Eco-friendly Fashion is in trend


In these days, youth are crazy to try the eco-friendly fashion either they are going to shop fabrics or accessories. It becomes a new fashion trend if we carefully watch the shopping trends of youths. The fashion designers are also designing the eco friendly products as they know the trend is becoming popular in the market. The young girls prefer to purchase jewelry of bamboo, fabrics, joot and stone. These are not only inexpensive but also give a stylish look. In these days, bamboo, fabrics, joot and stone formed necklaces, ear-rings, bangles, hairclips and ring are becoming popular in the market. This jewelry can be used with any dress. Such types of jewelry can be designed by women at home also. No only eco-friendly dresses and jewelry but eco friendly accessories are also becoming popular in the market. The wooden bracelets, ear-rings, necklace are becoming the first preference of youth. The footwear of joot is also liked by the youth most. To protect the environment from the harm of polythene, youths have started to use paper bags that are more eco-friendly than polythene. Although the government also has banned the use of polythene bags, but youths and common people helped a lot to make this mission successful. What is green fashion: Green fashion is not a trend of green colors but it means a trend of eco-friendly or organic fashion. Today it is very necessary to use such a fashion, if we want to protect our environment. ‘Going back to nature’ is demand of today’s environment and to lead in this way everyone is trying to find the new ideas and concept to implement eco-friendly trend. Eco fashion fiber yarn, textile, printing, drawing, finishing all these process are bonded with nature in some way. The people have started to use natural fiber, cotton fiber, linen, joot and flex instead of artificial fiber. Jewelry Accessories: In these days, you can find huge varieties of joot, paper, natural fibers, silk and wood formed dresses and accessories in the market. So many experiments are going to design these natural color fashion trends. Youth are crazy about this eco-friendly trend. These are not only comfortable but also give a feeling of style statement. Feeling of environment protection: According to fashion designer Swati Soni, there are so many concepts in eco-friendly. The main concept of using eco-friendly fashion is to make people aware against the harms of polythene and other harmful elements. To protect environment and for Global Warming, the messages like ‘Save Environment’, ‘Grow Trees’, ‘Save Water’, ‘Save Earth’ etc. are printed by using a vegetable print technology. The main advantage of this technology is that this is not harmful for body thus we can say that vegetable print technology is also a part of ecofriendly fashion. Many of the fabrics are available in natural stuff. Pure cosa and pure cotton are the best examples of natural fabrics. We can implement the eco-friendly concept by choosing the eco-friendly colors. To wear green colors cloths, floral prints etc. are the good tools to implement the eco-friendly concept.  Source: Medley NewsImage: flickr.com
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Prosperity Without Growth

DO economies have to grow? Or, to put the point another way, what do they have to grow for? As rich countries suffer their worst failure of economic growth since the Second World War, those questions have resurfaced with a new urgency. The sense that our prevailing economic model is bankrupt, allied to fears that the world is heading for catastrophic climate change, has stoked demands for a radical rethink of the guiding principles of modern capitalist democracies. Answering that call, an assortment of pundits have been issuing challenges to political and economic orthodoxy, offering alternative visions of what a good society would look like. At the user-friendly end of the field, Zac Goldsmith, an environmental adviser to the British Conservative party, has taken an amiable stroll round the issues in The Constant Economy. At the more rigorous end, a commission convened by France’s former president Nicolas Sarkozy and led by the Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has examined the limitations of standard gross domestic product data as a lodestone for policy. Between those extremes lies Tim Jackson’s Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet, a challenge to mainstream economic thinking that is both accessible and robustly argued. Jackson, a professor of sustainable development at the UK’s Surrey university, has thought hard about the subject. His prose is lucid and lively, and many of his policy prescriptions are sensible. Jackson is a member of the British government’s Sustainable Development Commission (SDC), and the book draws on a report for that commission published earlier in the year. (Full disclosure: I also served on the SDC until 2004.) For a work by a government adviser, based on an officially supported research project, his stance is also refreshingly radical. Yet for all these strengths, his argument is flawed. Jackson’s starting point is that, as he puts it, "a return to business as usual is not an option." If economic growth carries on as it has done since the industrial revolution, he writes, "by the end of the century our children and grandchildren will face a hostile climate, depleted resources, the destruction of habitats, the decimation of species, food scarcities, mass migrations and, almost inevitably, war." In his strongest chapter, he takes on what he calls "the myth of decoupling": the idea that the link between economic growth and environmental damage can be broken. Typically, the environmental impact of an economy, relative to its income, falls as it gets richer. But while that "relative decoupling" is well-established, "absolute decoupling" — a decline in greenhouse gas emissions, for example — has been elusive. Jackson’s conclusion is that if economic growth cannot be separated from environmental damage, then — in rich countries at least — it is growth that will have to be abandoned. Instead, he argues, societies can attain a truer prosperity that "consists in our ability to participate in the life of society, in our sense of shared meaning and purpose and in our capacity to dream." Lives of frugality and simplicity, with stronger communities and healthier relationships, will make us more genuinely prosperous than our present obsession with "material pleasures", he argues. This is, in many ways, a beguiling vision, particularly at a time when the pursuit of prosperity in the material sense has proved so harrowing. The problem comes with reality. Jackson’s policy prescriptions — including greater financial prudence and tighter regulation of TV advertising — are all sound, to varying degrees. Yet they take only the smallest of steps towards the post-growth society that he suggests we need. His only idea that could put the brake on growth would be cutting working hours. Here he takes the economist’s famous "lump of labour" fallacy — the idea that there is only a fixed amount of work to do that has to be shared round — and suggests it should be a goal of policy. Yet in anything other than a perfect utopia, the idea that there is no more work that needs doing is ludicrous. There are other problems, too. Jackson has no answer for the question of how a post-growth economy would handle technological innovation, or a refutation of Benjamin Friedman’s argument, in his excellent The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth, that rising standards of material prosperity foster opportunity, tolerance, fairness and democracy. A society that has given up on growth seems unlikely to be the open, friendly community of Jackson’s imagining. His pessimism about decoupling is probably also overdone. There is plenty of analysis, from Lord Stern’s report on the economics of climate change, to show how carbon dioxide emissions can be cut to keep global warming within reasonable limits while the world economy continues to grow. While the goal may be achievable, reaching it will require an enormous effort. By daring to challenge one of the fundamental precepts of orthodox policy-making, Jackson performs a valuable service in reminding us of that. His questions are worth asking, even if his answers are wrong. TITLE: Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planer. Author: Tim Jackson, Publisher: Earthscan, © The Financial Times Limited. Source: BusinessDayImage: https://upload.wikimedia.org
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To the Antarctic for a holiday

Chilling cruise in Antarctica
Image Link Flickr
By Maria Domnitskaya, Members of a scientific expedition to the South Pole believe that the Eastern part of the region might once again become a sub-tropical zone in the future, meaning that the population of the world may consider it a suitable place for a holiday. After studying the geological layers of the Antarctic, scientists working in the unified programme for the study of world oceans found evidence that 53 million yearsАнтарктида курорт Антарктика тропики пляж отдых 2012 август коллаж ago, palms and plant species related to the modern baobab and Australian nuts grew in the area. At that time, the temperatures in the region were 10 degrees Celsius in winter, and 25 degrees in summer.The ice age of 34 million years ago destroyed most of the soil for planting, which could have provided a clue to the ancient climatic changes. All that remained was in the form of kilometers of ice, but scientists have been able to literally dig to the required layer, drilling a 4-kilometer well under the seabed at the Wilkes Land. Apart from dust and different plants, the scientists also discovered tiny mono-cell organisms. Molecular changes directly relating to temperatures of the soil, which surrounded the organisms were found in the structures of their cells. According to James Bindle of Glasgow University, one of the researchers, the coast of the Antarctic then looked like the modern-day north-east coastline of Australia. Tags: resorts, climate, Antarctic, Russia, World, Sci-Tech, Opinion & Analysis, Читать далее, Source: Voice of Russia.
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Antarctica

ABOUT 35-million years ago, South America sheered off from the "super-continent" that became Antarctica, leaving the land mass at the mercy of swirling seas that isolated it from the warmth of the north and let it fall into deep freeze. The world’s coldest, most inaccessible continent, Antarctica has fired human imagination since, arguably, the young Norwegian, Roald Amundsen, was among a ship’s crew that was the first to winter in Antarctica, their ship having become trapped in the ice offshore in 1898. Amundsen, of course, returned to Antarctica in 1911, and that December led the first successful expedition to the South Pole. Now, Antarctica is mostly a huge and very cold science laboratory. For most people, it’s a mysterious place, and Gabrielle Walker’s book is almost a biography of the cold continent. She has woven a compelling story, detailed and candid. From "water bears" (known to science as "tardigrades") — organisms that grow to a millimetre long and described as "the toughest creatures on earth" despite being, incongruously, "stubby and cute with four pairs of fat little legs, a vole-like snout and the complexion of a Gummy Bear" — via the more obvious penguins, skuas and sea lions to Martian and lunar meteorites and the mathematical manipulations of astrophysicists, this is unadulterated scientific fun. What makes the book special, though, is that Walker has also clearly depicted the scientists and their support staff, probing for what lies beneath their having come to Antarctica. Despite the very real romance the continent holds, many of the scientists who work there are irritated when people romanticise this unyielding swathe of ice and rock, especially by those who have not been there. "Yes, yes, it’s an extreme place and all that, but we’re doing science, and that’s all that matters," they argue. Criss-crossing Antarctica, Walker appears to have spent a very long time building portraits of the personalities behind the science and the support work. She digs gently, but relentlessly, for the answer to why these people brave the loneliness and isolation of Antarctica, and especially the bone-snapping iciness of the winter, when darkness lasts for half the year. The winter drives everyone a tad nutty, it seems, and one of the most fascinating of the book’s sections looks at what motivates "wintering" in Antarctica — apart, of course, from the science, some of which cannot be done in the summer. "You can’t fight Antarctica, you can only hope it doesn’t kill you," one veteran tells her. Antarctica has not always been icy. It was once a steamy place of lush, dinosaur-dotted forests, and to this it may return. Walker says she finds comfort in this; it’s proof the continent is bigger, older and tougher than the human race. "The sun is naturally warming as it ages, and some distant day, perhaps millions of years in the future, the white continent will turn green again, no matter what we do," she writes. Antarctica, however, is also the canary in the coal mine of anthropogenic global warming. Some of the scientific work done on the continent shows a direct link between the proportion of carbon dioxide in the air and global warming (even without "help" from humans). In 1995, for the first time in 10000 years, a huge ice shelf (1500km²) shuddered into the sea, spawning icebergs. A second, much larger, shelf (3250km²) was lost in 2002. Scientists were awed. While there is more to this than a simple rise in carbon dioxide, whatever causes it — and you will have to read the book if you want to know the ins and outs — "it’s the greenhouse gases that provide the oomph … the ice core showed how temperature and greenhouse gases marched in exact lockstep". The clincher is that the rise in greenhouse gases, Antarctic science has proved, has "never in 400000 years begun to imagine the levels we have reached today". This is the fourth science book by Walker and I’m off to find the other three. Title: Antarctica: An Intimate Portrait of the World’s Most Mysterious Continent, Author: Gabrielle Walker, Publisher: Bloomsbury. Source: BusinessDay
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Earth Day 2012

Bisarbeat: On April 22, more than one billion people around the globe will participate in Earth Day 2012 and help Mobilize the Earth. People of all nationalities and backgrounds will voice their appreciation for the planet and demand its protection. Together we will stand united for a sustainable future and call upon individuals, organizations and governments to do their part. Earth day, April 22, comes on a Sunday this year, making a weekend paint project a perfect way to celebrate. Just painting the surface of a black roof white can lower its temperature on a hot afternoon by as much as 50 to 65 degrees. And cooling down the house is good for the wallet and the environment. Research finds that if all of the world’s urban areas were outfitted with white roofs and light-colored pavement, it would cool the planet by as much as 0.13 degrees Fahrenheit, saving up to 150 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions--equal to 50 years’ worth of emissions from all the world’s cars. The new work, by Hashem Akbari and colleagues of Concordia University in Montreal, used estimates for the amount of urban roof and pavement surfaces globally combined with climate models to determine the effect on global  temperatures of  changing  the reflectivity
of a surface, known as its albedo. Albedo values range from zero, for a completely black surface, to one, for a perfectly white surface. Akbari’s team said resurfacing roofs could easily increase their albedo by 0.25 on average, while a 0.15 average increase is easy to achieve for pavement. This would translate to an overall increase in albedo for an entire city of around 0.1.Lightening a roof can be as simple as painting it white or choosing a lighter colored roof material. Some higher-tech shingles exist that are dark yet still reflect infrared light. For pavement, the necessary increase in albedo can usually be achieved by incorporating light-colored aggregate into the asphalt.“Every roof is going to be changed every now and then,” Akbari said, creating an opportunity for the roof to be replaced with a lighter material. The same goes for pavement. Every bit counts: each square meter of roof that’s made 0.01 albedo units lighter is the equivalent of taking over 15 pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. It saves on air conditioning
bills in the summer--perhaps 10 to 15 percent--since less heat is absorbed by the building, and cool roofs may last longer, since they expand and contract less with heat and cold. For flat roofs, it makes no aesthetic difference to make them white since they can’t be seen from the ground. Many states have building codes that require commercial roofs to be made white when they are redone, and cool roofs are a part of the federal Energy Star program.  Several cities have taken steps to incorporate white roofs. Through its NYC °CoolRoofs program, which provides no-cost labor to coat roofs, and with homeowner’s own efforts, New York has whitened 2.5 million square feet of roof, said Danielle Grillo, Executive Director of Community Partnerships at the New York City Department of Buildings. That’s the equivalent of 750 New Yorkers not driving for a year. Earth Day is celebrated around the world on April 22. Some cities start celebrating a week in advance, ending the recognition of Earth Week on April 22nd. Others host month long events to stress the importance of teaching about our environment. The United Nations celebrates Earth Day each year on the March equinox, which is often March 20, a tradition which was founded by peace activist John McConnell in 1969. How to Contribute: Paint Your Roof White for Earth Day, Painting roofs white and lightening pavement worldwide could have significant climate change benefits--equivalent to taking all the world's cars of the road for 50 years.Making these surfaces more reflective also saves on air conditioning bills. Many cities and states have programs to encourage cool roofs.Source: Bisarbeat
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