Greenpeace

The holiday season is upon us. While we all enjoy some time off from work and time spent with family and friends – it may also mean some uncomfortable situations for many. Whether you are vegetarian stuck at a dinner table with a giant turkey in the middle or an environmentalist that ends up sitting next to Uncle Tom – a global warming skeptic – here’s a helpful guide for getting through this holiday season with your sanity intact…

Here are some tips for a peaceful Thanksgiving:

• Bring your own tofurkey to ruffle their feathers. If you don’t have a tofurkey to pass around – don’t sweat it – the best food at Thanksgiving is the sides anyway (sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie and rolls)

• Bring a compact fluorescent light bulb to give your host instead of wine or flowers.

• Don’t hide behind the mashed potatoes when asked about your thoughts on global warming. People ask because they want to learn. Share what you know and give others the chance to be informed about the truth.

• As you sit down to eat -- remind grandma that the rolls still in the oven.

• If there is a lull in the dinner chatter, share a story about your environmental activism. For example, the day you dressed up as a blue whale and walked around the city.

• If you can, ride your bike home from Thanksgiving dinner – you’ll save on carbon miles and burn some calories too.

• Avoid the Black Friday Mania! Skip the long lines and avoid all those bargain shoppers who are sure to knock you over for the latest gadget.

• Get outside! Breathe in some fresh air, listen to the birds sing and enjoy the beautiful autumn leaves. Give thanks for what truly is important in life.

Japan’s new Prime Minister, Yasuo Fukuda, is in Washington, DC making the rounds and we wanted to make sure that he knows how Americans feel about Japan’s whaling practices—they totally stink!

Despite an international moratorium on whaling, Japan continues to whale under the guise of “scientific research.” We’re not buying it.

So, a bunch of us suited up in humpback and blue whale costumes and hit the pavement to see if we could find Mr. Fukuda and deliver our message. We were a pod of whales seeking sanctuary from Japan’s relentless whale hunting.

 

While we didn’t find the Prime Minister, we did feel the love from fellow Americans. They wanted to know what more they could do to help us seek sanctuary and had fun taking our pictures and honking their horns in support.

President Bush is meeting with Mr. Fukuda later in the week. Do you think he’ll deliver our message of whale sanctuary or just shake his hand and smile?

 

Not many people can say that they’ve been dripped on by a whale’s oil—but I can. I worked in New Bedford, Massachusetts for a couple of years and frequently visited their whaling museum. They had a gigantic 66-foot blue whale skeleton hanging from the ceiling. Even though it has been dead since 1998, it’s skeleton is somehow still exuding oils that drip from his nose (I think) and onto people walking around below. Pretty crazy, huh!

Walking around the museum, it was amazing and depressing to learn about the history of whaling and how it turned communities like New Bedford into major cities with economic riches. Once humans discovered that they could kill whales and then actually haul them back to land—whales were doomed.

It just wasn’t enough for us to take a couple whales to sustain our needs; we actually decimated entire populations. If we took too many of one species, then we just turned our attention to another species until they were decimated too. As a result of over-indulgence, communities and whales suffered. Cities like New Bedford took a major economic hit once whaling was no longer feasible or allowed – and many whale species were exploited to the point where their populations may never recover.

Whales today still face many threats—getting tangled up in fishing gear, being hit by boats and swimming around in polluted waters. You’d think that in the face of all these threats, they’d at least be safe from whaling. We learned our lesson, right? Well, not our friends in Japan. They seem to think they’re above the law and can continue to whale under the guise of “so-called” research.

Yeah, right! What kind of research is Japan conducting that justifies the need to kill 1,000 minke whales, 50 threatened humpback whales and 50 endangered fin whales this year? I haven’t seen any new “scientific” journals posted about whale discoveries coming out of Japan. But, I have seen pictures of whale meat in Japanese markets and even in school cafeterias. Right, it’s research! Everyone believes that.

So, this season I’m following Greenpeace’s Great Whale Trail. It’s really sweet, actually. They are proving to the world that they can research whales withOUT killing them. You can follow too.

They have humanely tagged a bunch of humpback whales and will follow them by satellite as they journey to their feeding grounds in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. The best part about it is you can follow the journey too. They’ve made it all available online. From the looks of the map, the whales are heading towards New Zealand right now.

I understand that it’s not easy to change habits. We all fight against change—and are only compelled to move when we are made to, or don’t have the strength to fight against it any longer. I just hope we are able to convince Japan to stop whaling before it’s too late. The whales have had to change because of us. Let’s give them a break, show some compassion and make the oceans a safer place for them to live. I for one, have enough strength to share with them—so they can rest a little easier—why can’t the rest of the world?

As I sit here eating an empire apple that my mom picked at an orchard, I think about how just one bruise or wiggly worm would have ruined my delicious healthy treat. Well, there is some sour news about another apple to share with you. Test results have proven that the newly popular iPhone contains hazardous substances—both inside and out—bruising Apple’s image and putting them way behind the competition for “green” progress.

The company that prides itself on being innovative somehow can’t manage to use substances that won’t harm their customers or the environment.

The wiggly worm in apple’s iPhone has to be their iconic white earphones. The vinyl plastic earphone wiring at levels that are prohibited in young children’s toys in San Francisco and the European Union (EU).
 
It’s clear that Apple is not listening to their customers who want environmentally friendly products. But, what about those customers who want to be environmentally conscience? Well, Apple isn’t making it easy for them.

When disassembling the iPhone for testing, Greenpeace discovered that the battery was glued and soldered to the handset.  This makes it super hard for people to replace the battery and will undermine recycling of the iPhone when it is discarded.

While other phone companies like Nokia are coming out with less hazardous phones, why can’t Apple?

 

I’ve taken on the challenge of Greenpeace’s new ocean game--Deadliest Catch! As Captain Jackson Pollock, it is my responsibility to bring my team of pollock across the cool waters in the Bering Sea. I have to first make it to the marine protected area to spawn and then turn around to come back home before the winter freeze. This sounds like a challenge I’m definitely up for!

OK, so the introduction is pretty cute – but the music is intense, I hope I can make it back alive. As I begin my journey, I’m feeling good and I think I can see all the little fishy in my “crew” smiling as we start to swim. But, shortly after our journey begins we see a large fishing boat deploying their net. Geez, the boat is big and the net is even bigger.

We wait it out a little bit while the net retracts back to the surface. As our window of opportunity appears, I give the “coast is clear” signal to my crew and we swim as fast as we can under the boat. But, the captain on the boat must see us on his radar because as soon as we’re under the boat, the net plunges towards us. Some of us made it out alive – but about 10 of my fishy crew did not live to see another day.

OK, now the crew is depressed and hungry when we see a huge gathering of zoo plankton. We are starving and the zoo plankton tastes so good. As we’re munching away, an equally hungry sea lion (I could even see his mouth watering) dives at us and eats up one of us.

To make a long story short – my crew makes it to the marine protected area to spawn. But, the crew is diminished and battered. On our return journey back home – we cannot escape the giant fishing boats and their nets. They scoop up members of my crew every time. And, hungry sea life – sea gulls and more sea lions chow down on the fish in my crew.

When I make it back home, it’s only me and two fish from the original crew. Uh, that’s not so good.

So, in the end my journey was a complete failure. If I can’t make it in a game – I wonder how the real fish and marine creatures are making it out there in the real world.

How did you do at the game?

I remember sitting in a college auditorium about 10 years ago listening to 2 professors debate global warming. They each took their prospective sides and argued until they were blue in the face. One professor talked about the scientific evidence of gases like carbon dioxide being released when we burn fossil fuels. The accumulation of these gases in the atmosphere, trap heat and cause the Earth to warm—like the inside of a big, giant greenhouse. The other professor talked about the historical cycle of the Earth and how it’s a living entity that goes through cycles of cold (ice ages) and hot.

After the debate, I remember thinking that they both had some very good arguments to support their side of the story. But, in the end I was captivated by the greenhouse gas argument. Even if it is natural for the Earth to get colder and hotter, you can’t ignore the fact that greenhouse gases are having a destructive effect on our planet.  And, we need to work together to curb their use.

This was ten years ago—and the debate still continues. I’m encouraged that the U.S. Congress is working on an energy bill that will put into place measures that will help curb global warming. But, why has it taken ten years (or more, I’m sure). If scientists knew about global warming a decade ago, why are we just getting around to coming up with solutions today?

I’m glad people are learning about global warming and pushing the pendulum forward to get things moving. Even celebrities are rallying for the cause and getting people engaged.

I just wish it didn’t have to take ten years for people to take notice and really start rallying around causes like global warming—after all this is the only planet we have. If we don’t take care of it—who will?

It took a decade to get people to notice global warming—how long will it now take for changes to start being implemented to stop it?

I can't believe how crazy it sounds to hear that the nuclear industry is trying to build more plants and get more federal funding to do so.

The nuclear industry is actually trying to paint itself green! It is true that they don’t emit greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. But, do they think we’ve forgotten disasters like Three-Mile Island and Chernobyl? There is still no way to take care of nuclear waste that will remain dangerous for 240,000 years.

But this isn’t stopping the nuclear industry from trying to convince Americans and Congress that we need more nuclear reactors here in the U.S. Right now, they’re lobbying Congress for increased funding to build more and expand current nuclear power facilities. This is an outrage! Your taxpayer dollars should be invested in renewable energy sources like wind and solar, NOT towards dangerous nuclear power.

Take action now before the nuclear industry puts us all in danger! Tell your Representative that you don’t want nuclear power and that they should put an end to nuclear subsidies and support renewable energy instead.

This is just outrageous! I'm writing my Representative right now.

Fans and eager readers waited in long lines at bookstores in the middle of the night and children all across the world are staying up way past their bedtimes to read the latest Harry Potter book. And, I am just as excited about the final book as everyone else.

But, I’m not excited to find out what happens to Harry and his friends (I must admit I don’t know the difference between a muggle and a hogwart).  I’m excited because the publisher of the book, Scholastic, finally agreed to print the book with a “forest friendly” policy.

This is HUGE news—since the book sold 8.3 millions copies in just 24 hours here in the United States. That’s a lot of paper and a lot of trees to make the paper!

Readers will be happy to know that the greener “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” contains a minimum of 30% post-consumer waste (pcw) fiber, and nearly two-thirds of the paper will be approved by the Forest Stewardship Council.

As deforestation and global climate change take their toll on our planet’s struggling ecosystems—it is uplifting to know that “we” as consumers have the power to change the course of the future. By demanding forest friendly books, driving energy efficient cars (not gas-guzzling SUVs), and bringing our own canvas bags shopping we can set in motion positive changes that will help our future.

This weekend, I just may pop into my local library and pick up one of the Harry Potter books to see what all the hype is about. If Harry can go Green—I can learn why Voldemort is so scary.

Hey everyone, I’m the newest member of the Greenpeace family working out of the Washington, DC office. I have made it through my first week and have to say that I am loving it here. To celebrate, I’ve put together my very own top ten list. If David Letterman can put together a top ten list – why can’t I?

Top Ten Things I learned my first week at Greenpeace:

10. Steller sea lions are still in trouble. And, even though they are “stellar” creatures, that isn’t how you spell their name.

9. There are solar panels on the roof of our building—I’m told they are used to heat up our water supply. Pretty cool!

8. Digg This and De.Li.Cious aren’t just groovy terms from the 70s, they are actual social networking websites. Who knew?

7. Everything leaks—secrets from the new Harry Potter book and nuclear power plants are examples of how leaks can occur even when everyone tries their “very best” to ensure that they won’t.

6. There are a lot of Vegetarians working here—as a vegetarian myself, I feel I’m in good company!

5. Now I don't feel obligated to stop and fill out the Greenpeace canvasser’s surveys on every corner, I can just tell them I too work for Greenpeace.

4. I better start exercising more – my co-workers enjoy sharing yummy baked goods.  So far this week, I have had vegan banana bread with chocolate chips, donuts and brownies.

3. Project Hot Seat is an awesome on-the ground and in-communities campaign to stop global warming.

2. Greenpeace has 5 ships. The biggest, Esperanza, is in the Bering Sea conducting scientific surveys of and working with native Alaskan communities to push for sustainable fishing practices. And, there is a live web cam on the ship where you can check out views from the deck without getting sea sick.

1.  From students to activists and volunteers—there are so many energetic and passionate people trying to save the planet. And, it’s infectious!

Whew – there’s my list. Keep up the good work, everyone!