Month: June 2014

Illinois Bans Microbeads in Beauty Products

- Adam Clare

In the USA, Illinois is he first jurisdiction to ban the sale of microbeads. Microbeads are tiny plastic spheres used in exfoliants which are cheaper to use than natural products like seeds and nuts. This ban is great news because along the great lakes microbeads are found inside the belles of fish and other marine life. The environmental damage caused by microbeads is still being figured out, we already know that they are awful for nature so the ban by Illinois is hopefully one of many to come.

The new law bans the manufacture of personal care products containing microbeads by the end of 2017, the sale of personal care products and the manufacture of over the counter drugs by the end of 2018, and the sale of over the counter drugs by the end of 2019.

Environmentalists have said the non-biodegradable plastic particles used as exfoliants in many facial cleansers and soaps slip through sewage system filters and pile up in waterways, where they suck up toxins and harm wildlife. Preliminary studies in Lake Michigan have found millions of microbeads.

Read more here.

It’s Time to Reset the Net

- Adam Clare

One year ago today Edward Snowden revealed to the world evidence that many long suspected – that the American government is actively performing mass surveillance. Innocent people have been targeted and information the likes of which we’ll never fully know has been collected on nearly anyone who’s used the internet.

It’s not just the American NSA that is spying on the public – it’s global. In Canada, CSEC has been collecting mass data on the Canadian populace no matter who it is. In this sort of police state surveillance we need to operate as if everything we do online is being watched. This is NOT ok.

Today, June 5th, organizations like Mojang, Amnesty International, and even Google are calling for this intrusive spying to stop. The campaign Reset the Net is calling on websites, apps, and everything in-between to use technical solutions to make the mass surveillance run by governments more difficult. Governments shouldn’t be able to read your communications without due process.

Open Media has this to say:

In the year since we first learned the lurid details of the NSA’s dragnet spying operation, a massive wave of opposition has echoed across the world. Millions have taken action online and in the streets with one clear message: mass surveillance by any government is illegitimate. It violates our right to be ourselves, and undermines freedom of speech and democracy.

Despite the massive public outcry, a whole year after the revelations governments have failed to address our concerns. The NSA and other spy agencies are still tapping our phones and computers, while politicians endlessly debate our rights away.

Let’s work together to protect our privacy and send decision-makers a message they can’t ignore. Click here to learn how you can help Reset the Net.

Reset the Net

Remembering Tiananmen Square

- Adam Clare

25 years ago in Tiananmen Square there was a protest against the Chinese government. The protest was dealt with lethal force by the government – killing many people. Since then, the Chinese government has blocked any discussion about the protest and has greatly censored information on it. Obviously all of this isn’t good news.

To curtail the efforts of propaganda artists and censors in China there are groups that are trying to ensure that we don’t forget about the protest. This is good because if we forget our collective history we deny ourselves a richer, more knowledgable, existence. If we don’t remember the people who stood up then we are joining the efforts of the government that censored their protest.

The Tiananmen Initiative Project aims to reignite discussion of the meaning of the Spring 1989 movement in China and the as yet unfulfilled promise of genuine political reform its participants sought. We aim to do this by encouraging various kinds of public meetings around the world around the time of the twenty-fifth anniversary – April 15-June 4, 2014 – of what has aptly been called the Beijing Spring.

Check out the Tiananmen Initiative Project.
An article on Tiananmen at NPR.

Obama Takes On Coal Power Plants

- Adam Clare

Coal is one of the worst sources for energy given that its contribution to destruction of our planet is unmatched. There have been attempts to make coal branded as “clean coal” but even then, the radiation emitted from coal power plants is too high and the pollutants released into the air is still too much.

President Obama has decided to transition America’s power supply system away from coal and to better, cleaner alternatives. This is a good step in stemming the amount of pollution the country dumps into the air. Let’s hope that there is more money into sustainable power systems and that other countries (like Canada) will follow Obama’s lead.

If the new rules for power plants and the fuel-emissions standards are both maintained and adhered to, the Administration says, the United States will be on track to meet the targets that President Obama set in 2009, when he pledged, as part of a United Nations accord, to reduce U.S. greenhouse-gas-emission levels seventeen per cent by 2020 and eighty-three per cent by 2050, relative to the 2005 level. Of course, this calculation is a hypothetical one. Congress, ever since it refused to ratify the 1997 Kyoto agreement, has blocked a number of efforts to tackle climate change, including a cap-and-trade bill that would have set an over-all limit for carbon emissions. With the midterm elections on the horizon, its members are unlikely to have a general change of heart now.

Read more here.

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