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Focus on environment
Eco-friendly diaper
The debate over the relative environmental merits of cloth vs. disposable diapers, like the one over paper vs. plastic bags, arouses passions entirely out of proportion to its significance in the grand scheme of things. But still, the UK Environment Agency decided to settle the question once and for all: It sponsored a four-year study that analysed three diaper types –– disposable, home-washed cloth, and professionally washed cloth – from manufacture to disposal.
The verdict? It doesn’t matter. While disposables pile up in landfills, cloth diapers require energy to transport, wash, and dry. Both manufacturers and parents could do more to reduce their ecological impact, but the choice between cloth and disposable is one of personal preference and nothing more.
Ocean’s ambassadors An international campaign to conserve sea turtles, uniting people from Australia to Thailand and from Iran to the Seychelles, was launched recently.
Under the banner of the ‘Year of the Turtle – 2006’, the organisers aim to spotlight the threats and encourage even greater public support for these extraordinary marine creatures.
The Indian Ocean – South-East Asia region is home to six different species of marine turtles whose populations have declined in the past decades, some to the point of extinction.
The Year of the Turtle involves a series of public events and activities in 25 countries of the region throughout 2006 under the banner “Cooperating to Conserve Marine Turtles: Our Ocean’s Ambassadors”.
“Sea turtles are modern ambassadors of our oceans, linking countries and communities around the world. They are many things to many people: a traditional source of food, the basis of livelihoods centred on sustainable tourism, a focus of investigative research, or simply an enduring source of inspiration and awe. We all have a common interest in their conservation,” said the campaign coordinator.
Accidental killing of sea turtles by fishing gear, damage to turtle nesting beaches and coral reefs, and unsustainable consumption are among the major threats they face.
Natural disasters, such as the Indian Ocean tsunami, have also taken a toll.
The Year of the Turtle will run through December 31, 2006, with events planned at country and local levels throughout the Indian Ocean – South-East Asia region.
Wild bird risk area to combat bird flu
Britain said it would set up a 2,500 sq km “wild bird risk area” in Scotland in response to the discovery of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu in a swan.
It said it had ordered poultry farmers within this area to keep their flocks indoors. There are 175 poultry centres in the zone and some 3.1 million birds, of which 260,000 are free range, it said.
Get kids back into nature
For tens of thousands of years, says journalist and author Richard Louv in his new book, Last Child in the Woods, children spent much of their time outside, developing a sense of wonder in response to the natural world. In the space of two generations, that experience has changed almost entirely, and Louv warns that the consequences will be broad and dire, not only for kids’ physical and mental health, but for the green movement.
Louv, a columnist for the San Diego Union — Tribune, has written a number of books about child rearing. His Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder is a plea to re-engage children with nature.
Global spillage
Some 30 per cent of the ozone in the US may be drifting in from other countries, says scientist David Parrish. Dust from as far abroad as the Sahara Desert regularly travels across the Atlantic, increasing particulate levels in some US cities.
More worrisome is globe-trotting airborne mercury, chiefly from power plants and factories. It drifts around the world, settling in water bodies where it’s absorbed by fish and then passed on up the food chain. Though the US EPA estimates about 40 per cent of mercury in the US originates elsewhere, the US last year opposed an international treaty that would have set mandatory mercury limits. Of course, the US does its share of pollution exporting as well. It’s a small world after all, and we are all “cough” neighbours now.
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