Tag Archives: Peace

Chain for Energy Consumption Awareness

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Mi illumino di meno poster I received the 5 things chain from bonaria. I guess “un gioco e’ bello quando dura poco” (a game is fun if it does not last forever), so I think I better pass a different chain.

Mucio started a chain to spread the “M’illumino di meno” campaign of Caterpillar. The “M’illumino di meno” campaign declared February 26th 2007 as “Energy saving day” (giornata del risparmio energetico). The goal is twofold: become more aware of how much energy we daily use and start with simple (and less simple) acts to reduce our energy consumption. Some simple ideas are in the text of the song/jingle of the campaign. You can download or listen the song from caterueb and read the text (in Italian) at the end of this post.

Mucio didn’t pass the chain to me, but this is a different chain, it is a chain you can pass without waiting for someone to pass it to you or, if you prefer, consider that this post is passing the chain to Everybody. So, don’t wait! Pass it to your friends, now! And there is no limit on the number of friends you pass it to as well. 5? Fine. 9? Good. 15? Better. 100? Perfect!

For people who does not understand Italian, I’d like to mention as well the Climate Change Game made by the BBC that I found yesterday via the glorious WorldChanging. The Climate Change is a Flash game where you are president of the European Nations and you must tackle climate change and stay popular enough with the voters to remain in office.

Ah yes, the last and most important part. I pass this chain to:

  • bonaria (because she passed me the 5 things one I didn’t pass)
  • marcella (she is not blogging but flickring so the challenge is to pass the chain via an artistic photo about energy consumption)
  • marina (because of interesting discussions on her blog)
  • marco (who does not appreciate pointless blogo-chains, let’s see if he appreciates this one)
  • francesca e marco (because they are in US and there is a lot to do there as well about energy consumption)
  • bru (because it is the first one in my blogroll ;-)
  • pandemia (because he cares abour the environment)
  • ingegneria senza frontiere – trento (because it is an association that cares about the environment as well, and i want to check if the blog masters check incoming links ;-)
  • napo (because he says I never link to him ;-)

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World Social Forum 2007 WebTV

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My friends of Ymir are currently in Nairobi (Kenya) operating the WebTV of the World Social Forum 2007. Thanks to their work, it is possible to get an idea of what is going on in Nairobi.
The original idea was to broadcast the entire Forum live but they are having great problems in getting an ASDL connections, even if all the agreements were ready before they left for Nairobi. So at the moment you can watch a lot of recorded interviews. They are still working for getting an ASDL connection or more. And don’t worry, most of the videos are in English and just a few are in Italian. It is a pity they decided to use QuickTime format so that I’m having troubles watching the video on my Ubuntu Linux box but, as I said, they had more basic problems to think about until now such as the connection. So, don’t wait, go to www.worldsocialforum.tv.
[via Trentino Cooperazione]

I watched “Hotel Rwanda” and we can Prevent “Hotel Darfur”

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Yesterday I watched Hotel Rwanda, the movie about the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. I have no words to comment it but you must absolutely watch it. Absolutely. And then, since a genocide is NOW happening in Darfur, we must prevent Hotel Darfour. I don’t want to go to watch “Hotel Darfur” in 10 years time and feel again as I was feeling while watching “Hotel Rwanda”. Hotel Darfour is happening now and we must stop it.

20th anniversary of Bhopal

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3rd December 1984:
Shortly after midnight poison gas leaked from a factory in Bhopal, India, owned by the Union Carbide Corporation. There was no warning, none of the plant’s safety systems were working. In the city people were sleeping. They woke in darkness to the sound of screams with the gases burning their eyes, noses and mouths. They began retching and coughing up froth streaked with blood. Whole neighbourhoods fled in panic, some were trampled, others convulsed and fell dead. People lost control of their bowels and bladders as they ran. Within hours thousands of dead bodies lay in the streets. From bhopal.net.
This is not a story from a book, this is reality. Today it is the 20th anniversary of the Bhopal tragedy. Human greed caused the death of 20,000 people and serious health problems to more than 120,000 people. It is not correct to report only the numbers, each of them was a single different human just like you (try to count them in your mind one by one). Read the book “Five Past Midnight in Bhopal : The Epic Story of the World’s Deadliest Industrial Disaster” by Javier Moro and Dominique Lapierre) and do something (being sad for one second and saying “this is bad”, you know, is probably not enough).

Bophal: 19 years later

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Today, 19 years ago, a world tragedy happened. See The International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal.

On the night of December 2nd-3rd 1984, 27 tons of methyl isocyanate, hydrogen cyanide, mono-methyl amine and other lethal gases began spewing from Union Carbide Corporation’s pesticide factory in Bhopal, India. Severe cost-cutting meant that six safety systems designed to contain a leak were inadequate or inoperational. Nobody outside the factory was warned because the safety siren was turned off. Not until the gas was upon them in their beds, searing their eyes, filling their mouths and lungs, did the communities of Bhopal know of their danger.

Gasping for breath and near blind people stampeded into narrow alleys. In the mayhem children were torn from the hands of their mothers, never to see them again. Some were wracked with seizures and fell under trampling feet. Some, stumbling in a sea of gas, their lungs on fire, were drowned in their own bodily fluids. It was a massacre. Dawn broke over residential streets littered with corpses. In just a few hours numberless innocents had died in fierce pain and unimaginable terror.

Over half a million people were exposed to the deadly cocktail. The gases burned the tissues of the eyes and lungs, crossed into the bloodstream and damaged almost every system in the body. Nobody knows exactly how many died but in the next days more than 7,000 death shrouds were sold in Bhopal. With an estimated 10-15 people continuing to die each month the number of deaths to date is put at over 20,000. And today, more than 120,000 people are still in need of urgent medical attention.
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“European cows get a subsidy of $2.50 a day. We have 3 billion people in the world who live under $2 a day.”

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President of the World Bank James D. Wolfensohn said “European cows get a subsidy of $2.50 a day. We have 3 billion people in the world who live under $2 a day. Japanese cows get $7.50 a day subsidy.” Reference: James Wolfensohn: Excerpts of Christian Science Monitor Interview on Poverty and Globalization, near the end of page. Or google.
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Flags

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This is a funny truck I pictured in New York.
I noticed that here in US you can find US flags everywhere. Someone told me that it is so after 9/11. I guess the flag has become the symbol of “United we stand”.
In Italy luckily we try to stand united behind the peace flag.
According to bandieredipace.org, in Italy 2.500.000 balconies were exposing the peace flag at 03/17/2003.
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E’ il dodicesimo anno

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http://www.repubblica.it/news/ired/ultimora/rep_nazionale_n_522461.html

“L’assemblea generale delle Nazioni Unite ha adottato una risoluzione di condanna dell’embargo deciso dagli Stati Uniti contro Cuba. E’ il dodicesimo anno consecutivo che l’Onu adotta questa risoluzione.”

Faccio una previsione, l’anno prossimo sara’ il tredicesimo.