Blogs & Ecology

Image by M. Betti and WaterAid

Don't laugh, this is serious. Did you know that 40% of the world's population, 2.6 billion people, don't have access to a toilet. To raise awareness of this global sanitation crisis and to celebrate a humble yet essential bathroom fixture, World Toilet Day is being proclaimed today, November 19. WaterAid has launched this campaign because without clean water and separate toilet facilities, diseases such as diarrhoea spread and affect children--5,000 a day die from illness related to poor sanitation.

Image source: Spink Shreves Galleries Inc.

Bill Gross, Wall Street money manager, recently auctioned off another portion of his British Empire Stamp collection and donated all proceeds to the Millennium Villages Project. Stamps range in estimated value from hundreds to hundreds of thousands of dollars and include rare stamps such as the Indigo Blue shade two-pence stamp of Mauritius; a trial printing "square pair" of 1863 Cape of Good Hope triangular-shaped, carmine red, mint-condition, one-penny denomination stamps; and an 1866 Dominica six pence stamp. The auction brought in $1,491,385 USD....

According to a study released by researchers at the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health there’s reason to believe that the development of antibodies to cockroach and mouse proteins is associated with a greater risk for wheeze, hay fever, and eczema in preschool urban children as young as three years of age.

The study is the first to focus on the links between antibody responses to cockroach and mouse proteins and respiratory and allergic symptoms in such a young age group, and the implications for children who live in our inner cities where indoor air quality is often poor are truly significant.
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photo: Martin

I don’t know about you but, as a writer and someone who likes to make lists, I keep a checklist of people who I’d just love to sit down with and not necessarily do an interview, but simply chat with about mutual interests. In the case of the following people, that interest would of course be the environment.

So here they are, the five people in the green movement whom I’d just love to have a couple of drinks with while chatting about the environment: Al Gore, Richard Branson, James Howard Kunstler, Vandana Shiva, and Prince Charles.
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Image: Nature Explorer

Soaring nearly 8,000 feet high above the East Javanese horizon, Mount Bromo coughs up deadly pillars of toxic volcanic steam, sand and sulphur. But the locals don’t run from this giant tourist draw. They climb towards it. This time of year, you see, is when they feed the volcano.

Image: Thomas Hirsch

If you fancy your nature documentaries with a little grit, a sprinkling of subversion, and a couple extremely endangered apes, you’ll find VICE TV’s brief f...

Photo courtesy of the Huffington Post

Image: EJCC website

Though it may have struck you already, a recent report corroborates what some advocates and the Hurricane Katrina debacle are making painfully clear: that people of colour are disproportionately affected by climate change and related disasters.

Okay, I missed Blog Action Day’s Alleviating Poverty drive this past week, but I figure a little journalistic license is in order given the nature of the cause. Fortuitously, this gives me the opportunity to report on how efforts to alleviate poverty and foster ecologically and economically sustainable agricultural practices can work hand in hand.

Today is Blog Action Day, and we'll be using our forum as a green blog to talk about this year's theme: poverty. Check the end of the post for links to all our Blog Action Day posts. Photo credit: greefus groinks

Photo via Lizzardo

One of the major issues behind the digital divide is the expense of obtaining a computer. They cost a pretty penny and when you’re on a tight budget, it can feel impossible to bring home the latest in computer gear.

Thankfully, there is a way to get affordable computers to people who need them and improve our impact on the environment at the same time. ...

Today is Blog Action Day, and we'll be using our forum as a green blog to talk about this year's theme: poverty. Check the end of the post for links to all our Blog Action Day posts. Photo credit: laszlo-photo

Photo by Superfem

Today is Blog Action Day and this year's focus is on poverty. As the techy type, I'll be focusing on how the intersections of technology and poverty. But be sure to catch the many other angles of poverty covered today on TreeHugger. Check the end of the post for links to all our Blog Action Day posts.

Photo: Richard Hume, courtesy of Experience Life magazine

Van Jones is one busy man. Based in Oakland, CA, the civil rights and environmental activist has been working tirelessly for the last decade and a half – first as the co-founder of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, then Color of Change – two social justice organizations striving to give positive alternatives and a political voice to vulnerable communities. Most recently, Jones is the founder of Green For All, a