Everyone is having fun looking at predictions made a year ago, but what about a hundred years ago? "Litterateur" Jules Bois made some interesting ones, some which are dead on and some hilariously wrong. Take his ideal of feminine beauty:

Cement: From Carbon Source to Carbon Sink?
Lloyd has written before about cement as “the unheralded polluter” - in fact some estimates suggest that cement manufacture may be responsible for more global greenhouse emissions than the entire aviation industry. It’s no wonder then that we were excited when we heard about Eco-Cement, a greener cement that actually absorbs more CO2 than it produces. Now it appears that another company is also producing carbon negative cement. The Guardian reports that UK company Novacem has developed a cement with an overall negative carbon footprint of 0.6 tonnes per tonne of cement. This compares to an overall positive footprint of 0.4 tonnes per tonne of standard cement. So how do they do it? The Guardian explains a little more:

(Traditional rice cake pounding, photo from GNJ)

Farmers and activists in Japan are surprised and increasingly upset that Japan will host the next UN Biodiversity conference (COP 10) in Nagoya. In Aiichi prefecture, large construction projects are reducing fertile soil and rice paddies to yet another highway or urban sprawl. As they brought the kids and gathered at Noda Farm for a New Years festival a couple of days ago, people were asking, "Why Nagoya?"

Once upon a time, I had a friend who was a glossy magazine writer working on a story for a yoga magazine. Reporting from Israel, she wanted to interview the Ethiopian-Israeli community in Beersheba and ask them why they weren't practicing yoga. For me that was a very Marie Antoinette sort of question.

How could these people, among the poorest in Israel, who are struggling to put food in their babies' mouths, and learning the basics about the western world –– like how to use a toilet –- consider for a second about breaking into the Lion Pose, and meditating? This is how I feel right in Israel. It just doesn't seem right to talk about the environment, when people from both sides of the green line are suffering and trying to survive. I'm really not in the mood.

Ten Large Retail Corporations Profiled Using EthicalQuote

With regulatory teeth set to emerge in environmental and ethical regulatory regimes again (see explanatory post - The Pendulum Effect: Review And Prospects For Sustainability...), corporate sustainability efforts could soon receive notice among investors and in consumer markets. For examples of how indicators of ethical and environmental choices have been tracking lately, see the above graphic, drawn for this post using Covalence'sEthical Quote, Public Version, and explanation, plus further examples below the fold.

As a child growing up in Berkeley during the '60s, educator Patricia Donald loved reading National Geographic and Time magazines, where she says she learned about the pollution of the earth and its oceans, and the human-caused disruption of the balance of nature.

"There was a lot of scary stuff going on in those days," said Donald. "It just felt really important to try to empower people to understand the space and the habitat they lived in, to help protect it instead of fighting against it all the time. Luckily, I had a lot of people who helped me believe in my dream."

And what a successful venture her dream has become in Berkeley, California.

Image Via: Steve King

While so many people are working so very hard to help educate kids about environmental issues and what they can do to make a difference, there’s a pair of Canadians who’ve been on the run, literally, since May 4 of last year to raise awareness and educate kids at the same time by putting in a full marathon daily to make their way across the continent of North America as part of their Run For 1 Planet.

Photo via exfordy

Today is a happy day for elephants because eBay's ban on ivory sales begins today. We saw the ban pop up on the Hugg radar a few months ago and are interested to see what happens now that the rule is in effect.