Category: Environment

Right Livelihood Award

Right Livelihood Award
Congratulations to Maude Barlow, National Chair of the Council of Canadians, and Tony Clarke, Director of the Polaris Insititute, for winning the Right Livelihood Award (RLA). The RLA was created in 1980, and is awarded by the Swedish Parliament. It is known around the world as the “Alternative Nobel Prize.”

The RLA is presented to those who embody “the principle that each person should follow an honest occupation which fully respects other people and the natural world. It means being responsible for the consequences of our actions and taking only a fair share of the earth’s resources.” The award acknowledges the personal sacrifices of its recipients, and also recognizes that the work of those recipients is often accomplished despite powerful opposing forces.

Barlow and Clarke, two of four recipients of the award this year, were chosen because of their work promoting the “fundamental right to water.” They published a book called Blue Gold in 2002, which explores the privatization of water around the world. The book has been published in 12 languages and is sold in 40 countries.

Barlow and Clarke will be presented with the RLA on December 9, and will receive a share of the $300 000 (Cdn) prize with the other winners.

You can read the Council of Canadians press release here.

Mazda Pays to Walk

Japanese automaker Mazda will start paying employees to walk to work. The car company is promoting the pay to walk program to improve the health of their workers and to protect the environment.

All 20,000 of the company’s workers in Japan are eligible to receive the 1,500 Yen incentive each month.

Fake Trees Can Clean Air

Ironically, a plan for fake trees only exists on paper right now. Dr Klaus Lackner, from Columbia University, has proposed a “fake tree” that can clean the air of CO2. The tree can the air of 90,000 tonnes of CO2 a year.

Right now it is cost-prohibitve to build the fake trees because the filtering material is very expensive to recycle. Dr. Lackner sees making artificial ways to clean the air of car emissions ,and other CO2 sources, has a very important step in saving the planet.

Klarifying Kyoto

The UN climate conference being held currently in Montreal is proceeding very well according to many sources. The countries have decided on a way to measure greenhouse gasses and carbon emissions.

“Rules defining how Kyoto will proceed were outlined in the Marrakech Accords in 2001, and adopting them was a major achievement of the Montreal conference, according to delegates.”

Previously The Next Kyoto Protocol

“Nuclear: Wrong Answer” Greenpeace Tells Blair

Greenpeace activists entered a conference where Tony Blair was about to deliver a speech about the positive qualities of nuclear power and told the attendees that nuclear power is very dangerous. Blair champions the construction of new nuclear power plants.

Blair’s presence at the conference was kept secret, but rumors swirled that he would be present.

From the article:

“After a 40-minute stand-off – during which the protesters dropped yellow “nuclear fall-out” confetti on the delegates and Mr Blair went off and had a cup of tea – the CBI’s director general, Sir Digby Jones, emerged, somewhat embarrassed, to say that the speech would go ahead in another room.”