PHILLIPS ANTI-REUSE CAMPAIGN
Sunday, August 22nd, 2010 Posted in Environment, Sustainability | No Comments »My Phillips razor is 15 years old and still perfectly working. When I bought it the only thing I asked for is that I wanted a machine that works and lasts, for this I paid some extra money which has ...
Lebanon – tourism in a dump
Monday, August 16th, 2010 Posted in Environment | No Comments »3 weeks touring around in Lebanon and one thing I can tell is that there is garbage everywhere. Coming from the west I thought Lebanon was one of the most advanced places in the arab world but the truth ...
The Story of Cosmetics
Thursday, August 12th, 2010 Posted in Environment, Europe english, Sustainability | No Comments »Another great contribution from Annie Leonard to help us understand the other side of "stuff": Yet another fantastic contradiction of our times: the fantastic creams and cosmetics that are supposed to make us look better in fact they are harming us... ...
HOW I MANAGED TO REDUCE WASTE BY HALF
Wednesday, April 21st, 2010 Posted in Brussels, Economics, Environment, Europe english | No Comments »Less than a year ago I participated in the 2h training course organised by Bruxelles-Environement in home vermi-composting and it really worked. Looking back to the time when I started to do home-compost, August 2009, I can confirm that the ...
Still drinking bottled water?
Monday, March 22nd, 2010 Posted in Environment | 1 Comment »In Brussels I still run into friends who complain about tab-water -not daring to try it- and prefer driving to the supermarket to spend a good amount of money -and time- in buying the same water -sometimes with less quality- ...
Linking climate change with social change – The experience of the Green revolution in the US
Saturday, February 13th, 2010 Posted in Environment, Political campaining, Sustainability | No Comments »The Green revolution in the US During this last week in Northern California I had the chance to check the pulse not only of the civil society groups but also of the political scene in the US and the most relevant ...
The most sustainable shopping in my life
Monday, January 25th, 2010 Posted in Brussels, Environment, Sustainability | 2 Comments »The most sustainable shopping of my life I never thought I would be writing about such a “simple” thing as going shopping but the experience I had this last weekend really deserves it. My experience these days is that eating sustainable food ...
The Ryanair Flying Circus
Sunday, January 24th, 2010 Posted in Environment | No Comments »I was called to give a conference in Capannori, in Tuscany and unsurprisingly there was no other option than flying there. The train would have taken 14h each way (changing 4 times), cost 4 times as much and taken extra ...
Good news from Copenhagen: how a colossal failure opens new doors to reform
Monday, December 21st, 2009 Posted in Environment, world governance | No Comments »I have to admit that this time our politicians surprised me (which is something very difficult to do). Having spent last week in Copenhagen and last years following climate change negotiations I could have never expected that our politicians could ...
Rewarded to destroy wealth? Recycling has higher social return than banking
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009 Posted in Economics, Environment | No Comments »[caption id="" align="alignright" width="320" caption="Photo: Dave Ciplet"][/caption] There are lots of new approaches about how economics should be reformed in order to allow prices to tell the truth, internalising future or environmental costs, integrating scarcity in the equation, new indicators of ...
Climate Change and the will to exist
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 Posted in Environment, Political campaining, world governance | No Comments »If I take a step back to look at the historical moment we find ourselves in, I have to say that the negotiations in Copenhagen are different than any other negotiations I’ve ever assisted to. Political negotiations are about compromise between ...
Dirty tricks in Climate negotiations
Monday, December 7th, 2009 Posted in Environment, world governance | No Comments »The US has been giving the impression that they were taking the climate change negotiations more seriously than in previous times. And they do. To the extend of influencing the composition of the delegations that other countries are sending to ...
Climate Change and the Story of a Distraction
Tuesday, December 1st, 2009 Posted in Environment, world governance | No Comments »Copenhagen negotiations are starting in one week and everything is set for the big show of business bullying the world, fantastic magical solutions and great speeches. All in all a lot of distraction from what is really the problem: 1- How to ...
SEPARATING ENVIRONMENT AND CLIMATE CHANGE: THE RIGHT WAY TO KILL EITHER OF THEM?
Saturday, November 28th, 2009 Posted in Environment, Europe english | 2 Comments »In its new European Commission JM Barroso has decided to separate environment from Climate Change; Environment portfolio goes to Janez Potocnik (Slovenia), who wad Research in the last Commission, the new ‘Climate Action’ nominee is Connie Hedegaard from Denmark. Is this ...
ECONOMY – ECOLOGY = 0
Thursday, November 26th, 2009 Posted in Economics, Environment | No Comments »Just came back from the Philippines and I could see with my own eyes a very clear example of how the environment is the basis of the economy. Manila suffered severe floods a month ago: 4 typhoons visited the archipelago and almost all the ...
Lost Generation
Friday, November 20th, 2009 Posted in Environment, Filosofia, world governance | No Comments »I am part of a lost generation and I refuse to believe that I can change the world I realise this may be a shock but "Happiness comes from within." is a lie, and "Money will make me happy." So in 30 years I will tell my ...
Belgium rollers parade greenwash – a breath of CO2?
Sunday, September 20th, 2009 Posted in Brainwashing, Environment | No Comments »I've been a passionate supporter of the Brussels rollerskate parade www.belgiumrollers.com since 5 years. Thanks to the rollers parade I managed to skate thousands of km in this otherwise ill-prepared city for skaters and cyclists. However, something that from the beginning ...
Enjoy Brussels or put worms in your life
Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009 Posted in Environment, Europe, Europe english | 3 Comments »Today I assisted to a session to learn to do compost at home with worms -vermicomposting- organised by the Inter-Environment Bruxelles and it showed me to which extend we live in a strange world. The session was very entertaining and a huge ...
Climate Change fever: without a World Environmental Communitty temperature will go up!
Monday, May 4th, 2009 Posted in Environment, Europe, Europe english, world governance | 1 Comment »As the economic downturn and the swine flu dominate the pages of newspapers a lot more important issue, for it affects our long term survival in this planet, disappears from the media: the fight against climate change. In December will take ...
Poznan negotiations – Apocalypsis now!
Thursday, December 18th, 2008 Posted in Environment | No Comments »When I was leaving the venue of UNFCCC in Poznan someone was whistling the soundtrack of Titanic, I ignore whether the choice of the song was deliberate but it well described the situation we are in. We have hit the ...
EU difficult to understand? Try the UNFCCC!
Monday, December 8th, 2008 Posted in Curiositats/Funny things, Environment, Europe english | 2 Comments »It is nice to see the EU, the G77, the US and all the others gathered in the Poznan UNFCCC to discuss the NAMAs, the NAPAs and the QUELROs both in AWGKP and AWGLCA. As expected CAN and CJN have ...
The excessive carbon footprint of the European Parliament
Tuesday, October 28th, 2008 Posted in Coses que pasen, Environment, Europe, Europe english, Viatges | No Comments »The European Parliament -EP- is unique. It is the only directly elected supranational parliament in the world. It is also quite especial for having two meeting places; Brussels and Strasbourg. The recently released study on the carbon footprint of the EP ...
Who would die for free? Who would die for Freedom?
Monday, October 20th, 2008 Posted in Environment, Europe, Europe english | 1 Comment »Today I visited the american cementery at Omaha Beach, Normandie, where 3000 american soldiers died on the 6th of June 1944 whilst trying to gain the shore in the first step to free Europe from Nazi occupation. Everywhere in this memorial ...
Imagine a public market without plastic bags…
Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 Posted in Environment | 4 Comments »When will the most environmentally friendly food be packed in something that is not plastic? Whilst some supermarkets in Belgium start charging the customers for the plastic bags it is sad to see that in public markets in my Brussels neighbourhood, ...