I'll give you $40 to not cut down that tree...

Do you have a forest?



Do you need some extra cash?



If so then the United Nations might be the place for you. As part of the brand new Kyoto Climate Change Treaty rainforest countries that avoid deforestation will receive payments from the developed world.


Already the developed nations can buy carbon credits from their less industrialized neighbors that allow them to continue to pollute. And now, they can pay developing countries not to pollute, so we can continue to drive our SUVs while drinking that banana smoothie and wearing our Chanel sunglasses.


It is true that 20% of the world’s carbon emissions come from the burning and logging of the rainforest, and reducing this carbon will be a huge step in the war on climate change. Deforestation emits more carbon than the whole of the global transport sector, and that reduction in the emissions caused by deforestation is an ideal way to make an impact on climate today.


The bottom like is that the proposal, worked up by Costa Rica and Papua New Guinea and backed by the World Bank, will potentially offer tropical rainforest countries billions in funding. Alongside reducing carbon emissions, some of the world’s most exploited countries will be able to begin their climb up the economic ladder. The fear is that this scheme will once again let the biggest polluting countries continue in their destructive patterns.


In the words of a climate change expert: ‘It is not a perfect solution, but the only one on the table at present.’


I’d like to see more solutions on that table, and then again I’d like to see the table – I wonder if it was made from Brazilian wood?

Empress Garden

I was reminiscing today, about Empress Garden. Anyone who grew up in the 'camp' area of Pune city, India would know what I'm talking about. This huge park has beautiful botanical gardens, elegant ponds and a canal where all you needed was a stick and a worm to catch little river fish.

EmpressGarden was a treat to kids, its gargantuan trees an escape from the sweltering summer heat. My mom took my sister and I (and a huge entourage of our friends) there practically every weekend. We packed sandwiches from our favorite café (Marz-O-Rin – remodeled and still awesome btw), and spent the day at the park running around, playing hide and seek and Cricket (contrary to the notion, a very fun sport, one of the positive fixations the British left behind).

So given the fond memories that I have, I was very upset to hear that they are tearing down a lot of the area to construct apartment homes.

To my friends back home, there's a petition that you can sign with the local government to stop destroying the area. Not only will we lose the one tranquil area in the midst of the crowded inner city, but we risk looking much needed acres of flora.

The summers have only gotten hotter, where is the escape?

How Did You Spend Earth Day?

It pays to have friends in high places, or should I say, it pays to have friends in the entertainment business!

I was in L.A. this weekend, catching up with old friends. My friend 'W' recently started working for an entertainment company that owns posh nightclubs and restaurants in the Los Angeles area. Needless to say, since I was seeing him after a year, he made sure he took me drinking ........in style.

We were VIP's at a posh bar on Sunset boulevard; they played the best music, fixed the strongest cocktails and, I had an amazing time. (Thank you WP!)

As cool as the place was, they used re-usable plastic glasses and had jazzed-up recycle bins in their restrooms. Hows that for super-cool?

Lesson learnt: You don't have to loose the diva in you to be a little more world-friendy.

Here are 5 World Saving Tips to do your share without losing your social life, your pocket book or your sense of style:

1. Change a Light Bulb

2. Donate used goods: " One person's garbage is another's treasure"

3. Water.. don't waste it

4. Use your own bag. Canvas bags cost under $5 and can be found in many stylish designs.

5. Walk, Bike, Carpool, Ride the Bus, Take the Light Rail.

Have You Loved Your Earth Today?

April 22nd is Earth Day. We mark off dates to celebrate our loved ones, parents and great presidents so why not a day for the planet that we live on?

Last week, as I walked down a street in San Francisco, I noticed that PG&E had posters and banners to celebrate the event. I received over twenty emails from friends telling me that I could recycle old electronics at Walmart, I should stop using plastic and take some time out on the weekend to donate my old clothes to Goodwill.

But my queston is, is one day enough? Or, do we need a little more to say thank you for clean water, green grass and the little birdies in the trees?

So, stop for a minute, look around and celebrate what we've got. Happy Earth Day!

Give Me Some of Your Tots

Seems like everyone is offsetting their carbon emissions these days, from presidential hopeful John Edwards to the organizers of the Super Bowl. But what about offsetting their kids?

A new venture called TerraTots is offering "child offsets" to parents feeling guilty over bringing wee ones into the world. For $100, TerraTots will offset the ecological impact of high-consuming little Emma or Dylan by working to reduce childbirths in developing countries through the provision of free birth control in underserved communities.

"It takes 20 Bangladeshis to equal the ecological footprint of one American," says TerraTot CEO Nick Benedict, "so to offset your kid, you need to prevent the birth of 20 kids in Bangladesh." He emphasizes that all the family-planning services TerraTots offers are completely voluntary. Hollywood celebs have already jumped at the newest marker of green cred -- Julia Roberts has offset her twins, and Gwyneth Paltrow was overheard bragging how eco-friendly Apple and Moses have become.

Attributed to grist.com
:-)))))))))))))))

Happy April fools day!

I left my heart.........in San Francisco

San Francisco's Board of Supervisors voted to become the first U.S. city to ban plastic bags from large supermarkets to help promote recycling. Under the legislation, large supermarkets and drugstores will not be allowed to offer plastic bags made from petroleum products. The ban would save approximately 450,000 gallons of oil a year and remove the need to send 1,400 tons of debris now sent annually to landfills

San Francisco, California - Cool fog. Hot restaurants. Neighborhoods to explore. Cultures to experience. Always something new to discover.

Oscar Mania - World Saving Tips for Celebrities and their Fans (part 2 of 2)

I was thinking to myself last night; making a post about the Oscars was a pretty good idea. But, would people come back for part 2 of 2 of it? Maybe not. Am I a good enough writer? Maybe not.

But, what keeps the mania alive is a good looking woman, with really good looking clothes. Add a red carpet to that; and you have them hooked.

Tricks of the trade, sure. But to make up for it, here are some truths that will help you Save Energy at Home

• 
  Buy energy-efficient products. When buying new appliances or electronics, shop for the highest energy-efficiency rating. Look for a yellow and black Energy Guide label on the product. The most energy-efficient models carry the Energy Star label, which identifies products that use 20-40 percent less energy than standard new products. According to the EPA, the typical American household can save about $400 per year in energy bills with products that carry the Energy Star.
• Switch to compact fluorescent bulbs. Change the three bulbs you use most in your house to compact fluorescents. Each compact fluorescent bulb will keep half a ton of carbon dioxide out of the air over its lifetime. And while compact fluorescents are initially a lot more expensive than the incandescent bulbs you're used to using, they last ten times as long and can save $30 per year in electricity costs.
• Set heating and cooling temperatures correctly. Check thermostats in your home to make sure they are set at a level that doesn't waste energy. Get an electronic thermostat that will allow your furnace to heat the house to a lower temperature when you're sleeping and return it to a more comfortable temperature before you wake up. In the winter, set your thermostat at 68° in the daytime and 55° at night. In the summer, keep it at 78°. Remember that water heaters work most efficiently between 120° and 140°. In your refrigerator, set the temperature at about 37°and adjust the freezer to operate at about 3°.
• Use a thermometer to take readings and set the temperatures correctly.
  Turn off the lights. Turn off lights and other electrical appliances such as televisions and radios when you're not using them. This is a no-brainer, but it's surprising how many times we forget. Install automatic timers for lights that people in your house frequently forget to flick off when leaving a room. Use dimmers where you can.
• Use your appliances more efficiently. The way you use an appliance can change the amount of energy it wastes. Make sure your oven gasket is tight, and resist the urge to open the oven door to peek, as each opening can reduce the oven temperature 25°. Preheat only as much as needed, and avoid placing foil on racks -- your food won't cook as quickly. Your second biggest household energy user after the fridge is the clothes dryer. Dryers kept in warm areas work more efficiently. Clear the lint filter after each load, and dry only full loads. And don't forget that hanging clothing outside in the sun and air to dry is the most energy-efficient method of all.
• Check your utility's energy-efficiency incentives. Some utility companies have programs that encourage energy efficiency. Check with your utility to find out if it offers free home energy audits, cash rebates for using energy-efficient lighting and appliances, and lower electric rates for households meeting certain energy-efficiency criteria.
  Weatherize your home or apartment. Drafty homes and apartments allow energy dollars to leak away. Seal and caulk around windows and doors. Make sure your home has adequate insulation. Many old homes do not have enough, especially in the attic. You can check the insulation yourself or have it done as part of an energy audit.
• Choose renewable energy. Many consumers can now choose their energy supplier. If you have a choice, choose an electric utility that uses renewable power resources, such as solar, wind, low impact hydroelectric, or geothermal. Residents of California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Texas can get help choosing clean power from the Power Scorecard, developed by NRDC and other groups.
• Let the sun shine in. The cheapest and most energy-efficient light and heat source is often right outside your window. On bright days, open blinds, drapes, and shutters to let the sun light your home for free. Also remember that sunlight entering a room equals passive solar heating. Even on cold winter days, sun streaming into a room can raise the temperature several degrees.

Oscar Mania - World Saving Tips for Celebrities and their Fans (part 1 of 2)

Anyone watch the Oscars on Sunday? I thought Ellen was hilarious and did an amazing job especially with her vacuuming the red carpet bit. Beautiful gowns, handsome men, extra sumptuous Leo Di Caprio; what a glamorous night!

Another very handsome man who stood out and got his very deserving share of attention for the night was Al Gore. Oscar night marked a big personal victory for him who in the 2000 left politics after narrowly losing to George W. Bush. Since then, he embarked on a new campaign calling awareness to the threat of global warming.

My fellow Americans, people all over the world, we need to solve the climate crisis," Gore, the star and narrator of the documentary ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ (it won best documentary), said after taking the stage. "It's not a political issue, it's a moral issue. We have everything we need to get started, with the possible exception of the will to act. That's a renewable resource. Let's renew it."

'Way to go Al! '.

Keeping in sync with the ‘Go Green’ phenomenon, this year, the Oscar academy and the entire production team selected supplies and services with sensitivity toward reducing the threats we face from global warming, species extinction, deforestation and toxic waste. With guidance and assistance from the Natural Resources Defense Council, they realized that it was easy (and often cost effective) to make simple changes to reduce Oscar's ecological footprint.

I guess you don’t have to be famous to care.

With help from http://www.oscar.com/ and http://www.nrdc.org/, here are some World Saving Tips for Celebrities and their Fans.

Saving Energy on the Road

• Look for more fuel-efficient, less polluting cars. A car that gets 20 miles to the gallon will emit about 50 tons of carbon dioxide over its lifetime. Double the gas mileage and you cut the emissions by half. Investigate the many new ultra-clean alternative fuel vehicles available. Reconsider extra features such as automatic transmission and 4-wheel drive -- they are often unnecessary and eat into gas mileage.

• Keep your car in good condition. Get your engine tuned up regularly, change the oil, and keep your tires inflated properly -- proper maintenance can increase your car's fuel efficiency by 10 percent and reduce emissions.

• Cut driving miles. Each gallon of gas your car burns releases about 22 pounds of atmospheric-warming carbon dioxide. Cutting your driving by just five miles each day would contribute to keeping tons of carbon dioxide from entering the air.

• Carpool. If every car carried just one more passenger on its daily commute, 32 million gallons of gasoline (and the pollution produced by it) would be saved each day.
  Leave the car at home. Get in the habit of riding buses or trains as often as you can (just think of all the new people you'll meet!). For short distances, ride a bike or walk whenever possible.

• Encourage community leaders to build bike lanes and sidewalks, as well as cycling and pedestrian-only streets

Autumn Leaves Keep Falling On My Head

It's almost dark every evening when I leave from work; very dark by the time I get home. Where has all the sunlight gone? Finding some appreciation in the beautiful autumn foliage around me and loving the one hour of extra sleep I got this Sunday morning however gives me something to live for till spring. Till then what can I say but, “fall is here”!

With the dropping leaves comes bringing out my fleece throw, flannel pj's and turning on the fireplace at every opportunity I get. Hey, even though it’s California, 50 degrees to me is COLD! (What can I say, I’m spoiled!)

With fall also comes high energy consumption for those extra-warm blooded individuals like me. So trying to make my peace with the falling leaves till spring gets here, here are some “money” and world saving tips to help you thru the chilly evenings.

- Setting your thermostat just a few degrees lower in fall and in the winter can translate to substantial savings on your utility bills

- Taking shorter showers saves water and the energy used to heat it. Plus, for the women, it dries out your skin a lot lesser!

- Washing clothes cold water consumes far less heating than necessary. Although this applies all the year round, in fall and winter it costs a lot more to give your whites that extra warm wash.

With that, stay warm, bring out a nice bottle of wine, and enjoy some pumpkin pie.

Not Just Horsin' Around

News on horse slaughter for food and export has been going around a lot lately; I was contacted by the US SPCA to vote on a bill that opposes the export of horse meat. That got me thinking, where do we as people draw the line on what is an acceptable meal and what’s not?

Am I not being biased when I eat Peking duck at P.F. Changs (yummy btw) and veal (cute in my opinion), but horse meat is beneath my righteous self? Or is it simply because I have a soft spot for Sea biscuit and secretly wanted to be a jockey growing up, before I realised I couldn't make the weight cut? Who am I to decide what is fit for consumption and what’s not?

That being said, and me continuing to be the selfish and biased person that I am, I researched and tried to find reasons to oppose horse slaughter by looking at it from the environmental perspective. Does it cause enough environmental harm to oppose it? (I do need a reason to post it to the blog too, right?).

Myth: Horse slaughter does not cause environmental harm.

Fact: The primary options to dispose of horse carcasses, other than processing at slaughter facilities, include burial, rendering, cremation, placement in a landfill, and composting. However, disposal regulations and methods are state and county issues, and they vary from locale to locale. Not all options are available to all horse owners in all areas, and the inevitable disposal of an additional 70,000 horse carcasses per year will create environmental problems.

Fact: Two out of three slaughter houses are in violation of current environmental law related to the disposal of blood and other waste materials.

Fact: Scavenger species can be killed by chemical agents in discarded tissues. Burial is not permitted in many areas, and chemicals can contaminate the soil. Other disposal methods, such as bio-digestors, show promise but are not yet readily available.

There I feel better already. My world saving tip for the day: Vote NO on horse slaughter.

The True Meaning of Pseudo

Lazy.

I've been horribly sluggish with my writing these last few weeks; no excuses acceptable.

I promise to be a lot more regular. The world doesn’t change with one post; nor did it with three.

With apologies from the lazy tree-hugging hippie.

Medium-Well Please

Anyone who knows me would know that the last couple of weeks have been exceptionally hard on my stomach. My mother in law is visiting and she’s vegetarian. What this means to a devout carnivore like me is no cooking meat at home, no more take out and no more steak dinners with my friends.

Studies (I choose to ignore most of the time) show, that industrial meat production requires huge energy inputs and creates noxious waste. It takes far more fossil-fuel energy to produce and transport meat than to deliver equivalent amounts of protein from plant sources. The heavy use of carbon-rich fuels also contributes significantly to the emissions of global-warming gases.

Blah! Blah!

I guess what I’m trying to say is that; strict vegetarianism isn’t for everyone (definitely not me). I’ve been a little unhappy, but one less steak a week hasn’t killed me. Not yet anyway.

So, World Saving Tip #3: Replacing one meaty meal with a vegetarian meal, saves you money and possibly the world; one steak at a time.

Ah! The Bathroom Lights!

Three years ago, my best friend was living with me for a while. I came home from work one evening to an apartment in complete darkness. She had one tiny light on. She was saving electricity. When she did dishes, she washed plates under a trickle of water. She was conserving water. Well, my friend is an environmental engineer, ground water tester…umm something along those lines.

I don’t do it for the conservation. I enjoy dim lighting. If I’m home alone, I have one lamp on. I remember to turn off lights when I walk from one room to another. The bathroom in our town home came with a fancy 12 bulb lighting structure; I use the 2 bulb option. Not really to conserve anything, just 'cos I hate the glare of bright lights.

Quite the opposite, my husband wants everything lit like he’s picking lint off his shirt. We argue incessantly; mostly about bathroom lights. Now I have an excuse. I’m saving the world, one light bulb at a time.

Random thoughts of an environmentalist that never was

I'm what ecologists would call a pseudo- environmentalist in a corporate world. I think about things like pollution and global warming. I occasionally have ideas and plans. And shortly after, the inspiration dies. What’s good an idea, if it isn't shared and if no one acts on it?

Truth is, like most busy professionals, I am too busy juggling work and home, planning dinner and thinking about what I need to do to get my next big raise. Most of my ‘save the world’ or ‘what’s my true calling’ thoughts have come to me while driving back home from work, mostly when I’m exhausted after a grueling day sitting at my desk and doing what I do best - working at my computer.

I keep myself happy by believing that I do my bit. I volunteer, occasionally toss that recyclable product in the right bin and carry my milk home without a plastic bag.

Should I be doing more? Does it really make a difference if I incorporate trivial changes in my daily life? One day at a time they say; but is that really enough? Could I, the lazy and busy pseudo- environmentalist really come through and go-green?