Plant a Billion Trees Campaign 2007 (UNEP)

Happy to announce that we've completed our pledge of planting 10 trees (salix alba - knotwilg)in 2007. Camille proved to be very resourcefull: we know enjoy our weekly "aperitieverkes" near them, come rain or shine !

“The symbolism – and the substantive significance – of planting a tree has universal power in every culture and every society on Earth, and it is a way for individual men, women and children to participate in creating solutions for the environmental crisis.” Al Gore, Earth in the Balance

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has launched a major worldwide tree planting campaign. Under the Plant for the Planet: Billion Tree Campaign, people, communities, business and industry, civil society organizations and governments are encouraged to enter tree planting pledges online with the objective of planting at least one billion trees worldwide during 2007.

Facts & figures: Forests cover 30% of land

World Environment Day 2007

World Environment Day 2007, June 5

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group II has released its Summary for Policymakers

Extract for EUROPE from the IPCC WG II Report (April 2007)
Nearly all European regions are anticipated to be negatively affected by some future impacts of climate change and these will pose challenges to many economic sectors. Climate change is expected to magnify regional differences in Europe’s natural resources and assets. Negative impacts will include increased risk of inland flash floods, and more frequent coastal flooding and increased erosion (due to storminess and sealevel rise). The great majority of organisms and ecosystems will have difficulties adapting to climate change. Mountainous areas will face glacier retreat, reduced snow cover and winter tourism, and extensive species losses (in some areas up to 60% under high emission scenarios by 2080).

Earth Day Special: stepchange!

April 22, 2007 is EARTH DAY
Find out what you can do on http://www.sierraclub.org/earthday/

What We Will Do next Sunday (and the rest of the year)

• turn off electrical equipment and kill the "sleep" modus on a number of appliances
• share rides (amazingly, this morning again, the proportion of the vehicles that I've spotted in my usual traffic jams that had a sole occupant was +85%)
• buy a new bike soon for every member of the family
• eat more "local" food
• recycle more

Schwarzenegger to enviros: Make the environment SEXY !

at a recent meeting in Washington, Austrian-Californian Gubernator Schwarzenegger told a gathering of environmental activists: "stop nagging, make it sexy... just like bodybuilding"...

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told environmentalists Wednesday they
needed to stop nagging and make their cause sexy, likening it to bodybuilding's
evolution from a weird pursuit to mainstream.

"Bodybuilding used to have a very sketchy image," the former bodybuilding
champion told an environmental forum at Georgetown University. "... It had
fanatics and it had weird people. ...But we changed that. ... It became sexy,
attractive."

"Like bodybuilders, environmentalists were thought of as kind of weird and
fanatics also, you know, the serious tree huggers," Schwarzenegger said.