Archive for the ‘Environment’ Category

There are plenty of facts about the Amazon rainforest, some good, and some quite devastating. But the trouble with such facts is that all too often the numbers are so huge they can become almost impossible to comprehend, and certainly very difficult to visualise.

For example, the Amazon rainforest covers an area of two and a half million square miles. That’s a big number, but you can’t really visualise it can you? All you see is a lot of trees.

To put it slightly into perspective, Australia is around 2.8 million square miles, so the Amazon rainforest is only a little smaller than the entire Australasian continent.

Even more astonishing is the estimate that there are still around 50 Indian tribes living in the Amazon rainforest that have never been discovered and never had contact with the outside world. But it isn’t just the big numbers which are impressive – it’s the actual contribution of the Amazon rainforest to the survival of the planet that needs to be understood.

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The world’s largest food company, Nestle, has been at the centre of some growing and very heated controversy over the past few weeks with environmental organisation Greenpeace sparking a crusade tying Nestle to the annihilation of rainforests in Indonesia through one of its palm oil suppliers.

The controversy is based on the fact that Nestle gets its palm oil from the Sinar Mas company in Indonesia who destroys the natural forests in order to have room to plant the tropical palm plant. Once Nestle was convinced that the activists at Greenpeace were correct in their allegations about the forest destruction, it has dropped their association with that company. The problem has not gone away for the big corporation however, as it still buys its palm oil from Cargill, which in turn, also gets its supply from Sinar Mas.

Nestle was successful in the removal of one of Greenpeace’s videos from the popular YouTube site relating to the issue, but the video spread over the Internet, while Facebook and Twitter were soon flooded with massive messages of protest. In the beginning, Nestle’s top personnel dismissed the activity which only made things worse, resulting in the Swiss food giant receiving nearly a quarter of a million emails regarding the issue.

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If you’ve not heard the news concerning the warming of the Earth and man’s contribution to it, then you’ve probably been living under a rock somewhere. And while people all have an opinion on it, one thing remains true: it certainly wouldn’t hurt – in fact, it may even help – to do your bit to slow the degradation of the environment. With this in mind, there have sprung up a plethora of energy saving products designed specifically to reduce the carbon emissions people churn out, and generate green energy. These products are easily available and cost only fractionally more than standard products (if they cost more at all).

By installing even just a few of these products, you can be assured that your carbon footprint will dramatically reduce and you won’t only feel better in yourself, you’ll notice the difference in cleaner air and less pollution. It’s not just about reusable bags (although that’s it, too). It’s about buying smartly so you get more for your money, and contribute less to the Earth living longer.

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Spread over Africa, South America and Australasia, rainforests are the richest repositories of life forms on planet earth and its green lungs. One of our oldest ecosystems, rainforests are estimated to harbour 66% of all the species on earth! Today however many of the estimated 30-40 million species inhabiting these ecosystems are being lost, even before they can be catalogued, at a rate estimated at an astounding 50,000 species per year.

Not only are rainforests a vast repository of potential medicines they also play a vital role in producing oxygen and in maintaining global climatic patterns. The Amazon rainforests alone for example are responsible for 28% of the global oxygen turnover.

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Climate change is an amazingly uncomplicated phrase for such a complex subject. Following, we have a go at defining climate change in today’s terms.

Climate Change – What is it?

In the current day lexicon of scientists, climate modification isn’t really a term of use anymore. The reason for this is that we have come to understand that the effect of the changes we make to our environment will increase the temperature in many locations on the planet, but will also cool a few places. In light of this, the thing you know of as climate modification is actually referred to as global climate change. Over all, however, the world is definitely warming.

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The world today is going through a phase of recession and almost every country has suffered heavily. At such a difficult time, it is the responsibility of every person to help the world by contributing their prudence in any form. One wise way would be to save energy and help to make the world greener place at the same time. In fact, it is the duty of all of us to preserve energy for a better future.

Preserving energy, or saving energy, means reducing energy consumption during our everyday activities. There is a close relationship between ‘us’, ‘our’ environment and ‘our’ energy. The population of the world is rising very rapidly, and people are cutting down forests with even more speed. As a result, the forest area is reducing and cities are expanding. This has further resulted in hasty climate changes, melting of polar ice and glaciers, global warming and many more things that could prove to be extremely detrimental to mankind in the near future.

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In the current economic climate if someone advised your business how to save on postal costs whilst reducing CO2, would you just laugh or take them seriously? If you did choose to take them seriously, you could be about to make a very wise decision.

Hybrid Mail has launched in the UK with several providers able to offer both colour and mono mailing solutions. The service allows small and medium companies to reduce costs by up to 40 percent, and almost unbelievably it is also up to 80 percent greener.

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Just like with any new, slightly controversial subject, there will always be pros and cons to talk about – and that’s no different with the new drive toward the use of alternative fuels to power our vehicles. People who support alternative fuels – the pros – could list a hundred ways that alternative fuel helps; on the other hands those who oppose it – the cons – could also list a hundred ways we should use alternative fuels.

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