Weekly Linkfest – Edition 10

Welcome to round ten of our Weekly Linkfest, where we share the good, the bad, the ugly and the just plain interesting from what we’ve seen this week.

I would greatly appreciate readers getting involved in this weekly linkfest. Please email editor (at) permaculturenews.org with links (and ideally a summary sentence outlining the key point of each link) to noteworthy articles and news reports on the internet.

A big thank you to Øyvind and Nick for their contributions to this week’s linkfest!

Off we go:

Good News (coz we all need it):

• In a rare move, logging giant Gunns has broken ranks with Forestry Tasmania and conceded it’s time to stop logging native Tasmanian forests after a decade long battle with environmentalists. A spokesperson said most Australians didn’t support old growth logging anymore and it would move to plantation timber.
• Prince Charles hosts a green garden party in an attempt to get people started on the path to sustainability.
• This one isn’t new but there’s always room for some well placed Monsanto bashing. This article is about Haitian farmers commitment to burning the 60,000 seed sacks ‘donated’ by Monsanto. Very good to hear that the offering has been seen as an attack on small farmers who would be reliant on purchasing chemicals, fertilisers and new seeds next year.
• These 50 green pioneers only scratch at the surface of those whose work is not yet widely known. Who else should we be celebrating?
• A window glass that could save 100 million birds every year: Working on the principle that birds possess the ability to see light in the ultraviolet spectrum, the company’s Ornilux Bird-Protection Glass borrows a trick from orb-web spiders that protect their laboriously woven webs from birds flying through them with a special UV-reflecting silk. Recognizing this, the company developed the glass with a patterned UV reflective coating that makes it visible to birds while maintaining transparency to the human eye.
• European Investment Bank abandons Ethiopia mega dam.
• The world’s largest wave energy hub now installed in the UK.
• New Nanotech Purifier Filters Water 80,000 Times Faster.
• A quite amazing flax-based bike!!
• PUMA Debuts Mopion Commuter Bike With a Serious Cargo Hold.
• Concept Bike Would Adjust as Kids Grow.

Bad News (coz we need to understand the challenges if we’re to design our way out of them):

• A quest to get Barack Obama to shout his commitment to solar power from the roof tops – by re-installing vintage solar panels installed by President Carter at the White House in 1979 – has ended in disappointment for environmental campaigners with Obama saying ‘no’.
• Brazil: New Forestry Code = The Right to Deforestation?
• The bottled water industry, fighting back against accusations that they are a significant contributor to environmental degradation, has released this magical video of glorious greenwashing. Perhaps the best part of Bottled Water Matters is its hilariously low-life, faux girl reporter YouTube videos. With bad lighting, amateur editing, and overall low production value, you can’t help but wonder if this is a well-funded industry’s attempt to make these videos look like they spring from grassroots sincerity when, in reality, Big Water is footing the bill.
  In the latest video, Bottled Water Matters Girl takes a decidedly activist stance, urging us to join the movement and fight the people who want to take away our choice to buy bottled water. She uses catchphrases such as bottled water is "part of a healthy lifestyle," and encourages people to "speak up" to their legislators to make sure bottled water is always available. What a joke.
• More evidence that oil in the Gulf of Mexico is going to be with us for at least a couple more years.
• And in case there wasn’t enough oil waste damaging the coast it seems BP is also dumping toxic oil waste in landfill under a federal exemption in the US.
• Canada helping the world access ‘climate killer’ oil sands.
• All about Australia’s scarce water heading down the road of privatisation, being hawked to Asia, Europe and North America.
• Farmers’ apocalypse: the globalisation of food supply. Rural voters who elected Australia’s independent politicians will surely be hoping they can get food onto the national agenda. The issue of human traffic may remain an election staple, but it is the movement of food around the world that is destroying the livelihoods of farmers in Australia and overseas.

Just plain interesting or odd (coz we’re curious creatures):

• A TV campaign has been launched calling for a proper investigation into the collapse of Building 7 on September 11 2001. Behind the campaign is a group of 1286 independent, verified architects and engineers claiming the building could not have gone into free-fall collapse the way it did without all 24 interior and 58 exterior support columns being removed simultaneously within a fraction of a second – which can only be done with carefully placed explosives.
• A Pakistani Rock Star has declared "rock and roll jihad" against the "ideology of hate."
• A wikipedia entry about the only man in history recorded to be both a dwarf and a giant. Bizarre.
• Cockroach Brains, Coming to a Pharmacy Near You.

Don’t forget to send me your links for next week’s linkfest!! – editor (at) permaculturenews.org