Countries Agree that Ozone Layer is Good

In what is deemed an historic agreement all the nations of the UN have agreed to speed up the pace of phasing out of a dangerous chemical compound known as HCFC. HCFCs replaced the more dangerous CFCs (they both cause damage to the ozone layer) many years ago and now are now ready to be replaced themselves. It’s good to see another damaging chemical will be used less and less with every coming year.

Governments of 190 countries, in addition to the European Commission, agreed to freeze production of HCFCs at average 2009-10 levels in 2013. That deadline replaces an earlier target of 2016.
Developed countries also have agreed to end HCFC production in 2020, instead of 2030. The pact also says that by 2010 they will reduce production and consumption of HCFCs by 75 per cent and then by 90 per cent by 2015, five years before their final phase-out.

Got Radioactive Waste?

If you do have radioactive waste, i.e. any country with nuclear power, you probably have a really, really good plan to store that waste for millions of years. No? Well then you might be interested in transmuting the waste into different form that has a half life of 25 minutes. Using a high-powered laser, gold and some physics I don’t understand iodine can be transmuted making the material safer. If the process could be scaled up and cheaper it could pose an alternative to Yucca Mountain.

British scientists have “transmuted” iodine-129 into iodine-128 with a high-powered laser. Now, dropping one neutron might not seem like a big deal, but the half-life of iodine-129 is 15 million years while the half-life of iodine 128 is 25 minutes.

Green Living Toolbox

From Mashable

The internet contains a lot of information, a lot of green information. Mashable has a Green Toolbox that is a massive list of online resources to help you with your green living. This list is very extensive!

From
The Carbon Diet – Track your carbon footprint every day and compare your footprint with those of your friends.
to
Hunuh – Community collaboration space where members can submit & discuss green technologies, services and processes.
This list is great!

Fight for Your Right to Dry

This is an issue that I never put thought to before because in Canada we don’t have nearly as many as these bizarre closed communities and suburban housing boards. Anyway, in the states communities limit what you can do with your house in order to maintain an aesthetic of sameness. Environmentalists who want to air dry their clothing on clotheslines are getting in trouble becuase of community regulations.

Now there is a movement in America that is fighting for their right to dry.

The regulations of the subdivision in which Ms. Taylor lives effectively prohibit outdoor clotheslines. In a move that has torn apart this otherwise tranquil community, the development’s managers have threatened legal action. To the developer and many residents, clotheslines evoke the urban blight they sought to avoid by settling in the Oregon mountains.

Improve Your Life by Caring Less

Remove a lot of your stress in your life by not trying to make everything perfect. That’s the message from Daily Cents at least. The article is written from a female perspective on pressure, but the message can be applied to people of any sex and gender.

Become an imperfectionist – Bennetts says the burden of perfection women feel is enormous. Pointing to women’s magazines as the emblem of this burden, Bennetts argues that women’s magazines are centered on articles about making yourself better, whereas men’s magazine are about cool gadgets. To combat the viscous perfectionist cycle, Alboher says she is trying to become an imperfectionist — and implores women to drop three things from their to do list.