[FR] Nos Enfants...

un documentaire francais sur la nourriture, les dangers de l'agriculture industrielle reposant sur les produits chimiques.



Le website du film:
http://www.nosenfantsnousaccuseront-lefilm.com/

A ecouter en particulier, le podacst de Serge Orru a l'univeriste de la terre 2008:
http://www.actus-durables.fr/2008/11/podcast-de-serge-orru-a-luniversite-de-la-terre-2008/

Eart Day

The New York Times has published a interesting series of article about the "green issues" listing some bold and simple ideas to lean towards a greener better way of living on Earth. It's divided in seven steps: Act, Eat, invent, learn, live, move and build.
There is a couple of ideas I really like: from the simple walk more, the simple turn-off habits, having a compost bin, to the more advanced way of building houses. The comforting part is to see how many ideas are there, and how simple they are, for most of them, nothing more simple than turning off your light/tv/computer at night, or walking to the shop instead of taking the car. The sad part is to see, that even if most of these steps, are effortless and easy, the large majority of the population don't do it. For example, in my house, out of 4 people, 2 systematically drives there car to the shop (2 minutes walk from the house) even for a bottle of milk... It's going to be a long way to change people mind.

Can Ireland be the next Saudi Arabia ?

Ireland... and its green grass, you can find all over the place. May be this grass can be the new source of richness for Irish, it turns out a Canadian company has developed a new process to create ethanol from the left-over of corn/cereal production, which means basically been able to make ethanol from cellulosic material. Some scientists have tried to calculate the yield by using switchgrass. And now we can dream of producing bio-fuel just by lawn mowing your garden. May be a whole industry could emerge in Ireland, based on shamrock-fuel ?

Last Action Hero ?

Scharzie ... saving the world again... Are the USA finally starting to wake up, and realizing the desastrous effect of their energy politics ?

• Al Gore is travelling the world with his presentation about Global Warming, and a movie "An inconvenient truth" relates it. Former Vice President Al Gore called the 19th Septmber 2006, for a popular movement in the United States to seek an “immediate freeze” inheat-trapping smokestack and tailpipe gases linked by most scientists to global warming.
  See official website of the film.
  Basically the message, is we need to do (stop) something now and massively, because it's just in term of month/week you can count, until we reach a non return point in the quantity of CO2 emmitted in the atmosphere.
  
• As written by Daniel AKST in the New York Times (17th September 2006), any drop in the oil prices are not a good news, it's definitely a bad news as it does not force people to change the way they use their car.
  I quote: "[...] You figure cheaper oil would boost economic growth while slashing the income of such lovable oil exporters as Iran? Don’t kid yourself. Anything that reinforces the role of fossil fuels — particularly oil — as the industrial world’s primary energy source is bad, not good. Anything that prolongs the life of the internal combustion engine is a negative, not a positive. Anything that makes it cheaper to pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is cause for mourning rather than celebration.
  What we need is not lower oil prices but higher ones — significantly higher, enough to deter consumption and make us look seriously at alternatives."
• California is suing 5 major automakers, for their contribution to the Global Warming (announced this 21st September 2006). It's a very capitalistic and american view, suing a company to inforce measures that will benefit the society, I hope it will turn better than the case against the tobacco (It has been revealed that cigarettes makers have increased in the USA, the level of nicotine in their products).
• And still in the NY Times, THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, realized that as "dumb as it can be", USA would rather power anti-Americans with its energy purchases than promote antipoverty.
  
• California which already the state which the most active in term of energy economy [see NYT article], will be the first state to inforce a law which follow Kyoto. Already 42% of the electricity produced by California (via Nuclear and Hydro plants) does not produce greenhouse gases, compared to the 71% of the USA. Unless the rest of the USA, which has seen a more than 50% increase in the annual electricity use by person since the 70s, California, has pretty much the same consumption per inhabitant.
  So Mr Universe/Terminator has signed which imposed a control on carbon dioxide emission... basically the Kyoto protocol, DoubleU has refused to sign...
  

Sounds good news, I must admit the capitalism has a very flexible approach to problem, by simplifying them, in term of cost (aka money)...
On the other hand, people still drive big SUV and the Top Gear presenter R.Hammond crashed a car at more than 300mph during the recording of the show. And here in Limerick, the city did not take part in the car free day like many european cities.
More worrying these doomsday seeker, holy bible fervent lovers, who judges that polluting is good because it make closer the divine doomsday. I've seen this very frightening documentary by Tony Robinson, (yes Baldrick in Black Adder, but also he presented an interesting documentary about the DaVinci Code). So in the documentary called "Doomsday code", Tony followed the american fundamentalist catholics, and the way they are influencing (Bush administration) politics in the goal to bring nearer the end of the world. For example, they are financing the israel occupation of some Palestinian lands, so all jews can be re-installed in Israel, and this will allow the christ to ressurect.

Here 10 things you can do to improve your impact on global warming [PDF] :
- Replace your light with fluorescent carbon bulb (reduce by 60% the electricity consumed)
- Drive less (walk, use a bicycle instead)
- Recycle more
- Check your tyres (if your tyres are not at the correct pressure, you increase your gasoline consumption).
- Use less hot water
- Avoid products withe lots of packaging (reduce garbage). And consume more bio products.
- Adjust your thermostat in winter and summer.
- Plant a Tree
- Turn off electrical/electronic devices when not in used.

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In the meantime, the list of movies I won't able to see in Limerick is becoming bigger and bigger:
- Volver (Pedro Almodovar)
- Inland Empire (D.Lynch)
- Marie Antoinette (Sofia Coppola)
- Avida (B.Delepine/Gustave DeKervern)
- Nausicae (H.Miyazaki, Ghibli studios) [Fan Website: nausica.net]
- An unconenient truth

But Good surprise, "Scanner Darkly" [French critic] will be displayed at the Omniplex thursday 28th September 2006. And I've just seen "Clerks 2" [official website ] almost 10 years after I've seen the brilliant first movie by Kevin Smith, in the amphitheater of the University of Lettres of Clermont-Ferrand. Nice movie, loads of laugh, with less discussion about Star Wars ( the only trilogy) and a bit more about the sexuality of the hobbits...

France 3 - Italy 1

Good start fro France in their qualification for the Euro 2008, not only they won, but with style !

Random surfing, causing random babbling....

• [FR] Anyway, interesting post yesterday in Transnets, about the fact that comanies uctually use the creativity, the brain of internet users to create contents, to sort data (yourtube, tags on flickr). There is a real work done, manual indexation, real creation (lego movie) by all internet user.
  And all this work, is it an intellectul property ? How is it protected, used ?
  
  The writer has an interesting blog: humains-associes.org , promoting some Netiquette on the web.
• [FR] Arte Radio, at a time where everybody's going back to school, offers a great insight on all the hesitation, question a teenager faces when it comes to orientation, choose a path in school.
• Gordon Ramsay [TV: Hell's Kitchen, Ramsay's kitchen Nightmare, the F World], in the New York Times, [article] talks about his experience in France and it's dream of coming back there to install a restaurant. I had to say I quite agree about the french arrogance, I would love to see that restaurant. Here's the quote:
  

  “I’d love to go back to Paris, to be honest,” he said. “You know how arrogant the French are — extraordinary. They make us all look so normal. I got such abuse there, I was like a tortured child. So the idea is to go back to Paris, staff the restaurant all with English and call it Roast Beef!”

• As published in Nature, the plancton in the seas does not seem to absorb as much CO2 as initially thought [article ; pdf ]... bad for our future, you can also learn what some scientist wants to fertilize the plancton, increase its growth so it can absorb all the CO2 created by human activities. Unfortunately at the same time, it seems that the global warning, is favorising the natural release of the CO2 trapped in european grounds [peat].
• According to an european study, Ireland is the country were adult are drunk more often (drinking more than 5 pint in one night more than once a month), and the young are not better 32% of the teenager get drunk more than three times a month (33% for the boys and 31% for the girls). Ireland is the third in Europe, by Alcohol consumption (15 pure alcohol consumed per adult each year in average). No wonder, why unlike the rest of Europe were alcohol consumption decline, here it has progressed by 25% between 1995 and 2005.
  

• Last monday, my parents, came for the first time in Ireland, landing in Dublin, they arrived in Bunratty tuesday.

Then we headed to their accomodation in Lahinch (Co Clare), with its wonderful beach.

There is nothing like finishing, the day in the Lahinch beach under the falling sun, (may be adding a guinness).

• Quotation of the day:

"Reality is what remains, when you stop believing in it."
Philip. Kindred. Dick