GreenerPolitics

“As the Tree grows, the river flows
and life continues to thrive….” -Debra J. Stiles

by Arden Bonokovski

So Mark asked me if I knew anything about how the wonderful willow is able to clean up so many of our messes in nature….

Here is what I have found out. Willows are an excellent candidate for this work as they have deeper root systems that the typical grassy plants used in eco-restoration, so they are able to detoxify much deeper soil than the typical species. Willows are able to do so because they are resistant to heavy metals such as cadmium, copper, zinc, nickel, lead and iron. They are also desirable candidates as the vastness of the genus means that different species of willow are native to most continents, making it easy to find a species of willow suitable for any area. So far it is known that willows are able to detoxify environments in four ways: phytoremediation, phytodegradation, phytostabilization, and rhizofiltration.

Phytoremediation is the extraction of heavy metals from soil through the uptake of the toxin by the roots of the willow followed by the translocation of the toxin to the above ground organs of the plant. The high biomass of a willow tree or shrub allows for a large uptake of the heavy metals.

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By Showwei Chu, CBC News

Janna Levitt and her husband had no idea that more than 2,000 people would walk through their door when they listed their environmentally friendly house in this year’s Doors Open Toronto, a popular free tour of landmark buildings and cultural spaces.

But that’s how many came to see and hear first-hand the benefits of owning a green roof, a traditional flat roof that incorporates vegetation.

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From Stuff - New Zealand

The Green Party is calling on Woolworths to reveal whether an inhouse brand of “sustainable” tissues they sell are in fact made from illegally felled Indonesian rainforests.

Reports from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in recent days have thrown doubt on the “sustainable forest fibre” tag carried on the “Select” branded tissues, sold in Australia and New Zealand.

The ABC reported the paper products were sourced from Asia Pulp and Paper in Indonesia and recent reports indicated the company had been clearing rainforests.

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16 August 2007 - Today’s Senate Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport majority report into water supply options for South East Queensland produced recommendations that don’t go far enough, with only the additional comments by Greens Senator Rachel Siewert applying the evidence before the Inquiry and recommending that the Traveston Dam be scrapped.

“The Senate inquiry was presented with overwhelming evidence that Traveston Dam is a high-cost, high-risk approach to South East Queensland’s water supply, which will not ease the current drought” said Australian Greens lead Senate candidate for Queensland, Larissa Waters.

“Yet the majority report and the additional comments by other Senators all stopped short of calling for the dam to be scrapped. Greens Senator Rachel Siewert made a call on the evidence and recommended that Traveston Dam should be stopped.

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William McDonough, the author of the book, Cradle to Cradle, challenges us to create the sustainable economy.  These two clips from the video ‘The Next Industrial Revolution’ hold the keys to our future: positive, hopeful, creative and challenging.

This first video is a taste of the the thesis of the the longer video, which is 45 minutes long. The thesis of this video is the fundamental thesis of creating a sustainable society: how do we love all the children of all species for all time,