Troy Forster

Another Great Example of a Positive Campaign

From Australia comes this great spot promoting Carbon Emission Awareness.  It is a simple concept that delivers a powerful message.  Check it out.

The YouTube page hosting this video can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Eg_SEAnE-M&eurl=http://www.google.com/reader/view/

I Despise Advertising! But...

Yes, I do work for a company that is a direct supplier of SaaS to the advertising and production industry but that's beside the point.

For the most part I find advertising and it's close ally marketing serve a singular purpose; to convince people to part with their money before they are ready to.  Advertising and marketing exist to influence an individuals purchase decisions or in the most successful(?) cases, to drive an individual to acquire something that they neither needed nor wanted. 

Occasionally something comes along that is a moral use of advertising and marketing.  Instead of attempting to get the population to buy more disposable shit from Swiffer it actually challenges them to think about their role in world.  Here is a perfect illustration of one of those things (click to open a larger image in a new window).

Tool use by shy crows caught on camera - life - 04 October 2007 - New Scientist

More evidence that Homo sapiens are not the only smart animal on the planet.  It would be a different world if crows had developed a voice box and opposable thumbs before we did.

Rutz and his team obtained video from 12 camera-tagged crows that showed them making, using and transporting tools;

Tool use by shy crows caught on camera - life - 04 October 2007 - New Scientist

First fries, then vans: McD's to recycle oil | Consumer Products & Retail | Reuters

From Reuters comes this promising article.   

Having spent a few years in the PR industry I have to take all articles like this with a huge grain of salt.  However I am also very optimistic.  A move like this will certainly garner a lot of positive media attention for McDonalds but the bottom line is they are recycling their own waste product into fuel. 

I think the article could have gone a lot further though.  They quote some 1,600+ tonnes of carbon will be saved.  In the grand scheme of things this is nothing.  But what they failed to mention is that the fuel they are burning is cleaner overall.  While CO2 is a major greenhouse gas it is not the only pollutant that spews out of our tailpipes.  Biodiesels generally produce cleaner emissions in addition to less carbon.  Yet another reason to consider converting.

One concern I do have is the reliance on rapeseed oil.  Although the article does claim that they want to move away from it as soon as possible and that it only represents about 10% of the fuel makeup.  A friend of mine made an interesting comment in relation to the the U.S. increase in corn crops for Ethanol production.  It was something along the lines of "we are now growing food for our cars!?!"  Growing rapeseed to produce oil for vehicles is no different.  It is hugely irresponsible to commit precious agricultural land and water resources to growing food for vehicles.

First fries, then vans: McD's to recycle oil | Consumer Products & Retail | Reuters

North Carolina fines someone for making cleaner fuel

From a North Carolina newspaper earlier this week comes an article about state government penalizing a citizen for making his own biodiesel.  His biodiesel is made from soybeans, is cleaner burning than fossil based gasoline and reduces reliance on foreign oil.

Bob Teixeira decided it was time to take a stand against U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

So last fall the Charlotte musician and guitar instructor spent $1,200 to convert his 1981 diesel Mercedes to run on vegetable oil. He bought soybean oil in 5-gallon jugs at Costco, spending about 30 percent more than diesel would cost.

His reward, from a state that heavily promotes alternative fuels: a $1,000 fine last month for not paying motor fuel taxes. He has been told to expect another $1,000 fine from the federal government.

newsobserver.com | Driver ticketed for using biofuel

Weapons of Mass Destruction Found!

  Just what are people thinking?  I thought I couldn't understand smokers casually tossing those foul toxic half smoked cigarettes into storm sewers.  But this?  This is just fucking insane.  The US army has admitted to dumping horrifying amounts of arsenic, cyanide, mustard gas, nerve gas, white phosphorous, lewisite and phosgene in coastal waters all around the U.S!!!

"The Army now admits that it secretly dumped 64 million pounds of nerve and mustard agents into the sea, along with 400,000 chemical-filled bombs, land mines and rockets and more than 500 tons of radioactive waste - either tossed overboard or packed into the holds of scuttled vessels."

I just came across this site today and it looks quite interesting.  I am going to subscribe to their abridged feed (the main feed is huge) for a bit and see what other great information turns up.

Deep Sea News : Munitions Dumping at Sea

CityNews: No Organ Donor Card Could Mean No Driver's License Or Health Card

Wonderful!  A step toward opt-out organ donation in Canada. 

Link to CityNews: No Organ Donor Card Could Mean No Driver's License Or Health Card

Are mobile phones wiping out our bees? - Independent Online Edition > Wildlife

This is alarming! Almost as alarming as the disappearance of the bees themselves. If the cause is indeed cellular phones then are we going to see the wholesale extinction of bees within the next year? Of course whatever the cause of the disappearance the fallout is significant. The cross-pollination of plants is almost completely carried out by bees. How will we manage to grow crops without them? More importantly, how will the hundreds of millions of hectares of flora that supports wildlife, the delicate ecosystem and the creation of oxygen reproduce? Our planet is on a very high speed train to destruction. Link to Are mobile phones wiping out our bees? - Independent Online Edition > Wildlife

Headliners Announced for Live Earth Climate Change Concert | Outside Online

Wall expects the concert will reach more than two billion people. The U.S. leg will feature AFI, Alicia Keys, Akon, Bon Jovi, the Dave Matthews Band, Fall Out Boy, John Mayer, Kanye West, Kelly Clarkson, KT Tunstall, Ludacris, Melissa Etheridge, Rihanna, Roger Waters, The Smashing Pumpkins, and The Police. The concert will be broadcast on NBC in the U.S. and live on the Internet at liveearth.msn.com.

Link to Headliners Announced for Live Earth Climate Change Concert | Outside Online

Why the streetcars have to go

Some time ago in an old blog I posted an article I wrote about costly road maintenance, additional infrastructure discriminate dangerous cause gridlock environmental damage (cars belching fumes while they wait) economic impact of late ppl when cars block traffic