Have you ever wondered just where our stuff comes from and then where it goes. I for one have spent many (probably thousands) of hours pondering just that. Exiting the restaurant and dumping my styrofoam plates, plastic cups and utensils in the trash…I pondered what happens with the stuff when it is wrapped up in a plastic bag and magically transported away. As IF throwing them away was some place that handled them and not just stored them in some forgotten underground hideaway for the next few millenniums. Let us not forget out iPods, cell phones, tv’s washers, cars, batteries and the list goes on and on.

I call them one use assets or items and in many ways all of the items above from the plastic cup to the car is a one use asset that gets used up - some in flash of a moment and others in a matter of years. THIS is what has been occupying my mind for the past few thousand days.

So from a technical perspective how does all this stuff get from here to there and from there to me? Well I stumbled across a great video on just that, called the Story of Stuff and is well worth the 20 minutes invested so that we can all GET the impact of our choices. Here is what they have to say…

“What is the Story of Stuff?
From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It’ll teach you something, it’ll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.”

So just what is the story of Stuff? Click here to watch.

It’s no secret the green movement is red hot these days, from eco-friendly food to clothes to cars — everyone’s getting in on the action. And now the secret’s been uncorked at your local liquor store!

Kate Brooks always thinks ‘green.’ She recycles, eats local produce, and, now, she shops green at her wine store. Brooks says, “It really does fit with how I try to live the rest of my life, you know, lessening my footprint overall.”

For the rest of the wine story…

Hi all, In the past few years I have been pondering the notion of all the primarily plastic items I call “one use assets.” You know those things that you use once for a second, or a minute or and hour and the toss away, never to think of it again. Well I think of them - probably too much…and lately I have been getting some traction in the media about them. Woohoo. See this link for my latest and greatest article published in the Arizona Republic.

Greg Peterson
The Urban Farm
Your Guide To Green
Host for Freshly Green

You have got to check this one out.

An underground rice and vegetable field has been planted beneath an office building in Tokyo’s Otemachi business district. This urban farm - in what used to be the vault of a major bank - is maintained using computer-controlled artificial light and temperature management. It was brought into being by a personnel company as a means of providing agricultural training to young people who are having trouble finding employment and middle-aged people in search of a second career.

For the pictures and the rest of the story check out Make.

By Jonathan Wheatley in São Paulo
Published: November 26 2007 22:20

Rabobank, the Dutch bank that is the world’s biggest provider of finance for agriculture, is preparing to launch a carbon credits scheme to encourage replanting of forests illegally cleared in the Xingu region of the Brazilian Amazon.

Read the Entire Article at FT.com

Freshly Green is now listed in iTunes, and available through a one-click subscription!

Just to let listeners know, there’s an updated feed for the podcast:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/FreshlyGreen

The iTunes one-click URL will be coming soon.

Are you eager to leave voicemail feedback for Greg and Amy? Or do you have questions for them about living and working green that you’d like them to answer?

Well, now you can do all of that. Call 206-888-2017 to leave a voicemail message for Greg and Amy.

Two interesting editorial/op-ed pieces dealing with the environment have recently been published.

One from the New York Times (free registration may be required) about the options Mayor Bloomberg has now that his proposal for London-style congestion charges has been shot down by state legislators.

Another from the BBC looks at the influence of advertising and the desire for status symbols on the environment.

CITES Press Release

The Hague, 14 June 2007 - Eighteen years after the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) banned the ivory trade, Ministers from the African elephant range states have for the first time achieved a regional consensus on how to address this highly charged issue.

Under the compromise agreement reached today, each of four southern African countries will be permitted to make a single sale of ivory on top of the one-off sale totalling 60 tonnes that was agreed in principle in 2002 and given the go-ahead earlier this month.

The ivory for these new sales will consist of all government-owned stocks that have been registered and verified as of 31 January 2007. Each sale is to consist of a single shipment per destination and may only go to countries whose internal controls on ivory sales have been verified as being sufficient by the CITES Secretariat.

The agreement stipulates that after these shipments have been completed no new proposals for further sales from these four countries are to be considered by CITES during a “resting period” of nine years that will commence as soon as the new sales have been completed.

In the meantime, the CITES Standing Committee, which oversees the implementation of CITES decisions when the Conference of the Parties to CITES (CoP) is not in session, will work on developing a new and more effective approach to taking future decisions on the international ivory trade.

“This African solution to an African problem marks a great step forward for wildlife conservation,” said CITES Secretary-General Willem Wijnstekers. “It is good news for the elephant, good news for the people who live alongside them and good news for regional cooperation in Africa.”

Background

The long-running global debate over the African elephant has focused on the benefits that income from ivory sales may bring to conservation and to local communities living side by side with elephants and concerns that such sales may encourage poaching.

CITES banned the international commercial ivory trade in 1989. Then, in 1997, recognizing that some southern African elephant populations were healthy and well managed, it permitted Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe to make a one-time sale of a stock of ivory to Japan totalling 50 tonnes. The sales took place in 1999 and earned some USD 5 million.

In 2002, CITES agreed in principle to allow a second sale from Botswana (20 tonnes), Namibia (10 tonnes) and South Africa (30 tonnes). (In 2004 a request that CITES authorize annual quotas was not agreed.) The one-time sales were made conditional on the ability of the MIKE programme (Monitoring of Illegal Killing of Elephants) to establish up-to-date and comprehensive baseline data on elephant poaching and population levels. MIKE was established to provide an objective assessment of what impact future ivory sales may have on elephant populations and poaching.

The CITES Standing Committee determined on 2 June of this year that the MIKE baseline data have now been assembled and that the sales could go forward.

For this year’s conference, Botswana and Namibia jointly submitted a new proposal to ease the conditions for permitting future sales of ivory. In addition, Botswana requested authorization for a one-off sale of 40 tonnes of existing ivory stocks followed by an annual export quota of up to eight tonnes of ivory per year from its national population.

Taking the opposing view, Kenya and Mali proposed that a ban on trade in raw or worked ivory from Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe be imposed for a period of 20 years. They argued that allowing any trade in ivory will increase the poaching of elephants.

The African range States met separately throughout the course of the current CITES conference in an effort to bridge their differences. With the help of Ministers attending yesterday’s Ministerial segment, they managed today to reach the consensus described above.

Veteran actor and activist Paul Newman made his views known on Wednesday concerning the Indian Point nuclear power facility in the New York suburbs, pronouncing it safer than military bases he had visited.

The actor and salad dressing salesman visited the Buchanan, N.Y., facility on Monday, according to Jim Steets, a spokesman for Entergy Nuclear, the company that owns Indian Point.

Newman, the star of such films as “Cool Hand Luke,” “The Hustler,” “Slap Shot” and “Nobody’s Fool,” praised the nuclear power facility as an important part of the region’s energy future because it doesn’t produce greenhouse gases, which contribute to global warming.

You can read the entire DEVLIN BARRETT article from the Associated Press HERE.

New Scientist magazine has composed a list of twenty-six common climate myths and misconceptions, including arguments debunking them. Aptly named “Climate change: A guide for the perplexed” it tries to prevent muddying of the issues by “discredited arguments or wild theories.”

Ranging from the ‘hockey stick’ debate to Polar bear numbers, as well as covering any number of CO2 related topics, the articles about the individual myths are well worth reading.

Read the list, and the articles, online at New Scientist’s website