12 ways to get rid of slugs naturally

Get rid of slugs (and snails) without the use of pesticides that harm beneficial creatures and pollute our waterways.

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Ceasefire urged in Coalition's climate and energy wars

Vietnam’s first Goldman Prize winner pushes for energy conservation

Khanh Nguy Thi is an environmental pioneer in Vietnam. She has led her NGO, the Hanoi-based Green Innovation and Development Centre, or GreenID, to the forefront of policy discussions surrounding clean energy development in the country. Her efforts to reduce Vietnam’s reliance on coal-fired power plants has resulted in both real policy changes and international renown in the form of the 2018 Goldman Environmental Prize. Khanh spoke with Mongabay by phone from her home in Hanoi and shared more about her work. Mongabay: When did you first get involved in working on the environment? Khanh: I’ve worked on environmental issues for quite a long time. I was involved in coordinating an integrated community development project in 2003, and in that we focused on women’s health and environmental issues in the community. At that time I was more focused on water and sanitation. Then I moved to work with an NGO working on the environment, water and river protection for five years. Since 2011, when I founded GreenID, I’ve been more focused on energy and environmental governance. Khanh Nguy Thi. Photo courtesy Goldman Environmental Prize. Why did you choose to focus on these issues? I saw that there was little, or even no, effort from civil society on the energy sector. It had some NGOs working on hydropower, working on water, but when I had a chance to look at the energy sector I saw that there was a big gap for civil society to be involved, and it has a…

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Canada's Government Buys Controversial Oil Pipeline, To Ensure It Gets Expanded

The weirdest trash found on beaches last year

The world's oceans are vast, but even they have become filled with the detritus of human consumerism. A depressing report from the Ocean Conservancy reveals all the strange and foreign objects that have washed up along coastlines and been picked up by volunteers in the past year.

The data comes via the International Coastal Cleanup, which the Ocean Conservancy has organized since 1986. It began in Texas, but now mobilizes hundreds of thousands of volunteers in more than 100 countries to remove trash from local beaches, waterways, and parks. Volunteers log their finds in an online database, which helps to paint a more comprehensive picture of what people are throwing away.

The following infographics reveal interesting lifestyle habits that should prompt introspection. Many of these items are unnecessary, or their purposes could be served by reusable goods. Others could be redesigned for better reuse, recycling, or biodegradability. Some are indicative of a serious need to upgrade infrastructure, such as sewers.

They offer a clear and distressing reminder that all rivers lead to the sea. Just because something has disappeared from sight does not mean that it's gone. Be careful with the things you buy, and be careful with how you dispose of them. In the words of Gary Knell, writing for National Geographic in 2017:

"The ocean is powerful, but not invincible. It is rich, but not inexhaustible. For humans to thrive in the coming centuries, we will have to be smarter about how we approach the 70 percent of our planet the ocean covers."

Click the right arrow to view the first infographic.

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How the fossil fuel industry drums up grassroots support

Over the past several months, scores of people showed up to public meetings in New Orleans in support of a proposed power plant. It turns out that as many as 100 of them were paid to be there.

The Lens, an investigative news site, recently reported that people were paid $60 to attend and $200 to speak. Entergy, the company behind the power plant, said that it hadn’t authorized the payments, but it did take some responsibility. After an internal investigation, the company said that it had contracted with a public affairs firm, the Hawthorne Group, which then subcontracted another group, Crowds on Demand, to hire the supporters. Grist called and emailed Entergy for a comment and has yet to get a response.

It’s a prime example of astroturfing, the practice of creating an image of grassroots support for a cause. And while this case may seem shocking, maybe it shouldn’t. Astroturfing in the U.S. dates back nearly a century, and energy companies have a history of getting involved in it through public affairs firms.

“The energy sector has always been relatively active in this,” says Edward Walker, a sociology professor at University of California, Los Angeles who wrote a book about how public affairs consultants drum up grassroots support. He traces the roots of astroturfing back to the 1930s with Campaigns, Inc., the world’s first political consulting firm, which also worked for oil companies.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the number of public affairs consulting firms ballooned, Walker says. “Corporate America was really back on its heels during that period,” he explains, “and started to figure, well, we need to be doing a lot of the same things that the social movements and activist groups and labor unions have been doing.”

Astroturfing is supposed to stay hidden. But some companies have been exposed doing it. In 2009, Greenpeace obtained a memo detailing the American Petroleum Institute’s plans to recruit “Energy Citizens” for rallies opposing legislation to cut carbon dioxide emissions and promote cleaner energy. A few days later, Grist got a list of 21 planned “Energy Citizen” events and found that most were planned by lobbyists, many of whom worked for API or its local affiliates.

That same year, the lobbying group Bonner & Associates forged letters against American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, also known as the Waxman-Markey climate bill, which would have established a national cap-and-trade program. At least twelve letters were sent to Democrats in the House of Representatives, appearing to be signed by a number of groups, including a local chapter of the NAACP. In one, the firm assumed the identity of Creciendo Juntos, a nonprofit network that tackles issues in Charlottesville’s Latinx community, and sent it to House Representative Tom Perriello. It turned out the lobbying firm had been working for the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, an industry-backed outfit working with Hawthorne Group — yup, the same one tied up in the recent New Orleans case — which contracted Bonner & Associates.

The cap-and-trade bill was passed by the House but eventually died in the Senate.

Climate Investigations Center director Kert Davies thinks astroturfing happens more often than people realize. “I would assume the best of it we never see,” he says. “That’s what it’s intended to be: invisible. So there’s probably a lot happening, or that has happened, to people that they’ve never known about.”

About 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies were clients of at least one of these so-called “grassroots lobbying” firms when Walker crunched the numbers back in 2007, he says. “The practices are incredibly widespread. That’s not to say that everyone’s doing astroturfing.” Sometimes corporations work with firms to mobilize their employees or shareholders — it’s not necessarily about generating the illusion of public support.

In the New Orleans case, The Lens couldn’t find any laws preventing the pro-power plant campaign. But the practice sure looks unethical, Davies says, according to the industry’s own code of ethics. The Public Relations Society of America’s code specifically rules out creating fake grassroots campaigns.

The New Orleans City Council approved Entergy’s plant in March, before reports revealed the astroturfing efforts. Community groups have pushed for an investigation and a re-hearing on the decision. The council has also decided to hire a third-party to investigate and has ordered the company to hand over documents that support their internal investigation.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline How the fossil fuel industry drums up grassroots support on May 29, 2018.

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This Scottish "Baugruppen" could be the future of housing

Architect John Kinsley puts together a little project that addresses so many of the problems we face in our cities.

We have so many housing crises these days; there is an affordability crisis, a carbon crisis, an energy crisis (they are different things), and a rapidly approaching aging population crisis. We even have a density crisis, where cities prohibit multi-family housing in residential areas. Among architects, we have a commitment crisis; that's why six out of ten American architecture firms are ignoring the 2030 challenge.

© John Kinsley Architect

That is why the 26BS project in the Portobello district of Edinburgh is so interesting. It's a brilliant response to all of these challenges, starting with perhaps the most important: the architect's commitment and initiative. Edinburgh architect John Kingsley put the entire project together, starting with finding the land. He tells Judy Diamond of Homes and Interiors Scotland: “I used to walk past this vacant lot every day around the corner from my house, and I’d always think what a great site it would make...The site already had permission for a four-storey residential building, so that was our starting point.”

© John Kinsley Architect

He then put together a Baugruppen, or building group; this is a form of cooperative we have admired before on TreeHugger and MNN that is very common in Germany and other parts of Europe. Basically, people get together to build themselves a building, often with architects taking the initiative. Unlike co-housing they do not have big common areas, and it doesn't involve so much personal commitment; it's really just a method of developing a building.(Learn more about Baugruppen from Mike Eliason here) According to the Sunday Times,

“I think there’s a perception of a community build being a hippy thing, but it’s important to understand that it’s not co-housing,” says Kinsley’s wife, Jenny, a sculptor and garden designer. “Although ownership is still communal just now, the idea is that the flats will transfer into individual ownership as soon as possible. So if someone had to sell up, it would be just like selling any other flat.”

© John Kinsley Architect

Addressing Affordability

The big benefit to Baugruppen is that the owners are the developers, so there is no profit margin and important decisions are made by the end users, so you might get good windows instead of the granite countertops that developers use to entice buyers. As Kinsley notes:

People deserve beautifully designed and carefully built homes and neighbourhoods which promote social well-being, economic resilience and environmental sustainability. The conventional mass housebuilder form of procurement unfortunately prioritises over all these aspirations the delivery of a profit to the developer.

The downside is that there is no profit margin, so if there are cost overruns the members of the baugruppen have to eat them. In this case, the owners had to dine on Brexit-driven currency changes (they bought German windows priced in Euros) and foundation problems.

© John Kinsley Architect

Addressing Density and design

The site, a former movie theatre, was squished between an existing tenement and a single family house, so was designed to provide a sophisticated transition between height and front plane. The owners really wanted to fit in; "Three of the four families involved are current Portobello residents and feel strongly about the building contributing to the local sense of place in Bath Street."

© John Kinsley Architect

Addressing Carbon

The building is constructed from Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT), one of our favourite materials because it sequesters carbon; Kinsley writes on his website that " the growth of timber for the frame absorbed 114 tonnes of carbon emissions – an average UK resident’s emissions for approximately 12 years." There are other benefits- it goes together really quickly (the basic structure was assembled by three joiners in nine days) and just looks so much better than gypsum board inside.

Addressing Energy

It's built to Passivhaus standard of energy efficiency, with high-quality triple glazed windows and lots of insulation, so there is no central heating required. "all remaining electricity will either be generated via photovoltaic panels on site or procured from 100% renewable energy – the building will be completely fossil fuel free."

Addressing change

The basic plan is common in Edinburgh: a classic "tenement" form with a single central stair. Each unit was delivered as a shell; according to the Times,

The superior strength and spanning capability of the CLT panels meant that, aside from the internal central stairwell (the ‘core’), there was no need for internal load-bearing walls, allowing each family to design their own personalised layout with stud walls and different combinations of rooms. This clever design essentially future-proofed the flats, as the layout can be easily changed later. Each flat was finished to an empty shell, families bought their own kitchens and floor finishes and paid the builder for installation.

© John Kinsley Architect/ Top floor plan

Kinsley's own unit is a demonstration of the flexibility of the plan- his sons occupy two bedrooms and a bath that have their own access to the stairwell, and could, in fact, be subdivided into a separate apartment. “It’s the same on all four levels. We’re here for the long haul but it gives us flexibility to change things in the years to come.”

There is so much to admire here. I love the idea of architects taking the initiative to put something like this together; the idea of people working together to get exactly what they want and need instead of having to take what some developer gives them; the use of our favourite building material and of course, the Passivhaus standard of energy efficiency. Imagine what people could do if this kind of thing was legal in Seattle or Toronto, what a difference it could make in peoples' lives.

© the group, still talking to each other/ John Kinsley

Because in the end, we don't need fancy technologies and moonshots to solve our problems; just people working together, building carbon and energy efficient buildings in walkable communities. John Kinsley shows how it's done.

Read more about how you can organize what Kinsley calls "Collective Custom Build", "a totally different procurement model where the future residents, alongside a professional design and construction team, jointly act as developer themselves".

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Geneticists: It’s time to mix the Sumatran rhino subspecies

RBS cuts lending to new coal and Arctic oil projects

Enchanted Indigo Is a Compact Veronica for the Sunny Garden

Virtues: Enchanted Indigo veronica has a shorter, more compact size than other veronicas, making it a good choice for the front of the flower garden. It has spiky flowers in a deep, dark shade of purple-blue and it can thrive …

Read Article

The post Enchanted Indigo Is a Compact Veronica for the Sunny Garden appeared first on Horticulture.

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Dozens of fashion brands ditch mohair wool

Spurred by a horrific video from PETA, an increasing number of retailers are jumping on the cruelty-free bandwagon.

Some of the world's biggest fashion retailers have vowed to stop selling clothes made with mohair wool. Over 80 retailers, including H&M, Zara, Gap, TopShop, UNIQLO, Banana Republic, and Anthropologie, made this announcement in response to a video that PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) released on May 1 that depicts abusive treatment of angora goats on industrial farms in South Africa.

Angora goats are prized for their soft, silky wool, known as mohair. Like regular wool, it is known for its insulating properties, while remaining cool in summer; but angora is considered to be more luxurious than most wools, ranked alongside cashmere and silk. PETA says that 50 percent of the world's mohair wool comes from twelve farms in South Africa.

The video, which was captured on secret camera and has a warning for viewers, ruins that perception of luxury, revealing an industry that's horrifically violent and cruel. PETA describes it:

"Some shearers lifted the goats up off the floor by the tail, likely breaking it at the spine. When one goat struggled, the shearer sat on her. After shearing, workers threw the animals across the wooden floor and hauled them around by their legs...

The coats of some of the goats were matted with feces. To clean off the mohair before shearing, one farmer dumped rams into tanks of cleaning solution and shoved their heads underwater, which he admitted would poison them if they swallowed it."

In the video, goats are dragged across the floor, even flung across the room. The shearing process is painful to the animals, with workers cutting chunks of skin along with the wool. Some farmers said even teats get cut off accidentally sometimes. The problem, PETA explains, is that shearers are paid by volume, not by the hour, which drives them to work quickly. On one farm goats' throats are cut with a dull knife before their necks broken, and in a slaughterhouse they are shocked with electricity, hung upside down, then cut across the throat.

The images are gruesome, and it is understandable that no fashion retailer would want anything to do with such a supply chain. H&M spokeswoman Helena Johanssen told the Washington Post:

“The supply chain for mohair production is challenging to control — a credible standard does not exist — therefore we have decided to ban mohair fibre from our assortment by 2020 at the latest."

The video comes five years after PETA released similarly harrowing footage of workers at an angora rabbit farm in China ripping chunks of fur from live animals. Following that, many of the same fashion retailers pledged to stop selling angora fur, or, like Gucci, go entirely fur-free.

Switching to petroleum-based synthetics, however, isn't a straightforward solution. Wikipedia informs that "fake fur is made from several materials including blends of acrylic and modacrylic polymers derived from coal, air, water, petroleum and limestone" -- in other words, plastic, which we know to be enormously harmful to wildlife. It does not biodegrade and, when laundered, releases plastic microfibres into the environment that animals ingest. So, while using synthetics might help captive animals, it ends up harming wild ones.

Is there a better solution? I don't know, but I do not think that angora wool is inherently harmful as a textile, IF -- and this is a big 'if' -- the animals are cared for respectfully and kindly by farmers. That greater degree of care would have to be reflected in the price tag, returning mohair to the category of true luxury, rather than a fabric of the fast fashion giants. At the time of publishing this article, H&M Canada's website shows no less than 40 items that contain mohair, some of which cost as little as $14.99. At that price, what kind of animal husbandry does a shopper expect?

The takeaway message is the same as always from these ethical fashion stories: We MUST start asking where and how our clothes are made. If you're unhappy with production standards, tell the company. Take a stance! If you are uncomfortable purchasing synthetics, seek out non-animal-origin natural fabrics or buy second-hand items. Fight against the insidious fast-fashion mentality by buying high-quality clothes and caring for them properly to ensure they last.

One final note: Keep in mind that production ethics go beyond the animals used for wool, down, fur, and leather. There are millions of humans who also suffer horrific conditions in the factories that produce clothes for fast fashion retailers, and yet videos about their suffering tend not to result in broad policy changes for these companies. Perhaps it's because haggard humans are less adorable than angora goats? More likely, it's because the industry relies on humans working for slave-like wages more than it does on fur trim and mohair sweaters; it can afford to do without those.

As conscientious consumers, however, we have a responsibility to those humans, as well as to the animals. Buy fairtrade, ethically- and/or domestically-produced clothing whenever possible. Buy from retailers that promise full transparency, such as Everlane and Patagonia.

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