Cows Eating Garbage

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!

“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.

Nations joining the accord will, by Jan. 31, list their pledges for long-term emissions control. Developed nations will declare cuts, fast-developing nations will sign up for reductions as a share of their overall economy. That surely will affect all countries’ market consideration, along with their economic stability. “A market is an engine,” said Peter Goldmark, who directs the climate and air program for the Environmental Defense Fund. “A treaty — or, more broadly, public policy, decisions and rules made in the public space — [is] the rails.”

Angelina Jolie as Goodwill Ambassador

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

“It seems there are too few politicians in this world capable of looking beyond the horizon of their own narrow self-interest, let alone caring much for the millions of people who are facing down the threat of climate change,” he said.

“It is now evident that beating global warming will require a radically different model of politics than the one on display here in Copenhagen.”

Switzerland

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!

Environmental Traffic Light

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!

Mr Ban told delegates there was still an “enormous amount of work to be done” if a deal was to be achieved. “No-one will get everything they want; but if we work together, then everyone will get what they need.”

Elsewhere in the conference, discussions continued – mainly behind closed doors – on some of the issues that continue to divide governments two years after the process towards a new global climate deal started and just three days before it is due to conclude.

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.

Although many senators, especially key Republicans, have shown little appetite for backing yet another ambitious bill in the aftermath of the polarizing health-care debate, it is clear that enacting legislation to cap the U.S. carbon dioxide output and allow polluters to trade emission permits is essential to delivering on the pledges that Obama made to other world leaders.

In the meantime, according to Ned Helme, president of the Center for Clean Air Policy, senators will be watching to see whether the promises China and others made in Copenhagen get translated “into something real.”

Leaders Act! Save Climate!

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!

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!