Day: 12 July 2006

Clean Water for Rural Africa? It’s Child’s Play!

Here’s some good news from South Africa! A Non-for-profit company called PlayPumps International has developed a children’s merry-go-round that also doubles as a water pump for villages in rural Africa.

As the children play on the merry-go-round, clean water is pumped into clean reservoir for use later by villagers. It’s a creative and fun way to help kids with very little to help themselves.

Right now, half the people in developing countries are suffering from water-related diseases. 1.7 million children under the age of five die from diarrhea each year.

For more information or to donate, see the PlayPumps website

Congestion Charging

“Complete idiots” will be charged more in London. To be more exact, the city of London has decided to charge a higher congestion fee for SUVs. According to the mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, SUV drivers are “complete idiots”.

The reasoning behind this move to charge SUVs more is rather elaborate. One of the reasons is that it was recently found that in the US 11.5% of pedestrians hit by SUVs are killed, smaller vehicles kill only 4.5% of pedestrians hit. Londoners also are fans of SUVS, 14.9% of car sales are SUVS, which is much higher than other English cities. Drivers of vehicles more friendly to the environment will have a reduced congestion fee.

London’s congestion fee has been wildly successful and hopefully this addition to it will be too.

Pearl Jam Jams Carbon Emissions

The band Pearl Jam are some environmental do-gooders! They are not only continuing their program of offsetting their carbon emissions from touring, they are expanding it!

“This year we expanded their program to encompass a broader range of clean air solutions. In addition to the Carbon Portfolio Strategy, we are working to offset carbon emissions from their 2006 US tour by using B100 – pure bio-diesel – in all production trucks and in our tour buses. B100 reduces emissions of carbon monoxide by approximately 50% and carbon dioxide by 78% on a net lifecycle basis. In contrast to fossil fuels, which release new carbon previously sequestered in the earth’s crust, the carbon in B100 emissions is recycled from carbon already present in the atmosphere.”

Pearl Jam does a lot of good for the environment and the world as a whole, you can find out more on their activism on their website.