Save Eco Destinations

Map of where the plant will be, in Nayachar island (photo by New Scientist)

If you thought all the news about Xcacel-Xcacelito’s protected mangroves being torn down to make room for the Grupo Posadas’s swank and greedy hotel development are depressing, wait until you read what’s going on in West Bengal.

Exactly one month ago, the state government of West Bengal and an Indian government committee met to approve plans for the building of a petrochemicals plant on the Nayachar island. This plant will-unless somebody kidnaps everyone involved and makes them read Peter Singer, Tom Regan, Jane Goodall, and many other theorists until they turn into Earth-loving vegans-refine crude oil and make petroleum by-products. Within weeks.

Somebody make the remaining endangered royal Bengal tigers some martinis before they wig out, stat!

Indian environmental groups, by the way, need some stiff drinks too. Nayachar island is only 10 km. from the Sunderbans, a UNESCO World Heritage site and biodiversity hotspot (see photo above).

The New Scientist quoted Santanu Chacraverti of the Society for Direct Initiative for Social and Health Action, a Kolkata-based NGO: “Setting up a petrochemical cluster in that region is tantamount to ecocide. … Noxious effluents will flow into the coastal waters and spread into the vast network of rivers and creeks. Sunderban, the nursery of a range of marine, coastal, and estuarine lifeforms, will be subjected to pollution.”

This might prove the sequel to the Narmada River incident in the late ’90s, when India built over 3000 dams across the river and destroyed both its ecosystem and the habitat of hundreds of thousands of humans (as well as, of course, millions of animals).

Honestly, I feel like tossing bricks at these idiots’ heads. I mean, SERIOUSLY? Where are their brains and why aren’t they functioning? These people need to be sterilized and used in scientific experiments to help the rest of the world survive the ecological disasters taking place and those just starting to brew. Really. I really don’t get it. I do not get it. How can these idiots spend their murderous money if they help speed up their planet’s death? Somebody shoot some sense into their heads, please…

Although I was unable to find any petitions to sign or information for letters to write and where to send them, I did find an article arguing that the building of this petrochemicals plant in Nayachar will not cause problems. It’s in the Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) . Too bad they don’t have a place to leave comments… Oh, but you can do so in this blog here.

I am really sorry I haven’t found anything for us to do to help stop this ecocide. If anyone has a lead, please please share it with us.

A castle in Kalmar

Not sure where to go for your next overseas vacation? Let me help you: consider the beautiful and eco-friendly city of Kalmar in south-east Sweden on the coast of the Baltic Sea.

Kalmar and Kalmar County (total: 236,501 people) are currently working on eradicating their use of fossil fuels and permanently replacing them with biofuels–and all this with the Swedes’ support. Residents’ standard of living remain, as they aren’t having to endure cold inside their houses in the winter or give up their cars. Essentially, the only change Kalmar will be making is its choice of fuels.

Specifically, Kalmar is switching from oil, gas, and electric furnaces to recycled energy. They call it district heat and it’s made from timber companies’ by-products, sawdust and wood waste. Ninety percent of the electricity at Kalmar comes from hydro, nuclear, and eolic (wind) power.

The busses and cars are publicly owned and most of them-you better sit down for this one-run on biogas (produced from waste wood, chicken manure, or 85% ethanol from Brazil). Read about their alternative fuels. There are more bicycle lanes, trucking firms are teaching eco-driving, building codes must now meet insulation standards, street lights use low-energy bulbs, and fuel-efficient and hybrid cars are all the rage.

Naturally, the switch to biofuels is not only making local Swedes happy because they’re increasingly eco-friendly, but also because of how much money they get to save in fuel and their opportunity to preserve jobs in these rough times worldwide. Kalmar has managed to make a drastic and fantastic change toward environmentalism without slowing down its economic growth. Visit Kalmar in 2030, and you will find no trace of fossil fuel use.

We can do it, too! Push for change in your cities!

Uteservering in charming Kalmar. (Click for more pictures of the city of Kalmar and its nightlife.)

The Svenssons, a couple of municipal workers in Kalmar, have taken to bicycling to work, buying locally produced food, don’t use a clothes dryer, and have other tricks up their sleeve. “We wanted to do something so we could look [our daughter] in the eye in 20 years’ time and say, ‘We tried,’ ” Sara Svensson told the Chicago Tribune.

What will you tell your kids and grandkids 20 years from now? They probably won’t buy it if you tell them you were too busy to make small changes.

Rape has been used as a weapon of war in both the First Congo War and Second Congo War. (Picture by USAID/Leah Werchick, 2001)

In the ecotourism microcosm and the green world in general, we speak a lot of green transportation, greener choices, polluting less, and so on. Switch to a hybrid, offset the carbon footprint of your flights when going on vacation, and so on and so forth.

We’re lazy.

Honestly, some of the best things you can do are:

(a)    Stay home!

(b)   Walk

(c)    Ride a bike, rollerblade, skateboard, and so on

(d)   Swim-and always leave the motorboats and jet skis in the store (think of the coral reefs, sea turtles, etc., whose populations are diminished yearly by these machines)

(e)    Did I mention stay home?

Think of what would happen if we actually stuck to these principles. Because, you know, it’s we who are polluting and ruining the planet. We-privileged, middle-to-upper class people with access to the internet and enough education and spare time to inform and educate ourselves about ecological issues. We are the ones with enough money to travel and the resources that allow us to choose how and when we will do it.

Not indigenous tribes in Venezuela, in the Amazon Forest, the sort of people who coexist harmoniously with their green surroundings. And we can’t ask the poor women in South Jordan to switch to energy-saving light bulbs, the raped women refugees in eastern Congo to implement low-flush toilets, or those left homeless in Tartagal to incorporate solar panels into their homes when if they get to rebuild them.

But we can ask our friends to be more conscientious in their choices-because they have choices-when they shop, travel, use electricity, eat, discard, and even when they vote if we spread the word about key bills and laws and work together to support or protest against them.

Pick up trash if you see it in the street and take it home to recycle or at least toss it in a trash can. Reuse containers instead of throwing them away and buying new ones. Cut down and eventually abolish meat and animal products from your diet. Get your lighting fixtures taken care of if they don’t take energy-saving bulbs. Stop buying Cif and bleach and switch to vinegar, baking soda, and alcohol for all your home cleaning needs. Turn off and unplug all appliances when not in use.

And on and on.

If you, who gets to choose and make changes, don’t, then you can’t complain when, several years from now, you find yourself having to move out of Florida and into a home farther from the coast and higher and higher than sea level. And don’t even start about how first class has gotten more expensive-focus on what’s important. Green travel is no travel unless it’s on foot, bike, or by other ecological means.

Let’s help people walk the talk.

Your life will be cleaner, greener, simpler, cheaper, healthier, and better.

Read a compelling article about this at Worldchanging.

What tips do you have?

What do YOU think?