Archive for August, 2009

Tesco changes its tune on Unicef

Saturday, August 29th, 2009

Great to see a happy resolution to the bitter two-month long dispute between Tesco and Unicef over the slogan ‘Change for Good’. Below is the wording of a letter in Today’s Irish Times from Tesco’s marketing director, Kenny Jacobs:

“I refer to the Opinion article by John Gibbons (August 27th). It is unfortunate that Mr Gibbons did not contact Tesco on the matter. An agreement has been reached between Tesco Ireland and Unicef Ireland whereby Tesco will no longer use the term “Change for Good” after September 11th, 2009. Tesco will support Unicef Ireland with an in-store fundraising opportunity in the coming months and continue to support Unicef Ireland’s ongoing campaign with Pampers to eliminate maternal and neo-natal tetanus. (more…)

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Posted in Global Warming, Ireland focus, Sustainability | 6 Comments »

Every little helps?

Thursday, August 27th, 2009

Had been planning to write about the power of the multiples for some time, but what finally pushed me over the edge was a report in The Ticket in last Friday’s Irish Times, to the effect that the DVD cover of the horror/comedy flick ‘Lesbian Vampire Killers’ had been censored at the direction of Tesco, among others.

Not wanting to depend wholly on heresay, I picked up a copy of the film in Tesco in Dun Laoghaire this week, and sure enough, the offending word was discreetly covered with a warning label. The phrase that so offended them was not ‘killers’, rather, it was ‘Lesbian’. Such bizarre prurience, but we’ve seen lots of this from Wal-Mart in the US, bucking to the demands of the Right by actively censoring books, magazines, even newspapers. The threat to the film’s producers, Momentum, was simple enough: either comply, or the all-powerful multiples won’t stock your movie. Resistance is futile. (more…)

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Climate camp – Shannonbridge

Monday, August 24th, 2009

Last week’s Climate Camp in Shannonbridge drew around 150 people to a site right beside the Shannonbridge peat-burning power plant. The week, which included workshops, bog walks and practical sessions on sustainability, culminated in a Day of Action on Saturday 22nd. In Shannonbridge, this involved a noisy, colourful but entirely good-humoured affair up through the village, over the bridge, the back towards the camp.

The procession instead proceeded to a cordon the Gardai had set up a couple of hundred metres from the plant. From here, things degenerated into a scuffle of sorts (see my video clip below) with various protesters storming the Garda lines and running towards the plant. They met a very well organised resistance, with several white vanloads of reinforcements being delivered to back up the Gardai on the front lines, including members of its public order unit. There were also plenty of kids caught up in this scuffle, which I didn’t think was all that smart on the part of the organisers. (more…)

Posted in Energy, Global Warming, Habitat/species loss, Ireland focus, Sustainability | No Comments »

In denial on the Nile delta

Monday, August 24th, 2009

“The Nile Delta is a kind of Bangladesh story,” says Dr Rick Tutwiler, director of the American University in Cairo’s Desert Development Centre, quoted in a recent article in the Guardian by journalist Jack Shenker “You’ve got a massive population, overcrowding, a threat to all natural resources from the pressure of all the people, production, pollution, cars and agricultural chemicals. And on top of all that, there’s the rising sea. It’s the perfect storm.”

The other big story about Egypt is is exploding population. In 1960, it stood at 27.8 million. Today, it’s 83 million; on current trends, that will hit 110 million within two decades. Population on the Nile Delta stands at 4,000 per square mile. This is a trajectory to disaster.

Shenker was guest this morning on The Wide Angle with Karen Coleman on Newstalk, where I was a studio guest adding commentary on the climate change implications of the growing crisis in the Nile delta. Karen operates a video blog within the studio, and posts videos of all her studio interviews onto her own website – an interesting radio/video/web twist to broadcasting. The clip is below:

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Posted in Global Warming, Ireland focus, Media, Sustainability | No Comments »