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Monthly archives: July 2009

Treasure hunting attracts visitors to nature reserves

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Björnö-nature-reserve
Björnö, one of the nature reserves where people can go treasure hunting. Photo: Göran Sehlstedt

Spending time in the nature isn’t necessarily a sign of sustainability in itself. Often sensitive nature areas would be better off without humans wandering around there. But in a longer perspective I think it’s essential that people get to see forests, lakes and meadows. Not just  for our own wellbeing, but also because it’s a very direct way to really get a sense of what there is to protect and care for.
According to the Swedish forest society, Swedes visit the forest less every year, though. The biggest decline in forest excursions are found among children: in the last nine years kids’ visits have halved.
The forest society points out that many parents don’t dare letting their children out in the forest alone, partly because their way there is often blocked by dangerous motor roads.

Looking for coordinates

To increase the interest and attract new visitors to nature reserves in the area around Stockholm, the county administrative board here has started a  new activity: treasure hunting with “geocaching”. With the help of a GPS receiver people go looking for special geographic coordinates where a “treasure” is hidden. The treasure typically consists of a log book where you write your name, and a box of gifts where anyone who leaves a gift can take one.
The treasure spots are picked to show people the most beautiful sights and there are different degrees of difficulty, from pathways suitable for prams to places you have to climb to access.

Sara Jeswani - Sustainability

July 31, 2009

Sailing in plastic particles

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sailing
Fresh winds on the Baltic Sea.

I have just come back from another encounter with the Baltic Sea. Sailing is something entirely new for me, but when my friends told me they had rented a sailing-boat for a week I decided to join them for a couple of days. Although being slightly frightened by the millions of ropes, an always threatening boom and the boat sometimes seeming to turn over in the waves, I must admit that sailing definitely has its advantages. It’s incredible to glide over the water, almost in total silence and without using any other fuel than the wind.

Unfortunately, and as I have written here before, the Baltic Sea isn’t in best shape. Now scientists have found lots of tiny particles, invisible to the naked eye, floating in the seas around Sweden. Many of them seem to come from the wearing of roads and car tyres, but also from textiles. Other particles could have their origin in boat paint and plastic.

The plastic fibres and particles can not only be harmful for the inhabitants of the sea, but might also contain toxic substances injurious to the environment that end up in fish, and in the long run also affect humans.
One of the marine biologists who have made the study, Fredrik Norén, says to the Swedish radio that more plastic materials must be degradable, so that they don’t leave particles in the nature after being used.

Sara Jeswani - Sustainability

July 29, 2009

Heated discussions about the meeting in Åre

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minister-meeting-in-Åre
Photo: Gunnar Seijbold/ Swedish Government Offices.

This past weekend environment ministers from the EU countries have met in Åre to discuss the European strategy before the global climate negotiations in Copenhagen in the end of this year. Closing the meeting on Saturday, the Swedish environment minister Andreas Carlgren declared a big unity behind the promise to reduce the CO2 emissions of EU with 30 percent if the rest of the world agrees on “what is needed”.

Russian roulette

But the last week discussions in Swedish newspaper and on blogs have also been intense. For example Johan Rockström, executive director of Stockholm Environment Institute wrote in a polemical article together with the general secretary of the European Environment Agency, Jacqueline McGlade, that the goals of cutting emissions 50 percent by 2050 won’t be enough to fulfill the goals of the G8 or the EU to limit global warming to 2 degrees.
“Already the IPCC showed clearly that with a climate goal almost double as ambitious as what the G8 has settled and the meeting in Åre might confirm, we are in fact playing Russian roulette! – - – Our research shows that the goal for 2050 must be to reduce global emissions to as close as zero as possible”, they write.

No thermostat button

Other strong words come from the founder of Tällberg Foundation, Bo Ekman, who writes in another article that “the declarations from G8 and EU give the impression that policy makers have a solution at their disposal: that there is a thermostat button that can be turned off to stop global warming at exactly 2 degrees. An out-of-date mechanistic world view is being applied to a complex, interactive system in perpetual change. It is like asking a Newton physicist of the old kind to repair a decomposing nuclear power plant.”

Sara Jeswani - Sustainability

July 27, 2009

Tap water for delegates

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EU delegates coming to Stockholm during the Swedish presidency of the union won’t have to spend time thinking about whether to choose still or sparkling water, since everyone will be served tap water at conferences and dinners. The aim is to show that the water quality is actually very good, and to save CO2 emissions. To give it a bit of glamour anyway, the water is served in designer bottles.

In 2007 Swedes drank about 248 millions of liters of bottled water, which was a doubling compared to ten years earlier. According to a study made by a consumer organization transports and production of bottled water amounted to 34 000 tons of carbon dioxide. But since then the sales of bottled water has started to decrease, and around Sweden several cities have decided that no bottled water will be served to the civil servants and during official activities.

Sara Jeswani - Sustainability

July 24, 2009

How far away is locally produced?

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potatoes
Photo: Dr Hemmert/Flickr

“Being green” is a good sales argument. In Sweden organic food is getting more and more popular and during the first quarter of 2009 organic food sales went up by 35 percent compared to the same period last year.
But when everyone wants to get on the environmental friendly train, there is a risk of all the nice words about different products in the end being just – words.
Now an angry consumer has reported a TV commercial for potato chips to the Swedish Consumer Ombudsman. The commercial is saying that the chips are made from locally grown potatoes, meaning that they have all being pulled out of Swedish earth. But when the company takes all its potatoes from the county of Skåne, in the south, can the chips still be called locally produced if the buyer lives in Pajala, in the very north? With the total length of Sweden being over 1 500 kilometers, vegetables grown in our neighbouring countries Norway or Finland can actually often be more local.

Today there are no rules saying how close a product has to be made to be called locally produced, so it’s a good thing that the Consumer Ombudsman will look into this, although I think it might be a pretty tricky question.

Sara Jeswani - Sustainability

July 22, 2009