magtanim ay di biro

or in english, "planting rice is never fun" - a song we learned at a very young age, i can't even remember exactly when.  but i can sing the lyrics off the top of my head at any given time, without really realizing what it is saying to young, impressionable minds: that planting (rice, trees, etc) is not fun, its a hard job, not something you would eventually want to do when you grow up.  

but maybe (hopefully), they aren't teaching this song in schools anymore.  because in the last forest building activity i volunteered for this year, we had lots of little hands helping us plant trees in Tublay Central, Benguet....

a beautiful town, with picture perfect scenery, 

where kids can really enjoy nature 

(in order to truly appreciate it and to later on protect and care for it)

gradeschool kids from the city
together with highschool kids from the local school

carried seedlings to the mountains

and little 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds helped plant trees 

alongside the villager elders :)

and everyone shared the same meal at the end of the day -
cabbage soup and pinikpikan :)

hopefully, the seeds have been sown for the next generation.

so one day, i will take the messybessitas with me, (and hopefully stella, tati and alvaro too) to plant trees :)

fishkill

did you see this in the news???

this is laguna de bay -- our largest lake.

and it's covered with dead fish. gross right?

last friday, HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of fish were found floating on the water.

it's apparently a phenomenon that happens regularly, when the lake is so full of pollution and garbage that the oxygen drops and the fish die.

there's some sort of sad poetic justice here...

it's like the lake taking what's rightfully hers, (the fish) and feeding herself with the nutrients that we've been depriving her from.

in the meantime, we go hungry... lest we eat poisonous fish.

scary.

waste no more

i was in the grocery and chanced upon this:

it's called "starchware"

essentially disposable tableware made from corn and yam... yup, these:

so yes, they're biodegradable, non-toxic, etc... they won't leak out chemicals even with heat.

i shall call them on monday and see if i can use this for my biba noodles.

cool eh?

green greetings + woolly wonkas + renting rants

1.

sending you a paperless greeting from messy bessy :)

2.

+ lemme share with you my recent find: woollypockets.

american-born breathable modular planters that are made from 100% recycled materials...

so fun that you can build gardens on floors, or even walls!

i actually even emailed them to ask if we can replicate the program here...

but they said that they only go as far as exporting... so much for small carbon footprints, eh?

read more about woolly here.

i guess apartment living makes me miss the greenery...

so, shall we just make our own? ;)

3.

+ lemme share with you our latest green habit: renting movies via itunes.

think about it:

zero waste,

zero piracy,

in the comfort of your own home.

perfect!

soak up the sun

as i was looking down on the newly lit trees of the nearby mall, i got to thinking...

1. what a waste of electricity

2. but it's so happy... so why not have solar powered christmas lights since these are under the sun all day anyway...

the geek-in-me googled it... and of course, lo and behold... they exist...

and of course... if there are solar-powered christmas lights... then there must be....

while we're at it, what about bamboo bus stops?

oh the possibilities...

green ideas

i like how these cigarettes are straightforward... none of the 'surgeon general's warning blah blah...'

this one says: SMOKING KILLS

or SMOKING SERIOUSLY HARMS YOU AND OTHERS AROUND YOU

these ones say: SMOKERS DIE YOUNGER.

in hk, it's now under the law to have to PAY for plastic bags. cool huh? it's 50hk$ each, (approx 3 to 4 pesos)

this poster explains how even bags for chilled delivered items will be charged.

i think we should do that here!!!

top of the earth!

in case you haven't heard, our country TOPPED the global earth hour participation (as per twinpopbro, and verified by this newsclip).

out of 88 countries, we 'switched off' the most lights.

now, i'm not big on 1-time media-heavy environmental events...

but i think this says a lot about us...  

how we can actually 'top' a ranking (that doesn't involve corruption).

and how we're all getting somehow greener (good for our businesses hee hee).

whether this earth hour will jumpstart real change -- who knows.  but it's better than nothing -- for now.

the e-jeep

how cool are these?

saw them outside echo store, and found out we (you and i) knew some of the people behind the project.

so i might-as-well-attended the talk...

a 2-time nobel prize winner dr kammen recognized the e-jeep in his 'ecopolis' show in discovery channel!

right now, the e-jeep runs 40-60kph max... it needs to be charged (literally plugged into a 220v outlet) for 6-8 hours to travel nonstop for 60km (think manila to tagaytay).  although new technology can charge it faster.

since it's registered in the LTO as a light vehicle, it can't go on major thoroughfares like edsa, slex (but i think they can pass the service road).

the jeep goes for a little over P600k, and this tricycle for a little over P200k.

i'm thinking you can use these to expand your pedala business (?) or i can use this as my delivery truck (if we had the money...)

right now though, there are no 'charging' stations so the owner will have to charge only in their own places.  they're working on stations, which are really key for this to jumpstart.

loving the tarsier break-light eyes at the back...

yun lang :)

good-bye, north pole

oh no...

well here's another scary study that just came out.

in 5 years, the arctic will be ice-free during the summer.

that means no home for polar bears in 5 years!  

(they're already starting to cannibalize out of desparation -- *sniff!*)

i wonder what sarah palin has to say?

read more about it here.

september 23: earth overshoot day

got this in the mail today... kind of a serious post... i wonder how true or accurate it is... but i think we should let people know about it anyway....

Today is Earth Overshoot Day: the day our demand surpasses nature’s budget

On September 23rd this year we mark an unfortunate milestone: As of today, humanity will have consumed all the new resources the planet will produce this year, according to Global Footprint Network calculations. For the rest of 2008, we will be in the ecological equivalent of deficit spending, drawing down our resource stocks – in essence, borrowing from the future.

The recent bank failures in the United States have shown what happens when debt and spending get out of control. We are seeing signs of similarly disastrous consequences from our ecological overspending. Climate change, shrinking forests, declining biodiversity and current world food shortages are all results of the fact that we are demanding more from nature than it can supply.

Humans now require the resources of 1.4 planets

Just like any company nature has a budget – it can only produce so many resources and absorb so much waste each year. Globally, we now demand the biological capacity of 1.4 planets, according to Global Footprint Network data. But of course, we only have one.

Earth Overshoot Day (also known as Ecological Debt Day) was a concept devised by Global Footprint Network partner NEF (New Economics Foundation). Each year, Global Footprint Network calculates humanity’s Ecological Footprint (its demand on cropland, pasture, forests and fisheries), and compares this with the amount of resources the world’s lands and seas generate. Our data shows us that in less than 10 months we consume what it takes the planet 12 months to produce.

Earth Overshoot Day creeps earlier every year

Humanity has been in overshoot since the mid 1980s, when the first Earth Overshoot Day fell on December 31, 1986. By 1995 it was more than a month earlier, arriving on November 21. Ten years later it had moved another six weeks earlier, to October 2, 2005.

What contributes to our increasing demand? Part of the story is that there are simply more people on the planet requiring nature’s services. In some areas of the world – most notably in high income regions like the U.S. and Europe, as well as industrializing nations like China – per capita resource consumption has also been increasing. In other areas of the world, however, including India and parts of Africa, per capita Ecological Footprints have actually declined, likely as a result of there being less resources available per person.

Carbon is also a big part of the story, as it is the greatest contributor to ecological overshoot. Humanity is emitting carbon faster than the planet can re-absorb it. Our carbon Footprint has increased more than 700 percent since 1961.

United Nations business-as-usual projections show humanity requiring the equivalent of two planets by 2050. (For details see Global Footprint Network and WWF’s Living Planet Report 2006). This would put Earth Overshoot Day on July 1, and means it would take two years for the planet to regenerate what we use in one year. Reaching this level of ecological deficit spending may be physically impossible. What Can I Do to End Overshoot?

Global Footprint Network and its international partner network is focused on solving the problem of overshoot, working with businesses and government leaders around the world to make ecological limits a central part of decision-making everywhere.

Citizens can take action to get out of overshoot in their own lives: eating less meat, driving and flying less, and using less energy in the home. They can also encourage government and business leaders to build communities with smart infrastructure planning and best-practice green technology. Use our interactive calculator to determine your own Ecological Footprint and learn what you can do to reduce it.

With international commitment to end overshoot, Earth Overshoot Day can become history instead of news.