The Plastic Bank: Reducing Poverty While Saving The Environment?

Despite of the conservative right-wing’s pessimism when it comes to saving the environment and reducing extreme poverty, can a “mere” social enterprise manage to do both? 

 

By: Ringo Bones 

Given their inability to provide a workable solution, the world’s conservative right-wing had been resorting to politics, religion and even sham science to deny the world’s most pressing environmental problems – i.e. climate change – since the mid 1990s by adopting the position that these problems are a “hoax” perpetuated by “bleeding-heart liberals”. Sadly, this also made it easy for right-wing conservatives to adopt the position that helping the world’s poorest citizens is a “Marxist-Leninist Socialist idea”. Fortunately, there are still sensible folks out there that are working hard to formulate a sensible solution to solve the pressing problems of extreme poverty and environmental degradation. 

Fortunately, David Katz, founder of The Plastic Bank has established a social enterprise whereby recycling plastic wastes is monetized to reduce poverty and halt any additional plastic that gets dumped in the world’s ocean that contributes to the ocean gyre plastic pollution. The scheme is fully compatible with established capitalism and free enterprise by establishing a system where impoverished people that collects plastic wastes can trade them to The Plastic Bank for goods and services. 

As a so-called social enterprise, The Plastic Bank makes money from discarded plastic wastes by recycling them and then selling them for a profit to their various customers. The Plastic Bank started in Haiti and, according to David Katz, it was a perfect place to test the concept because Haiti’s solid waste infrastructure is largely nonexistent and because of this, most current operations of The Plastic Bank are primarily located in countries and territories where solid waste collecting infrastructure is largely nonexistent. The idea for The Plastic Bank got started when David Katz got gravely concerned on the increasing amounts of plastic wastes that find their way into the world’s oceans. At present, about 8-million tons of plastic wastes find their way into our oceans every year. 

Astronaut Piers Sellers’ Climate Change Awareness Campaign: An Uphill Battle?

Given that he has already dedicated his life to spreading awareness to the dangers of climate change, does the former NASA astronaut and climatologist Piers Sellers face an uphill battle?

By: Ringo Bones 

After being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and the prognosis showing that he might have only 500 days left to live, former NASA astronaut and climatologist Piers Sellers has thus dedicated his life to spreading awareness of the dangers of climate change. Given that pancreatic cancer survival rate is less than 1-percent, Sellers has indeed dedicated himself to such a noble endeavor despite of his terminal illness and, indeed, he has a lot to be very optimistic about because back in 2015, new energy generated from renewable sources like wind and solar power has reached 90-percent. But he also faces an uphill battle because religious conservatives, especially in the United States, has harbored the belief since 1996 that all this climate change and global warming brouhaha is a scientific hoax and all climate change mitigation measures formulated so far to protect the poorest 90-percent of the world that will be mostly affected by climate change are nothing more than a “21^st Century Communist Plot”.

Especially in the U.S. Republican Party camp where none of the prospective candidates for the 2016 U.S. presidential elections even raised concerns over climate change and man-made greenhouse gas emissions. And one of the former U.S. Republican Party presidential candidates, Sen. Marco Rubio, even adopted a staunchly climate change denial stance by comparing the current science of climate change, however sound it is, to a religious cult. Despite of the wide acceptance of scientists around the world, a significant number of the powers that be in Capitol Hill still view climate change data as sham science and thus makes Piers Sellers’ climate change awareness cause face an uphill battle. 

March 21 International Day of Forests: Environmentalism’s Watershed Moment?

Even though we already have a lot of days commemorating our embattled environment, is the March 21 International Day of Forests the most important of them all?

By: Ringo Bones 

While Earth Hour may have succeeded in its intended environmental mission – i.e. crude oil prices had fallen 70-percent since 2014 – it seems that deforestation seems still like the most ignored issue of our embattled environment. South East Asian palm oil farms had been slashing and burning primeval forests / old-growth forests as if they’re growing out of fashion since the last decade of the 20^th Century, it only has been relatively recently that the powers-that-be at the United Nations finally established a resolution to combat the increasing rate of global deforestation.  

The 21^st day of March which was designated as The International Day of Forests was established by resolution of the United Nations General Assembly on November 28, 2014. Each year since then, various events celebrate and raise awareness of the importance of all types of forests and trees outside forests for the benefit of current and future generations. Countries are encouraged to undertake efforts to organize local, national and international activities involving forests and trees such as tree planting campaigns on March 21 – the International Day of Forests. The Secretariat of the United Nations Forum on Forests in collaboration with the Food and Agricultural Organization, facilitates the implementation of such events in collaboration with governments, the Collaborative Partnership on Forests and international, regional and subregional organizations. International Day of Forests was observed for the very first time on March 21, 2013.

The catalyst for a “Forest Day” that lead to the establishment of the International Year of Forests started as a casual conversation between two scientists in Oxford, England back in February 2007 who felt that world at large was underestimating the importance of forests in mitigating carbon dioxide emissions and saw a growing need for the latest forestry research and thinking to inform global policy makers and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of Parties negotiators. The two Oxford scientists did not foresee the conference would become one of the most influential global events on forests and climate change today.

Each year since the 1970s, more than 13 million hectares or 32 million acres of forests are lost – an area roughly the size of England. As the forests vanishes so too are the plant and animal species that they embrace which make up 80 percent of all terrestrial biodiversity. Most importantly, forests play a critical role in mitigating the worst effects of climate change including global warming. Deforestation results in 12 to 18 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions – almost equal to the carbon dioxide emissions of the entire global transportation sector. Equally crucial, healthy forests are one of the world’s primary carbon sinks. Today, forests cover more than 30 percent of the world’s land and contain more than 60,000 tree species many of them as yet unidentified and yet to be catalogued by the world’s botanical science community. Forests also provide food, fiber, clean drinking water and medicines for approximately 1.6 billion of the world’s poorest people who earn less than 1 US dollars a day – including indigenous peoples with unique cultures.

Will Climate Change Soon Make Airline Flight-Times Take Longer?

Though still dismissed by conservative Evangelical skeptics as a left-wing conspiracy, is there evidence that climate change will soon make airline flight-times longer?

By: Ringo Bones 

Ever since the neo-Conservatives successfully managed to seamlessly use both politics and organized religion to discredit the validity of the science behind climate change and global warming during the latter half of the 1990s, climate change concerns by the world’s poorest 99-percent were largely dismissed by right-wing Evangelical conservatives as nothing more than left-wing conspiracy to tax the world’s richest 1-percent. Sadly, it seems that the longer we ignore the signs of climate change and put off ways to mitigate and even reverse its worst effects on humanity, all of humanity will be doomed – just that the richest 1-percent will be the very last to feel its worst effects. But will the frequent-flying richest 1-percent be affected by the insidious effects of climate change in the form of longer flight times as they jet-set to their various dens of iniquities? 

Even though this will too affect the working-class frequent-flyers, flights from the U.K. to the U.S. could take longer due to changes in the climate, according to a new study. Global warming is likely to speed up the jet stream, say researchers and slow down airplanes travelling from the U.K. to the U.S. While eastbound flights from the U.S. to the U.K. will be quicker but overall roundtrip journeys will “significantly lengthen.” The University of Reading scientists believe the changes will increase carbon emissions and fuel consumption and potentially raise airline ticket prices. The study has been published in the journal Environmental Research Letters. 

High altitude jet streams in the northern and southern hemisphere are the powerful winds that help move weather systems around the globe. Air traffic normally tries to take advantage of these speedy flows of the Atlantic jet stream from west to east to reduce journey times on routes between Europe and North America. This is one of the world’s busiest air routes with around 600 flights every day. Previous studies have shown that climate change is likely to increase turbulence on these transatlantic flights. In this new study, researchers modelled how atmospheric winds would change given a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide. They fed the results into the same route algorithms that airlines routinely use to plan their transatlantic journeys. They found that winds in the New York to London route will become 15-percent faster on average. Flights from London to New York will become twice as likely to take over seven hours while the flights from New York to London will speed up and will become twice as likely to take under five hours and twenty minutes. While on average, flights will only gain and lose a few minutes each way, the cumulative impact is “significant” says the study. 

“If you look at the roundtrips, the eastbound flights are getting shorter by less than the westbound flights are getting longer.” Lead author Dr. Paul Williams from the University of Reading told BBC News. “So there is a robust increase in the roundtrip journey time, which means planes spending longer in the air, when you add that up for all transatlantic aircraft you get an extra 2,000 hours of planes in the air every year, with US$22-million extra in fuel costs and 70-million kilograms of carbon dioxide.” The researchers say the extra carbon dioxide generated is equivalent of the annual emissions of 7,000 British homes.

Should Christian Terrorists Be Allowed To Dictate Public Environmental Policy?

Given that they sincerely believed that the whole universe was created by some mystical magic-man with a white flowing beard 6,000 years ago, should Christian terrorist groups in America be allowed to shape or even dictate public environmental policy?

By: Ringo Bones 

Maybe it was just the current resulting escalation since the Fox News Network successfully convinced the conservative white supremacist Christian right back in the mid 1990s that climate change / global warming is a hoax perpetrated by left-leaning scientists, but the latest military adventurism by American Christian terrorists back in January 2, 2016 that resulted in the taking over of the headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in the U.S. state of Oregon supposedly as a “protest” to the treatment of two cattle ranchers convicted of arson only highlights the resolve of these Christian terror groups in the United States that they really mean serious business even if their core beliefs tend to more often than not clash with current scientific findings and will continue to do so as time goes on. Given that these white supremacist Christian militia groups in the United States – often dubbed by the mainstream media as “domestic terrorists” to appease the right wing of the US Republican party – sincerely believe that the entire universe was created 6,000 years ago by some mystical magic-man with a white flowing beard, are they really in a position to shape the U.S. federal government’s public policy when it comes to the environmentally sustainable use of public lands? 

From an environmental perspective, the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Preserve by these so-called white supremacist Christian terrorists / domestic terrorist / militia groups poses an immediate threat to the wildlife refuge given their “core beliefs” more often than not make them do things that treat these fragile ecosystems like an inexhaustible resource just by proclaiming that white supremacist Jesus will fix it after they done their callous ecological scorched-earth policies. The unlawful occupation also represents a larger movement by the conservative extreme right of America to put state and local authorities in charge of public lands, which often results in unregulated logging, minerals extraction and crude oil and natural gas drilling / fracking. What happened in the first few days of 2016 in Oregon may set a precedent for how federal lands will be protected and managed in years to come. 

The Audubon Society of Portland – based in the U.S. state of Oregon – issued a warning back in January 3, 2016 that the 188,000-acre refuge contains “some of the most important bird habitat on the Pacific Flyaway” and the unlawful occupation “violates the most basic principles of the Public Trust Doctrine and holds hostage public lands and public resources to serve the very narrow political agenda of the occupiers.” The Malheur National Wildlife Preserve is also home to one of the biggest wetland restoration efforts ever undertaken. 

The Christian terror group currently occupying the federally owned facility is lead by a 40-year-old Nevada rancher Ammon Bundy who also claims that he is a (self-styled?) Mormon Militia leader and is also one of the three sons of Cliven Bundy, who back in 2014 posted a video tirade on You Tube that has more N-word count than a typical late 1990s rap / hip-hop artist / performer often uses about how the federal government violated his rights. Despite the significant financial breaks the federal government already extends to ranchers, the Bundy Family has been refusing to pay land use fees for years. If these “Christian extremists” occupy the federal facility any longer, they could rename it as the “Ammon Bundy Preserve for the Armed and Cranky”.