their respective interests or positions, arrived at a non-binding consensus and simply agreed to consider talking. There was no binding agreement nor does anyone expect such an agreement in 2010.

Why copenhagen failed

Posted Wed, 30/12/2009 - 09:07 by Monique

Published: 25 Dec 2009
Wayne Kublalsingh

On this planet, the corporation rules. Like the Roman Church in medieval and post-medieval Europe, it rules the human species from conception to last rites. The global corporation will never be content until it can sell the last man in Mongolia everything in his lifespan, from the pine-scented coffin for his father to the strawberry-flavoured condom for capping his children. It is the rule of sweet consumption. It is the rule of metal products (steel, iron, copper, alumi- nium, uranium, cars, rails, factories, bombs, planes, tractors, tinsel), mass produced food, media and aesthetics (clothes, style, brand, image). Consumption is the lifeblood of the corporate vampire. The handmaiden of corporate rule of the planet is the modern government.

A Savannah plea

Posted Thu, 24/12/2009 - 08:45 by Monique

Wednesday, December 23rd 2009

At the recent Commonwealth Summit in Port of Spain, and subsequently at the world climate change forum in Copenhagen, our Prime Minister has emerged as a strong advocate of the international campaign to alleviate global warming, the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions and the emergence of a cleaner, greener world.

In this context, I am calling upon him on behalf of all citizens of T&T to demonstrate this commitment, and send a strong signal both locally and internationally, by declaring Port of Spain a green city, and immediately making a personal intervention to stop any further degradation of the city’s green and lovely heart, the Queen’s Park Savannah, which is now under severe threat.

Clearing air on carbon emissions by trinidad

Posted Thu, 24/12/2009 - 08:43 by Monique

Published: 22 Dec 2009

Notwithstanding various contradicting reports from leading research centres on the reasons for climate change, and differing results of climate models, there is no denying the soundness of the theory of the greenhouse gas effect on global warming. Over the past few weeks, there has been much discussion on climate change, and T&T’s contribution to the problem via emis- sion rates of carbon dioxide. Frequent reference has been made in all of the daily newspapers to a 2008 UTT study by Boodlal and Furlonge, for which some further details and clarification may be worthwhile. The study computed theoretical carbon dioxide emission levels from all major sources in T&T, using guidelines from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Total emissions, net of that converted by trees, amounted to an estimated 23 million tonnes (mt) in 2007.