OBS. Jag äger ej bilden. Det gör Mofasa .........................( skoja, det gör google)

så, without further ado, ALLT DET SOM SOLEN RÖR VID…

Med vänliga hälsningar/ Mika

I know a wedding ring isn´t a part of your regular day-to-day consumption ( unless you´re filthy rich and on a wierd diet or something) or any jewellry for that matter. But the gold and silver industry has a huge turnover (omsättning) and is not very eko-friendly. And you might be thinking : “Well, why should I care about if my jewellry is BFFs with mother nature when I hardly EVER buy any and at the moment willing to spend quite a load of money on it, leave me alone you little hippie, just schhh don´t want any of your eko-talk!”.

And yeah ok fine, but you are already reading this so HA i´m not going to stop now, however , good try mate.

The way the gold industry extracts their oh so fine gold is not cute. It´s one of the dirtiest industries , for example they use cyanide to separate the gold and silver from the bedrock. Cyanide is ( part from a really funny comic by Kris Wilson ) fatal for animals and vegetation.    

 Flashback:  30 January 2000, a dam at a goldmine reprocessing facility in Romania released approximately 100,000 m³ of wastewater contaminated with heavy metal sludge and up to 120 tons of cyanide into the rivers of  Tisza.

Flashback nr 2: hydrogen cyanide pellets were used by the Nazi regime in Germany for massmurder in some gas chambers during the Holocaust.

And just some additional fun facts….Famous people who have committed suicide by cyanides : Eva Braun, Adolf Hitler ( as Alanis would´ve said: isn´t it ironic?)Heinrich Himmler, Alan Turing, Hermann Göring…the list is in fact a tad bit longer, but i´m sure you already got the point about morality … i mean MORTALITY, sorry.

And as a cherry on top, the actual mining part of the extraction process leaves wounds on the bedrock and nature that no bandaid in the world will heal.

Again people, i´m trying to get inside your minds, find that tiny zone in your brains called “the conscience” and make it process this. Eko-gold also fights for the humanrights for the workers in the mines.

Either use “old” gold, melt it down, and create the ring of your dreams or get( or read about..pff dream on) your eko-friendly gold here :

http://www.greengold-oroverde.org/loved_gold/

Just remember that the price on your ring is not the  one the planet is paying…

That “miracle-machine” you bought on TV-shop last year? Yeah, the one under your bed that you with excitement used twice and then let slip into the memorial park of great ideas in your head. I bet you thrice that there are at least 30 people out there who would like to give that wonderdevice a go. So what is it doing under your bed? Give it another chance, it might still have some happiness to spread in someone elses life.

And those ugly pants you wore 30 years ago? They are probably supertrendy right now, you are just too old to notice. Some trendfreak/ art student / costume designer is probably willing to pay 30 dollars for them, whats wrong with you? Get them out of that cardboard box!

And just because you got sick and tired of Anastasia’s debut album doesn´t mean the boy next door is. Go and ask him if he wouldn´t trade his complete Pokemon card collection for that CD. He probably will not agree because he knows that his collection is worth at least Anastasia’s AND N´Syncs album. You might just have to give in a little on that.

Today there are heaps of different places to go in order to find “vintage” things and gizmos.  And they work in different ways too. You have the second-hand stores where you can drop off unwanted objects and also buy once loved things for a price ranging from almost nothing to a fortune. It all depends on the history, brand, quality and uniqueness of the object.

That´s one option. But maybe you just don´t feel like letting go of your belongings without getting anything in return? What about some good old trade and swap?Old-school trade-off viking-style?

Swap-o-rama is a clothing swap and a series do-it-yourself workshops in which a community explores creative reuse through the recycling of used clothing. You bring some things with you, find something else that you like better and swap. Once in a while there are designers hanging around who are willing to reshape and/ or adjust the garments for you in trade for a coins or two. Or you can do the job yourself at the workshops. These get-togethers have grown very popular in various countries worldwide. Go online to find your nearest swap-meeting. http://swaporamarama.org/

Then there is Freecycle.      http://www.freecycle.org/

Freecycle is a network made up of over 4,000 groups with around 7 million members across the globe. It´s a grassroot and  non-profit movement of people who are giving away and, off course, getting free things in their local towns and neighbourhoods. The endeavor of the network is simply to reduce the strain on our natural resources and to keep good, useable stuff out of landfills and trash cans. Each local network is moderated by a local volunteer and all you have to do is sign up for free and find you nearest group! There are no limits on what you can trade, clothes, toys, books, bicycles, furniture, kitchen devices, kids..naah just kidding. you can´t trade your kids away, that’s probably illegal… but tempting nonetheless. Anyway, my mum used that as one of  her standard threats during my childhood years. Interesting to see your currency go up and down. One day you had the same value as the neighbours bulldog and after dinner when homework and shores were over and done with you were cute AND precious and the best kid on the planet. I wouldn´t bet my money on that. I would, however, trade my old jacket for a new backpack .       …Deal?

However, the majority of the people on this earth wouldn´t be thinking of getting a new BMW convertible if they had money on their hands…they would be using the money to feed hungry if not starving mouths and curing unhealthy loved ones.

The order of precedence in consumption varies strikingly depending on the society and one´s standard of living and wealth. The imbalance that this entails has put us in our current seat where one fifth of the people on this earth owns 90% of all the cars, consumes 84 % of all paper, utilize 74 % of the telephone lines  , uses 58% of all energy generated annually in the world, consumes 45% of all fish and meat, and stands for 93 % of the usage of internet.

But what this 1/5 has got is never enough, we always want more, and why on EARTH would we give up our way of life? 

…Well, would you like a sweet whiff of death and disaster? 

I´ve grown up in a generation were we get file mignon from Brazil, tomatoes from Spain, shrimp from Thailand, bananas from Costa Rica, lamb from New Zeeland and almost anything from instant noodles to clothing and toys from China. The list  is long with plenty of examples, but they share a fact : they are the cheapest alternatives.

Ever heard of the proverb ” too good to be true” ? Apply that here.

Did you really think a serving of noodles from china cost 70 cents?  What about the damage made on nature and ecosystems when these foods are produced? All the pesticides and fertilizers that are being used and adding to that transportation from across the globe? And what about the forest and land that has been reconstructed to cultivate wheat and soybeans for example? Didn´t it have some kind of function? It was part of an ecosystem and to simply modificate nature to meet our current economic needs evokes an imbalance and could put health AND wealth at risk. Because we are the ones to pay for the party in the end.

The mangrove forests are an excellent example of this. The swamps are converted into valuable shrimp farms and an economic study from 2007 displayed a commercial profit of $ 9,632 / hectare.

Sounds like a great deal yeah? Hold your horses you eager beaver, there were costs too. 

Calculations showed that for each hectare there were a price to pay : a $1,000 for pollution and another $12,000 for losses to ecosystem services i.e damage to the supply of foods and medicines that people had taken from the forests, the loss of habitats for fish and less buffering against storms… to name a few.

Did someone say profit? where?

Bottom line is that what may look beneficial only does so because the profits are retained by the private sector and companies, while the problems are spread out across society and the world at large.

We need to start paying the real price of our way of life and if so be it, change the way we live because we cannot afford it.

It is time we put a price tag on nature.  Because it´s not for free folks.

By definition ( wikipedia.org is a reliable source in my world) the ecological footprint is a measure of human demand on the earth’s ecosystems. It compares the human demand with the planet Earth’s capacity to regenerate. It then calculates the amount of biologically productive land and sea area that is needed to regenerate the resources a human population consumes and to absorb and render harmless the corresponding waste. With this information it is possible to estimate how much of the earth or how MANY planet Earths it would take to support humanity if everybody lived according to the calculated lifestyle.

There are many methods of measurement of the ecological footprint, however, calculation standards are developing into becoming more comparable and consistent . I have made a calculation myself which is something i really recommend you to do! It makes you aware of your own impact and efforts towards a more sustainable lifestyle and shows you quick and easy ways to improve the situation that you are in.  I think awareness of your way of life and impact is key into reviving the conciousness and responsability that we, the people on this planet do have.  So please, take your time and watch your step on this website :

http://www.myfootprint.org/

(…and for you curious souls out there who might wonder what results I got: I can honestly say that I got an AWESOME 1,1 planets!….ok ..it´s still over the carrying capacity of one earth so I guess there are still things to improve with my lifestyle…but i´m getting there if it is the last thing I´ll do ( ironic huh? cause it probably will be if we don´t do anything about the problem) )

So I had an idea yeah? Lets play a game ( yeahh! wohoo!).

The game is called :

Easy Things You Can Do To Help Our Climate

…and the rules are simple;  you get 5 awesome points for every “step” you comply to. Participant ( um, that would be around…the entire human population) with most points wins and gets to be a part of the supermegahypercool team of winners!!  Ok so just to put some pressure on you folks i´ll  put my accomplishments within brackets so you will know just how serious of a gamer I am…

1. Travel light. Walk or bike instead of driving a car. Cars and trucks run on fossil fuels, which release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. In the United States, automobiles produce over 20 percent of total carbon emissions. Walk or bike and you´ll save one pound of carbon for every mile you travel. ( DONE. really, not that hard… i don´t have a license ..makes this part real easy. But apart from that I walk to school every morning , takes me some 45 min or so plus I bike when I´m in a hurry to get somewhere. I can honestly say that i do not ride in a car very often. SCORE)
2. See the light. Use compact fluorescent light bulbs. These energy-efficient bulbs help fight climate change because they reduce the amount of fossil fuels that utilities burn. You will save 100 pounds of carbon for each incandescent bulb that you replace with a compact fluorescent, over the life of the bulb. ( we are changing our lightbulbs to energy-efficient ones as the old ones cool off here at home. LED-ones are recommended, they don´t contain any quicksilver)
3. Recycle and use recycled products. Products made from recycled paper, glass, metal and plastic reduce carbon emissions because they use less energy to manufacture than products made from completely new materials. For instance, you´ll save two pounds of carbon for every 20 glass bottles that you recycle. Recycling paper also saves trees and lets them continue to reduce climate change naturally as they remain in the forest, where they remove carbon from the atmosphere.( we recycle : paper, cardboard boxes, metal tins/caps/tubes/whathaveyou, plastic, glass, electronics, batteries, clothes, organic…what else is recycable? what ends up in our garbage then? hmm wierd)
4. Inflate your tires. If you own a car, it will get better gas mileage when the tires are fully inflated, so it will burn less gas and emit less carbon. Check your automobile monthly to ensure that the tires are fully inflated. Follow this tip and save 300 pounds of carbon dioxide for every 10,000 miles you drive.( no car! wohoo!! score!…but I guess I could still make my parents check theirs…but i´m still claiming my point for this one!)
5. Plant native trees. Trees absorb carbon dioxide from the air and use it as their energy source, producing oxygen for us to breathe. A tree in the temperate zone found between the tropics and the polar circles can remove and store 700 to 7,000 pounds of carbon over its lifetime. A tree that shades a house can reduce the energy required to run the air conditioner and save an additional 200 to 2,000 pounds of carbon over its lifetime.( aah, ok, i have a tree…but it´s not native. Fail!… I still think it´s worth half a point though! I mean, it´s a mangotree, I´ll just bring it with me abroad and plant it somewhere where it´s native)
6. Turn down the heat. Heating and air conditioning draw more than half of the energy that a home uses in the United States. Turn down the heat or air conditioning when you leave the house or go to bed. You can easily install a programmable thermostat that can save up money and carbon. ( you need an extra 2 sweaters when you enter our house. yeah that ritual where you take your coat off in the hall? just skip that.)
7. Buy renewable energy. Electricity generation produces 40 percent of carbon emissions from the United States. A growing number of utilities generate electricity from renewable energy sources with solar panels, windmills and other technologies. If your utility offers renewable energy, buy it. If not, send them a message asking for clean energy. ( I will get back to you on this one)
8. Act globally, eat locally. If you shop at a supermarket, the food you buy may travel in a plane from the other side of the world, burning fossil fuels the entire trip. Shop at a local farmers markets and you will find fresh and healthy food, and help save our climate. ( we definately buy as local and organic as we can, my mum rocks….i´m still having this point though eeh)

We are supposed to be like…smiling, cheering and explode with pride over the ability of our oh-so mighty worldleaders…or something.

Ha. I kind of wish I could laugh about it. But I rather not since this is highly serious and we should think of it as a “step in the right direction”.

To be honest though, it doesn´t matter how many tiny steps you take in “the right direction”, if you move like a bloody  snail you will still miss the bus. Sucker!

Anyway, here´s what they all cheering about:

The industrialized countries all have to state concrete goals when it comes to reducing greenhousegas emissions up to the year 2020.

UN have set their goals at a reduction of 20%  during the period 1990-2020. Pretty good,we´re getting there…

The United States of America have set their target at a 17% decrease for the period between 2005-2020…..

What? Like serioulsly? What is that?  That is a measure corresponding to something like if all the cows in the states would stop farting…or all the hairsaloons would stop using hairspray. If all the people would start recycling their starbuckscups they would accomplish a better reduction than the one they have committed to now. A decrease of 17% related to the year 2005 is unambitious and lame and only to make numbers and statistics look good, but i´m not buying it mates. In fact, I´d throw the deal back up if I could. Right, sorry, lets not get repulsive.

Why is it that one of the top consuming/emitting countries in the world makes the lamest effort? I get the fact that the United States have one of the toughtest roads to walk down, basically the whole social structure needs a makeover. Cities need public transport, schools need environmental education, communities need recycling possibilities and encouragement to do so, and renewable energy sources. The list is a lot longer than that, but you get the idea, yeah?     Well, i don´t see why more preassure is put upon the USA when they have such a long walk to go, i mean, isn´t it better to get started and get things going….NOW? We don´t postpone our doomsday and we´re kinda running short on time here…

Ok, I´m going to try not to exaggerate on here, sometimes I tend to do so because I like  the dramatic effect, but i understand that i loose some credibility after a while.

Hate to bring you the bad news though, -this planet is dying.                              Some suffocating carbon emissions and contaminated water to go with that?

Ok so I´ll shut up about the States now. Moving on, there´s more to whine about.

The parts in this fantastic play called ” Global Warming” are not all played by the industrialized countries with cable TV. The developing countries have agreed on “stating what measures they are going to take “in order to tackle climate change. nice hey…

-GAaah…ok, I need to get some fresh air.

-Oh right, there isn´t any!  Oh happy day.

Ok, I´m just going to go to bed instead. I´ll get to deal with China tomorrow.

永別了，睡眠好 / Mika

Maybe some of you have already seen it, it´s called Food Inc.  and it is basically about…food.

Ok, it´s not a Jamie Oliver The Movie …sorry for any crushed hearts there. But why would I watch something like that and talk about it here? Ok, really, I enjoy cooking and I think it´s fun, but Food inc. is not a cookingclass… not how you would expect it to be anyway.

As I´ve already stressed in one of my previous posts, the food choices that we make are of much greater importance than we might be aware of. We, you, him, and I are in control in a much more powerful way than I think many of us dare to believe.

Many times have I had conversations with people about what can be done to improve the world we live in today, what we as ordinary individuals are able to accomplish in day to day life. And many times have I gotten the responce that ” …in the end it won´t matter, why would it matter when I know that the chinese industries are not doing anything to limit their emissions? or when I know that the American way of life doesn´t go anywhere without at least one car per person, what difference would it make if I decide to recycle my plastic or not? please…”

Right, so i´m not going to claim that you by recycling your plastic will save the planet. Simply because that would be a lie. And lying will not give you extra charmapoints. ( recycling your plastic however, might do…but thats not the point)

I´m going to tell you another truth instead. I know that my intense arguments with people about sustainable development probably won´t turn them into eco-freaks hunting down corporate leaders on the streets and take them hostage until they agree on making their business go green. Naah, that would have been kind of funny, but it´s not very likely. But if I can make ONE person at least reconsider his or hers daily choices in life, if I can make people THINK about what they are doing and how it is effecting them and everyone else around them, then that would be more than I could ever ask for.

…No, wait, that IS what I ask for.Oops,  how silly of me.

THINK PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, so they chinese don´t recycle, fine , the spanish don´t either, yeah, well I know the americans don´t want to give up their cars and sure, not everyone believes in climate change.    So? I´m still going to recycle my paper, plastic,metal, electronics, clothes, organic stuff and tell everyone I know to do the same. Why? Because I can and because I believe I make a difference. I know I make a difference, but maybe not one that you can see from outer space or read about in the newspapers.

But that little kid watching me returning all that empty glass migth see me, and think. The cashier at the store might think about her own choice of food after I have asked her for the organic eggs. The men and women looking out the window from their cars in the morningrush might think when they see me walk to school.

If more people would just think we could come a long way.

If you have time , which I know you all do at one point or another, you should have a look at this movie, it´s good, and it will probably make you …think.

http://www.cinemahaven.com/2009/11/18/food-inc/

…around 00:45:00 min you will get to hear some of the things I wrote about in the previous post. If you actually don´t want to watch the entire movie ( you suck) I´d suggest that you watch it from there because it is in the end where all the inspiring things are brought up:)

Ok people, peace out, sweet dreams and Bon Apetit

I´m out / M

Green City, Stockholm Sweden CHECK IT OUT

As a lot of people already know, going green on the chewy side of life is a GREAT way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions on this planet. In fact, it is one of the most effective ways to quickly and easily change your way of life into a earthfriendly one.

In 2006 U.N Food and Agriculture Organization reported that a total of 18% of the man-made greengas emissions come from livestock, that is MEAT.

EIGHTEEN percent!! That is more than what´s produced by transport! Now, chances are that  you´re sitting there, reading this and thinking ” Naaaah, not true” . I certainly did. But then I had a look into the facts.

First of all, the worst meat you could choose to eat is cow. This because the fourlegged milkfactory consumes more energy-intensive feed than for example sheep or pigs. They also produce more methane ( they fart ,eww right?) than other animals. And methane, dear climatefriends, is one potent greenhouse gas which is up to 20 times worse than carbon dioxide for global warming.

Well, so yeah, drop the beef alright? …

You might as well drop the bacon and mutton too, i´m not done yet.

99% of U.S cattle spend their short lives on feedlots where they are fed with mainly corn and soybeans. In order to provide all the animals with enough grains, millions of acres of grassland and forests are  turned into cropland for livestock feed. To get the best possible growth the farmers use fertilizers and pesticides which are usually fossilfuel based…and then, once you have your grain, you need to transport it to the farms.       Right, so you got your emissions right there.

Ok, so this is what I suggest: Have a steak.     No, really, please do!

As long as you can make sure it´s meat from a grassfed animal that has lived about 2 happy years on a pasture( the age of a cow brought up on a feedlot is around 14 months).  The reason I want you to keep meat on your table is this: eating grassfed beef can help save the climate.

I´ll explain. Grassfed animals are kept on pastures( bete) during their entire lifespan, rotating amongst different ones to prevent overgrazing the land. Since all they eat is grass, there will be no need for any cultivated grains or other additional alimentation. Already at this stage, you can cut out all the emissions caused by fertilizers and transportation mentioned earlier! And even if it is true that beef fed on grass produce more methane than beef fed on grains ( you know what high-fiber plants does to you..ehm) their net emissions are lower because they help the soil sequester carbon (dvs. korna hjälper till att binda koldioxiden nere i jorden). They do this by eating the grass, subsequently poop and by trampling around they help working  the manure (gödsel) and other organic material into the soil, turning it into rich humus. TA DAA The land will now be an awesome spot for grass and other vegetation to set their roots and this too is great because it helps retaining water and nutrients, fighting desertation and malnutritioned soil. Hence all of this the grassfed cow is not only carbon neutral, it can even be carbon negative! The healthy soil keeps the carbon dioxide underground and out of the atmosphere.

It´s really just about putting the cow where it belongs i.e. on grass. See? Do yourself, the world AND the cow a favour and be picky about your burger.

Oh and hang on, I´ve got even more positive effects from happy-method  to mention, but it´s late and I need sleep to function somewhat properly, so i´m just going to settle for this one : grassfed meat is lower in saturated fat and higher in omega-3 fats than conventional meat… marvellous.

(I know it´s a bird and has nothing to do with the post, i´m just tired of cows by now)