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Tag archives for environment

No new mercury in Swedish teeth (but the sweet craze goes on)

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Only too revealing... Photo: Sara Jeswani.

Since Easter is a time when Swedes eat even more candy than normally (6.000 tons! For 9 million persons, in something like four days! And then I suppose there are a few babies and others who don’t eat a single piece…) it’s not a wild assumption that our dentists will have a peak in their workload some time during the spring.

One thing they won’t fill teeth cavities with in any case, is amalgam, since Sweden totally prohibited this in 2009 because of its mercury content, which is bad for both humans and the rest of nature. In the mid 1970:s about 17 tons of mercury were used by Swedish dentists, but was then gradually phased out.

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Sara Jeswani - Sustainability

April 5, 2012

Swedish report: CO2 is threatening our oceans (and it’s expensive!)

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The Great Barrier Reef. Photo: Noaml  (CC: By, Nc)

When no arguments seem to work to stop environmental degradation, economy sometimes does. For example it was a report by the economist Nicholas Stern that first opened the eyes of many decision makers towards the threats of climate change.

This time Stockholm Environment Institute has calculated the costs of letting climate change and other human-caused factors ruin the world’s oceans.

Today the oceans are providing humanity with enormous values through for example fishery and tourism. When those functions are reduced, a lot of people will be left without incomes. Costs can also go up because of climate change, which causes sea-level rise, storms and reduces the ability of the ocean to absorb carbon.

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Sara Jeswani - Sustainability

March 22, 2012

10 ways to avoid chemicals at home

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Cooking your own food from organic products is a good start to reduce the chemicals that surround you. Tuukka Ervasti/imagebank.sweden.se

Last week I wrote about the Swedish nature conservation organisation SSNC’s campaign Save the Man! to make us more aware of all the chemicals we are exposed to. Even a normal everyday life contains a heavy cocktail of chemicals. But while we are waiting for rules to be changed and implemented, there are things to do at home, starting now. SSNC offers ten good tips:

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Sara Jeswani - Sustainability

March 8, 2012

High rise greenhouse for more urban food

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The house will look something like this (here it's placed in a fictitious city, much bigger than Linköping). Illustration: Plantagon.

Earlier I wrote here on the blog about the Swedish company Plantagon’s plans to construct a giant sphere-shaped greenhouse in Botkyrka, Stockholm. Now their vision seems to have come one step closer to reality, in the city of Linköping [map]. Recently representatives from Plantagon and the city of Linköping made the symbolic first cut of the spade, starting the construction of a 54-meter tall combined office and greenhouse.

Ground breaking ceremony in Linköping. Photo: Tommy Hvitfeldt.

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Sara Jeswani - Sustainability

February 20, 2012

Climate change and the good life

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More local life = more happiness? Photo: Helena Wahlman/imagebank.sweden.se.

Often when climate change and what we need to do about it is discussed, the ideas end up in two boxes.
1: We will surely find fantastic new technologies which will solve all our problems in no time – and we can go on living like we have “always” done (or, maybe more correctly, as we have lived during the last ten years).
Or, 2: The only way to reduce our emissions enough is to live a sad life with a lot of sacrifices, eating cabbage and remembering the happy days when we all went for shopping weekends on the other side of the globe…

But, asks a new report from the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, what if there is a third way to see things? Yes, we need to make big lifestyle changes, in order to reduce our climate impact, and also in order to adapt to a new reality. And what if these lifestyle changes can actually influence our quality of life in a positive way?

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Sara Jeswani - Sustainability

December 28, 2011