German Environment Minister Röttgen: Wind energy will play a major role globally.

“A breath of fresh air” is the slogan of todays Global Wind Day. The
campaign is aimed at raising awareness of wind energy and the important role it plays in renewable energy production. “Wind energy will play a central role in the carbon-free energy mix of the future, not only in Germany but worldwide,” German Environment Minister Norbert Röttgen asserted. “We in Germany want to have achieved the most extensive shift
of our energy supply to renewable energies by 2050. In that effort, offshore wind energy in particular will play a decisive part in power generation,” he added.

Events and campaigns demonstrating the technology of modern wind turbines and showing what wind energy can do to contribute to climate protection, jobs, and economic prosperity will take place simultaneously in over 20 countries worldwide.

Wind energy has experienced a real boom over the past years. Roughly 90,000 workers generated total sales worth approx. ? 5.7 billion last year (approx. 6.84 billion US Dollar) in Germany. Within that same
timeframe, over 21,000 wind power plants installed in Germany produced some 37.8 billion kilowatt hours of power, thus becoming the leading source of renewable energy in power generation. That amount of energy is enough to provide over 10 million households with power. At the same
time, 30.2 million tons of carbon emissions are avoided.

But the potential of wind energy is by no means exhausted. Above all, the use of wind energy at sea as well as the replacement of older plants with modern, powerful new ones, known in the industry as “repowering,” offer prospects for further expansion.

For more information please visit www.Germany.info

And http://www.globalwindday.org

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The concept for a “World Ocean Day” was first proposed in 1992 by the Government of Canada at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, and it had been unofficially celebrated every year since then. Since 2002, The Ocean Project and the World Ocean Network have helped to promote and coordinate World Oceans Day events worldwide. They help coordinate events and activities with aquariums, zoos, museums, conservation organizations, universities, schools, and businesses.

Why Should I Celebrate World Oceans Day?

The world’s ocean:

• Generates most of the oxygen we breathe
• Helps feed us
• Regulates our climate
• Cleans the water we drink
• Offers us a pharmacopoeia of potential medicines
• Provides limitless inspiration!

How can you get involved?

• Volunteer
• Donate
• Meetup and work together to help with the Gulf oil spill
• Protest/Ralley the Golf oil spill with the Sierra Club
• Send a letter to your representatives
• Know what fish you eat
• Refuse plastic
• Break your oil habbits and take public transit, walk or bike
• Save the water, don’t waste it!
• Don’t litter!

These are just a few tips. If you have more, you are welcome to add them in the comment section.

Happy World Oceans Day!

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When I came to LA years later, every club or street party I went to, people handed me fliers about their events, their political agendas, and their promotions. Most of the time I took the flier and tossed it in the next trash bin.

Times have changed and today, we are not only handed fliers, but we are also bombarded with emails, Evite, Facebook and MySpace event invites, cell phone text messages, tweets, and more and now most of the time the flyers end up in the trash without me taking the time to look at them and the emails I put in the trash folder.

With the digital age, our promotional outlets have become much more available, but also much more complex and we have become more wasteful. We are now doubling and tripling our invites because we have the tools accessible to set up various events online as well as printing, texting, etc. and of course, we need to “hit” people with our event invites at least 3 times for them to attend. We do it all because we can, but it’s important that we understand the impact of our actions.

I became a website designer out of the desire to promote myself and my work. I signed up with Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and many other networking sites and I learned the ins and outs of these sites to be good at it all and I’m loving the opportunities that are out there for us. I love exploring, learning new codes, about new sites, new trends, etc. But I’m also still loving the old fashioned way of connecting to people and finding out about stuff.

When I go to an event, I always look at the postcards in the lobby or on the bulletin board. I still pick up the fliers or brochures at the fair. And at the same time, I import various event calendars via Google Calendar, I RSVP as a “maybe” to interesting events on Facebook, I save emails just in case I can make it to the event and I sign up to newsletters online to keep up to date to the various going ons.

But how do we best promote our events and how do we figure out when to do what?  How can we be both cost effective and sustainable and at the same time get the message out?

I’m sure there are many answers and I’m doing my best to change my behavior to leave less behind and at the same time, not having to compromise because no matter what we do, we are ending up leaving footprint behind if we want to promote our business, our art, our journey. Even smoke signals left a footprint. Whether we create print promotional materials or online promotional material, we either cut trees down or mountains, we use energy and water, we use chemicals and metals, we create waste that goes down into the gutter, into the ocean and into the animals’ or our own digestive system.

But I thought of a few things that could help reduce our footprint:

1. printing postcards/headshot/brochures
   • print on matte finish, not glossy
   • print double-sided
   • print less regardless of the price difference
   • print on smaller paper/cards/business card (4 or 8-up if you print from home)
   • print on recycled paper
   • print on thinner paper
   • reuse old paper (scripts, resumes, board meeting papers, etc.)
   • create images that use less ink (PowerPoint Presentations, website printouts, postcard designs, etc.)
   • hand them out to people who you talk to instead of leaving huge stacks at places
   • leave just a few at venues
   • make the invites unique or multi-functional so they become keepers, not trash
   • print local and pick up by walking or biking to the shop or combine your driving trip with another errand
   • print with soy or other sustainable ink
2. posting events online
   • post on sites that you know are popular
   • post on sites that are local to your event/venue/work
   • invite only your local friends (for example create a local list on Facebook and add only them to the invitation)
   • create a website or a webpage that people can go to for information
3. newsletter/emails
   • don’t harvest your friends emails and spam them -> ask your friends if they want to be on your email first
   • email invitations/promotions once a week instead of every other day
   • BCC (blank carbon copy) friends to avoid their email being added (harvested) by your recipients
   • email people who are interested in your event, not everybody in your address book

Throughout the years I have reduced the amount of paper I take home because I end up feeling guilty “creating” more trash and I hope to motivate companies to print less, if they end up with a lot of their printed materials at the end of the day. I also don’t like to see all the paper in the gutter at the end of the weekend after the clubs have closed and the parties are over.

I created several lists on Facebook to target my audience and I don’t send out an LA event to my friends in Chicago or Europe. Before I send out a newsletter, I ask on Twitter and on Facebook for emails if someone is interested in being added to my newsletter. And the last big event I worked on, the postcards were handmade and people ended up keeping them as a gift/souvenir. I also carried these postcards with me everywhere, so when I bumped into a friend, I could hand them an invitation.

Both worlds, digital, as well as print work, well together but nothing works as good as face to face contact. And regardless of whether you invest in paper or take advantage of inexpensive digital communication or pursue a combination strategy, memorable messages that demonstrate creativity and innovation are always of the greatest value.

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However, I do have a weakness and that is books. I’ve had it since I was around 14. I visited our new Library in Taufkirchen (Munich) that was brightly lit, modern, and spacious. I remember that that was the first time that I wished that I were locked in a bookstore overnight. I wanted to sleep amongst the books and watch them and their stories come alive in front of me, when nobody was there.

Since then, I can’t pass a bookstore or a magazine rack without looking, touching and possibly purchasing something. Otherwise, I do feel like I’m missing out. Going past a bookstore and not looking inside makes me feel like I’m missing out on a great story, on a great adventure. If I pass a news stand, I need to look inside the Make Magazine, quickly read Help and Tips inside Macworld, and sometimes I end up buying the Variety or the Filmmaker or some other industry magazine.

To tell you the truth, my husband had me the moment I saw how many books he had all over his apartment, on the table, floor, desk and on self-made shelves. Books tell so much about a person. They tell everything about their interest, their passion, their mind set, their family and their past. When I go to a friends house, you will find me by the bookshelf reading the book titles to get to know my friend without the exchange of words. Do they read novels or biographies? Crime, romance, science fiction, or comics? Do they like hard cover or soft cover? Are the books new or old? Are they dusty, clean, do they have dog ears, marks, signatures? Do they have art books? What artists do they like? What type of art? Oh, books have so much to tell.

I don’t think there is such a thing as too many books and I don’t think at all that books are not sustainable. Sure, printing books means cutting trees and cutting trees has many consequences. But trees can always be replenished. We could plant the entire planet full of trees. Trees are always good to have and trees are a natural resource. Trees are cut down for toys, furniture, cutlery, for building materials, office supplies, clothes and yes, books. Trees or rather wood can be reused many times and when its life is over, it can be composted and mother nature will happily gulp up the nutrients of the wood or paper.

Now the new “green” concept behind reading are all these electronic gadgets, which is kind of not new, since we have been reading the news online and we are all blogging online, and exchanging information is the quickest electronically, via phone, computer, and text. I’ve been reading news, blogs, event listings, etc. on line for many years now, however, I disagree with the electronic book craze of Kindle, Alex, the Sony Reader or whatever new is coming to the market to be a sustainable solution.

Electronics are bad for the environment, no matter how we look at it. There is metal, plastics, PVC, lamps, batteries, and many more elements that need to be separated and composed off properly when the life of the gadget has ended or when we get bored with it and we throw it in the trash. In US Households, only under 18% of electronics is disposed of properly. Lots of electronics are being shipped overseas to poorer countries, which means when those people are done with the product, they have nowhere to take it. We basically are just shipping our trash out of the US but no matter where we are on this planet, the waste that gets dumped improperly will end up leaking into our water systems and it will harm us all. Even if these electronics go to Africa, the water that the chemicals seep into is the same water that we drink here on the other side of the earth. The dirt that gets poisoned on some island is the same dirt that we walk on in the US. There is an effect to everything, no matter how far away it seems and we are obligated to take care of the planet not just in our back yard but everywhere.

As much as these electronic gadgets are exciting and as much as they seem like the green choice of the new generation, they are bad for the environment. A book can disintegrate when thrown into the trash. A Kindle can’t. No worm will feed of its components, no ant will carry one back to its nest to feed the family with. A book can provide shelter or a nesting for an animal, Alex can’t because it would leak toxins. A book will remind your friends of last years book club gathering and your family will remember your 10th Birthday when they see the book that grandma gave you so long ago. The Sony Reader will be just a dusty piece of plastic decorating your shelf.

Real books are priceless and they are also good for our senses. The touch and the smell of a book can’t be duplicated.

I encourage you to go to a book fair and get a signed copy of a book. Go visit a used book store and find a printed edition that has someones name written in the inside cover and find out who that person is. Go to a reading, form a book club, donate your books and get some sent to you from a friend overseas. Books are priceless and they have a tremendous impact on people, young and old, any nationality and any color.

After you read my column online, unplug and go read a real book. Books need to be touched, smelled, be slept on, be carried around and be gifted. Keep your books and move with  them. Your kids and grand kids will have a blast reading them years from now and you will share memories with them that is priceless. And if you feel really guilty about buying books made out of trees, plant a shade tree for every book you buy.

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As a remedy to the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico the federal government decided to use underwater oil dissolvers. All more or less biologically sound. The Austrian product Bioversal, which dissolves oil organically offered BP its help, but the oil giant declined.

See how oil gets dissolved organically on their website (German only)

http://www.bioversal-austria.at/bioframeset.html

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"Hautnah in Hollywood" by Evie Sullivan

I was born in Hungary, raised in Germany and now I live in Los Angeles where I work as an Actor, a Director and a Community Activist. Hollywood is a long way from Budapest but the current green revolution reminds me of the frugal and sustainable lifestyle I experienced as a young girl in Budapest. The motivation then was economic. When we moved to Munich I landed in the middle of another green revolution, this time social awareness drove the commitment to the environment and so it was that I grew up recycling, reusing, and reducing. By the time I arrived in Los Angeles, the “Land of Plenty,” the simple and intentional life was the norm. That’s why I’m especially pleased to again find myself in the midst of another green revolution, this time as Los Angeles shifts from a lifestyle of excess to a landscape of sustainability. It’s good to be home!

I was born and raised in Hungary in the 70’s when the country was under Communist leadership and we lived very tight, physically as well as financially. My father’s apartment was so tiny that my sister and I lived and slept in the same room with my father and his wife. We had a separate kitchen and a small bathroom. When we went to live with my Grandma, we had the same situation, this time living and sleeping in the same room with our Grandma and Grandpa. We also shared the one bathroom, one WC, and the small kitchen.

Space was sparse and there was no room for trash, so everything was reused and what was purchased in glass was taken back to the store, newspaper was collected and recycled for money, other paper wrappings and paper bags were reused and food was bought fresh from the market so we had barely anything wrapped in plastic. There was little waste, we grew up using and reusing, learning the value of things at an early age. We didn’t know it then but apparently we were environmentalists!

In the mid 80’s my sister and I were reunited with our mother in Munich (she had escaped Communism in the 70’s) just as the German government was in the middle of a social engineering campaign that included a full scale recycling program all over the country, in cities, in schools, in homes and on the streets. These were exciting times! I didn’t know the language very well but I knew how to recycle. I could go home from school and teach my new family to separate paper, plastic, aluminum, and glass and I saw the quick change within the city when the new glass separator bins arrived (for brown, green and white glass). These new separator bins turned up at the train stations, schools, public places, and in offices and businesses. The motivation was different but the behavior was the same. Even in a strange land, I knew I was beginning to feel at home!

When I moved to Los Angeles in the mid 90s, I was a stranger in a strange land. The first place I stayed at had a big dumpster. It was almost as big as our home in Budapest! There were hardly any recycling programs, there was a lot of trash everywhere, from plastic bottles to plastic bags, flying in the wind and stuck in the gutters. It was a hard change for me to “become” wasteful. It was very difficult to buy groceries or household items or office supplies that was not either made out of plastic or wrapped in plastic. When I took my own canvas bags to the grocery store, other shoppers looked at me as if I was nutty and when I rode my bike, they thought I must have some drinking problem. Some called me the bag-girl because I reused my sandwich bags, I was looked at in horror when I picked out the batteries from the trash bin, and generally people either laughed about my silliness of trying to be sustainable, or silently shook their heads, not understanding what I was doing.

Within the last couple of years, the collective behavior of those around me has changed, if only in acceptance and understanding of sustainable actions. The media has given more attention to the effects of chemicals in our food and in our homes, they’ve exposed the natural consequences of plastic, PVC, paint, greenhouse gasses, etc. Companies are now packaging their products in smaller boxes and with less wrapping. When I arrived, not even electronic stores would recycle used batteries but now we’re able to conduct neighborhood collection campaigns and recycle everything from batteries and video tapes to hard drives and electronics, recycling them so that the poisonous metals stay out of our landfills. While we’re busy saving the planet from heavy metals, we’ve also revitalized the Industry by giving the A-List another opportunity to brand themselves, this time as Eco-Heroes with their electric cars, their hemp wardrobes and their green-washing campaigns. It’s the least we can do, after all it is Hollywood! Nevertheless, it’s good to be home.

The sustainable life was not and is not easy in America, especially here in Los Angeles, but my experiences in Hungary and Germany left me with habits that are unbreakable, with attitudes that will always result in sustainable choices, and with politics that will always drive me to fight for a sustainable lifestyle, community, and government. It’s how I was raised and it’s who I am.

Last year I wrote and directed a film. At the first production meeting, we made a “no plastic, no Styrofoam” commitment and began a journey that led to the production of a 100% sustainable film shoot that used bikes and public transportation as a main source to get around, deliver equipment and  food, and to get the actors and crew on set. We demonstrated that Hollywood can go Green! Most importantly we started a conversation that is ongoing, a journey that has people asking the hard questions and challenging the status quo. We continue to debate and to discover and that is the most exciting thing about the sustainable lifestyle.

I’m challenging myself every day on how to be green without killing myself and losing the fun. I love to research how things work and how they can work differently. I hope you will enjoy my column and will send me suggestions, questions and tips on how to make our homes and our community livable and sustainable for many generations to come.

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Tony Starks rides his R8 Spyder

May 6 and 7 mark the theatrical debuts of “Iron Man 2” in North America and Germany, Austria and German-speaking Switzerland. Already grossing over $100 million on 6,764 screens in some 53 countries, Robert Downey Jr. & Co. claimed the top spot in all but one and outpaced the May 2008 original by an average 26%, Paramount Pictures reported.

Once again, German automaker Audi provided the speedy ride to match such super-heroic performance. “Just like the first movie, “Iron Man 2” is the perfect environment for the Audi R8,” said Lothar Korn, head of marketing communications at Audi. “Like us, the technologically ingenious superhero Tony Stark represents Vorsprung durch Technik. And just as the R8 Spyder was developed from the Audi R8,” he opined, “Tony Stark surprises us with new innovations.”

Here are some of their respective features, as reported from Ingolstatdt, Germany:

– Iron Man’s visual capabilities are optimized by the helmet, and the R8’s high efficiency LED headlights likewise provide for good vision.

– The super Audi matches the hero’s indestructible suit with its own carbon fiber composite materials in parts of its exterior skin, along with a high-strength aluminum frame.

– They both have their hearts in the right place: a glowing artificial one in Iron Man’s chest, and an impressive mid-engine design in the R8, which is visible externally.

– Thanks to its jet propulsion, the superhero suit worn by Downey Jr. is unrivalled – but the R8 Spyder, with its 525 hp and 5.2 liter FSI engine powers the two-seater convertible to a top speed of 313 kilometers an hour.

Enjoy the movie: Looks like a great ride.

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Concurs Jonas Brother Nick, who is a spokesperson and an actual user of Bayer’s CONTOUR USB meter, “I know first hand how important it is for kids to test their blood sugar regularly. Using Bayer’s DIDGET meter is a cool and fun way for kids to do that.” An estimated 186,300 young people under the age of 20 in the U.S. have diabetes.

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PUMA’s declared goal is to reduce carbon, energy and water usage, as well as waste by no less than 25%. Even better, yet, 50% of its international collections in footwear, apparel and accessories will be developed according to best practice sustainability standards by 2015. “For a long time our mission has been to become the most desirable Sportlifestyle company. With this next phase of our sustainability program we have evolved our mission to be the most desirable and sustainable Sportlifestyle company in the world,” commented Jochen Zeitz, Chairman and CEO of PUMA. “Through PUMAVision and our puma.safe program we have already started to reduce our carbon emissions, curtail wasteful transportation, recycle and reuse available materials, use water sparingly and become paperless.”

The latest activity involves new packaging. With stylish help from the renowned industrial designer Yves Behar, this so-called ‘Clever Little Bag’ should “significantly reduce the amount of waste and CO2 emissions” that traditional shoe-boxes and plastic apparel bags generate. In addition to 65% paper reduction, PUMA estimates the re-usable shoe bag will reduce water, energy and diesel consumption on the manufacturing level by more than 60% per year. In other words: approximately 8,500 tons less paper will be consumed, 20 million Megajoules of electricity saved, 1 million litres less of fuel oil used and 1 million litres of water saved. During transport 500,000 litres of diesel is saved and lastly, due to the replacement of traditional shopping bags with the lighter built-in bag the difference in weight can save up to 275 tons of plastic.

Clever little bag indeed.

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“Der Bericht zur Lage der Welt 2010″ ist nun erschienen (Bild: oekom.de)
Berlin/Washington DC (pte/19.03.2010/13:05) – Der exzessive Konsum, dem die Bewohner der Industrienationen frönen, plündert den Planeten Erde aus und trägt wesentlich zur Zerstörung globaler Ökosysteme bei. Zu diesem Schluss kommt der Bericht “Zur Lage der Welt 2010″, der vom Worldwatch-Institute http://www.worldwatch.org herausgegeben wurde. Gestern, Donnerstag, ist die deutsche Ausgabe von der Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung http://www.boell.de und Germanwatch http://www.germanwatch.org der Öffentlichkeit präsentiert worden.

In den vergangenen fünf Jahrzehnten sind die Ausgaben für den Konsum um das Sechsfache gegenüber den 4,9 Bio. Dollar des Jahres 1960 angestiegen. Nur ein Teil dieses Anstiegs ist auf das Bevölkerungswachstum zurückzuführen, denn die Zahl der Menschen ist zwischen 1960 und 2006 nur um den Faktor 2,2 gestiegen. Damit haben sich die Ausgaben für den Konsum pro Kopf noch immer beinahe verdreifacht.

Jährlich 60 Mrd. Tonnen Ressourcenentnahme

Im Jahr 2006 wurden weltweit 30,5 Bio. Dollar für Waren und Dienstleistungen ausgegeben (nach dem Dollar-Kurs von 2008). In diesen Ausgaben waren Grundbedürfnisse wie Nahrung und Unterkunft enthalten. Je mehr das frei verfügbare Einkommen stieg, desto mehr gaben die Menschen für Konsumgüter aus – von reichhaltigerer Nahrung und größeren Häusern bis zu Fernsehern, Autos, Computern und Flugreisen. 2008 kauften die Menschen auf der ganzen Welt 68 Mio. Fahrzeuge, 85 Mio. Kühlschränke, 297 Mio. Computer und 1,2 Mrd. Mobiltelefone.

“Insgesamt werden heute jährlich 60 Mrd. Tonnen an Ressourcen der Erde entnommen. Das sind ungefähr 50 Prozent mehr als vor 30 Jahren. Zwischen 1950 und 2005 sind die Metallproduktion um das Sechsfache, der Ölverbrauch ums Achtfache und der Erdgasverbrauch ums Vierzehnfache gestiegen”, so Erik Assadourian, einer der Direktoren des Worldwatch-Institute. Heute verbraucht jeder Europäer im Durchschnitt täglich 43 kg an Ressourcen und der Amerikaner 88 kg. Alles in allem zieht die Menschheit jeden einzelnen Tag den Gegenwert von 112 Wolkenkratzern wie das Empire State Building aus der Erde.

60 Forscher zeichnen innovative Verhaltensmuster

Derzeit übernutzt die Weltbevölkerung die natürlichen Kapazitäten der Erde um rund ein Drittel. Die Hauptverantwortung dafür liegt in den hoch industrialisierten Ländern. Nach Einschätzung der rund 60 Forscher, die am diesjährigen Bericht mitgearbeitet haben, ist ein Wandel der Konsumkultur möglich und sogar schon im Gang. Der 300-seitige Band dokumentiert neue Verhaltensmuster und Lebensstile für eine neue Kultur.

“Nach dem Unvermögen der Regierungen, sich auf eine globale Antwort auf den Klimawandel zu verständigen, kommt es umso mehr auf die aufgeklärten Bürger an”, so Ralf Fücks, Vorstand Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung. Jeder Einzelne könne zum Vorreiter für ein nachhaltiges Wohlstandsmodell werden und dazu beitragen, umweltfreundliche Produkte und fairen Handel zu fördern.

“Aber letztlich kann individuelles Verhalten die großen Weichenstellungen in der Energie-, Verkehrs- oder Steuerpolitik nicht ersetzen. Verantwortlicher Konsum, schärfere Standards für Industrie und Landwirtschaft sowie Lenkungsinstrumente wie die Ökosteuer gehören zusammen”, so Fücks.

Bürger und Regierungen sind gefordert

“Der Staat muss die Rahmenbedingungen setzen, die es Bürgern ermöglichen, nachhaltig zu handeln. Nachhaltiges Handeln muss zum Normalfall werden, nicht-nachhaltiges Handeln hingegen teurer und reguliert”, erklärt Hendrik Vygen, Mitglied im Vorstand Germanwatch. “Nicht nur mit Gesetzesinitiativen wie dem Erneuerbaren-Energien-Gesetz kann der Staat wichtige Akzente setzen.”

Mit einer klimafreundlich ausgerichteten öffentlichen Beschaffung könne der Staat zum Vorbild werden, Investitionsströme in Richtung nachhaltiger Produkte und Unternehmen lenken und gleichzeitig für eine deutliche Reduzierung des CO2-Haushalts sorgen, meint der Experte.

Die deutsche Ausgabe von “2010 State of the World: From Madison Avenue to Mad Max?” ist unter dem Titel “Zur Lage der Welt 2010. Einfach besser leben. Nachhaltigkeit als neuer Lebensstil” im oekom-Verlag http://www.oekom.de erschienen. (Ende)

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