Toolsmith’s Recent Comments

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  Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF)

  SELF is my favorite for personal carbon offsets (http://www.self.org/).  A microfinince organization that provides tiny loans for villagers to replace lung-damaging kerosine lamps with solar, SELF not only lets you offset your carbon but lets you save kids from respiratory illnesses.  And the carbon is permanently offset (unlike plans that plant trees, where the carbon is released when the tree dies and decomposes).

  SELF has a Carbon Neutral Club with links to carbon calculators.On A guide to offsetting your carbon emissions posted 3 years, 1 month ago 7 Responses

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  Wal-Mart Sustainable Fish - Greenwash or not?

  I am excited by Wal-Mart's plans for their wild-caught and frozen fish to be 100% sustainable.  

  However, this skirts the issue of farmed Chilean salmon, which is delivered fresh.  There's a long section in the book "The Wal-Mart Effect", available from Salon at http://www.salon.com/tech/books/2006/01/23/walmart_effect/index.html, that goes into the details - but briefly, 65% or farmed salmon sold in the US comes from Chile.  1/3 or so is sold by Wal-Mart, so Wal-Mart is able to control conditions in Chile under which salmon is raised.  So far, low cost has been the overweening factor, although that might be changing.  Farmed salmon is now Chile's second largest export.  Conditions for factory workers, and the ecological impact of salmon farming, are not high enough on anybody's list.  So Wal-Mart has some room left to go where fish and sustainability are concerned.On A sampling from the 2006 Seafood Summit posted 3 years, 9 months ago 1 Response

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  Supply exceeded before peak? Hmmm......

  Sure we're gonna run out.  The graphs I've always seen show demand exceeding supply when supply was already dwindling.  With India's and (especially!) China's appetites expanding exponentially, could it be that demand will exceed supply before supply peaks?  If even by a few years, it could make all the difference.  Prices will skyrocket, but supplies will only sloooowly decline, rather than seriously crash.  We might actually have enough time to do something about it.On Black gold, Texas tea posted 4 years, 8 months ago 2 Responses