Headphones Not Required

mohandasgandhi:

I almost forgot….

Yes, tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. Neat.  But bigger things are happening.  Iran’s green opposition is holding a protest tomorrow despite a government ban.  Does anyone remember June 2009? 

Ardeshir Amir-Arjomand, a spokesman for the former presidential candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, accused the government of hypocrisy in voicing support for protest in Egypt and Tunisia while refusing to allow a peaceful demonstration at home.

“Our dictators in Tehran are ruling the country with terror and panic,” he said. “They are afraid of their own people. They only sanction whatever pleases themselves, and disapprove of anything that is not under their surveillance. The call for renewed street protest in Iran is a clear sign that the green movement is still alive, and that’s why they’re afraid of it.”

…

Amir-Arjomand said Mousavi and Karroubi were cut off from their supporters. “Both leaders of the green movement have been facing extreme restrictions since Saturday. They don’t have any communication with the outside world.”

But he said this only served to demonstrate the regime’s fear. “If they think the green movement is dead, they should give them a chance to appear in streets and by then they’ll see how alive and active the movement is actually is.”

A co-ordination council has been formed, Amir-Arjomand said, which aimed to create a united voice for the movement’s leaders and activists.

Remember how nasty Mubarak was?  He doesn’t hold a candle to Ahmadinejad or Khamenei, who execute someone every 8 hours.  This could be huge.

The latest installment of Greenpeace’s Guide to Greener Electronics has arrived, and Apple probably isn’t too happy—after climbing in the rankings in past editions, the electronics maker dropped from fifth to ninth place. HP, on the other hand, clawed its way up from eighth to fourth place. What happened?

Apple has performed well on the toxic chemicals front, with all products now free of free of PVC vinyl plastic and brominated flame retardants (BFRs). But the company lost major points for its secrecy about future toxic chemical phase-out plans, as well as its chemical management and minimal supply chain communications. It’s not that Apple did anything so wrong this time around—it was just overtaken by other companies that performed better.

HP, for example. scored well for its new line of PVC and BFR-free products, its commitment to phase out beryllium and compounds by July 2011, and its recent launch of the first PVC-free printer.

Both Apple and HP are practically environmental heroes compared to the biggest loser on Greenpeace’s list. Nintendo comes in last place due to its lack of e-waste criteria, yearly increases in greenhouse gas emissions, and lack of a timeline for PVC phase-out.

All the companies in Greenpeace’s rankings could take a lesson from Nokia, which scored first place once again. All of the company’s new products have been PVC-free since the end of 2005, and all new 2010 models of cell phones and accessories are free of brominated compounds, chlorinated flame retardants and antimony trioxide. Now if only that sold phones.

The world is a beautiful place.

ladimcbeth: tanya77: kateoplis:

Getting it Right: What is Brad Pitt Really Doing for New Orleans?

“One of the architects we’ve worked with a lot, Bill McDonough, always says that design is the first signal of human intention,” says Tom Darden, the executive director of the Make It Right foundation, which has been working to rebuild part of the Lower Ninth Ward neighborhood since 2007. “If you extrapolate that statement to New Orleans, what were we intending when we were building ranch-style slab-on-grade houses that were not elevated at all? That were below sea level? That were supposedly protected by man-made levees? Those houses had no chance of being protected.”

The people at Make It Right, the organization founded by the architecture enthusiast Brad Pitt, have slowly been constructing a design solution to that original design problem. With the right kind of housing plans, they figure, you can design your way out of low-lying floodplains, out of 130-mile-an-hour winds, out of humidity, high heat, and higher electric bills.

Their vision is more ambitious than those of the other nonprofit organizations and government agencies that came to town after Katrina. Most were hoping to shelter homeless families; Make It Right wants to model a new paradigm of sustainable low-income homeownership. Now, amid the emptiness, it is raising single-family homes on concrete stilts—angular buildings in bright colors with solar panels up top and rainwater collecting below. By the end of the summer, there will be 40 of these homes, sold for about $150,000 each, with another 20 under construction, a small first step in a neighborhood with thousands of empty lots.

If you haven’t yet, check out Make It Right and watch their introduction video. They’re doing a really amazing thing.