Greenpeace in Portugal

It seems that Greenpeace soon will start a 3 year long campaign in Portugal!

Yippiee!

No more incandescent light bulbs!

Step 4 in the Greenpeace 7 steps:

Challenge lightbulb makers

Petition text:

“Dear Philips, Osram, GE and SLI Sylvania,
You cannot deny the scale of the climate emergency, and the need for urgent action including energy conservation. Some of the lightbulbs you make are energy savers, and some of them squander energy unnecessarily. Stop manufacturing inefficient lightbulbs by January 2010 at the latest.

P.S. Philips: As a sponsor of Al Gore’s Live Earth concerts, you should be taking the lead on this!”

Here is the place to do it u 2!


Here is my comment:
"Even better, put more emphasis on developing and selling LED based lights. At the moment they are even more expensive then the CFLs. So with the supposed “efficiency of scale” I guess you could slash those prices a lot. This would lead to even more energy savings and no heavy metal waste compared to CFLs LFs.

Perhaps you should view yourselves as providers of lighting solutions rather than light bulb vendors?!"

energy [r]evolution - Ban this bulb (I did)

I joined GreenPeace energy [r]evolution campaign:

Take 7 (simple?) steps:



- First step: Ban this bulb (I did)
Replace normal incadescent bulbs for CFLs. But I already had done that so I replaced some in my gfs flat.
- Next step was to invite 7 friends. I think I invited twice as many.
- The third was to go public. So I choose to make a mention on some spots, like Flickr and now this blog.

Sofar the steps have been fairly easy so it is a campaign for all to partake in! Feel free to join us on http://greenpeace.org/7steps.

No more bacalhau?

The Portuguese still believe that there is endless amounts of cod fish with which they can make bacalhau, or actually the actual bacalhau (dried salted cod fish) is caught in the North Sea and dried and salted in Norway.

Greenpeace and WWF in last December were disappointed with the still large quota of cod fish that the EU fishing ministers agreed upon. The ministers claim that they need to think about both fish stocks and fishers. But Greenpeace and WWF say that the fishing ministers as usual are mocking scientific concerns that the quotas still are way above sustainable levels.

I think the price for bacalhau has gone up in Portugal the last years.

But anyway, the bacalhau is not the most tasty dish on earth. I for one would not be sorry if the Portuguese altogether gave up their bacalhau, and let the cod fish recuperate, at least for a decade or so ...

Tell Denmark not to support Japanese whaling

I just signed up for the defending the whales campaign by an sending email to the Danish foreign minister Per Stig Møller asking him and Denmark not to support Japanese whaling by not be present at the Japanese pro-whaling early February. The idea is that their presence would be taken as a sign that Denmark is pro-whaling. And not being would be a sign to the contrary.

Financial Times makes a The Economist

John Kay of the Financial Times recently in his editoral Why the green lobby must be treated as a religion says that in global warming the enviromentalists got their Apocalypse myth they sorely wanted.

But as Andrew Simms in his letter to the editor It is high time that we considered mainstream economics - not environmentalism - as a religion notes that many environmentalist are trained scientists. Indeed, the IPCC is entirely composed of scientists. Maybe John Kay thinks that IPCC is a conspiracy?

John Kay continues "business linked to faiths and ideologies is a sinister and unaccountable power." I couldn't agree more. The odd notion by many economist that constant growth is the only way to solve any economical problem fails just as Andrew Simms notes that "orthodox economics, on the other hand, with its presumption of an infinite natural resource base to fuel endless gross domestic product growth, its belief in man as a perfectly informed rational agent and of markets bustling with the efficiency of limitless small companies facing no barriers to entry in any sector - this is a belief system that really does require a leap of faith."

One more thing regarding John Kay's statement on ideologies making sinister business I agree in regards to neoliberals without any moral scruples. Just see what happen in all the so called free trade zones around the world. Human Rights what is that - bah - lets ignore that - it is too expensive and cumbersome to let the workers have a say about and influence in their work and work place.

John Kay continues "Most environmental initiatives that have been implemented - phasing out fluorocarbons, renewable energy and emissions trading - have significant commercial lobbies behind them." I think he forgot the environmentalists. The phasing out of CFCs for one we can thank among other Greenpeace for showing that alternatives are possible. Renewable energy has always been around. Nowadays notably there are even market analysts claiming that renewable energy is the next hype. Hopefully it is hype that will last forever.

John Kay continues: "Windmills on roofs and cycling to work are insignificant in practical consequence, but that is to miss their point." That certainly goes near the infamous Economist article stating that personal (consumer) choice has no impact. So we should all give up and give to the powers of the so called market. But hey who is the market? It is us consumers!

One person making one small choice may not have a huge effect but if everyone in e.g. London would bike or walk to work that would have a huge effect. Do you see what I am getting at?