Greenpeace

Ok so I've told you about the San Jose Giants games the Skulpture attended, now its time to take a look at the photos.

 http://www.flickr.com/photos/7848385@N04/
 

 Also, if you didn't know already, the student week of action was a HUGE SUCCESS!!! Yea Sam and the over 50 campus' that took part.

This weekend we are rocking an e-waste drop off event in Sunnyvale and Green Festival at the Methodist Church in Los Gatos. Stay tuned for more pictures.

Holla from Cali -- Renee.  

This is what the Spartan Daily had to say about the Toxic Tech Tour.

"Greenpeace, an environmental non-profit organization brought a seven-foot-tall skull made up of old computer parts to bring attention to the issue of electronic waste.

According to Renee Blanchard, a Greenpeace employee, 30 tons of electronic products are discarded worldwide each year. She also said that cell phones have an average lifecycle of two years and that adds to an enormous amount of waste if everyone continues to buy new one each year.

"Old electronic goods are being shipped out to landfills in Asia and being broken down by these families who melt the old electronics and inhale all these plastic toxins," Blanchard said.

Greenpeace is working with 14 electronic companies, including Apple Computers, to create electronics that do not contain Polyvinyl chloride, a toxic chlorinated plastic, and brominated flame retardants used in circuit boards, which can interfere with thyroid and oestrogen hormone systems.

Mica Demarquez, an employee of Crossroads Recycled Clothing Company, said the skull was an interesting art piece and it has the power to bring out awareness."

Hi I'm Renee. I am the Campaign Assistant but for the next month, consider me the Toxic Tech Tour Cheerleader -- of sorts. I am hanging out with Amanda and we are showing off Greenpeace's Skulpture    (a giant sculpture made out of old computer parts in the shape of a skull).  Awesome.

Amanda arrived in the Silicon Valley area one week today. She started out the Toxic Tech Tour at the San Jose Giants baseball game last Friday and officially brought the e-waste skull (we still don't have a name for it) out to play. We were even showed the Apple Ads we made last year on the Jumbo tron.

Our third event for the Toxic Tech Tour was at San Jose State University. The SJSU Environmental Club invited Amanda, Ashby, Richard and I to join them for their school's Sustainability Week event yesterday. We all showed up bright and early to Seventh Street Plaza on campus, but we didn't go alone. We brought the giant e-waste skull with us, again!

Yesterday on campus we placed the skull right next to a great fair trade coffee tasting. . . . hmmm . ..  fair trade coffee . . . !! It was so good. There was even a taste test of tap water vs bottled water. Amanda got it right within seconds.

The day went really well. This 7ft by 17 ft by 6 ft skulpture is a great conversation starter. People stopped by to see what the hell was going on and walked away knowing that we love our apples, we just wish they were greener. We also got some great pictures for the Student Week of Action. Students held my iBook and a speech bubble that said, "SJSU says Steve Score a 10". It wasn't hard to figure out that students at SJSU really want Apple to go green and were surprised to find out they weren't already.

The Toxic Tech Tour is just getting started. We have a couple more events planned in San Jose this weekend. Stay tuned for more from the Amanda and Renee show out here in Silicon Valley.  We will be here until early May when the Apple board of directors and shareholders get together for the AGM in Cupertino.

If you don't know about the Green My Apple campaign, then take a look here.

Also, if you are in the area and have a great place you think the Skull should go, make sure to let us know.

Holla From Cali --- Renee.

Happy Earth Day, Water Planet!  While it may not always be easy to smile about the state of our oceans these days, I hope you feel good about your efforts to help protect them.  (And if you'd like to do more but aren't sure how to help, our friend David Helvarg's book "50 Ways to Save the Ocean" is a great source of ideas!)

Speaking of books, Bruce Franklin has a great new book that you may want to check out.  "The Most Important Fish in the Sea" tells the story of menhaden, a fish you may know from Greenpeace's battles to stop Texas-based factory fishing company Omega Protein from mining it into oblivion.  Bruce explains the importance of menhaden as a source of food for other species along the Atlantic coast, and as a filter-feeding, plankton-eating part of the answer to our increasing problem with Dead Zones.  There are even some nice photos from a couple Greenpeace actions in there. 

Unfortunately, the situation with Omega Protein and menhaden is getting even worse.  With all their spotter planes and high tech gear, Omega still couldn't find menhaden in the Chesapeake last season, and traveled all the way up to federal waters off New Jersey to search for fish.  This is not a good sign, as the Chesapeake is the most important nursery area for menhaden.  And new data shows that large striped bass, which should be eating a LOT of menhaden, are going hungry.  You'd think this would be enough to wake up the Atlantic States Fisheries Commission, but... you'd be wrong.  Stay tuned, because this one is going to get interesting.

Another interesting showdown is just ahead: the International Whaling Commission meeting in Anchorage next month.  Last year, Japan was able to buy enough votes to get a slim majority, but Greenpeace has been working hard together with several governments and other organizations to turn that around.  We won't know for sure until the meeting is over, but I think we may be able to win this one for the whales.  It's going to be close though, and we can use your help.  Stop by our website and join the fight to save the whales!

The more each of us does for the planet, the happier our Earth Days will be.  Keep up the good work -

John H