by: Lindsay E. Brown
Debate Debrief: No Mention of Climate Change
If you tuned into tonight’s presidential debate, you may have noticed the complete lack of attention paid to climate change. Here’s a tweet from Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org which sums it up well:
Over 160,000 signatures were delivered to moderator Jim Lehrer urging him to ask the candidates about their plans to deal with climate change. The National Wildlife Federation and eight partner organizations, including League of Conservation Voters, the Climate Reality Project, and Moms Clean Air Force signed the petitions. Despite these efforts, climate change was ignored entirely.
EWG’s Guide to Healthy Cleaning
EWG recently came out with a new report which will make finding healthy cleaning products much easier for you. The new guide offers practical solutions and easy-to-navigate safety ratings to protect you and your family from dangerous chemicals found in too many household cleaning products. The fact that the U.S. allows manufacturers of cleaning products to use almost any product they wish, makes the EWG Guide to Healthy cleaning so important.
At the Clinton Global Initiative Last Week
Politicians, innovative social entrepreneurs, NGO leaders, and CEOs, convene annually at CGI to discuss their commitments to ensuring people’s human rights, and bettering communities and the health of the planet and its inhabitants.
A plenary session titled “The Future of Food” (panelists pictured above) was particularly fascinating to me as it’s an important subject both for the developed and the developing world. Agriculture accounts for 70 percent of the world’s use of scarce water supplies, and deforestation for food generates more greenhouse gases than all forms of transportation. One-third of the food generated for human consumption continues to be lost or wasted.
Later on in the day, President Obama delivered a powerful and thought-provoking speech on modern-day slavery. Obama made a commitment to not only aggressively tackle slavery in remote corners of the developing world, but here in this country as well. “Modern slavery is barbaric and evil and has no place in a civilized world,” said President Obama. ”There are more than 20 million victims of human trafficking in this world.”
President Obama also said how important it is for us to be conscious about the clothes we wear, and the food we buy.
Green Carpet: The 22nd Annual Environmental Media Awards Sponsored by Lexus
The episode with Captain Planet on Real Housewives of Atlanta was nominated in the category “Reality Television” at the Environmental Media Awards! Even though it didn’t win, Laura enjoyed an incredible, star-studded evening. Find out who Laura bumped into!
New Kids Website Helps Them Get Creative
A redesigned Design Squad Nation encourages kids’ interest in engineering without them really knowing. The site includes games, videos, and lots of how-to advice that MNN says “fosters the spirit of invention.” You can check out the site here and urge your kids to get involved.
Have a tip you’d like us to include in our next roundup? Tweet @LauraSeydel and @LindsEBrown using hashtag #EcoRoundup
Photo Credit: Lindsay E. Brown
