This was a good one…The merry pranksters behind the CoalCares.org site not only had the moxy to add a ™ symbol to their site name, they even had the bravado to use the (genuinely) registered trademark of Peabody Energy as well. Not only were they content to spoof the coal industry’s attempts at better Community Relations, they even linked directly back to Peabody Energy for maximum effect and traceability!
In its shameless contempt for the world’s largest private-sector coal company, this spoof site represents itself as a branding initiative intended to reach out to American youngsters with asthma and to help them “keep their heads high in the face of those who would treat them with less than full dignity”. For kids who have no choice but to use an inhaler, Coal Cares™ lets them inhale with pride!
In a rare demonstration of a nearly non-Leftists bias, the Toronto Star printed an article that shows that it’s still capable of presenting slightly balanced views of contentious issues. In this case, it offered some visibility for a realistic presentation from the Organization of CANDU Industries (OCI) which offered clear insights into the effects of replacing two proposed nuclear reactors with the equivalent in renewable sources. In particular, the OCI demonstrates the physical scale of both the solar and wind turbine installations that would be required to match the energy production available from a nuclear site measuring 1.6 square-kilometers. In the end, the Star’s article simply took this issue as another opportunity to discredit nuclear energy, by (indirectly) claiming that the facts aren’t complete.
So in an attempt to right the scales abit, we’ll off our own slant on the subject as well…
So…After having to endure so much more global ennui this past month, EnviroNauts are going to try and take a more local approach to plotting-out sustainable Futures for ourselves…
Earth Hour 2011
March 26th saw Earth Hour come and go here in Toronto, and astoundingly for a city so bent on demonstrating its political correctness, the initial visibility enjoyed by this annual event is showing signs of flickering right out.
What started as an easy way to for armchair environmentalists and idealists of all types to make a token, yet satisfyingly visible gesture about kicking their energy habits (even just for an hour) has now seemingly fallen right off the radar for most people…at least for this year anyhow. See pics below;
Franklin D. Roosevelt once said that “rules are not necessarily sacred, but good principles are.” Unfortunately, there there seems to be a scarcity of good sacred principals available to sustaining Society through difficult times nowadays, which might explain a rise in Fundamentalism (radical or otherwise) as we search for any unassailable principals to rally around as a Society .
What we see instead, is that our greatest temples are built to represent the power of money and commerce, and the graven images of celebrities that we’ve idolized now seem to hold the place of of demi-gods in many people’s lives. Popular as they may be, these cultural icons make rather poor pillars build the Future upon, no matter how well they might reflect our dreams and aspirations today.
When looking for leadership from the more obvious sources, it almost seems strangely naive to suggest that we simply rely on politicians to step up with clear plans. Much less for the ruling Corporate Elite to offer the leadership required to build a sustainable future for Humanity. So where are our guiding principals coming from in cynically post-modern age?
As a world supplier of primary resources like lumber and oil, Canadians were once stereotyped a “hewers of wood“ working in a pristine green wilderness of fresh water and never-ending forests. Nowadays, thanks to the Eco-PR efforts of organizations like Greenpeace, Canada has gained more notoriety for oilsands that are widely regarded as a filthy and enormously wasteful source of fossil-fuel energy. A source of fuel who’s extraction is made economically feasible only by high price of crude oil yet without factoring in the environmental impact and future cleanup costs down the line. So much for “Green” stereotypes.
Forestry and Agriculture, on the other hand, are still a clearly green and renewable resources that are poised to turn into major sources of power production via the alluring prospects of widespread BioMass generation methods. No longer will we simply see crops and trees as a source of food for cities, construction materials and wooden poles for transmitting power along roadways, but rather as sources of feedstock for secondary green industries that can use otherwise wasted bio-mass to actually generate power for those very same hydro lines.
The question is, what stands in the way of displacing coal and natural gas from our current power supply, and how will bio-mass be different than burning any other fuel for electricity?
So here we are in the 21st Century looking for the signs of positive change in an ever-dawning Future. All the while being constantly reminded that many segments of the Mainstream Media still seem more interested in leading with stories that bleed, or in brow-beating the Past, rather than taking a more proactive approach to promoting genuine grass-roots change here in the Present.
So with the status quo being so well entrenched, people are increasingly turning to fringe sources of alternative “news” and information, and hoping that others are doing the same to preserve a realistic view of the world around them. Of course, this isn’t the time or place to delve into the greatly diminished role of the “Free Press” in protecting our various Democracies, but it bears mention that one of the greatest casualties of the Post-Modern Age has been the much publicised demise of the big, well-financed, and possibly overstaffed ‘Newsprint Giants’ of the 20th century, and quite possibly the venerable institution of Journalism itself.
Among so many besieged traditional specialties in the Media, ones that are in particularly obvious decline are the the crucial roles of Researchers and Investigative Journalists. People who were once trained to dig up and develop stories that go against the grain and demand accountability from Governments and Corporations, and thus assure some basics checks and balances to the free-market versions of Democracy. After decades of relative peace and prosperity, some might just say who cares if ‘print journalism’ is in peril? Just because TV News operations are even more indentured to their Corporate parents, doesn’t mean that we should be concerned about the fate of Journalism as a whole…Should we?
After all…What harm could this do to the Future, if some archaic form of Mass Media from the Past were to die off?
Now obviously, that alarming little slice of Totalitarian propaganda (erm, Eco-PR?), was clearly meant to rattle people’s senses, for the sake of spreading online impressions through the social networks. Yet beyond offering cynical people a justification for using terms like “Eco-Nazi”, that ‘ad’ is likely to be also serving a purposeful and ulterior motive as well. Presumably, by helping survey the viral viewership that this ad will surely attract online, this ‘ad’ paves the road for Marketers to gauge how much shock value they can build into to other Eco-Marketing campaigns, much like we’ve already started to see in various Workplace and Children’s Safety messages here in Ontario. This is in reference to ads where graphic violence are used to brutally slam the Viewer with “safety” messages that would have been entirely unacceptable under in any other context, but which are implicitly condoned as being acceptable in these particular cases, since they supposedly serve a “greater public good”…Regardless of their horrific content…
In the Marvel Universe, Adamantium is a metal that provides Wolverine with superstructeral strength, that we can only dream of here in Reality. Yet the marvels of the fantasy realm have been drawn a little closer to the real world this past week, with an announcement that a Titanium foam has been developed to reinforce skeletal bone in a way never before possible. This breakthrough comes from the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Technology and Advanced Materials Research in Dresden, Germany, and Dr. Peter Quadbeck is eager to see this exciting new application approved for use in humans in the near future.
Have you ever wondered what makes white stuff so brilliantly white? Or what it is that makes reflective surfaces shine so brightly in the light? Well, from this point forward you’ll know that the unsung hero of the Industrial World is Titanium Dioxide – or to those of you who already know and love it, TiO2. Titanium is found in everything from Class M Stars, to your tube of toothpaste, yet most other people have still never even heard of the stuff. So let’s start with a very quick rundown of Titanium Oxide’s highly impressive resume and it’s countless current applications, before we go on to discover the monumental impact that TiO2′s will soon have on some very exciting new and emerging technologies, which demonstrate its enormous potential for enabling a wide range of truly futuristic applications as well. Potential that will certainly dwarf it’s already enormous contributions to Technology, Industry, and Society at large.
So TiO2 enables us to drive safely at night with it’s brilliantly bright signs and markings, without risking tragedy on darkened roads, and this is where our discover begins…
Evidently, Earth’s ecology continues to be impacted by the unbridled effects of Human consumption and population growth. Resulting in more people seeming willing to take some rather difficult stances on key issues. Especially ones that contribute to Humanity’s disproportionate impact upon our shared Environment. Specifically, our mushrooming need for food and fuel in a world that is already precariously overpopulated has become a hot topic again, and re-raises the specter of Population Control. A subject that everyone expects to be personally managed via contraceptive methods, rather than anything more Orwellian, of course. There is a game-changing factor that’s still being overlooked in this difficult question though; which is the very real correlation between Women’s Literacy or basic education, and drastically lowered birth rates!
As evidenced below (and elsewhere), raising Literacy rates for women, would seem to directly impact impact birth-rates, and then human population levels, and thus our total consumptions – Especially as third world populations clamor to achieve a more Western lifestyle and comparable rate of Consumption.
If you’re curious about the science behind this intuitive connection between literacy and lowered birthrates, here’s some hard info for you. If you’re already comfortable with the reasons for this correlation, then you might also consider why Literacy could be placed up at the forefront of efforts to reduce Global Warming…
This was a good one…The merry pranksters behind the CoalCares.org site not only had the moxy to add a ™ symbol to their site name, they even had the bravado to use the (genuinely) registered trademark of Peabody Energy as well. Not only were they content to spoof the coal industry’s attempts at better Community Relations, they even linked directly back to Peabody Energy for maximum effect and traceability!
In a rare demonstration of a nearly non-Leftists bias, the Toronto Star printed 
Franklin D. Roosevelt once said that “rules are not necessarily sacred, but good principles are.” Unfortunately, there there seems to be a scarcity of good sacred principals available to sustaining Society through difficult times nowadays, which might explain a rise in Fundamentalism (radical or otherwise) as we search for any unassailable principals to rally around as a Society .
As a world supplier of primary resources like lumber and oil, Canadians were once stereotyped a “hewers of wood“ working in a pristine green wilderness of fresh water and never-ending forests. Nowadays, thanks to the 
So here we are in the 21st Century looking for the signs of positive change in an ever-dawning Future. All the while being constantly reminded that many segments of the Mainstream Media still seem more interested in leading with stories that bleed, or in brow-beating the Past, rather than taking a more proactive approach to promoting genuine grass-roots change here in the Present.
Among so many besieged traditional specialties in the Media, ones that are in particularly obvious decline are the the crucial roles of Researchers and Investigative Journalists. People who were once trained to dig up and develop stories that go against the grain and demand accountability from Governments and Corporations, and thus assure some basics checks and balances to the free-market versions of Democracy. After decades of relative peace and prosperity, some might just say who cares if ‘print journalism’ is in peril? Just because TV News operations are even more indentured to their Corporate parents, doesn’t mean that we should be concerned about the fate of Journalism as a whole…Should we?
In the Marvel Universe, 
Evidently, Earth’s ecology continues to be impacted by the unbridled effects of Human consumption and population growth. Resulting in more people seeming willing to take some rather difficult stances on key issues. Especially ones that contribute to Humanity’s disproportionate impact upon our shared Environment. Specifically, our mushrooming need for food and fuel in a world that is already precariously overpopulated has become a hot topic again, and re-raises the specter of Population Control. A subject that everyone expects to be personally managed via contraceptive methods, rather than anything more Orwellian, of course. There is a game-changing factor that’s still being overlooked in this difficult question though; which is the very real correlation between Women’s Literacy or basic education, and drastically lowered birth rates!
