More than a dozen years after the first hybrid cars arrived in the United States, shoppers now can choose among 33 different gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles from every major automaker, with more to come. The best of these high-mpg cars offer a compelling combination of features: high fuel efficiency, long-term affordability and long driving range.
The technology of these fuel-efficient cars is proven and here to stay, with more than 2.1 million hybrids on U.S. roads. Though that represents only about 1 percent of all our vehicles, it’s the first “green” alternative that has reached this level of adoption.
Hybrids have become so common — in California, the Toyota Prius outsells the longtime best-selling gasoline-powered Camry family sedan — it’s easy to forget the drastic measures previous generations took to get phenomenal gas mileage.
For example, there was the Arkansas man in the late 1970s who ripped out the gas engine of his Opel GT coupe and replaced it with an electric motor, 5-horsepower lawn mower engine and four 12-volt batteries. When he was finished, David Arthurs had a homemade hybrid car that could go 75 miles on just 1 gallon of gasoline. He published his blueprints in the July/August 1979 issue of MOTHER EARTH NEWS.
read more
Genetically Modified Food
Recorded Deaths from GM, Near-deaths and Food Allergy Reactions, Direct Cancer and Degenerative Disease Link, Birth Defects and Shorter Life Spans, Interior Toxins, Lowered Nutrition , Unnatural Foods Soil Sterility and Pollution, Extinction of Seed Varieties, Superweeds, Destruction of Forest Life, Superpests, Animal Bio- invasions, Killing Beneficial Insects, Destruction of Self-Sufficient Family Farms, Less Diversity Quality Quantity and Profit, Lower Yields and More Pesticides Used With GM Seeds, Monopolization of Food Production, Dependency, Imposing a Non-Living Model onto Nature.
Toxic pesticides which are implanted into genetically modified food crops have lodged in the blood of pregnant women and their unborn babies, research shows. Traces of the toxin were found 93 per cent of the pregnant mothers and in 80 per cent of the umbilical cords. The research suggested the chemicals were entering the body through eating meat, milk and eggs from farm livestock which have been fed GM corn. Experience indicates that GE crops may be more delicate than conventional crops. In addition, accumulating evidence are demonstrating that they are less productive. A Canadian government study in 2001 showed that after just 4-5 years of commercial growing, herbicide-resistant GM oilseed rape (“canola”) had cross-pollinated to create “superweeds” resistant to up to three different broad-spectrum herbicides. These superweeds have become a serious problem for farmers both within and outside their fields.
read more
THE THREAT FROM GLOBAL WARMING ON NATURE
Global warming effects are a threat to the world that we live in. The impact of climate change is already being felt and we must work to make significant changes.
Global warming has been recognized as a threat for the past several decades. The impact of climate change is already being felt around the world foreshadowing the disastrous changes to come if global warming effects are not reversed.
Many of our day-to-day activities are changing the planet.
Global warming effects are felt not only in the large industrial areas of the planet; they can be felt is small remote villages and unpopulated areas of the Earth also.
read more
Rights of Nature – Restoring natural balance for a sustainable future
Sustainable development requires humans to live in harmony with Nature.
The objectives of the Earth Summit/Rio+20 are to secure renewed political commitment to sustainable development; to assess progress towards internationally agreed goals on sustainable development and to address new and emerging challenges.
Human development can only be sustainable if the social demands and needs of humanity are balanced against the need to maintain the integrity, health and functioning of natural systems. Our legal systems define parameters of acceptable behaviors and actions, how we humans relate to each other and to the world around us.
In most countries, legal systems treat nature as property to be bought, sold and consumed. Under such laws, human concerns invariably prevail over Nature and the carrying capacity of natural ecosystems instead of being weighed against the needs of ecosystems and other beings in order to strike an appropriate balance.
One of the reasons why contemporary legal and governance systems have failed is because they t have been designed to facilitate and legitimate the unsustainable exploitation of Nature.
An essential step in achieving this natural balance is to create governance systems that see and treat Nature as a fundamental, rights bearing entity and not as mere property to be exploited at will. Breaking out of the human-centered limitations of our current legal systems by recognizing, respecting and enforcing Rights of Nature is one of the most transformative and highly leveraged actions that humanity can take to create a sustainable future for all.
Benefits of recognizing rights of Nature
Legal systems built on the premise of Rights of Nature change the status of natural communities and ecosystems from being regarded as property under the law to being recognized as rights-bearing entities. These laws recognize that natural communities and ecosystems possess an inalienable, fundamental right to exist and flourish. Residents of communities where Rights of Nature have been adopted possess the legal authority to enforce those rights on behalf of those ecosystems.
In addition, these laws require the governmental apparatus to remedy violations of those ecosystem rights.
read more
How to Save the Earth
Can anything you do really matter to the Earth? On a universal scale, no. The Earth will keep on spinning, evolving and sustaining life no matter what humans choose to do. There's much to do, however, to reduce the pressure on our Big Blue Marble's limited
resources.
