The story of the barque Belem is filled with romance. Today it is being put to use as a working cargo ship to deliver sustainably produced wines from France. Built in 1896, and named for the Brazilian seaport at the mouth of the Amazon, the Belem originally shipped chocolate in its hold from Brazil to France. At 170ft its first shipment of wine from Languedoc France to Dublin this February carried 60,000 bottles of fine wine saving an estimated 140 grams of carbon per bottle. On each of the bottles is a stylized sticker reading “Carried by sailing ship, a better deal for the planet.”

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There’s a lot of talk about sustainability in our personal lives and a lot of talk about greening up industry, but one area I haven’t heard a lot of green talk is health care.  Our hospitals create create tons of waste, and deal with hazardous chemicals and biological materials making them a very important place to focus on sustainability.  I heard a very interesting interview with Dr. Ted Schettler on Green Air Radio.  Schettler is a Physician, the Science Advisor for the Health Care Without Harm campaign, and the Coordinator for the Collaborative on Health and the Environment’s Science Working Group.

He is one of the driving forces behind the new Green garde of hospital operations restructuring and shares with us some of the inner workings of this visionary and vital process…

Read, or listen to the whole interview here at Green Air Radio.

A look back at the 10 most popular articles on greenupgrader:

Dig N’Swap functions much the same as ebay. You sign up, browse through postings, and bid on what you like. The great feature about this site is that in addition to using money to finish the exchange you can put up one or more of your belongings to swap. So long as the other party digs your items, you gotta deal baby!

The idea for Dig N’ Swap was born out of the lack of a sensible and environment-friendly way to deal with our ever expanding wardrobes (see the story of “stuff” by Annie Leonard). We love fashion, but we also consider that swapping clothes puts less of a strain on the resources of the planet by allowing an item to go through several lives.

Using the reach of the Internet this concept has so much more potential than the typical swap meet. For those of us with insatiable consumer lust we can fill our craving (albeit by letting go of our previous acquisitions) without consuming new goods. Dig N’ Swap is in its beta stage but still allows “you to update your wardrobe while protecting your saving account and the environment.”

The eco zoo. If you take a close look at the  animals there you might be able to  get some tips to live in a more environmentally friendly way.

This is a cool little 3D flash site that features some strange little animals with some sustainable lessons to share.  Each one has a little pop-up book that tells a very short story about their sustainable ways.  There’s Mrs. Angkor “Watt” an angler fish that follow people around turning lights out.  Mrs. Roo, a kangaroo who likes to think things through, with her own built in reusable shopping bag & catch phrase “I’ve got mine.  Thank you.”  Mr. Kappa Field who keeps a saucer on his head so he doesn’t need disposable plates (I keep mine in the cupboard, and that seems to work ok)… and Mr. Bag, Bagworm.  I am not exactly sure what he does that’s sustainable.  In fact the only thing that I gathered from his Pop-up book is that he is crazy.  Here’s his story, you tell me…

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The United Nations environment agency unveiled a new atlas yesterday that shows the dramatic environmental changes in Africa in a visually digestible format.  While Africa only accounts for 4% of the worlds CO2 emissions, it is said that it’s inhabitants will suffer the most from the effects of climate change.  As real as it is, for many, the toll our actions take on this earth is an abstract concept.  This new 400 page book features over 300 satellite before and after pictures of the continent, displaying visual documentation of the huge environmental impacts of climate change and local non-sustainable practices.  Below you can see the impact of urban sprawl and aggressive agriculture on the rural nation of Burundi.  See more striking examples after the jump and click on the images to enlarge…

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This cool ad by Klas Ernflo was commissioned by the Government of Catalunya to raise environmental awareness and help keep the Mediterranean sea clean.  The lists off the most dangerous species (of pollution), their origin and their destructive behavior.  Each offending piece of litter is shaped like a sea creature.  It features such monsters as the well known plastic ring which traps sea creatures, and the devious plastic bag which fools its victims into thinking it’s a scrumptious jelly fish and eating it where it poisons it’s prey from the inside. 

All around the world 8 million tons of waste reach the sea every day.  All this refuse is generated by human activity.  This non-recyclable rubbish is thrown into the toilet, onto the streets, into gullies, onto the sand and into the sea, turning it into a tangible destroyer of marine life.  But you can stop this from happening.

See the whole chart after the jump…

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You can join Greenpeace Australia in protesting whaling by sending a virtual origami what to the Japanese Prime Minister.  This is a similar, yet easier to participate master, campaign to the one they ran in 2007 where they collected 20,000 actual origami whales and sent them on to Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso.  Send your whale today!

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The “Green” movement is gaining momentum and lots of people are talking about being Green, but what’s the impact?  It is hard for us to see the big picture on a day to day basis, but the Greendex can make it a little easier.  National Geographic and the international polling firm GlobeScan recently conducted a study monitoring consumer behavior in 14 different countries.  They compiled the data and looked at how much progress they are making towards sustainable consumption and put it into the Greendex.  Greendex is the first system to rank individual consumer rather than the countries as a whole.  Check it out and see where your country stack up.

“The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns.”

This is a great short film by activist Annie Leonard.  She walks us through the entire lifecycle of our stuff… from extraction, to production, to distribution, to consumption and finally to disposal drawing connections between the economic, political and social interests that drive the whole system.  Along with the cute and funny animations behind her, Leonard effectively brings clarity to a massively complicated issue.  It is twenty minutes long but it is tremendously interesting and thought provoking.  While I don’t personally agree with everything she says, I feel she delivers her message earnestly, honestly and effectively.  I highly recommend this video to everyone!  Hopefully it will motivate you to make some changes in the way you live, but at the very least it will change the way you look at your stuff.

You can watch it at StoryOfStuff.com