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Carnival of the Green # 86

AIDG Blog: this time with carnies! The Carnival of the Green is making its first appearance on the AIDG Blog.

COTG is a weekly roundup on all things green in the blogosphere. As with many a good idea, it was “conceived of over pints of beer in London between Al and Nick Aster of TriplePundit almost two years ago”. Last week’s carnival (July 9th) was hosted by The Ester Republic. Next week’s (July 23) will be on The Hippy Shopper.

Green Social Entrepreneurship

Harlan at Greener Magazine writes about a group of reformed poachers in Zambia who have turned their “swords into ploughshares”. They’re creating Snarewear, hand-crafted jewelry made from “wire snares once used to illegally catch wildlife”. In becoming part of the sustainable farming co-op, COMACO, the poachers turned in their weapons, “in exchange for training in organic farming methods, bee-keeping, gardening, carpentry, and now, jewelry making”. The shift in focus has proved fairly lucrative as well. Last year, the co-op pulled in $350,000 in sales. The program, supported by New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society, is a nice example of how providing alternate employment opportunities for poachers can be a key strategy for conservation efforts.

Nick Aster of Triple Pundit gives us a heads-up that the Responsible Competitiveness Report is out. The report’s tagline is about “making sustainable development count in global markets”. Unfortunately, I don’t think sustainable in this instance means what we think it means. I think they are referring to sustainable growth.

Appropriate Technology

“When you pay for your water, you garden, you are in a drought, and the water company is requesting a large rate increase, a rainwater collection system is suddenly very appealing.” Catching the Rain by Stephanie of Stop the Ride! discusses a rainwater catchment system for her home.

Food

Mark Powell of Blowfish wants sustainable fish, but wonders whether we’d get there faster with fish farms since we’ve had so little success with making fishing sustainable. Incidentally, Mark is the Fish Conservation Program Director of The Ocean Conservancy.

Beth Bader of the Expatriate’s Kitchen brings us an interview with Tim Schlitzer, Executive Director, of the Food Routes Network and Buy Fresh Buy Local. The “program insures that there are local choices, and that consumers can find them. The program includes everything from creating ‘feedability guides’ that identify new opportunities for growers and producers based on an individual community’s needs, to assisting with grant proposals, to helping raise awareness of endangered foods and the importance of seed banks. The program also provides marketing materials and the ‘continuity’ of the Buy Fresh Buy Local program that can serve as a guide for consumers.”

Ollie Moore of Ollie’s Place interviewed Ireland’s Green Party leader and new Minister of State for Food and Horticulture, Trevor Sargent.

Global Warming/Environment

Wondering what 5 things are worse then global warming? Then read Chris Baskind’s piece over at Lighter Footstep. Chris lists issues that, while related to global warming, are going to come to a head well before to more horrendous effects of climate change. On the top of his list is the end of peak oil. A very good read.

Alex Ho from Generation Exe sends us a little multimedia action with his slideshow on 45 things you can do to save the environment. (Nice use of Slideshare, btw).

Biologist Sally Kneidel of Veggie Revolution writes about elephants after returning from South Africa. She visited Kruger National Park, which boasts an elephant population of 12,000 to 14,000. Great news until you hear that the park is estimated to best support 7500. There are many questions of what park officials should do. Some favor culling, while others prefer to let nature takes it course.

Leon Gettler’s piece in Sox First gives us a summary of the KPMG report, Best practice in risk management. “Companies might be skilled at handling credit, market and financial risk, but they are hopeless when dealing with emerging risk issues of climate change, holding on to talent, and terrorism, according to a new report.”

We know that there is much in animal agriculture that contributes heavily to global warming. However, Judy Kingsbury, the Savvy Vegetarian, and others have noticed that not many mainstream climate activists (they mention the Goracle specifically) talk about how curbing meat consumption could be a very important strategy in mitigating global warming.

The Riversider writes about the progress in the Campaign to save the River Ribble. “Our campaign against the Ribble Barrage proposals is achieving great success - in a recent poll 74% of local people said they opposed it. Now even members of the Vision Board that came up with the idea are trying to distance themselves from a council characterised by secrecy, failure to consult and lack of democracy.”

Phil B. of Phil for Humanity reports “that an estimated 20% of global warming is caused by deforestation”.

Live Earth

Live Earth is maybe the concert equivalent of Marmite for environmentalists: either you loved it or you hated it. Jim Jay of the Daily Maybe weighs in with his thoughts. Despite the title of his post, “Open Sewer Earth”, which would suggest that Jim is in the “hated it” camp, he gives fair analysis of how the naysayers have a few things all wrong. This is my favorite post of the lot.

Firmly on the “is this all you got for me” side is Giulianna Lamanna from the Anthropik Network. She wraps up her post with this fun bit of writing about the feel good, measly impact recommendations made at Live Earth: This is too little, too late, too smug. This is Rome the day before the sack, with a few nobles idly wondering, “Say, is anybody watching the Visigoths?” Worse, this is the nobles laying back and assuring themselves, “Oh, it’s not a problem—we added a few more bricks to our defenses this morning.”

The Disillusioned Kid gives Live Earth a big yawn and is “far more interested in the burgeoning direct action movement which was kicked off by last year’s Camp for Climate Action near the Drax power station in Yorkshire”.

The Green Life

Babylegs, the makers of baby legwarmers (no, really, adorable fuzzy baby legwarmers) took a biodiesel road trip “to bring awareness to parents about sustainable living and organic products”. Tiffany Washko from Natural Family Living interviews Spring Courtright, one the trip’s participants. Seattle to Orlando on about 425 gallons of donated biodiesel. Not too shabby.

So you’re an avid recycler and composter at home, but find it very challenging to keep those habits up when traveling. Preston Koerner of Jetson Green tell us about Element Hotel, Starwood’s New Green Extended-Stay Brand. The hotel aims to allow its environmentally conscious guests to maintain their lifestyle while on the road.

On a related note, GP of INNside Innkeeping in Montana gives green traveling tips for hitting the road this summer.

There has been a lot in the blogosphere lately about teeny living spaces. Alex Ho gives us another post from Generation Exe on Dirk Dieter’s 250 sq ft house in Pacifica. Dieter,an industrial and exhibit designer, “also has his own design furniture company at www.verb2.com and has created furniture that is very useful and space efficient”.

Humor

Mike Myers from Myke’s Weblog wins for the funniest post title: “You know you’re a Green-Neck when …” I sure do, Mike. I sure do. Except, that I don’t want to see the OPEC countries run out of money before they run out of oil. I want to see some of them, particularly Nigeria, use as much of their oil wealth as possible to do the maximal about of social good in their countries and regions. Maybe that one falls under, “You Know You’re an International Development/Social Justice Wonk When…”

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