iPic Theaters

How to get involved?

Create a short film on the theme of Earth Preservation with a timeline of two to six minutes. Submissions will be accepted from Jan 7th,2012 – Feb 10th,2012. Results will be published on Earth Day, April 22nd 2012. Time is running out as the deadline approaches. To know more about the event go over to the facebook event here.

*All applicants must be 21 years or older

When going green started out couple of years back, businesses were very reluctant not to go towards that. There was a myth that going green was a waste of money and just a business-killer. However over time becoming more environmental-friendly became an investment to companies in the long run.

 I worked on some technical aspects on green investments for businesses/industries in Dhaka and found certain things why it’s worth it

When it came to energy auditing, generally the entire energy flow would be mapped. Then after mapping that, you know where you are losing extra energy. So if you plug that portion of energy down, you save energy. So what’s the benefit of saving energy? Firstly you spend less fuel (with fuel prices increasing, you would be definitely glad if fuel was saved), you save electricity are just some places where you save. However the strongest motivation is money, and trust me you save a lot of money. For businesses

Saving Money    =    Profits.

Anyways I got an article from The Economist on as to why firms go green.

Link courtesy Julika Niehaus- Global Campaign Manager at 10:10

Its actually simple! By following household efficiency and conserving energy it will take you a long way ahead in savings. They have also launched a book to give you tips on how to manage and be efficient. You can grab a copy at Amazon. Anyways to get a starter kit head down to their    website .

Adding to that, just a few days before the bid to freeze assets was made, Chevron was hit with one more nail in the coffin. An Ecuadorean appeal court upheld the $18 billion judgement over the oil damage in the county’s Amazon region. If the fraud lawsuit against the Ecuadorian plaintiffs fails, the oil giant has just one more option left, and that’s to make an appeal to Ecuador’s Supreme Court.

What caused the pollution?

The exact circumstances of the pollution in question happened under Texaco, which has been part of Chevron Corporation since 2000. Texaco developed and operated the Lago Agrio oil field in the country from 1972 up until 1993, and during that time it is alleged that they did not dispose of industrial waste safely. It has been claimed that Texaco released up to 18 billion gallons of produced water into the Amazon rainforest, leaving a toxic trail that damaged vegetation, killed wildlife, and caused a variety of sicknesses in the local indigenous population. An environmental audit of the area pressured Texaco and Petroecuador, the two companies that extracted oil from the Lago Agrio oil field, to fund a $40 million remediation program from 1990 onwards. In 1998 a scientific team took water and soil samples only to find that around half of the samples analysed still had unsafe levels of petroleum hydrocarbon in them.

Action taken against Chevron 

After years and years of campaigning, the Ecuadorian people finally managed to bring a case against Chevron in 2003. 30,000 Ecuadorean people were responsible for creating enough pressure and finding enough money to take on the multi-national corporation, and it paid off 8 years later. On the 15^th of February 2011, an Ecuadorian court fined the oil company $8.6 billion for polluting the Amazon rainforest and the consequences of the damage. It was claimed during the lawsuit that local cancer rates increased, and crops and livestock were lost to the pollution.

The penalty rose to $9.5 billion dollars once an additional 10 per cent for reparations was included, but the total sum requested by Ecuadorian plaintiffs ended up being $27 billion. The court granted $18 billion, and the result of the case set a precedent, because it was the first instance of indigenous people suing a multinational corporation in a court located within the country the pollution actually happened in. Environmental activists celebrated and saw it as a start to charges being brought against other companies that pollute developing countries without punishment.

Chevron fights back 

Chevron has opposed the fine since it was imposed, and filed a lawsuit against the Ecuadorian plaintiffs for fraud. The corporation believes that they have cleaned up their part of the damage to the rainforest, and they are being charged too much for the damages that have been claimed against them. Chevron has claimed that fraud and corruption have been used by the Ecuadorian plaintiffs, and the racketeering lawsuit they filed in New York in 2011 has yet to be decided.

This is not the first time that Chevron has been accused of illegal pollution, and they have even broken laws in America concerning pollution, namely the Clean Air Act. Other notable incidents were the 2002 oils spills in Angola that resulted in a claim for $2 million by the government of Angola for the damage. Only last year Chevron were prohibited from activities in Brazil after over 400,000 litres of oil were leaked into the ocean off the coast of Rio de Janeiro. The legal action that is being brought against Chevron in the Brazil case is demanding that $10.6 billion is paid in damages.

The controversy over Chevrons actions in Ecuador and whether they have been treated unfairly has been debated many times, but perhaps this new ruling is the beginning of the end to the case. What is certain is that no amount of money can turn the clock back and make good the damage done to the Amazonian rainforest.

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This is a guest post.

Olivia Lennox is a green freelancer from London. Normally she’ll be extolling the virtues of tempurpedic products or the latest organic soaps, but she has her finger on the pulse of international environmental law too.

Firstly I have moved back to my domain again, BDPollution , and will shift to that completely soon. I am going through a transition period where I will be posting duplicate posts one on Blogger and on BDPollution. Eventually once work on BDPollution is complete and is stable, I will probably close down Blogger.

Secondly when I began this blog I considered the international viewer ship, although over time, I have been meaning to consider local news and now that I now broadening my horizon, So I will be having a dedicated section on Bangladesh, which will be covering on Bangladesh’s environmental issues.

So hopefully have a lot of things to do and now back to regular posting..

For rich countries, climate change sure does not seem like a big issue considering the current economic crises, and I understand that but for LDCs its a major dilemma. Least to say that they are the worst affected; such countries are stranded in the middle of a ping-pong court, just bouncing from one side to another. Hence I come to the point that reminded of a personal experience that I had recently.
I live in a supposedly posh area in Dhaka, and in such an area it is expected to get continuous water, electricity and gas supply or just to say the basic utilities. I never had complains about any of these issues unlike places in Dhaka where you would to wait in line to get water from the water authority.

So I was having this water shortage at my place and I remember that every time I would wake up from sleep to head to office, I knew if i was lucky that I could get a nice proper shower but that was not the case. I remember when I switched on the tap, it was clear only drops of water would fall, so I would quickly find a bucket to save as much as I could. From whatever water I saved, I would brush my teeth and manage to have a shower.

When I would get back from office, I could not even wash my hands, since there was no water. It became more than a necessity to me than anything, and not for lavish purpose of taking a nice long bath, but doing the basic things, like brushing your teeth, having a shower, washing your clothes, all of these things. Later eventually we bought water bottles, so that we could at least manage the basic necessities. It then popped in my head that buying water was cheap in Dhaka, hardly less than a dollar, if I consider a 5 liter water bottle. I know abroad that water is expensive.
For Bangladesh, water crisis is a norm, where a majority of people are used to it. Although not many rich countries are accustomed to such situations, with the effects of climate change, things will change.

So I started to imagine that the water shortage I had in a week, not having enough water to do the basic necessities will become a usual activity in the future. Water will become an expensive commodity and the people rich enough will have money to buy whereas for those who are poor would not be able to afford it. It might begin first with water territory issues then slowly will lead to war and so many more issues, and water is just of many problems we will face with climate change.

Hence with all of this disappointment and rabbles going on inside my head, I came to a realize that I almost gave up on the fight for climate change and with such outcomes at COP17 just made it clear that, the fight must go on and should never give up…

On Oct. 4, 2010, in recognition of World Habitat Day, Habitat for Humanity will raise awareness of the need for improved shelter and highlight Habitat’s priorities: the worldwide connection between human health and housing, and, in the United States, neighborhood revitalization. These themes echo the United Nations’ chosen theme for 2010 for events in the host city of Shanghai, China and the rest of the world: “Better City, Better Life.”

Every week, more than a million people are born in, or move to, cities in the developing world. As a result, the urban population of developing countries will double from 2 billion to 4 billion in the next 30 years. (Kissick, et al: 2006)

By the year 2030, an additional 3 billion people, about 40 percent of the world’s population, will need access to housing. This translates into a demand for 96,150 new affordable units every day and 4,000 every hour. (UN-HABITAT: 2005)

Habitat for Humanity hopes that by raising awareness and advocating for universal decent housing we can dismantle and alter the systems that allow for poverty housing and make an affordable, decent place to live a reality for all.

Habitat for Humanity World Habitat Day events

Around the world, many Habitat for Humanity local offices have organized World Habitat Day events. Habitat for Humanity’s 27th annual Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Work Project is a World Habitat Day event this year. It will be held Oct. 4 – 8 in six cities in the United States. Held in a different location each year, Habitat’s Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project is an annual, internationally-recognized week of building that brings attention to the need for simple, decent and affordable housing. This year, the Carters will work alongside volunteers in Washington, D.C.; Baltimore and Annapolis, Md.; Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn.; and Birmingham, Ala. to build, rehabilitate and improve 86 homes.

As UK leads one of the largest coordinated global event 10:10:10, the Global day of Doing, this news sounds great. UK embraces renewable energy to a whole new level.

Details, basically this wind farm is one of the world’s largest offshore wind farm situated off the Thanet in Kent. The project was at a cost of £780m ,and is expected to generate enough electricity to power 240,000 homes.

Read more about it.

Its great to hear that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has endorsed 10/10/10, the Global Day of Doing. As he quotes

“It’s time for us to roll up our sleeves and get to work on building the clean energy future that will generate economic opportunity and provide a better, safer, healthier world for our children. On October 10, I encourage everyone to do his / her part to be part of the solution to the climate challenge.”

He further said

“It’s time to roll up our sleeves.” Let’s get to work pulling in those 35 remaining countries and signing up even more work parties for 10/10/10. Together, we’ll show our nations what unity is all about.

Why the rest 35 countries? Apparently in 350.org website, 25 countries are still not active about 350 as in no activities relating to 350 have taken place. If they did last year, probably not this year. Just before posting this article, I was going through the list of the countries at 350.org website.

Read more about it.