By making a ‘climate deal’ in Copenhagen last week, Obama has made it clear that he is going to put up more concern for comprehensive climate legislation in the Senate next year. White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said the fact that “countries like China and India set carbon-intensity targets for the first time in history” should bolster the administration’s legislative effort.
“CLIMATE INJUSTICE”
After a long muddled arguments of politicians and country leaders, a deal was finally reached on Saturday (December 19), but it turned out that it does not solve everyone’s big question: ‘Is it that bad?’ From a conference that was originally intended to produce a successor to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, those gentlemen end up with an agreement among the world’s largest economies to take steps to curb greenhouse gas emissions, but no formal consensus on the part of the 193 nations present — and no prescription for what comes next in the global negotiating process that is nearly 20 years old.
After a tight situation and some arduous arguments, finally Copenhagen Climate Summit managed to reach a ‘meaningful deal’ which according to one of the US Officials was a ‘historic step forward’. As the final point of this 2 weeks meeting, a reported agreement was emerged involving President Obama, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and South African President Jacob Zuma. However, responding to Friday’s developments, Greenpeace UK executive director John Sauven expressed his disappointment.
At the climate summit meeting in Copenhagen, Ban Ki-moon as The UN Secretary asserted that Three days of action from ministers are needed to “seal a deal”. Yes, it is possible for that climate talk to change the history of human race, but the governments remain deadlocked on many key issues, including the size of emission targets, finance, and verification of emission curbs.
In case you wonder what the greenest country in the world is, you don’t have to worry now. 1000 Green Steps is here to tell you the top 3 greenest countries. This list is generated through Environment Performance Index (EPI) calculation.
1. Switzerland
Switzerland is a country synonymous with scenic Alps, posh pocketknives, fine chocolate, world-class watches, and of course, a clean environment. The country’s achievements and measures in environmental protection can be seen in people’s daily lives.
2. Norway
Through the action plan, the Government wishes to ensure that sustainable development is given a permanent place on the political agenda. The Government considers it important to link the sustainable development effort to central political processes and economic policy documents.
3. Sweden
Finnish national sustainable development policy is a wide-reaching participation of various societal actors both in the definition of the contents and implementation of the measures. The approach is already referred to as the “Finnish model”, in which broad-based, multi-stakeholder participation is combined with high-level political leadership.
Happy Green Living!
There are environmental phenomena that are far from the experience and knowledge of people. For instance, when we speak of temperature and give it a value of 25 degrees Celsius, we easily have an idea of what it means, but when we talk about 2.1ppm CO2 it is not the case. The same occurs with phenomena such as humidity, air pressure, etc. which also cannot be perceived easily with our senses. For people to understand these phenomena they need to become familiar with them. It is necessary to start thinking about information systems, data visualization and the interaction with them that encourage understanding and contribute to disseminating this knowledge. Urban planning has provided rules for issues such as insulation, height, usage etc., but equally important facts like the various interactions of the ecosystems in which we are immersed are often ignored and neglected.
Just as there are traffic lights that help us regulate traffic vehicular and pedestrian, why not to talk about environmental signals that support decision making on environmental issues? They could give us information – not only phenomena but also the environmental state of our ecosystems. We can imagine these lights in different parts of the city, in parks – in contaminated or abandoned contexts.
The environmental traffic light consists of a series of units for independent phenomena; each has sensors displays that provide visual information to the public about the measurement on site. The collected data is sent over the network and stored for further analysis.
Happy Green Living!
Quoted from Greenpeace:
“On the eve of the G8 summit in Italy – our activists have been beaming a message on the Kremlin and floating a life-sized iceberg past the Eiffel tower to call for urgent action from world leaders to save the climate.”
1000 Green Steps considered this as a call for our leaders, and might as well for you (if you are a leader), to start a change for our environment by doing both small and big green steps. In the picture we can see the activists used a laser projector to create a call to action visible from President Obama’s hotel: “Leaders Act! Save Climate!”
Happy Green Living!
Sounds so simple, but saying is always easier than doing it. Follow these 5 tips from 1000 Green Steps to find yourself ‘cured’ from your littering addiction. Act now!
1. Think about the danger
Think about how one plastic bag left on the ground would affect your environment and soil. Think about the money that has to go to waste to hire people to collect that garbage. Are YOU ready to get blamed?
2. Get yourself informed
Do you know that the several trillion toxic cigarette butts littered worldwide annually are responsible for fatal fires and the deaths of numerous mammals, birds and reptiles that eat them? Get yourself informed and I’m 100% sure you will not litter anymore if you still got heart.
3. Make an effort
Try to find a trash can anywhere or simply keep a litter bag in your car at anytime. You won’t have an excuse if you do so 
4. Just pick it up!
The simplest way but might happen to be the hardest one if you didn’t get use to it. Try it and you’ll regret why you didn’t start it earlier.
5. See the right people
Join the right communities such as these organizations 1000 Green Steps found for you: Keep America Beautiful or Adopt a Road program.
Happy Green Living!
Angelina Jolie is not exactly the greenest celebrities 1000 Green Steps have ever seen. However her effort to sacrifice her personal life to make people become greener is something we should give applause for. Jolie is a Goodwill Ambassador for the U.N. Refugee Agency for 5 years, which assists around 20 million refugees in over 100 countries.
Jolie even made a website containing her personal journal from her various visits to the world with the U.N., including Sudan, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Ecuador and Namibia. Angelina is one celebrity using her status to focus media attention toward something other than herself.
Jolie has received various awards including UNCA Citizen of the World by the U.N. Correspondents Association and the Global Humanitarian Action Award from the U.N. Association of the USA and the Business Council for the United Nations.
Now it is our turn to take the action. Start from trying to influence people around us to care about environment.
Happy Green Living
Green Roof
2009 Awards of Excellence: OMP goes into Chicago! We all know that Chicago was an old city built in 1673 and it is very well-known for its beautiful architecture. Here is where those skyscrapers were born and finally reach other sides of the globe.
After more than 100 years, Chicago finally made a new innovation by approving Green Roof. Since 1999, Chicago has planted 24,000 hectares of Green Roof on top of the buildings, shops, and offices. One of the largest benefits of Green Roof is Water Management ability, where Green Roof can absorb up to 50-60% amount of raindrops. After Green Roof absorbs raindrops water, when the sun shines, then the plants will be able to transpire again and return the absorbed water into our atmosphere. A little amount of water will stay on the soil to be used for plant’s growth. The residue will go to a water pipe which makes even more benefits because it makes the building doesn’t need Town Water Management where water pipe upgrading and expanding could be very expensive 
Start putting Green Roof and save your money on water pipe. That saves our environment a lot, you know?
Happy Green Living!
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