Green Journal

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The other day I went to the market with my one year old. I brought along my re-usable canvass bag that I picked up from Geelong, Melbourne while attending the IMPAC conference in 2005. Then we also brought along our egg tray that we got from our HK trip. Its a mountain kitchen accessory that is used to put eggs when you camp out. Actually you can use it when you go to the market. This yellow egg tray can carry a dozen eggs safely. I am happy to use my cloth bags going to market. I do not want to use any more plastic bags. The thing is I need to buy fish and the vendor had to put it in a plastic bag. Maybe in the future we will be made to bring our own reusable containers for such purchases in our local "palengke" (market). Then I found this interesting article in one of my e-groups and decided it earns merit to post it here. Soon!!! there will be no more plastic yehey!!! ************ Plastic bags facing restrictions around the world Agence France-Presse First Posted 19:20:00 ...

Lately, I've been planning and dreaming alot about our home that we can truly call our own. One of the things I want my home to have are solar panels!!! I feel this is such a great idea to have renewable energy running your house hold. No more electricity bills. Clean Energy now! I sound like an ad here but well I need to say it to claim it. So here goes! I want a solar home!!!! NOW

I always wanted to drive a good car! Honda’s More Powerful Fuel Cell Concept with Home Hydrogen Refueling In the 3V schema, oxygen and hydrogen flow from the top to the bottom of the fuel cell stack (vertical gas flow) and the fuel cells are arranged vertically in the center tunnel (vertebral layout) for new, high-efficiency fuel cell packaging (volume efficiency). more details here .

My heart seems to skip a beat. My lungs seemed to stop taking in air while I was reading this article. It seems like a scene from a telenovela but what gave this lump in my throat is the stark reality that is before me. Palpable reality. Things that you read in the paper or hear in 24 oras evening news now seem to pale in comparison to the cold reality when you actually have met these people and your feet have touched their island. ----------------- WHEN GOVERNANCE FAILS A Murder on Sibuyan Island By Jose Ma. Lorenzo Tan Vice-Chairman, WWF Philippines On October 2, at 10am in the morning, a vehicle carrying personnel of Altai Mining Corporation, approached a group of approximately 150 Sibuyanon rallyists protesting against mining activities on the island. Heated words were exchanged. The vehicle driver drew his gun. A shot rang out. The vehicle's engine revved, dragging a man with it, then swerved out of control. A second shot rang out. Armin Marin, municipal ...

"It’s true, most of the living things on the planet are going to take a mean beating if things continue to warm up as every credible scientist on earth seems to believe, but the planet itself will be perfectly fine…it will still be here long after we are gone. It’s the humans and all the animals that might not make it..." read more

Environment Groups grade senate bets from green to grey Manila , 20 April 2007. The Greenpeace, EcoWaste Coalition and Kaisampalad today announced the results of their 2007 Green Electoral Initiative (GEI) in a press conference in Quezon City. The GEI, launched last March 5, assessed the greennessof senatorial aspirants based on their stance and track record on key environmental issues. Topping the survey was Genuine Opposition (GO) candidate and political neophyte Sonia Roco, followed by Loren Legarda, Koko Pimentel, Manny Villar, and Gringo Honasan. Among the top five greenest senate bets, two are political newcomers (Roco and Pimintel), and three (Legarda, Villar, and Honasan) are veteran lawmakers with proven track records on environmental issues. With the exception of Honasan (Independent) , the rest of the green circle come from the main opposition party. The others who answered the survey were (in alphabetical order): Edgardo Angara (GO), Martin Bautista (An...

A report by the Union of Concerned Scientists documents how one oil company funded organizations of climate change skeptics to propagate confusion and delay public acceptance and action of the realities of climate change. "ExxonMobil has manufactured uncertainty about the human causes of global warming just as tobacco companies denied their product caused lung cancer," said Alden Meyer, the Union of Concerned Scientists' Director of Strategy & Policy. "A modest but effective investment has allowed the oil giant to fuel doubt about global warming to delay government action just as Big Tobacco did for over 40 years." The full report can be read from the UCS website. Response from ExxonMobil.

When you buy anything "to go" the person at the counter, waiter in the resto or even the ordinary carinderia will put your food in a styrofoam. I get tired telling people-- please do not put my food in styrofoam. I do not use styrofoam. I get these stares as if I am an alien from Mars or whatever. Then I slowly explain about the growing Payatas trash that I do not want that because that is the easiest way for them to recognize why I opt not to use styrofoam. Well in fact as I hope most people know that styrofoam contributes to greenhouse gas, that contributes to global warming and thus might be causing all these super typhoons. For more expert opinion please click The Green Office . just to quote from that website: Styrofoam, or polystyrene, engenders a host of environmental and health detriments. It’s made from non-renewable fossil fuels, and its production releases the harmful greenhouse gas HCFC-22 into the atmosphere. Heavy exposure to polystyrene is linked to headaches,...

"usok, usok" as the song of Noel Cabangon goes "usok na nakamamatay" . I hate smokers. I hate inhaling second-hand smoke. It is unfair for those who doesn't smoke that the air is actually getting dirty and un-breathable when you are with people who smoke. This is fact: Second-hand smoke is actually more dangerous than directly inhaled smoke. It’s harmful even when you cannot see or smell it. Here’s why: * Second-hand smoke releases the same 4,000 chemicals (50 are known to cause cancer) as smoke that is directly inhaled, but in even greater quantity. Second-hand smoke contains: o 2 times more tar which gums up lungs and breathing passages o 5 times more carbon monoxide, which reduces the amount of oxygen in the blood * Cigarettes burn for approximately 12 minutes, but smokers usually only inhale for 30 seconds. As a result, cigarettes are spewing second-hand smoke into the air for non-smokers and smokers to breathe. * Even after ...

After Typhoon Milenyo, Paeng, Reming and now Seniang. I am really alarmed at how our old house in Alaminos will stay in tact. The roof is almost falling down crumbling to be exact the last time I saw it. Then this leads me to recall climate change and global warming. I visited some blogs to look up on this issue and I was led to Grist Blog Environmental News and Commentary discussing about Al Gore. Then I remembered Elnora raving about the film An Inconvenient Truth . So guys what do you think about all these Super Typhoons in relation to Climate Change?

EcoGeek - Technology for the Environment - The Single Most Important Environmental Innovation "Condoms aren't solar powered or reusable or even recyclable, but they've made the environmental revolution possible. As simple birth control continues its spread across the globe, it leaves behind happier healthier societies with significantly less impact on the planet. That is the power of true innovation." crossposted here

Amazon Indians use Google Earth, GPS to protect forest home "South America, Amazon Indians are using Google Earth, Global Positioning System (GPS) mapping, and other technologies to protect their fast-dwindling home." “Google Earth is used primarily for vigilance,” Vasco van Roosmalen, ACT’s Brazil program director, said in an interview with mongabay.com. “Indians log on to Google Earth and study images, inch by inch, looking to see where new gold mines are popping up or where invasions are occurring. With the newly updated, high-resolution images of the region, they can see river discoloration which could be the product of sedimentation and pollution from a nearby mine. They are able to use these images to find the smallest gold mine.”

I just want to say that I was really sad about Guimaras. sometimes...there is so much to say but you can't even imagine where to begin. "We can only watch in horror how an oil spill can undo in a few days our initiatives which have taken decades to implement. We need all the support we can get."- Joaquin Nava, Governor of Guimaras I will let others tell the story here . what can we do (hairdo)? see here .

the la mesa watershed is in peril. a 58-hectare MWSS housing project is being proposed to be established inside the watershed. this will lead to groundwater contamination endangering our water supply. please join the campaign to oppose the proposed project and ensure clean water for metro manila and for the future generations! please log on to www.lamesaecopark.com or click here . click save the la mesa, view the manifesto and sign in your petition! help us save our water, our environment! you can also print out the attached manifesto and sign-up sheet and fax the completed forms to the numbers indicated.

From Yahoo News "A brightly plumaged parrot and a long-tailed forest mouse unique to the Philippines have been discovered in the vanishing rainforest of a tiny tropical island, U.S.-based researchers said on Thursday. Camiguin, a volcanic island in the southern Philippines, is a treasure trove for fauna, and already had an endemic species of rodent and frog before the discovery of the rusty brown mouse and the green hanging parrot, known among locals as "Colasisi."" Bonus Cartoon from the Washington Post via RealClimate

As a rule, Filipinos dread any increase in oil prices. Higher oil prices generally leads to higher prices for basic necessities like food, transportation and electricity. And with 30 percent of Filipinos living below the poverty line , who can blame us? On the other hand, I always thought that high oil prices can benefit the environment. High oil prices will lead to people cutting back on petroleum use, thus limiting emissions. High oil prices will also make alternative energy sources more competitive . Unfortunately, these are not the only consequences of high oil prices. In Canada, the Asian Wall Street Journal (March 27 edition, pages 22 and 23) is reporting that : "These (oil sand) deposits were once dismissed as 'unconventional' oil that couldn't be recovered economically. But now, thanks to rising global oil prices and improved technology, most oil-industry experts count oil sands as recoverable reserves" But recovering oil from oil sand has environm...

The title for this blog came from my boss who forwarded this legal memorandum by Atty. Neri Javier Colmenares on the proposed amendments to the Philippine constitution prepared by the House of Representatives. The original email she got from another friend was entitled "Read and weep". Indeed, Atty. Colmenares' memorandum noted a lot of things to weep about in the proposed amendments, from the scandalous expansion of the powers and terms of office of the President and legislators, to the deletion or revision of specific provisions that aim to ensure transparency and accountability in the various branches and processes of government. I imagine people who sincerely believe in that thing called "participatory governance" having such terrible fits at the thought of hoodlums in Congress mangling the provisions of the present constitution. The proposed provision for the utilization and management of natural resources is a nightmare for many civil society actors who ar...

In a media advocacy training, a friend who is now the business editor of a major broadsheet here in the Philippines described politics as the fleeting world of alignments, positions, and pronouncements. There was this unmistakable contempt in his voice when he stressed that the realm of politics is essentially nothing but ephemeral phenomena which are just too irrelevant to the lives of ordinary people. Now, what has this got to do with policies in NRM? Nothing too direct. I just thought how this fleeting quality of politics in the country is also very apt in describing the NRM policy arena. Actually, this should apply to policies in other sectors as well. But NRM policies are particularly notorious in this regard. A case in point is the recent cancellation of all Community-Based Forestry Management (CBFM) agreements in eight (8) regions in the country by former DENR Secretary Mike Defensor. CBFMA is supposed to be the national strategy in managing the country's remaining forest re...