I Love Green Planet | Going Green

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2010-08-06T03:48:00.001+01:00

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Win a Hybrid SUV

2010-06-24T20:03:00.005+01:00

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Here is your chance to win a Hybrid SUV. Just Check how lucky you are.

Green cars

2010-03-21T15:09:00.000Z

Green cars

Why you have to choose green cars?
When you are going to buy a car, you will consider many things like price, its fuel efficiency, style etc. Now you should add one more thing to your consideration- is it a green car?

Green cars are a step towards greening the road transport. That means the smoke that is going to hit your face will be less, the harm it is going to cause to your health and the environment will be less.

Choosing green cars that emits less toxic material not only protects the environment, but also your helps in reducing your family budget from the gasoline price rises and save money at the pump. The environmental impact associated with cars is mainly due to pollution in their exhaust. Increase in the number of green cars will reduce the air pollution.

When fuels are burned in car engines, combustion is never perfect, and so the emission contains toxic elements. If combustion were perfect the emission would only contain water vapor and CO2. CO2 and other toxics from fossil fuels are very harmful to the environment because it causes global warming. The pollution coming from a car can differ depending on the standards it meets. Toxic emissions from cars are controlled by various regulations. Nowadays most cars are certified to two standards one California and one Federal.

But ultimately it is your choice of make and model that is going to decide how minimum the damage to the environment will be. If you choose green cars the environmental damage will be less.

How to choose a green car?

So before making your decision to buy a green car you may like to equip yourself with information. For example what is the emission standard of a particular make and model? Among the green cars which is better? What is its overall environmental impact etc? American Council for Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) maintains an online database that will help you in this regard. Green cars are compared on the basis of a Green Score. For example Toyota Prius got a Green score of 53, and became the number one green car in 2009. Honda Civic Hybrid was the second best green car with a Green Score of 51. Higher the score a car gets, greener the vehicle. Other information, like fuel economy, health-related pollution impacts, and estimated fuel expenses etc of various models are available in ACEEE's online database.

When you buy your new car, buy a green car that will help keep the environment cleaner. When you buy a green car you are encouraging automaker to produce a better green car. It is a way of giving your support to Green initiative taken to prevent environmental degradation.

Choosing a green car might be an intelligent decision because if about 40 to 50 years time all fossil fuel will be used up and we will be left with huge vacuum in energy and fuel. If we want our children and grandchildren to drive a car then we should start to conserve and save fuel for them as well. Let’s decrease our hunger for fossil fuel and make a better pollution free planet to live on.

CLIMATE CHANGE

2010-03-13T02:23:00.000Z

Climate change is a term that is of great prevalence especially in this era, where global warming stands high. What does climate change specify or mean? Climate change is the change or variance in climate i.e. Change in humidity, temperature, rain density, wind directions & its intensity etc. In short, climate change is change in nature itself. The prevalence of climate changes can be visibly understood as a separate segment to it is provided in news on channels & even in newspapers. The term is of great importance as organizations have been formed over the period of time to keep climate under control or at least in situations out of danger.

Reasons of climate change

•    Improper disposal of waste: - Wastage from factories, if not properly handled can affect the ecological balance which will lead to changes in climate.

•    Global warming: - This situation of global warming has been thought against for long years. This happens due to the radio active substances, which are not properly disposed of by the human race. Global warming, if not dealt with properly, will result in chain reactions which will be of disastrous outcomes to mankind.

•    Experimentation: - Experimentation is of great importance for mankind to go further in technology & developments which relate to progress of mankind. But, nature is not to be tampered with. This will have adverse effects on lives of humans & earth as a whole which would stay blurred, when the pace of development & rate of achievement increases.

How climate change affects?

•    Economic: - Climatic changes will affect the economy, to a great extent. Companies won’t be taken into, by the public, than how situations were decades ago. Human race is more aware on the climatic effects on life. So now, a majority of companies plan campaigns, upholding values to “GO GREEN”.

•    Environmental: - Climate is a part of nature. So, changes in climate will surely have effects on environment, of which the living forms are a part of. This will trigger chain reactions, in nature, which will finally, affect the human beings. An example to be cited was the occurrence of RED TIDE in the coastal areas of United Arab Emirates, where a vast quantity of aquatic life perished.

Solutions for climate change

•    Adaptation: - Adaptation is very effective to counter this problem of climatic change, where an ecological problem liable to arise have to be identified and provisions to tackle them on a scientific, but reality basis has to be executed.

•    Geoengineering: - This is a term, which has come to prevalence over a short period of time. Here, the plans of process that are required are made keeping the ecological and geological factors in check. This reduces adverse effects on climate on a large scale.

Copenhagen Meeting

2009-12-26T08:37:00.001Z

Last week's climate science conference in Copenhagen concluded with a declaration saying that the most serious warnings on climate change were coming true, and calling for immediate "action". But, argues Mike Hulme in the Green Room, it is not clear what action was being called for, nor precisely who was calling for it.

The Copenhagen conference brought between 2,000 and 2,500 researchers from around the world.

The three days saw 600 oral presentations (together with several hundred posters on display) on topics ranging from the ethics of energy sufficiency to the role of icons in communicating climate change to the dynamics of continental ice sheets.

I attended the conference, chaired a session, listened to several presentations, read a number of posters and talked with dozens of colleagues from around the world.

The breadth of research on climate change being presented was impressive, as was the vigour and thoughtfulness of the informal discussions during coffee breaks, evening receptions and side-meetings.

What intrigued me most, however, was the final conference statement issued on the closing day, a statement drafted by the conference's scientific writing team.

It contained six key messages and was handed to the Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

A fuller version will be prepared and circulated to key negotiators and politicians ahead of the annual UN climate summit, to be held this year in December, also in Copenhagen.

Last week's conference has been widely reported as one at which the world's scientists delivered a "final warning" to negotiators about the necessity for a powerful political deal on climate.

Some commentators branded it "The Emergency Science Conference".

The six key messages include statements that:

    * "the worst-case IPCC scenario trajectories (or even worse) are being realised"
    * "there is no excuse for inaction"
    * "the influence of vested interests that increase emissions" must be reduced
    * "regardless of how dangerous climate change is defined", rapid, sustained and effective mitigation is required to avoid reaching it

There is a fair amount of "motherhood and apple pie" involved in the 600-word statement - who could disagree, for example, that climate risks are felt unevenly across the world, or that we need sustainable jobs?

But there are two aspects of the statement which are noteworthy and on which I would like to reflect: whose views does it represent, and what are the "actions" being called for?

Copenhagen consensus?

The Copenhagen conference was no Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) event.

It was not a process initiated and conducted by the world's governments; there was no systematic synthesis, assessment and review of research findings as in the IPCC, and there was certainly no collective mechanism enabling the 2,000-plus researchers to consider drafts of the six key messages or to offer their own suggestions for what politicians may need to hear.

The conference was in fact convened by no established academic or professional body.

Unlike the American Geophysical Union (AGU), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) or the UK's Royal Society - which also hold large conferences and from time to time issue carefully worded statements representing the views of professional bodies - this conference was organised by the International Alliance of Research Universities (IARU).

This little-heard-of coalition, launched in January 2006, consists of 10 of the world's self-proclaimed elite universities, including of course the University of Copenhagen.

IARU is not accountable to anyone and has no professional membership.

The statement therefore simply carries the weight of the secretariat of this ad-hoc conference, directed and steered by 10 self-elected universities.

The six key messages are not the collective voice of 2,000 researchers, nor are they the voice of established bodies such as the WMO. Neither do they arise from a collective endeavour of experts, for example through a considered process of screening, synthesising and reviewing.

Instead they were drafted largely before the conference started by the organising committee, sifting through research that they saw emerging around the world - some of it peer-reviewed, some of it not - and interpreting it for a political audience.

Taxing times

Which leads me to the second curiosity about this conference statement: what exactly is the "action" the conference statement is calling for? Are these messages expressing the findings of science or are they expressing political opinions?

I have no problem with scientists offering clear political messages as long as they are clearly recognised as such; and the conference chair herself, Professor Katherine Richardson, has described the messages as politically motivated. All well and good.

But then we need to be clear about what authority these political messages carry - that of the people who drafted them, and no more.

Which brings us back to the calls for action and the "inexcusability of inaction". What action, exactly?

During the conference there were debates amongst the experts about whether a carbon tax or carbon trading is the way to go. There were debates about whether or not we should abandon the "two degrees" target as unachievable, and whether there's a need to start researching and promoting a portfolio of geo-engineering strategies.

There were debates about the epistemological limits to model-based predictions of the future, and many other subjects besides - even the role of religion in curbing climate change.

These are all valid debates to have, and many of them mixed science, values, ethics and politics.

It therefore seems problematic to me when such lively, well-informed and yet largely unresolved debates get reduced to six key messages, messages that on the one hand carry the aura of urgency, precision and scientific authority - "there is no excuse for inaction" - and yet at the same time remain so imprecise as to dictate or resolve nothing in political terms.

In fact, we are politically no further forward after last week's conference. All options for attending to climate change - all political options - are, rightly, still on the table.

Is it to be a carbon tax or carbon trading? Do we stick with 'two degrees' or abandon it?

Do we promote geo-engineering or do we not? Do we coerce lifestyle change or not?

Do we invest in direct poverty alleviation in poorer countries, or in the New Green Deal in richer ones?

Mere urgency, especially precipitous urgency - the mantra of the new "Not Stupid" campaign launched in the UK last weekend - is not enough.

A gathering of international scientists and researchers has resolved nothing of the politics of climate change.

But then why should it? All that can be told - and certainly should be told - is that climate change brings new and changed risks, that these risks can have a range of significant implications under different conditions, that there is an array of political considerations to be taken into account when judging what needs to be done, and there is a portfolio of powerful, but somewhat untested, policy measures that could be tried.

The rest is all politics. And we should let politics decide, without being ambushed by a chimera of political prescriptiveness dressed up as (false) scientific unanimity.

Mike Hulme is a professor in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia (UEA), and was the founding director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research

The Green Room is a series of opinion article on environmental topics running weekly on the BBC News website

SOURCE: BBC WEBSITE http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7946476.stm

Cabinet meeting at the basecamp of Mount Everest to highlight the threat of global warming

2009-12-05T08:35:00.001Z

The historic cabinet meeting at Kalapatthar plateau near Everest Base Camp (5,242 meters) in the foothills of Mt Everest has concluded by issuing a 10-point "Everest declaration" which calls for concerted actions to minimize adverse effects of climate change in the Himalayan region.

Informing about the decision of the cabinet meeting at a press meet organized in Syangboche (3,780 m) after returning from Kalapatthar, Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal said that through the Everest declaration Nepal wants to express its commitment to fight the threats posed by global climate change and show areas of cooperation to follow for this noble purpose.

The meeting held for around 20 minutes also declared Banke National Park as new national park and Api-Nampa and Gauri-Shankar as conservation areas.

In the 10-point declaration, Nepal has expressed commitment to work together with the international community to mitigate the threats of climate change to the entire human civilization including the world's fragile bio-diversity, heritages and for sustainable socio-economic and cultural development of mankind.

He said the Himalayan region which boasts of Mt Everest, the world's tallest peak, including the majestic 2,700 kilometer-long mountain range, has a special significance for the socio-economic and cultural development of 1.3 billion people living in the region including maintaining the global environmental balance.

"But the world-wide climate change patterns of recent years has started to negatively affect the Himalayas and the people living in this region, their socio-economic development, biological diversity and other sectors, " he said, adding that as a result of which the risks of floods, landslides, glacier outbursts, drought, deforestation and other natural calamities have greatly increased.

He said the adverse effects of climate change is not only being seen in the areas near to Himalayan region, but in the whole of South Asia including the ecology of the whole world.

"Due to global climate change and its effects, the entire human civilization is faced with additional challenges for their survival," PM Nepal claimed.

PM Nepal said that Government of Nepal has from the past many decades been expressing bilateral and multilateral commitments for sustainable development and environmental protection knowing that conserving and protecting planet Earth, our shared home, is not only in the interest of us but our future generations too.

Twenty-four cabinet ministers, including PM Nepal, had flown to Kalapatthar at 9:20 am on Friday to hold the historic cabinet meeting set in the backdrop of the majestic Himalayas, including Mt. Everest, the world's highest mountain.

A rescue team led by Usha Gurung along with six doctors and a team of mountaineers accompanied the ministerial team for this historic event.

Speaking to media-persons before the ministerial team was air-lifted to Kalapathhar, Minister for Forest and Soil Conservation Dipak Bohora had said that the government is holding the cabinet meeting to draw the attention of the world to the threats of climate change in the Himalayas and the people living in the region.

State-owned Nepal Television broadcast the special event live from Syangboche.

The ministerial team had reached Lukla Airport in Solukhumbu district on Thursday to take part in the historic meeting.

News extracted from: www.NepalNews.com

Earth Song

2009-11-27T17:06:00.000Z

Earth Song Lyrics Michael Jackson
What about sunrise
What about rain
What about all the things
That you said we were to gain.. .
What about killing fields
Is there a time
What about all the things
That you said was yours and mine...
Did you ever stop to notice
All the blood we've shed before
Did you ever stop to notice
The crying Earth the weeping shores?

Aaaaaaaaaah Aaaaaaaaaah

What have we done to the world
Look what we've done
What about all the peace
That you pledge your only son...
What about flowering fields
Is there a time
What about all the dreams
That you said was yours and mine...
Did you ever stop to notice
All the children dead from war
Did you ever stop to notice
The crying Earth the weeping shores

Aaaaaaaaaaah Aaaaaaaaaaah

I used to dream
I used to glance beyond the stars
Now I don't know where we are
Although I know we've drifted far

Aaaaaaaaaaah Aaaaaaaaaaaah
Aaaaaaaaaaah Aaaaaaaaaaaah

Hey, what about yesterday
(What about us)
What about the seas
(What about us)
The heavens are falling down
(What about us)
I can't even breathe
(What about us)
What about the bleeding Earth
(What about us)
Can't we feel its wounds
(What about us)
What about nature's worth
(ooo,ooo)
It's our planet's womb
(What about us)
What about animals
(What about it)
We've turned kingdoms to dust
(What about us)
What about elephants
(What about us)
Have we lost their trust
(What about us)
What about crying whales
(What about us)
We're ravaging the seas
(What about us)
What about forest trails
(ooo, ooo)
Burnt despite our pleas
(What about us)
What about the holy land
(What about it)
Torn apart by creed
(What about us)
What about the common man
(What about us)
Can't we set him free
(What about us)
What about children dying
(What about us)
Can't you hear them cry
(What about us)
Where did we go wrong
(ooo, ooo)
Someone tell me why
(What about us)
What about babies
(What about it)
What about the days
(What about us)
What about all their joy
(What about us)
What about the man
(What about us)
What about the crying man
(What about us)
What about Abraham
(What was us)
What about death again
(ooo, ooo)
Do we give a damn

Underwater cabinet meeting to highlight the threat about global warming

2009-11-05T07:18:00.000Z

Well, climate change has really affected us. These effects are so prominent in some countries that they have started campaigning about it. In this list of campaigning Maldives have become the most distinct one. Recently, the government of Maldives conducted a cabinet meeting underwater to symbolize the threat they are in. Maldives is a low lying Indian Ocean country which is in risk of complete disappearance from the globe.
Maldives stand at an average height of only 2.1 meters (7 feet) above the sea level and the increasing global temperature has posed a significant risk of complete wipe put.
Ministers spent about half an hour underwater and communicated by hand signals and white boards. The president of Maldives said that the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen on December cannot fail.
After the underwater meeting, President Nasheed said that “If the summit fails, we are going to die.”
A very touching word that the President Nasheed said was “If the Maldives cannot be saved today we do not feel that there is much of a chance for the rest of the world.”
UN climate change conference in Copenhagen is aiming to make a new agreement replacing the 1997 Kyoto protocol which will expire in 2012.
In the mean time Nepal is also planning to hold Cabinet meeting at the Mount Everest base camp to highlight its problem because of Global warming.

Green Home Designs: How to do this?

2009-11-03T10:14:00.000Z

Green Home design is ideal for today’s world because we are destroying it. Small effort from your side can change this. If you are thinking of designing a house then consider Green Home Designs. This design basically focuses on various aspects of energy conservation. So, lets talk about how to plan for a green home designs.

1. Home construction site: Make sure that you have made a detail study about the site which includes its slope, vegetation around them and location. Always be careful that construction of your home should have a minimal effect on plants and animals around it. It is better to construct house in areas with proper transportation, shops, schools and parks. While constructing your home, give a detail look at the natural lighting system. Make sure that sunlight is available for maximum time so that you don’t have to use alternative light source early. After all not using electricity means conserving electricity.

2. What’s the correct size for a Green home designs? When it comes to size of home we tend to think that bigger is better. But, in Green home designs it’s just the opposite. Smaller the house, bigger the contribution for Earth. Bigger house means more energy consumptions for heating and lighting. You are wasting energy for nothing. Just decide on number of rooms that you want and act accordingly. If you built a guest room that is only used once in a year or so then it’s just a waste of energy and money. So, plan very carefully about your home size and numbers of room.

3. Opt in for solar energy: Thanks to some great green loving Engineers, there are so many equipments constructed which utilizes solar energy for various purposes. You can get a solar energy water heater for cooking and bathing. They are very efficient and are 100% clean with zero carbon footprints. You can also get solar panels for lighting. Even though the initial cost for solar products is high compared to others, it will be an excellent choice if you consider its long term benefits. Remember that heating your water by solar energy means you are not using electricity. So, you are saving Earth as well as your electricity bills.

4. Conserve water: Always give especial consideration about water conservation while you are thinking of Green home designs. Always use low flush toilets, aerators on taps and gray water system. Gray water system is simply a plumbing system in which you reuse waste water from bathing, washing and laundry for watering lawns and flushing toilet.

These are few basic things that you can consider for green home designs. But another important thing that you should change is your fossil fuel hunger. Always try to use minimal quantity of fossil fuels.

Adopt these basic guidelines for green home design and we have a happy family and Earth.

What a wonderful world.....

2009-11-02T05:35:00.005Z

If you haven't heard this song then you have to grab a copy of this song because its the best song I have ever heard with nature as its theme.

Louis Armstrong - What A Wonderful World lyrics

I see trees of green, red roses too

I see them bloom for me and you

And I think to myself what a wonderful world.

I see skies of blue and clouds of white

The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night

And I think to myself what a wonderful world.

The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky

Are also on the faces of people going by

I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do

They're really saying I love you.

I hear babies cry, I watch them grow

They'll learn much more than I'll never know

And I think to myself what a wonderful world

New trends in Home Renovation with Green themes

2009-11-02T05:17:00.004Z

Creativity and efficiency is the key when it comes to home renovation. Home renovation means you want latest trends and style in the market. No matter which part of house you are trying to renovate, you are sure to find something new. Since you are renovating your home, why not go green and take some appliances which serve you as well as Earth. So, let’s talk about some latest trends in home renovation keeping green earth in mind.

Going green means conserving energy. LED fixture is such latest trend. It consumes 70% less power than normal bulb and has an amazing 40,000 hour of lighting capacity.

If you want complete clean energy than solar energy is the way to go. You can buy solar lighting for your home and use it as an indoor or outdoor lighting. But mind you that it’s a bit expensive now but in near future, I see a bright future for solar lighting.

We have to go GREEN

2009-11-02T04:59:00.000Z

Our planet is becoming a big mess because of our negligence. We have to wake up now and start conserving our environment other the consequences will be disastrous.