Sweet Sea Lions

It's video week on the blog, huh?! These Galapagos sea lions are currently on the list of threatened species. Traditionally, wildlife experts have observed them breeding and living on the islands near Equador but since ocean temperatures in Peruvian waters have increased 11 degrees over the past decade, the sea lions have begun setting up colonies outside of their native island chain. Hopefully their new home is also off the beaten path of traffickers and those awful people responsible for the January 2008 massacre. Read more here.

Domestic Transformer

Check out this incredible use of space in a tiny Hong Kong apartment. Very green. Very cool.

Go Tigers!

Just learned that my alma mater Towson University made The Princeton Review's Guide to Green Colleges, for having demonstrated an above-average commitment to sustainability in terms of campus infrastructure, activities and initiatives. Eight colleges in Maryland made it into the list of 286. Learn more about the Green Campus Campaign here and check out the Guide to see if your own institute of higher education made the cut.

The smallest carbon hoof-print in the world?

Okay, okay. That's reaching. No relevant reason to post this video. Just a seriously adorable little horse.



And here's some press coverage of the little fella:

Santa Clara bans toys in Happy Meals

When I was little, the Happy Meal toy was a magnificant, sought-after prize received on a special occasion in a folding box with some food my mom told me I had to eat before I could play with it. I can still remember my favorites: Fraggle Rock Friends, Transformer Chicken McNuggets Box, and those Garden Tools. Of course at that time a trip to McDonalds was treated as, well, a special treat. The McDonald's in our 'hood actually bordered a farm so we also got some farm animal visiting time. Today, it's hard to find a town in America without a bumper-to-bumper drive-thru line and dedicated traffic lights for fast food restaurants. In fact, you can't go more than 107 miles without finding one. But come on, Santa Clara. Beanie Baby craze aside, is it really because of the toys?

Could it possibly be because of... say... the super-low prices? artificial flavor induced cravings? convenience? Is eliminating the toy the solution or simply treatment for one symptom? The LA Times reports:

"...Happy Meal toys and other promotions that come with high-calorie children's meals will soon be banned in parts of Santa Clara County unless the restaurants meet nutritional guidelines approved Tuesday by the county Board of Supervisors. "This ordinance prevents restaurants from preying on children's' love of toys" to sell high-calorie, unhealthful food, said Supervisor Ken Yeager, who sponsored the measure. "This ordinance breaks the link between unhealthy food and prizes. "Voting against the measure was Supervisor Donald Gage, who said parents should be responsible for their children. "If you can't control a 3-year-old child for a toy, God save you when they get to be teenagers," he said. Gage, who is overweight, said he was a living example of how obese children can become obese adults. But he questioned the role of fast-food toys. "When I was growing up in Gilroy 65 years ago, there were no fast-food restaurants," Gage said.The board, whose jurisdiction extends only to the unincorporated parts of the county, including much of Silicon Valley, voted 3 to 2 in favor of the ban after a contentious meeting that included more than an hour of testimony on both sides. In favor of the item were public health administrators, parents and doctors; opposed were fast-food franchisees, other parents, and fans of fast-food toys who said the promotions are often used to provide Christmas presents for poor children..."

I'm all in favor of food reform but would rather see an emphasis on the real roots of the problem and on a solution as opposed to South Park-style bans. Thoughts?

(Thnx x3, Neeks)

Blue jeans, Black river.

A few weeks ago we highlighted National Geographic's Water Issue and a few particular statistics that took our breath away. One of those was the 2,900 gallons of virtual water needed to produce a single pair of blue jeans. However, I was unaware at the time of that post that there is also an enormous pollution price tag on those jeans.  

The indigo dye used to make our blue jeans blue is also turning China's Pearl River black. A portion of the river adjacent to Xintang's blue jean factories - which produces 200 million pairs of jeans per year including 60 different foreign brands - has indeed turned black. Not to mention the nearby riverbank is piled with denim scraps and garbage.

According to Poisoning the Pearl, a report put out last year by Greenpeace, a fair share of factories may be flagrantly dumping their wastewater into the river. The organization found excessive amounts of heavy metals, organic pollutants and chemicals among the contents of pipes from five different factories, including a textile factory. The following clip that aired just yesterday on CNN sums up the issue in less than three minutes:



Further information and script from the video available here. And a download of Poisoning the Pearl is available here.

Rain can't stop this squirrel picnic

Ugh.

WASARA

The most stylish and sustainable disposable dishware ever. Now available in the U.S. Love it. Find it here.

Too Fat to Fight?

A reader recently alerted me to a new report estimating that 27 percent of all Americans of recruitment age - which is about 9 million young adults - are in fact too fat to fight for their country that prompted Sen. Richard Lugar, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, and a group of retired generals and admirals to warn that America, with 1/3 of our fighting force unfit, is facing a national security crisis.

It's an interesting topic, no? Daniel Engber thought so too and took a deeper look into the Census numbers, requirements for military personnel, school lunches and war times and wrote this great article.

Read it. Let it marinate. And please share your thoughts.